Music Blog

    My group has put me in charge of finding the music we will use in the final film. It was difficult finding a free outlet for royalty-free music. I primarily used Google in my search. In my search, I got a lot of paid subscriptions to websites with royalty-free music but did not find anything free until I found  Mixkit.co. When I found this website I was stunned, to say the least after spending at least thirty minutes looking. I tried youtube but was unsuccessful in my endeavors. Youtube was unable to provide trustworthy songs, and I was fearful of the idea of a creator retaining heir claim to it The website has over one thousand stock music tracks in all different genres. The music was completely free to download and easily covered into an mp3 file. After some browsing, I found one particular track that suited the film nicely.
    We are still doing everything we can despite the lack of resources. With the music, we will be moving on with the editing. We are mainly going to have to use Imovie, seeing that school has now been closed for three added weeks. We are going to have to scrap the idea of transferring the film between softwares. Its quite the struggle but editing will have to commence in this time to meet deadlines. At this time not much can be done. The school is on lockdown and we aren't left with much choice and Pinnacle Studios is no longer available. 

Refliming: Having To Posone

    Due to the recent epidemic, the Corona Virus, my group and I are for the foreseeable future will be unable to reconvene for any filming. We are unable to go to school so the use of Pinacqale Studios will also be temporarily halted. For the time being, we will separately be viewing the plans we made for editing. We still have to adjust the titles, lighting, and stuff, but won't be able to until we get back to school. We are currently under a state of energy and are entering into spring break. We're looking at, at least, two weeks out of school, and until all is clear, my group and I will not be meeting up in person any time soon.

    Personally, along with reviewing the plans for editing, I have also given more thought to where exactly we would find our music. We were given the option of asking permission for the rights for music, but I think it will be easier to use royalty-free music. I'm not exactly sure how easy it will be to find fitting song whist at the same time finding a free outlet to download a said song, but I will try, until all film is ready, all we can do is a plan and prepare for our editing.

Editing: Planning out the Audio

  Because we were previously planned on making our own music, my group and I did not plan on a method of finding any. Now that we are moving onto refilming, we thought it best to search for without music, Collectively we're looking at classical music as a primary option. It is by far the most effective for delivering our story. For the audio, in general, I will be trying to cover areas like the shattering of the plates and picture frame, arguing scene, and the clattering of the silverware at the dinner. I have work on transitions too since they were not smooth. We have a lot of work to be done. Andrea and I will be working together for the most part so I won't have the entire workload on myself. Andrea will be focusing on tiles and overall areas while I look at the more specific details. My main focus is still finding music, however. As of this moment, our discussions focus on the style of the film, mainly titles, and sounds. Since some of the work has already been edited was the current title style needs to change. On pinnacle studious, we shouldn't have any issues. We may mimic the style we had in our commercial with a two-toned font with fancy lettering. We also might be editing on Imovie. Since its split between myself and Andrea, it's the most effective way to edit at home and at school. We, unfortunately, we don't have access to pinnacle studios at home. We hope that this will quicken the process of cutting and piecing together. 

Ediing: Peer Edit Draft

For the peer review, my and I group started editing the movie. We essentially made to have a rough draft of how the final product will look. I didn't do it physically but rather directed my fellow classmate. Andrea took my place and begone the draft. Moving into the final project, we wanted everyone to at least have a chance at editing. Andrea never went to we thought it would be best to test her ability with the rough draft. Under the time constraint, she did pretty well but it was nowhere near as good as it should be for the final draft. She did have to take it home and edit it one another software and the overlapping of multiple programs didn't help.
  The draft came out choppy. As mentioned before we also lacked music and our overall sound needs to be tweaked. Right now, our biggest problem is time and motivation. We need to find a way to keep moving. With the reshoots, it's going o be hard to keep our motivation
in order to have maxim production.

Peer-Review: How We Were Reviewed

     For our film, I already knew most of the issues we had. It was nice though to have another set of eyes critique our work. Honestly the draft we gave wasn't the best. We could have spent more time editing. We needed up shopping together the main plot points, but a good portion of the footage was uncut.
    For our critique though, we were told that our sound and lighting were the biggest issues. I totally agree, especially since the weather while shooting wasn't the best. We were also told that though the theme was conveyed, the overall film left significant confusion. I don't necessarily agree with that. Since it is subjective I don't mind, but I hope that we can make it more clear when reediting. While editing we really need to work on our titles. Due to the lighting, the titles blend into the scene and don't stand out. We also need to look for new music. The draft we had did not have any due to some last minute changes from our composer, Emily.

Peer-Review: How We Reviewed

    When peer-reviewing we reviewed a lovely film by one of our fellow classmates. The film was about a son and his missing father. Personally, I loved it. The editing was great and though the opening was a bit clique, I thought the overall production was fantastic. The person we reviewed hit most of the marks. The only complaint I had was that the audio throughout the film was not that great. In terms of dialogue that is. The sounds made the film was good, a bit loud at some intervals but overall good. It was just the one shared piece of dialogue between the two subjects; the mom and the young man, that was hard to hear. That said, even though there was little dialogue the plot was so clear.
    The music was a nice touch as well, The music was both calm and exciting, a really good pick in my option. It matched the tone of the film and emphasized what we watched on the scene. The shooting of the movie was also very dynamic, There were no repetitive shoots and the whole thing was editing smoothly as well, The transitions were suitable and pleasant one the eye. The angles chosen were also pleasant; allowing us to see the subject, t hi entirely, at all times. The lighting was also very consistent. The use of natural lighting really tied everything together in terms of theme. It was a good example of what my group and I should have done by the end.

Filming The Car Scenes

    By far the easiest part of filming had to be the car scenes. It was both short and effortless. We shot the cars along with the general outside scenes so we were rushed while filming inside the care as well. We didn't do many takes for the car scenes. I believe we only took about five total, with only two of them being goofs. The main purpose of these little scenes of us in the car is to show the everyday, private lives of the couple Victoria and I play.

    If I had to choose, I say that between the car scenes and the outdoor scenes, the car scenes were the most awkward and I think Victoria would agree. We just sat in silence. Of course, it was for a point, but it was weird. That and the characters only share a few lines of dialogue in the entire opening. Apart from the yelling, the film only consists of small conversations between the main subjects.
   I look forward to reshooting. The car scene especially. The lighting wasn't terrible but it could have been better. In hindsight, we should have asked to move the car before filming inside. On one hand, it works, empathizing the distaste for one another between the charters. On the other, I can totally see the argument of poor lighting. That said it's not like the car was unable to move since we moved explicitly to shoot it moving.