Hello Earthlings, or should I say fantastic blog readers! Let's just skip the introductions, I'm already emotional enough. LOL. This blog post will be my final content-filled post regarding the portfolio project, so I hope everyone is ready. It will also probably be the longest because there is so much to say for me to truly "express the production process" in this blog. Get ready!
My Apology
I think that before I can even begin discussing the actual process, I first need to apologize. Not really to you the reader, but more so to myself. I procrastinated a lot on this project, which caused so much unnecessary stress and issues this weekend (when the project is actually due). But, at the same time, I'm also kinda happy I procrastinated a lot on this project. Simply because of how much I learned. Apart from leaning to do future projects more efficiently, I learned how to edit under pressure and during a time crunch. I've really never felt that type of pressure before and I must admit it was a very new feeling. However, I loved it. Being under a time crunch also showed me that I need to really learn what's important to prioritize and what's not. I can skip a shower if that means I get more time to edit (just kidding!!). Not just external prioritizing, but internal prioritizing. Should I focus on color grading this clip if I'm not even done with the whole video? Questions like these were difficult ones that I answered, and more importantly, gained more experience with. Thankfully, I am a lot better prepared now if I had to face a situation like this again.
CCR Part 2
I figured I would start off with this topic because if you just watched it, you might be coming here to get more information on it. I did have a time limit of 10 total minutes for both CCR's and since CCR 1 took up 8 minutes, the other CCR could only take up 2. This situation itself left me to believe that maybe the best way wasn't to do a PowerPoint or myself talking. Instead, I needed to be creative and think of what I could do that would be the most time efficient but also demonstrative. Thus, I decided to make a graphic video that answered the two questions:
1. How did your production skills develop throughout this project
2. How did you integrate technology into this project?
To me, both of those questions seemed easy to answer together, and I thought that I could actually answer those questions through demonstrations. Thus, I wanted to show what I learned and the technology I was using, while talking about how I learned and how I used it. To be honest, I thought that I did a great job creating an engaging video that not only explained the techniques I learned but also showed it. Believe me, before this project I would not have been able to make a video like that, especially not in a time crunch. The different graphics I made/used were all exhibitions of production skills I developed throughout this project, as well as the time management skills to finish that video promptly. And, I am also showing how I integrated technology into the project, by quite literally making the whole CCR through and on technology. I'm going to answer the questions below in more description, in case you weren't very sure about my answers in the video. Also, credit to Riley Orovitz and Mara Lustig for assisting in finding and taking the videos/photographs of myself used in CCR 2.
1. My production skills developed a ton throughout the project. I became a faster and more efficient editor, using constant experience to know which effects do what and what effects to use. For example, instead of having to google how to fade a clip, I now know that I can use a "dip to black" effect, or a "constant power" effect for sound. Not only was it my editing skills though, but it was also my cinematography skills and my directing skills. For the basketball shots I used a gimbal to steady the camera, and man did I need practice for that. The gimbal was so heavy so I walked around the basketball court multiple times to get used to maneuvering it. I also got better at controlling the ISO and lens of the camera, to get the most wanted shot. Even more than camera talent, I got so much better at directing. I haven't really fully directed a film opening before (I've done music videos but it's a little different). So having people waiting for me to tell them what to do was a neat experience, and as I became more friendly with them, they became more friendly with me. Overall, I learned that one of the keys to being a good director is getting your cast to be on your side, and the best way to do that is by being friendly with them.
2. Technology was quite literally integrated into everything for this project. Ranging from the camera I used to film to the editing software technology was everywhere. In today's world, with so much technology abroad, it is essential to take advantage of it for the best uses possible, and that's exactly what I did.
CCR Part 1:
I feel my CCR part 1 is pretty conclusive int terms of details and everything, however, I am uploading the transcript for you to see.
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· How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
As of last week, gun violence is the leading cause of death in children under the age of 18. That fact and statement right there is just unimaginable. Clearly, America isn’t doing something right, and if it’s not going to be addressed (which it certainly looks like it’s not) then I want to at least bring more awareness to it through my project. I mean, the whole film revolves around Blake Kazinec, a soon to be NBA star projected to get drafted #1 Overall in the NBA, but then a tragedy occurs. There’s a mass shooting at his college. It’s ridiculous to understand how many lives death touches. Fortunately, Blake didn’t die, but so many kids get their lives taken away from them because of guns. In my film opening, I specifically used gunshots from an AR-15, the most common type of weapon used in these mass shootings because of how powerful it is and deadly. Back on track, but I’m really trying to represent the issue of gun violence in America. With my film opening, and the rest of the film showing how torn apart Blake’s life is because of that shooting, I’m trying to send a message to everyone to do what they can to stop these terrible tragedies from occurring. It could be them next, that are getting shot, so we need to stop this before it’s too late.
Another typical stereotype or, I’m not really sure what to call it but the social standard is what I’ll use. Another social standard I am challenging is the idea that athletes aren’t human and they’re better/different than us. By making Blake, the athlete that’s soon to make millions of dollars every month from being the first overall pick in the draft get shot, I’m showing to the world that hey maybe these athletes are human. They can get hurt just the same way we get hurt. So many publishing companies write articles about how athletes need to be held to higher standards than the average citizen, but it all just separates them from the public, making them seem superhuman. They’re not. And that was one of my main goals with this film, allowing the public to be one with athletes, and not hate on them for one bad move.
Additionally, I really wanted to bring up the social issue of less female representation in sports. With Zippia stating that 16% of sports commentators are female, that’s a huge minority. I believe in equality and justice for all, so that’s one of the reasons I chose to have a female sports commentator talk after the draft occurred. This issue is becoming less and less critical as time goes on, which is really good.
Even more, I also wanted to bring up the social issue of people presuming that size is everything that matters, or looks, or just more on the physical aspects of a person. With the average NBA player height being 6 6, Blake is well below average, but that doesn’t matter. I want to show the world and all my young fans that no matter how tall or small you are, no matter what you look like, anything is possible. If you work hard nonstop, like Blake does, you can get to where you will be.
I mean, at the end of the day I tried to implement a lot of social issues into this film opening, but for time’s sake, I decided to move on.
· How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
Obviously, this movie can’t really just make it big at the box office yet, simply because of the lack of capital. Therefore, the first step to really distributing this film will be to get some investors. To secure these funds, I will go pitch my film idea through cold emails and cold phone calls. Once I’ve reached out to all the different investors and secured the deal, I will focus on finishing the filming for the entire movie which will involve hiring a production crew, hiring more actors, and planning schedules to fully film the entire movie. Once the movie is complete, I will work with a distribution company to start marketing for the movie and publicizing it, as well as pick an official release date and start getting box offices to be prepared to show the movie. Most of the marketing would take place during current sports drama films or TV shows, sporting events, anti gun violence events, and more. Since I’m not the best at marketing and publicizing the movie, most of these tasks would be outsourced, however, I would stay the executive director of the movie. Once all these tasks are accomplished, opening day for the movie would come, and box offices all around the world will start showing young fans the best movie ever!
What I've done the last 2 weeks:
I have worked so much on this project over the last two weeks, but more so the last 5 days. So, what have I really done? Let's just say that I started off with just my video edited to the first NBA highlight videos, with no more edits besides that. So, I essentially edited the whole entire video, putting all the clips together, adding effects, voiceovers, and so much more, AND I also created both CCR's. Let me just say it was quite a weekend, and probably the reason I'm sick writing this right now. So with all the stuff I did recently, you might think everything went perfectly! Wrong!
The Mistakes/revisions.
I don't know why or how, but I edit the best just in the moment without a set plan. And that's exactly what I did. For some base editing, I really started off by putting all the clips in the right order. I had the NBA draft, highlight video, and everything in order but then I ran into some issues. I knew I wanted a shooting or cop scene but I had no idea what to do for it so I just left it completely blank as a black screen and fill in all the other clips including Blake sitting up and recovering and eventually lifting weights. And then I looked at the time and realized the film opening was super overtime. Time to backtrack! In the end, I remembered what I wrote down previously and knew that since it was just a film opening it was better to end on a sort of cliffhanger, so I decided to end on Blake waking up. I tested this out, and it just looked so blank and boring. So I thought about the messages of the story and what I really wanted to show with my project and decided that it'd be really neat if I showed the interview with Blake in bed, where he was speaking to the microphone saying how he is motivated to keep working and be that draft pick he wanted to be. I felt this would perfectly work in the movie because its him literally saying the future, and then the audience gets to watch how he progresses and achieves his goals. Funnily enough, that whole video clip wasn't even supposed to be used. I only filmed it so I could use the audio, but when I only input the audio I ran out of blank video clips, so I had to use the actual video clips from that shot. And then there I realized wow I could totally make it look like a press interview, and that's where I edited the sound to make it sound like it's coming from an interview, and overall, I'm really happy with how that shot turned out.
Another incident that occurred during all of my time working on this was a background sound/music ANYTHING for the NBA draft and highlight reel. I practically left this whole spot blank until the very end, and when it came that time I had no idea what to do. I wanted to do a rap song, but knew that it wouldn't be realistic for live TV so I looked at lots of samples from previous drafts and saw that they all used music that had no lyrics but was kinda just there and popular and catchy. This got me thinking... what if I could use a marching band performing? Even more, what if I could use the Ohio state marching band?? And so, I started researching some of their songs but none of them just sounded right or sounded like they would fit into the scene. And then I found Seven Nation Army as performed by a band, and the rest is history! Seven nation army was the perfect pick because the music really demonstrated and set the tone for the movie, as well as the context for the specific scenario that was occurring.
Additionally, picking the right font was such a time-wasting issue. I left all of the titles and fonts till the very end so I could save time doing everything else, and when it was time to pick a font, I had no idea what to do. I wanted one that showed the movie and tone of the movie very well but I just didn't know what to do. At the end of the day, I literally just started googling the best fonts to use for sports videos, and "impact came up." I tried it out, and I LOVED it! It worked for every single scene, and I loved it so much that I carried it over to CCr part 2!
Moving on, I showed some of my friends the video when I thought it was finished. 3/4 of them (16-year-old females that pay attention to sports) completely got the idea of the opening, but one of them didn't. None of them actually noticed the gunfire. To fix this issue, I raised the volume and severity of the gunshots and also added the text that said it was an active shooting scenario at the Ohio state university. I knew that during the whole gunshots and police radio scenes, my goal wasn't for the audience to focus on the screen but rather on the sounds, and that's why I didn't put many entertaining graphics on the actual screen. However, I do understand that sometimes people can't hear everything 100% and that's why I added context for what the situation was.
Once the video was for sure finished, or at least I thought, I showed it to lots of people that had taken Aice Media AS previously and they said that something I should really do was either move the title to the beginning of the movie OR add a clip after the title to show where the movie would continue to progress. I loved the title where it was so knew I would need to add something after it. Therefore, I took the clip of Blake lifting weights to be the next clip. Realistically the whole movie would be about the process of recovery and getting to be that #1 overall pick, so it starts with the physical recovery from the shooting, so that's exactly what I did. I depicted the first steps of Blake's recovery process.
The last production issue I will be mentioning was not during the editing of my actual video, but for my CCR.I knew that I needed to answer the 4 questions in two different creative ways, and I thought that for the first 2 questions, the best way to answer them would be through a podcast specifically because I wanted the audience to hear what I was specifically saying and understand the tone of my voice. I wrote the script for my podcast and just started recording and I personally thought it went great. I am sick, so I had to stop often to cough but apart from that I kept on going and cranked it all out. The issue was when it became 8 minutes long, meaning I only had 2 minutes left for my other creative entity. I originally wanted to do a director video that would cut back to me talking and be like 5 minutes long so I couldn't do that. I ended up choosing to do the 2-minute-long animation video for the reasons stated above, which you already read!
In Conclusion/Summary.
One of my biggest takeaways from media studies class this year with Mrs. Stoklosa was not actually how to produce or edit films, but actually to have the desire and passion to learn. Not to just do an assignment to earn a good grade on it, but to do an assignment to learn from it. This whole philosophy is something I really wanted to carry over to my project. I did my project so that I could learn from it, get better at my skills from it, and have fun with it, not to get a good grade. Frankly, grades are subject, especially when grades are based on art. Some people may love my film opening, while others may not. And that's okay. The whole purpose of my creating my CCRs, my film opening, was so that it would help open my eyes to different areas of production, to different skills, to help me improve as a person. NOT to get an A on the Cambridge exam, or to get a perfect score. And so, I thank Mrs. Stoklosa for helping teach this idea to me.
Anyways as this blog comes to a close, I really must say that it has been quite a joy to work on this project. I must thank all of those that have assisted or helped me in any way, and just truly am so thankful. I wish you (the reader) to have a great day, a great week, and I hope you love my film opening and my CCR! Well, that's all. Josh Burke. Out.
BTW, any clips or sound or anything used in my videos were noncopyrighted, and I was allowed to freely use.
Also, sorry for the lack of pictures on this one! I felt typing was the best way to express everything!
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