A Level Creative Critical Reflection

A link to my prezi:
http://prezi.com/umu65bqz34mq/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Final A Level Project

Here it is! My short film, 'Follow Me.'

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Website

Link to the website for my short film:
http://shannamiglesias.wix.com/followme

Music

I got permission today to use the song 'Bricks' by Newton Faulkner in my short film today!

Creating a Website

While picking a format and creating a template, I wanted to find websites for short films that are similar to mine. One short film, that I got a lot of inspiration from was 'Blessing in Disguise.' While researching to see if this short film had a website I couldn't find one but the short film is displayed on the director, Eric Kissak's website. I've noticed while researching that many short films don't necessarily have websites, but the directors do. I really like the simplicity of this website. The white background with the classic font give the website a very professional feel. I want to model my website after this one, but also add a little color in there because my main character, May, is very free-spirited and quirky so I want to give that aura with my website.

A

http://erickissack.com/blessing-in-disguise/

Another short film that I really admired, while I was watching short films as research was Me & You. This short film is a love story, so it is similar to my short film. 

http://www.meandyoufilm.com/

This website is very different. It takes a still from the short film as the background, and has an easy format to follow. The rest of the features of the website show up when you scroll down. I really like the creativity of this website, and I definitely want to incorporate that into my website. I want to combine these two styles because both these short films are similar to mine in different ways. A good website should stand out, so that people will remember the content on the website. I'll be using sites.google.com to create my website, and they have a lot of very interesting templates that I can manipulate to my liking. 

Follow Me (the song)

I never uploaded the full version of the song I used in my film opening. I'm also going to use it in my short film.
Here it is:
https://ia902602.us.archive.org/22/items/FollowMeFinal1/Follow%20Me%20Final%20(1).m4a

Romantic Comedy (continued)

I've been working on my script for this short film for quite some time now, and I've been struggling to find a genre. A couple weeks ago, though, I decided to go the romantic comedy route. Although because this is a short film there are restraints when making this film. Obviously I don't have as much time to make a long, very developed story. But I like to think that 5 minutes is enough to tell a cute teenage love story. I was researching tips on writing romantic comedies, when I came across a really good article that made a lot of good points. Romantic Comedy Writing: this article discusses what really separates just a typical rom-com from a memorable story. One tip that I'm trying to incorporate in my short film is to "write the chemistry." In a romantic comedy, the audience knows that the girl and the guy will get together so I have to set something apart. I need to write these characters, so that the audience NEEDS the two to get together. There has to be compelling aspects to both of these characters, and I need these characters to evoke empathetic reactions from my audience. Another tip that I hadn't really been thinking about until now is to "make it about something." A good story should have some bigger thematic implications. This is something I'm really going to think about while updating my script. I'm really worried that my short film won't necessarily be funny, and that it will end up lifeless. But I'm working very hard on making unique characters that have witty lines. My short film isn't going to be a stupid funny movie, or a hysterical film that's definitely not what I'm trying to do. That's especially hard to do in 5 minutes, so instead I'm just going to try and make it entertaining.

Short Film

Now that I'm done with the AS level project it's time to begin my short film. Since originally I was going to put my film opening and short film together, I've been working on my concept and script for my short film for a while now. I've written almost 5 drafts of my script now, and my idea has come along way. I've learned a lot from working on my film opening, and now I know what to do and what not to do for my short film. I really want to focus on making my sound better for my short film, because in my film opening I was very disappointed with the sound during the dialogue. I'm filming part of my short film outside, and I don't want to change that. Recording Amazing Audio for Your Low Budget Short Film gave me a lot of great tips on how to fix audio. Some of the ways they suggested involved purchasing microphones or sound equipment, which I won't be able to do. This article also gave me a great idea to record my actors saying their lines and put them over the video. When I shoot the footage for my short film, I'm going to be very careful that I have enough takes of a certain scene. I'm also going to pay attention to detail because that can make or break my short film I don't want to have any tacky editing mistakes either. The way I need to do this is by planning way in advance.

Final Project

Follow Me:

A film opening for a movie about a free-spirited teenage girl, who drops out of high school to try and pursue a career in music.

Creative Critical Reflection

Here it is! My podcast for the creative critical reflection portion of the AS level project.

Editing

I started the editing process, and it was very frustrating. I downloaded the free trial of Adobe Premiere and tried to start editing on that, but then it took me an hour to get 5 seconds of my film opening done so I decided against figuring out Premiere. I started using iMovie HD, and it was working fine. I still had to figure out some of the features and settings, while I was editing but it was much easier and my video still turned out fairly well. However, halfway through editing iMovie froze, and I attempted for an hour to try and get the program working again. I gave up and had to start all over again on a different computer, which was very frustrating. I ended up missing some key things, and I was disappointed with how the sound during the dialogue turned out. Working with the sound was hard because I didn't have a microphone, so my audio came straight from the camera. I tried to reduce background noise, but it just made the audio sound worse. I ended up leaving it, and only using shots where you could clearly hear the dialogue. The music was my favorite part to edit. After recording my actress singing I was able to overlap the song over her singing, and I had to match up the words with her lips which I actually enjoyed doing. Overall I learned a lot from my editing experience, and now I know what to do for my full short film.