Group Meeting Summary

 Today, March 11th 2025, I had my second group meeting in regards to my portfolio project. I was paired up with my peers and we got to discuss the plot of our films and then show some of the footage in which we have already done. In my group, some of my peers weren't really able to show their footage because they filmed on a camera rather than on their phone, but I personally can't really film on a camera so I have decided to film my opening on my phone. Besides discussing the work we have already done, we decided to all pitch in and give each other ideas on what we could do with our CCR's, as we are all in the process of starting those and finalizing our films. Overall, I had a great time talking with my peers about all the different ideas we can potentially come up with to complete our CCR's, and just overall observing the work that everyone has done, it's great to see everyone doing such a great job with their films and all the different genres and styles I am seeing within all the different groups. 

Post-production process

 Editing: 

-I began my editing process over the weekend and I must say it has gone pretty well so far, nothing out of the ordinary except the fact that I wasn't able to access the Adobe platform for a while, so I just started editing on iMovie right away; putting together the clips which were already finalized in order to not fall behind on editing. I don't want to wait till I finish filming all my scenes in order to finally edit because that would be unethical, giving that I still have a long way to go for the editing process and the deadline is approaching. I will show a photo down below of the clips I have inserted together on iMovie but this is so far what I have for my editing progress. It's time to start getting more ahead. 

Production Process

Filming:

- This week I began filming the footage in which I will be using in my portfolio project, I must say I am a little behind on filming so I used the footage in which I had and began the editing process. I still have some more scenes to film as soon as I can and then I should be done editing it all together within the next two days. I still have a long way to go as I still have to figure out how I am going to edit the credits and what the title is going to be for my film. 

-This is only partial of my footage, but my plan is to piece together the clips on iMovie because for me it is a little easier, and then for the credits I will have to be using Premiere Pro. In order to film these scenes I had to set up my phone camera on the tripod, with my room at very low lighting in order to achieve the contrast that I wanted in my initial scenes, I was a little concerned it was going to be too dark but with a couple dim lamps in the background I sort of made it work, since I don't have any sort of ring light at my availability. In my next blog post I will be discussing editing and some of the ideas I might have in mind. 

Research for #1 question of CCR

The first question of our CCR asks... "How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?"

-My product is a coming of age film which represents social groups like teenagers in between the ages of  13-17 and it will represent issues like struggles with mental health, a lack of discipline which affects daily lifestyle and tasks, dwelling on past events and over comparison/being chronically online. My product will use a vague and short representation of what it's like for a teenager to be experiencing disturbances within their mental health. 

-My production uses examples like having a memory wall in which our character holds on to, causing that to be the main component of how she tends do dwell on the past, you can also observe a low lit room that appears to be messy, representing our character's inner state; unstable. My production will also cover topics of co-comparison of teenagers on social media. All of these being factors of what led to our character becoming motivated to slowly turn her life around for the better. 

Production planning #3

Production Day 3:

-On the third and hopefully final day of my filming process, I am going to be filming all the scenes in which my character seems to be doing subjectively better, brighter lighting, different choices in costume and the credits scene. 

- Most of these scenes are going to consist of them being outside during the day time, preferably almost sunset to be able to incorporate that "happier" or more "joyful" vibe that I am looking to add to the end of my opening. These shots are mostly going to be done by filming them myself with no equipment use, it's mostly going to be a lot of zoom in's depending on what looks and works best. 

-There will be a couple more bedroom scenes, but we are going to be able to observe how the room is more tidy, our character seems like she is in a better state overall and the ending of the opening is going to be wrapped up with scenes of her writing and discarding old memories etc. that no longer serve her purpose signifying that she is finally moving on from her past. 

-The final scene as the credits roll is going to be a mirror scene where she is about to leave to go discard all the things she has collected in a bag, and as she is about to exit the room she realizes she left the bag by the bed, and she takes one last look in the mirror before grabbing it and we can genuinely see she is doing way better, she then smiles to herself, letting herself know that she is proud of how far she has come, as she grabs what she needed and proceeds to walk out, now leaving us with an empty room as the credits begin to roll. (the credits of course aren't part of the filming process but more of the editing process).