Creative Critical Reflections

This is so exciting… I’m finally done! I hope you enjoyed my project as I put my blood, sweat, and tears into it (literally)

 Creative Critical Reflection (get ready with me)

Creative Critical Reflection (podcast)

Film Opening

Hi everyone! The journey has come to an end… my film opening is here  

CCR #2

Yesterday, I completed my second ccr. I know that I originally planned on making a WIRED autocomplete inspired interview; however, I realized that it would be impossible to memorize that entire script, and I was running out of time. Therefore, I decided to film a “get ready with me” while answering questions!

Overall, It wasn’t too bad and I had a nice set up:

 I put one paper right behind my phone to look at while I was looking into the camera, and another paper for when I looked at my mirror.

After 13 minutes of footage, my phone stopped filming due to low storage. Therefore, I had to use my mom’s phone to finish recording the last question. While editing, I cut out more than half of the footage and then I had to speed it up to fit the required time frame of 7-10 minutes. In the end, the footage was cut to 5 minutes and 26 seconds!

Second CCR....

Now that I am done with editing.... time for my second CCR! (wooooo) 

I still plan on making a WIRED Autocomplete interview. Therefore, I have to buy a board, which I will do tomorrow, which is filming day. For now, I worked on my script!

Here's the script:

• Ana: Hi everyone! I’m Ana Moreno, director of Never Lie! I’m here with WIRED to complete this autocomplete interview! Let’s jump right in! 

(Cuts to a scene with board) Ooh this feels nice okay how do I do this? I’m assuming I have to pull this? (Pulls paper, showing question)  

• How did your production skills develop throughout this project? 

I like this question! 

During production, I started off rocky, I was late to the set and my props were breaking and I didn’t bring as much as I wanted because all our parents were mad at us that night because they thought that filming would only take an hour. However, I gained more patience and stopped stressing myself out and was able to get more than enough footage! I was bossing my friends around and refilming so many shots until I got the right one. I think at one point they got tired of me. I remember this one scene I had to reshoot countless times. It was when Vida, the main character, found her friend’s body. My actor kept making the wrong expression or the shot was wrong. I don’t know, I just kept finding flaws in that one shot that we had to shoot it so many times. 

With research, I already had a basic research page on horror, so I researched character conventions. This helped me develop a basic cast, and then a storyline. I only made a 3-person cast for the opening, just to draw people in. “unaware friend that won’t make it”, “the final girl”, and the villain.  

As for planning, I made a storyboard, a schedule, and a screenplay, and brought the props. I brought a baseball bat, a baseball, and fake blood. I already had access to the cuatro (Venezuelan guitar) and the headphones.  

During production, I changed a scene of her calling 911. Instead, I thought it was best to just have her text her friend. That way it makes the audience suspicious and fears that Vida knows something. I also didn’t even have Lily try to run, instead just go straight into the scene of her dying and get hit in the back. I thought this represented something within the film, as viewers see what the motive of the killer is. Sort of like the saying of getting “stabbed in the back”.  

Overall, I learned a lot of patience throughout the process. I also learned that 8 weeks (about 2 months) seems shorter than it is to create all of this, and I crammed everything within the last two weeks. However, I learned how important planning and research is. In a music marketing project, I barely planned or researched, only doing the bare minimum that was part of the grade. Now in this project, I planned and researched over and over again. I also procrastinated a lot, which I tried not to do for this project, and I almost succeeded.  

• How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project? 

While producing my product, I used my phone for filming, my iPad to draw the storyboard, headphones as a prop, microphone from earbuds, and a tripod. Therefore, I had to keep holding onto my phone and refilm everything just in case a shot came out shaky, and some did. Although, my tripod kept breaking while I was filming so it made filming so much harder. As for software, I used iMovie and Adobe Premiere for editing. I edited the podcast on iMovie and my film on Adobe Premiere Pro. I also used Celtx.com to make my screenplay, Canva for my mood boards, I used word to make my schedule and my scripts for the creative critical reflection, and Blogger.com to make my blog. 

Adobe Premiere was a struggle for me at first, since I was low on storage space and couldn’t send my work to my computer. Also, I just didn’t like editing, mostly because I didn’t know how to do it that well, like I only knew the basics. Therefore, I sat and forced myself to watch tutorials that Adobe provided, which took hours. In the end, editing became a technology skill that I learned, I still don’t love it, but I don’t hate it as much as I did before. Overall, editing was definitely my biggest obstacle, but the problem is that my film relied on editing. 

All in all, a lesson that I learned was to not leave editing for the last minute when it is not the last thing you have to do. That is why I am cramming my last ccr! I also learned that I should try to get better actors next time, especially ones that can show fear. If I had the chance, I would’ve found a better filming location with better lighting. I felt as though the lighting was too bright for a horror movie, but it was either that or complete darkness and the audience wouldn’t have been able to see what was on screen. Taking time to sit down and edit is another thing I would improve on for next time. I would like to become a better editor and overall, just like it better, and I hope that one day I have that opportunity.  

 

Well, that’s it for all of the questions! Thank you to everyone that stayed until the end! Make sure to check out Never Lie on YouTube of April 4th 

 

Jackie. “7 Standard Characters in Almost Every Horror Movie ...” All Women's Talk, 27 Mar. 2023, https://movies.allwomenstalk.com/standard-characters-in-almost-every-horror-movie/. 

editing......

 Unfortunately, I no longer could procrastinate editing.... and I just finished! (kind of) 

I put all the clips together, added foley sounds, added the song my friend made (which sounds amazing), but I haven't added the title or the credits. Mostly just because I don't know what fonts to use (will make a blog post about it when I get there). Anyways, editing took me about 2-3 hours and it was stressful. 

I started off with Premiere Pro but then in the middle of editing.... I got a screen saying I was signed out because I was signed into another device (and I didn't). Then, when I signed back in, it hadn't saved what  I had done and I was already almost half way done and so I got so mad. 

Therefore, Premiere was already annoying me and I didn't know how to use it that well, so I switched to iMovie on my phone. It actually worked pretty well and was able to get almost everything done. However, I might have to switch back to premiere to add special effects to the kill scene because right now it looks terrible and not scary at all. I was thinking of maybe adding eye slowly blinking or a glitch of some sort. My actor just didn't know how to properly and scarily swing a bat, and it's already too late to reshoot it because I returned the bat and it is not going to get here in time :( 

Special effects has to be the way to go! Because if not then it's just going to look terrible. What's frustrating is that the rest of the film isn't bad and I've grown to like it, but the kill scene is the most important part of a horror movie intro so I can't just completely cut it out. Plus, the audience needs to know that Lily was killed with a baseball/softball. 

Moral of the story: don't procrastinate editing incase there's anything you need to refilm!

Anyways, the song my friend made turned out SO good and I love it so much. I even added it as background music on my podcast! It sounds like an old folk song which for some reason is perfect and was exactly what I was looking for?? He sent me like 6 different videos of the same song and he was just messing around with the tunes. I ended up picking the first one because it was my favorite and the most "clean".

I decided to add the climax part of the song near the end after Lily's death and the slower part throughout the film and during the kill scene. 

Guess who's done with their first CCR???

 ME! I AM! 

My friend came over on Thursday to help me with filming and filmed her parts. I tried to film my parts as well but I was sick and stuttering so much so I had to refilm it on Friday. In terms of editing, I just used iMovie to edit, as I don't need any visual effects. 

In terms of background music, I technically don't have it.... YET but I do have a plan for that. I asked my friend who plays guitar if he could make a 30 second tune/beat for me. I asked him to make it "creepy" in a way. Therefore, I can use that same sound and add it to my film so that I could have a specific theme song so that my audience knows if something bad is about to happen and it could build suspense. I gave him until April 1st so that I can have enough time to edit it and incorporate it into my film!

The set up for my podcast ended up being like this: 

When my friend finishes the song then I’ll be sure to show you my finished CCR! (obviously)

Podcast Script

 After much procrastination, I finally made a script for my podcast!!

I'll copy and paste it from my Word document here: 

Interviewer: Hello everyone, welcome to Movie Pods, today we are joined by Ana Moreno, the creator of Never Lie.  

Ana: Hi! I'm so happy to be here  

Interviewer: We're happy to have you 

Ana: Thank you 

Interviewer: So, Ana, let's jump right in with some questions... 

How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? 

Ana: Interesting question.... never heard that one before 

 Horror uses distinctive and unusual angles to give the spectator a sense of confusion and unease. The lighting is frequently dim, underexposed, and full of shadows, which causes the audience to feel uneasy and on edge. Additionally, the use of sound, such as a high pitch key, alarms the crowd. Additionally, there is a focus on footsteps, creaking doors, and animal noises, giving the audience the impression that they are unsure of what is around the next turn. Finally, editing in horror frequently uses a quick pace and lots of cuts to frighten, uneasy, and create dramatic tension for potential jump scares. I decided to stick to these conventions, especially with the characters. While researching horror movie characters, I decided on a cast. Only three will be introduced in my opening. The victim that gets killed will be the "ditzy friend that won't make it" and girl 2 will be my "final girl".  The victim will be portrayed as the "ditzy friend that won't make it" by showing how clumsy she is. She also won't notice there's a killer until the time is too late. Once she notices there is a killer, she won't grab a phone nor a weapon. The “final girl” is smart, and she is the main target, but she still makes it. For example, adding close ups so that you can see her face and see her concern and facial expressions. I hope that this shows her attitude and little bit of her way of thinking that it makes the audience suspect that she'll make it through the whole movie. 

Interviewer: And what about representation?  

I will be representing Hispanic teenage girls in my film. 

The main character, Vida Martinez, is a Hispanic character that lives in South Florida. Vida was born in Venezuela and lived there for half of her life.  I plan for her to show her culture and occasionally speak Spanish with her family or with her friends. Vida will be introduced in the opening scene, and she is the girl that finds her friend dead. Her room will even show her heritage, with flags, colors, pictures, paintings, posters, etc. If I can find good copyright free music to incorporate in my film, then there will even be music playing in a speaker. However, many Hispanic women are represented with a negative stereotype. For instance, they're loud, annoying, complaining, and are mean. Vida will hopefully create more positive stereotypes. For example, she's kind, super intelligent, funny, and a bit intense. She is quite the opposite of the other stereotypes but in a good way. This way, if this were a real movie, it can create good representation for all Hispanic women out there.  

 

Interviewer: That's actually really cool! 

And how does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text? 

 

Ana:  

In the Horror genre, target audiences are normally mostly male 15-25. However, since my film will be following a mainly female cast, I decided that my target audience will be mostly females 15-25 that are students. Also, since my film is following a Highschool softball team, people who like baseball/softball will also be targeted to watch this film. Lastly, Hispanic people are also targeted, as culture is something important for my main character. There will be aspects of this in her room and in her family (that would've been incorporated later in the film, if I were to one day create the full film). Although most target audiences include a social economic class, mine isn't highly considered; but if it was, it'd be middle class.  

In terms of distribution, As I am not a high paying director, I can't distribute the movie on all streaming services like Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu, etc. I also don't have the resources to distribute in theaters.  Therefore, I decided I would distribute the film on YouTube. Anyone can publish something on YouTube for free, so it is perfect. My target audience also happens to be very prominent on YouTube. 95% of teenagers as of 2022 are on the platform. It would help my movie spread as more people could discover it on their feed. Moreover, it is easily accessible to individuals all over the world. I would also distribute my films within film festivals in my area. For instance, FREAK Show Horror Film Festival in Orlando, Outshine Film Festival in Miami, and Tampa Bay Screams. These are the few selected so far, but I imagine that as time progresses, I will be able to contact more festivals and help it become more popular. 

 

Interviewer: Well, thank you for joining us today on Movie Pods. Make sure to check out Never Lie! 

Ana: Yes, thank you! 

Jackie. “7 Standard Characters in Almost Every Horror Movie ...” All Women's Talk, 27 Mar. 2023, https://movies.allwomenstalk.com/standard-characters-in-almost-every-horror-movie/.