Project Completion

 Our project has now been completed, as of today. I previously explained that we had a few problems but we asked Juan Mila if he could take care of a few scenes at home and he did. Our last couple of scenes were solely done by him and were edited by Nathaniel. Our editing and filming is now complete, barring a couple of tune ups along the way.

 With that out of the way, our project is coming along just fine as of now. However, I will now divert all of my attention to the CCR on this upcoming weekend. I will brainstorm my idea today and complete it ASAP in order to think of an efficient, good delivery. 

Editing

 As perviously mentioned on my blog, Nathaniel Ceant has taken control of our editing responsibilities. He is almost done on our last few scenes but is also attempting to sharpen a few scenes up. However, a huge emergency has occurred, we are only at 1:36 seconds. We are going to have to add a few scenes throughout this week in order to be able to completely finish and get started on our CCR. Our last few scenes have great importance as they are going to make us reach the time limit but they must also not add too much ahead as the plot is only an opening.

Overall, Nathaniel's editing looks sharp and crisp. He is using Adobe Premiere which he has never used before so he has had some challenges. That is why it has been a good thing that he started editing ahead of the due date, so any obstacles like these could be avoided. Hopefully, our project can be completed ASAP so we can turn our full attentions to our CCR.

Editing

 As mentioned in the previous blog, we have been taking large strides in filming our project. However, we ran into multiple challenges that have slowed down our filming progress as we were wrapping it up. Therefore, we began editing the clips and scenes that we had and have reached a significant portion of the film opening. There are still the last few scenes that we have to worry about to be able to fully complete the production process. But, it is very important that we were able to advance this much during this break in order to catch up on what we were missing. On Monday, we will finish our filming and plan to edit throughout the week to finish as early as possible. By that point we will begin to finish our opening and begin working on our CCR.

Filming

 As we have begun filming, we have realized that it is going to be much more difficult than we first assumed. Our various filming locations were very difficult to prepare for the shot due to lots of outside interferences. For example, we were filming an outdoor scene at the beginning of the week and we ran into issues with the wind which interfered with the sound. The sound is going to be very important to maintain sharp as it will make the editing much easier. We have made good progress as of now in the filming portion having done a significant amount but we are finishing up our shots as the days pass. 

These first days of filming have been a huge success but we now understand the lengths that one must go through to properly film at a high level.

Layout

 The final layout is finished and just the final few series of shots are being brainstormed. The overall layout is a revenge-action story of a character named Max, where the opening begins with a scene of Max paying his respects to an unidentified grave and he shows a burst of anger/depression. The following scene depicts arriving to his home where he is undergoing a personal investigation. 

A murder board similar to this one is going to be setup to depict a complex investigation.

In addition, the murder board is going to represent some sort of law enforcement experience that will later be depicted in a series of family portraits. The following scenes are action scenes meant to engage the audience. The final few scenes are still undecided and we will be working hard to finish those up.

Planning for Spring Break

 Since Spring Break began today, we as a collective are going to start planning for the following week and a half to progress a large amount on our opening. We plan to begin filming this weekend and finish by Wednesday/Thursday of next week. This is going to be important so we can conclude editing by the time school returns on Tuesday, March 29th. We hope to be completed by that point so we can complete post-production and begin working on our CCR. The next couple of weeks and next 10 days or so are going to be the most crucial out of the whole project. 

Hopefully, we are able to overcome any sort of obstacles that appear in our path so that we can complete our project as quickly as possible. 

Facing and Encountering obstacles

 It has become more and more difficult to progress on this project due to many reasons. There have been brainstorming issues due to overthinking and maintaining originality. This has caused many obstacles as we have been unable to fully finish formulating a strong, complete idea. Overall, the entire brainstorming process has become extremely difficult to complete and it seems like we will have to continue past these obstacles in order to start filming. I believe that our group is severely behind at this point as we have not started filming and this has been the main cause in my eyes.

In addition, the brainstorming process has reduced my participation in other parts of the project as I am too focused on the storyboards, layout, etc. We need to continue forward and fresher ideas in order to be able to finish the project on time.

Production Responsibilities

 As previously mentioned, my group consists of 3 members: Juan Mila, Nathaniel Ceant, and myself. We are all going to be taking different responsibilities towards the production of our opening. Juan Mila will be the main actor, although throughout the opening there will be a few others starring in the video, whether it is just them as voice actors or physically playing a role (There will be an unidentified voice actor who will perform a phone call). I will take main control over the creative area and the shooting. I will use a tripod that we purchased for the shots outside of school and hopefully borrow Mrs.Stoklosa's tripods during class. Nathaniel will assist me with some of the shots and both of my group members have assisted with the creative and planning portions. Finally, Nathaniel will take over the large part of the editing and post-production responsibilities. These clear roles and assigned responsibilities have and will allow for a fluid production and will improve our film greatly.

Film Schedule

 As we have taken the final steps towards planning and finishing up on our storyboards, we have decided to begin filming throughout the next 2 weeks. We will be filming in school and on our own time in order to have enough time for post-production. As of now, the filming will be taken in dark areas while at school and in various places outside of school. The storyboard, however, must be finalized before we can take serious production steps. We are going to watch The Batman tomorrow as a group for entertainment reasons, of course, but we will be strongly focusing on the first few minutes of the film. This is because The Batman is a similar genre and we would like to see the types of shots and film elements used in one the most hyped movies of the past few years. Overall, the filming and production process will begin soon as we inch closer to finishing our storyboard.