Film Opening!!!

Here is my opening film, Nueva Vida, hope you enjoy it! Thank you for this journey.

https://youtu.be/SzdzcWJZno8?si=sReMyr5u-bjjMC7C

Creative Critical Reflection

Here are the links to both of my CCRs!

CCR 1 (Questions 1 & 2)

https://youtu.be/GCz_A0_8gDc?si=cB6VoSSQS93rv8TI

CCR 2 (Questions 3 & 4)

https://youtu.be/sYUgu7s-jco?si=uj_QCLZKLhdVYAmo

Final Reflection

Oh well... It is that time, to do the final reflection of this awesome project. It is been a journey full of learnings. I cannot believe that I have to turn this in in about three days! Eight weeks sounds like a lot but it actually went by really fast. I remember back when I was stressed out about the genre or the overall idea of the project. I did not really document this in the beginning of the blog posts but I was really stressed out, I can say that I am nit the most creative person, so not very great ideas came up when i was starting brainstorming. But then I thought of doing something similar to what I lived, and I think it leaves a beautiful message, it is what matters for me. 

I am glad I took this class, I was indecisive at the beginning, since this is not even close to what I want to study or do in life. But I saw this as a challenge and I found it necessary to get out of my comfort zone. Even though I do not plan to create a production or something similar later, you never know when this helps me later in life. Definitely the editing part was very enjoyable, and that can definitely be helpful, more nowadays were social media and online platforms are more popular.

When we were introduced to the project, I knew that I needed to start changing something drastically about myself, which was time management. While doing other projects, I have not truly made a schedule or taken the time to plan the time, and this was truly helpful. I was not stressed at all, I mean I was at the beginning because I did not know what to do my project about, but after that, I was following my schedule and doing the things I was supposed to do. I had the time to re-record some footage, take a good amount of time editing and also very important, having time to plan, do and edit the CCRs. I take a lot with me from this project. I end up my senior year in the best way possible with new skills learned.

.

Post Production process CCRs 3 & 4

For my CCR 3 and 4 I decided to do a podcast, I found it a fun way to answer the questions. I thought of doing the podcast in Spanish in the intro and switch it to English right before answering the questions. Since the podcast's name is "Entre Parceros" which means between friends/buddies. The podcast is meant to be a podcast that is in Spanish, but this is episode is the exception. 

I started by creating the logo or the name of the podcast so there can be a visual. I did not want to keep it with a black background for the whole 4 minutes. I did it on Canva, I wanted to do warm colors, so I did orange and yellow. It is basic but I really liked the font and how it looks, so I left it this way. I started recording my voice in the same editor DaVinci Resolve.  I asked the favor to my step father to be the host! and he of course agreed, recording was pretty simple since it was recording the voice, it took some time since we mixed up some words or we did not like the tone, buttt it went great!

I had looked up some characteristics about a podcast and I also went to Spotify and hear to some podcasts. I honestly do not frequently listen to podcasts, but it was fun to listen to some for inspiration. Some things I noticed that a lot of them had advertisements from the start and music was used as well at the beginning. I listened to podcasts in english and Spanish to see the differences, and I noticed that the podcasts in English had more ads than in Spanish podcasts, I actually listened to about four podcasts in Spanish and none of them had ads. But... for my podcast, I decided to do an ad in about the middle of the podcast, right before the fourth question was asked. It was about DaVinci Resolve... I put this "Before we continue, a quick shoutout to DaVinci Resolve—the editing software Sara used for her project. It’s free, beginner-friendly, and has everything you need to make your videos look professional. Check it out!" I also added some music a few seconds at the beginning and kept it very slight in the background, also in the ad part, with more volume.

I had to add some subtitles at the beginning when they are speaking Spanish. Initially, creating subtitles was very time consuming but know I do it quickly! and it is distracting as well :)

The editing process of these CCRs was more straight forward, it was recording the voices and add music. Clearly, there was a lot of planning for this CCR as well. I am done!!!

Post Production process CCR 1 & 2

Last week I did my first video where I answered questions of CCRs 1 and 2. What I did was to record a video of myself answering the questions and including visuals, like photos and videos. I did this because I find it very informative and useful.

I started out to write out the script, which I did after creating the Blogs, on the Blog posts I put all the information I wanted to consider and then I wrote the script more brief. After this, I went over the script a couple times and started recording in the bedroom. It was like at 6 pm when I started recording and it got late so at the end you can tell is getting late. But, it went well, it took about an hour an a half because I wanted everything to sound well. But... when I started hearing the footage again, I noticed that in some parts, my siblings can be heard in the background talking or yelling, and honestly I did not tell until I was editing. I hope that is not a problem though.

Right after I finished recording, I started to arrange everything in DaVinci Resolve. Ohhh... and I forgot to tell you guys, that before recording I started looking up for the visuals I wanted to include, like references from other films, which I looked up on YouTube and also the pictures I already had from my past Blog posts. So, I started organizing my footage at night and then the next day started actually editing. I started putting the visuals I already had and also included some footage from my opening film. I had everything in a file so it was easier to edit this way, having everything together and organized. 

I already knew what I wanted to add in each part so it went fast, since i had it planned. In most of the film references I had to put the title, so I had to add titles there and also for the questions I put them on screen.

For the visuals that needed to be read, I wanted to add these kind of highlights and I did not know if I was going to be able to do them on this platform, but I could! I looked it up and it was a confusing process at the beginning but kept doing it and it went well. For some of the visuals, I had already highlighted it while taking the screenshot, so I did not put this highlight on these parts, just in some.

This editing process was not difficult, what I can say is that being organized and having a plan prior to filming was very important. At the end I added the sources in a scroll mode and that was it!! I finished editing this, but I am thinking if I should add any music to it at the background. it think I will!

CCR #4

It is time to plan what I will be doing for my CCR #4, in this Blog post, I will be answering the question and putting the information I will be needing to create the script.

How did you integrate technologies to this project?

I incorporated Software, hardware and online platforms. Some hardware I used in my project were just my phone and a tripod. I used my phone's camera to film the project and used the tripod to film the right angles and shots I wanted to get and also stabilize the shots. The software used was the editing software which was DaVinci Resolve. I had not previously used this editing software, but decided to used due to the research I had done. I found that it has a lot of useful tools. I made a good decision by choosing this platform. 

I also used some online platforms like Blogger and Notes. I used Blogger to create blogs about all this process. In here, I wrote everything I had in mind and every step taken to get to the final product. The app Notes has always been a staple of mine, and in this project I used it to write my idea, write the possible names of my film, write the narration and even to write my script for this CCR! 

Can you tell us about your experience using these platforms? and what is your overall opinion and reflection?

Of course, I must say that it was a new experience for me since I had never edited before. But by watching YouTube tutorials and some articles about DaVinci Resolve, I gained the basic editing skills I needed to complete this project successfully. I am very proud everything I have done in these eight weeks, and I was happy with myself because I managed time very well, I had time for everything, I was satisfied.

that is great! It was great getting to know more about all this process. Thank you for being with us today Sara. Those were all the questions for today, this is the end of episode eight of entre parceros with special guest Sara Perez.

I am thinking of starting the podcast in spanish, like the host and myself starting speaking in spanish because the podcast is in spanish. But then the host says to switch languages, then they speak in english. The name of the podcast is "entre parceros" wich means something like between friends, parceros is another name of friends.

Group meeting #2

Helloo, today was our second group meeting and if i'm not wrong, the last one. It went pretty well, this time it was way different than last time since we all now have our ideas figured out and almost done. We were in groups of five and I was grouped with Lucia, Isabella, Addison and Elias. We started looking at everyone's Blog and talk about our plots and our progress. Everyone was working in a group, I was the only one there who is working alone. I talked about my plot and my progress, I am done editing I will just revise some things to make sure everything looks good.

I showed them all of my film, and they liked it. There was not much tips or recommendations since I feel pretty good about it. BUTTT something I really thank this group meeting was the fact that I realized the maximum time for the opening film. I do not really know why I thought the maximum time was three minutes, when it is actually 2:10. Lucia was talking about how she went over the time limit, and i asked her how long her project was and she said about 2:30, and I was like... WHAT? hhahahha. I went to ask Ms. Stoklosa about the time limit and she said that 2:10 min. I told her about my issue, and she said that if there is the possibility I could make it 2:20 minutes long, and of course that was what I was going to do. 

After this, I immediately started to see what I could trim out, and I realized that the garage scene was too longggg, about 30 seconds, which is too much. So I trimmed about 20 seconds and left it with 2:20 minutes, and it was a big relief.

While I was doing this, if I am being honest, zoned out and did not pay much attention to what my group was saying. It is not nice, but I was really worried about my project. After I was done fixing it up, I kept listening to my group.

The people in my group were in the stage of finishing editing. Some still have to record more things or re-do some scenes. For example Isabela, has not enough footage and does not reach the two minutes, so she needs to figure out a way of what footage to add. We were also advising Elias on the sound choices.

We were later talking about our ideas about the CCRs. Most of them were thinking to do one CCR talking to the camera and using visuals, as i do as well. I think is one of the best ways, even though is not creative, is very informative. Lucia and Isabella were talking about Podcasts and interviews. Isabella was indecisive to do a talking show or not, she wants to do something more creative. I am still indecisive of what i will do for my CCR 3 & 4, I do not know to do an interview or a Podcast. If i decide to do a podcast, I will be doing some research.

It was a good meeting, we all can't believe this journey is almost done. I am glad this happened and I got to know the time limit, I do not want to imagine what it would've been like if this didn't had happened.