Let's Rewind

  Creative Critical Reflection

My Dear Darling Dollie

 Introducing....Dollie! 

Voila! The final copy of this film that I've put my blood, sweat, and tears into. I'm so happy with the outcome. At first, I was worried because it wasn't coming together that well, but with the new audio and the lighting change, it looks amazing! I've never been more proud of a project. Just watch it. I know you'll love it! 

Embedding In Bed

Dollie is finally finished. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders! All that's left to do now is turn it in. To do this correctly, I have to embed the film into the blog. This way, the film can be viewed directly from the blog so I don't have to worry about broken links. I've embedded videos before as both the commercial and the music video had to be embedded. It's a really easy process. You first have to upload the video to Youtube. Then there's an option to insert a video on Blogger. You choose to upload from Youtube and then search for your video. After you select your video, it automatically adds to the blog. The only problem I have with this is uploading the video to Youtube. There are times when Youtube will add an extra second to your video or completely change the quality of it. When I uploaded the music video, the quality turned really bad, and I had to put a filter to try and fix it. I still didn't like the outcome, but what's done is done. Thankfully, the quality of the film didn't change. I was worried that since it was a larger file, I would have problems uploading it.  I was so happy when the film was uploaded with no problems. See my next blog for the result. I can't stop rewatching the video. I smile every time I see it.

Finishing Touches

Tonight we decided to finish our film completely. Ash and I have been taking turns working on the audio throughout the weekend, and we finally finished it today. The last thing that needs to be done is the titles. The film name title was already put in. So were the studio name and production company titles. We have already decided where to put the remaining titles down to the exact timestamp, so we're doing pretty good.  I Facetimed Ash, and we picked out our favorite fonts together. In our original plan, we went with a different font and different animations for how they would appear. At the time, I didn't realize that the font I had chosen, Rock Salt, was unavailable on CapCut. Since CapCut is our primary editing software, we decided that the best idea was to go with a font that was already on there. The font we decided on is called PLUNCT. It's a thin font that gives off child-like handwriting. We thought it was fitting as our antagonist is a haunted child. We are still sticking with the original idea of having the job name smaller than the name of the person who had the job. It emphasizes the person more, and it feels like they're being rightfully acknowledged for their hard work. The hardest part was picking intro and outro animations for the titles. We wanted something cute but subtle. Something that would say hey, look at this title for a second, but also wouldn't distract from our amazing storyline. We also decided to change the name of our production company. I figured this would happen as I only intended it as a placeholder. The new name, Dagger Production, gives the film the cool, mature, edge that it needed. We kept the studio name. 'Girl Boss Studios' has a nice ring to it.  I can't wait to be finished. I keep re-watching the video in awe. I really can't believe this is something that I helped create.

Here are some of the fonts we considered. 

Let's try this again! (Editing Blog)

 Today I decided to take another shot at editing. I wrote down all the advice I got from my teacher and decided to tackle them one by one. Ashleigh agreed, so I Facetimed her, and we brainstormed ideas on how to improve the project. The biggest problem I have with the project is that despite it being a horror film, it isn't scary enough. We decided to mute some of our original audio and replace it with typical horror sounds from Youtube. The laugh, for example. Before it was Ash and I laughing in unison to create an echo. We replaced that with a creepy child giggle from Youtube. All of this is of course, royalty-free because we don't want to be sued for copyright, and we don't have enough time to request any music. We decided to split the editing into two so that we could save time. Ash insisted on doing the first half. This is the dream part of the project. She didn't like how it was filmed because she thought it was inconsistent with the second half, which I filmed. We can't edit simultaneously on CapCut so we're sending each other screen recordings of what we've changed. We found that rather than adding another filter to the video, we can change the temperature and exposure and keep the filter we already have. This has changed the video so much and I love it! Now it actually looks like nighttime, despite only being around six, which is still pretty bright out with the time change. There's a part of the film that needs a voiceover. I was going to do it, but I lost my voice two days ago, and it hasn't come back yet. I'm not worried because one of my groupmates can easily do this or I can ask one of my siblings. With my half of the editing, I figured I could make it a little scarier if I add in some sound effects. For example, before the girl wakes up from the nightmare, I can add a crow screeching. I could also add in a creaky door sound when she opens her bedroom door. There was a part of the film where when the girl was walking down the stairs, she came to a complete stop. I didn't like this because it didn't transition smoothly into the next scene. I cut that scene shorter, so it looks better now. We're still editing right now. I'm afraid to stop and go to bed because I don't know when we'll get time to edit like this again.  

Film Review

 Today my group and I had to have someone review our film and give us constructive criticism. The film wasn't 100% finished. Still, it had all the clips in order and was modified so that it would be a smooth run-through. I asked my history teacher if he would be willing to review it, and he agreed. He's a fan of theatrical work, so I figured he would provide good feedback. One of the main issues he pointed out was the lighting. The filter I used didn't make it dark enough, so it still looked like daytime despite the film taking place at night. This shouldn't be too hard to fix. I just need to either find another filter to use or add another filter on top of the current one. I might go with the first option because I'm not sure if you can stack filters on CapCut, and it might look tacky if I do. Another thing he pointed out was how choppy the titles looked. They didn't slide into the scene as smoothly as I would have liked, and they looked slightly out of place in the scene. I can do several things to fix this. I could change the color, the placement, the transition into the scene, or even the size. I'll probably try all of these to see which provides the best outcome. The last thing he commented on was the sounds we used. He mentioned that it sounded choppy in some areas where the scenes were switching. He also recommended that we change our music choice to add more to the horror element. Overall, we still have a lot of work to do regarding editing. Still, I'm happy that he only had minor, easily fixable issues. It means we did a pretty good job and I'm proud of that.