Creative Critical Reflection (Final Task)

This is my Creative Critical Reflection for my final task. I answered all of the questions in an interview-style by using editing to make it look like I was talking to my clone. My answers were based on my thoughts and feelings after making my project, and the video was a fun exercise in creativity.

Final Task (Rouge Hearts)

 This is my final task, a film introduction to Rouge Hearts. Inspired by the black and white dramas of the fifties, this film is simple but sweet. I hope you enjoy it, a lot of love and effort went into it. 

Production Blog: Publishing

 Since my last blog, I have not done much editing. This is because, I have after months of planning and filming, and editing, I have finished my final task. The most major thing I did was change the music credit a bit so it better reflected the conventions of the genre. After readjusting some audio clips I exported my film with the intention of watching the film to check for any errors on my desktop's video player. I'd do it in ShotCut, but the film looks very choppy and the screen which shows the video is very small so it is difficult to watch. My Desktop's video player allows for me to see what the video would look like in a much clearer way, hence why I prefer it. I watched my video in the desktop player and concluded that it was the most ideal product I could make. It was also the perfect length, exactly 2 minutes, which was one of my main struggles throughout the production process, as I had to constantly cut scenes and clips, or extend certain clips or noises. After watching it over one last time I opened up google chrome and pulled up YouTube. 

I like YouTube a lot as a platform to host my videos. Having an account for the site is nearly ubiquitous, so videos have a farther reach. Additionally, the site is very accessible and easy to navigate, which is good for both the audience and myself, as I often struggle with more complex websites. However, One of my big qualms with YouTube is that it, in the past, would take forever to upload, usually several hours. I published my video on the 13th and didn't expect it to be published until the 14th. You can imagine my surprise when, by the time I had written the title and dealt with privacy settings, the video was uploaded and ready to go. I do not know if this was a stroke of good luck or if YouTube updated their software but it was a very pleasant surprise. After uploading my final project, (which I must admit I am very proud of) I sent it to a few of my friends. Despite being happy with my work I was worried about what others would think about it. Luckily the response was very positive, and I am very grateful. 

Production Blog: Review and Re-Editing

  I have gotten behind schedule in terms of editing, but based on what I have done so far, my project will be ready by the 16th, and as long as it is of good quality, I am ok with running a little behind. Over the weekend of April 9th, 11th, and 12th, I added in the voice recordings my actors sent me and aligned them up with the video to the best of my ability.  I muted the initial audio and extracted the sound for anything I wanted to keep, such as the alarm clock.  After adding in the new dialogue and adjusting the vole so it sounded consistent, I exported the film and uploaded it YoutTube as an unlisted video. This was not my final project, and I reflected that in the title which clarified it was a draft. I wanted to send my video to my peers who have a more unbiased view of it than, I and might be able to offer some feedback that I could not get through self-evaluation. Of the people I sent it to, the main complaint was that the dubbing looked slightly off, but it was overall very positive.

 I took the criticisms to heart and got back to work editing my final project. I un-muted the initial dialogue and aligned the new dubbing up with the original audio so that they aligned nearly perfectly. I also paid close attention to my actors' mouths, making sure it was not open as they were not talking or closed as they were. As I was reediting I also noticed a few issues involving the titles, which seemed to have shifted away from their original placement, resulting in the final film looking very choppy. I put those back into place, resulting in smoother transitions between titles, and a less choppy-looking film. While not noted in the review, My film was a few seconds too long, luckily I didn't have to cut down on whole scenes as I did previously. Rather, I simply shortened up more superfluous shots, like the alarm clock or Francesca putting on her jacket. My computer runs very slowly, so I could not look over it in the most accurate way while still in the editing program. I also had the music fade in rather than start suddenly, as it just starting sounded very jarring. A few clips needed to be moved around after edit, as they had shifted forward or back. So I used the snapping tool on ShotCut to get all the clips back together, this ensured the film played smoothly and choppiness was avoided. So after finishing up a round of edits, I would save and export the video, and then restart my desktop so I could look over the video in its exported form, to have a better view of its strengths and flaws, and then if I noticed any issues, continue editing again with a smoother software.  After finalizing my edits, I will export the video and upload it to YouTube. Then, I will begin work on my CCR.

Production Blog: Music and Titles

 

Over the past week I have continued to edit my final project and I have made great progress. I added all of my title cards, which while mostly easy, took a lot more work than I anticipated. The type of font I wanted to see for my main credits was not available in my editing program. I thought, at first, that I would ty to make one of the pre-installed ones work for me, but none of them fit my vision. So I took to the internet to see if I could add fonts to shortcut and learned that it uses fonts that are installed onto your desktop. I was so happy at this news because it meant that I could used the font I used when I was planning the titles. I downloaded the fonts needed for both the credits and the main title, and was able to use them in shotcut. Another thing that complicated matters was having the text fade in and out. It is not a set effect for text on shortcut so I had to get creative in order to fix it. I copied the clips where credits would show and pasted the identical clip onto an above track. Then, I would add my text and adjust it to my liking. In order to get the dissolve I was going for I would apply the fade and dissolve effect to the clip on the top track and set it so that the clip would lose opacity instead of going black. By doing this I was able to create the appearance of the text fading in and out. 

I also began to add sound and music to my film. I decided to go with Kevin Macleod's music because it is royalty-free without sounding too tinny or modern for the film.  The song I chose was called night on the docks, and its got a nice jazzy sound, with piano and brass. It gives of the mood of a film noir, which is kind of similar in terms of genre to the film I want to make, especially considering the decade. After writing this blog I am going to add in the dubs and add any additional sound effects that are needed. Then I am going to send my film to a friend to review, so I can re-edit and publish my introduction to youtube. 

Production Blog: Cutting and Dubbing

 I continued editing over the past weekend, and a lot of things were done. I had to re-do the zoom effect when Bernadette puts on her lipstick because it disappeared for whatever reason. in order to prevent this from happening again, I opened up a new project in ShotCut, placed only the necessary clip in the timeline, and added the effect. Then I exported the video and replaced the clip in my project for my intro with the new one I had just made. I made a lot of significant changes to my project, the biggest of which was cutting footage. When I initially put in all of my footage and cut every clip down as much as I could, it was still nearly 3 1/2 minutes. I was going to have to cut a few clips in order to get my film under the two-minute mark. Which is a shame because I spent quite a bit of time filming what I cut out. I cut the clip where Francesca walks past the camera, The graphic match of the door slamming (this one wasn't a major loss, it looked pretty bad), the scene of Francesca writing the letter, and the corresponding close-up of said letter. The biggest loss was the entirety of the original ending, everything after the zoom where Bernadette and Francesca hold hands was cut. I am disappointed this happened, as I spent a lot of time filming and writing and planning for this. But ultimately I do not think it is a massive loss, as it was somewhat frivolous, and gave the intro a conclusion I don't think was entirely necessary. However, because it was cut, I will have to move some of the credits to earlier in the intro. 

One of the big issues I noticed with editing was inconsistent sound quality. I am moderately familiar with audio editing, but I know how time-consuming it is, so have talked to my actors, for an easier option. They are going to re-record their lines, based on their diction and tone in the original audio, and I will dub over the film with that recording. This also means I am going to have to look into some sound effects, but that is almost certainly going to be easier than spending hours upon hours trying to level out the audio. The final thing I did to edit my film thus far was converting it to black and white like many old films. I did this by turning the saturation all the way down, removing any color from the video. 

Production Blog: Finishing up Filming and Starting Editing

 We continued filming on Thursday, March 25th, which was slightly off schedule, but ultimately worked for the best as we were able to spend some time to recuperate. Also importantly, my phone suddenly stopped working on Tuesday. Luckily my footage from the previous day's filming was backed up but in terms of new footage, I was a sitting duck. One of my actor's generously let me use her phone for filming on the 25th so I would not need to further postpone the project. We filmed all of the outdoor scenes that we were not able to on Thursday in rapid succession. Starting and ending earlier than expected. I changed the location from the street shown In my planning blog to a pathway behind my apartment building. This was because couldn't figure out how to keep the towel out of the shot, but also want to prevent road rash and the fear of cars slowing down filming or even worse, potentially injuring someone. The pathway allowed us to film on softer ground and gave us a more interesting background than just the street would have been. I filmed Bernadette and Francesca's meeting in under two hours.

I filmed the close-up of the clock and letter and got to work editing on the 29th, dumping all of my footage into ShotCut. In my planning blog I mentioned using Lightworks to edit, this was an error on my part, while writing the blog I confused the two programs as I have them both downloaded, but I am much more familiar with ShotCut, and will thus be using it to edit. This is a departure from previous projects where I used OpenShot, but I think for this introduction, ShotCut will ultimately work better. ShotCut allows for me to color grade easily, which will be useful as I want my film to be in black and white, but the tint of my lighting is not consistent, color-grading will allow me to keep the film in black and white with consistent looking lighting. 

I began editing on the 29th, and for the most part it went as planned. Cutting and putting together various clips and adding transitions. The real trouble came when I attempted to add a zoom in post. The mechanical zoom in I did on Bernadette's lips was shaky and bad. Luckily I flmed an additional non-zoom shot with the expectation that I could simply zoom in post. I was right about it being possible, but it certainly was not easy. The lips were not in the exact center of the shot so the zoom filter did not center on them, which was not my goal. I was able to readjust the zoom to where I was happy with the lips' place in frame, but only after 3 hours of work and the program crashing multiple times.