CCR

My long awaited CCR! Thanks for coming along on my journey!

The Big Reveal!

     Here it is, in all its glory!! Enjoy my film opening, Harker v. Westwood.

Reflecting

     As my work on my film opening and CCR finally come to a close, I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on my experience.

     I've switched around clips of my opening more times than I can even process, and I think I'm going to have the over dramatic sounds of my parents reciting their lines engraved in my brain forever.  That being said, I really did enjoy completing this project and going through the film making process.

     One thing this project taught me is how nice it is to not procrastinate.  While I'm certainly not the worst procrastinator I know, I do tend to put things off, so the fact that I was able to stay organized and on track for this project was a good step for me.  I ended up preparing everything I needed for filming very early on, and filmed a lot earlier than most people.  This eventually had a much bigger pay off than I could've imagined, thanks to COVID-19.  Although quarantine kept me from being able to reshoot anything for my film, a lot of people had to rethink their entire film ideas, which I didn't have to deal with.  Being that I filmed early, I had ample think to rework my clips in a way that worked for me, and was able to work around the fact that I couldn't reshoot without restarting.

     As for putting my video together, editing helped me to learn a lot.  I'd done a little bit of editing in the past, but this project really improved my skills; it also showed me how much of a perfectionist I am.  Since I transformed my video several times to follow a different flow, I spent an extremely long time altering my opening.  At this point I for sure have a love-hate relationship with editing; every time I'd sit down for a few minutes to work on editing, I'd end up sitting there forever trying to make different changes and improvements.  Even when I wasn't in the mood to keep editing, I couldn't stop myself from sitting there and making alterations.  The positive of this is that I learned a lot about editing and especially about using Premiere.  I had very little prior experience with Premiere, so my journey included a lot of YouTube tutorials and article explanations.  This definitely paid off in the end, since now I have a much better grasp of the program and how to use all of the different functions.

     Overall, although it was frustrating and stressful at times, this project was enjoyable and taught me a lot.  I've always been pretty artsy and even though I'm not looking for a career in the film industry, this project did appeal to my interests and was really fun to do.  I definitely still have a lot of room for improvement, but this process allowed me to greatly improve upon my production and editing skills.  Thanks for coming along on this journey with me, and enjoy my opening!

More CCR Development

     I've been continuing to work on my CCR, so I thought I'd share a bit of behind the scenes for that.
     I decided for my CCR that I'll be doing a voice over on top of clips and stills of my opening, photos to go with my research, and other interesting videos.  I figured it would be most intriguing to mix up stills and videos of my own along with outside clips.  I'll be starting off the CCR with a brief description of my opening and film, which I will be talking about as evidence of my process are shown.  I figured I could show some behind the scenes photos, as well as material from the actual opening.  I only took a few photos on the day of me filming, but I do have a couple, including these:

Beyond behind the scenes photos, I'll also include some fun footage from the actual opening.  I was thinking that I could have some unused clips playing that never made it in the actual opening, just so that the viewer isn't seeing the same clips they're about to see/ just saw in my opening.  This way the clips don't feel as repetitive, but still make sense as they're in the same setting and everything.  That being said, here a few stills I might include from my footage:

     Beyond footage coming from myself,  I'll also be including photos, clips, and graphs from online.  I have a couple statistics that go along with my genre and distribution research, one such being a graph on movie theater attendance. I'll also be putting in clips from other dramas, specifically court room or business dramas, as they share similar characteristics to my film.  This could include movies such as The Verdict, To Kill a Mockingbird, or The Wolf of Wall Street.  While I'm discussing genre conventions and comparisons, this would be beneficial.  Including photos and clips about my equipment and software will also be included in my CCR, to emphasis these steps of my process and to match a vision to my words.  I'm working hard to put my CCR together, and I'll be sharing it with you guys soon!

Putting my CCR Together

  As I prepare for my CCR, I just wrote up an outline for my script, which I will be writing in the very near future.  In the process of writing out my thoughts I gathered a couple statistics, which I've included the sources for below.  These facts are currently embedded in my outline and will most likely be mentioned in my video.  In the meantime, I'm sharing a link to my CCR outline, so you guys can see where I'm at right now! I'll be back to you guys soon with an update.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SaJGFg10K0nHHv0_VZoPp8unKjeiRDsN12xASd6QcYs/edit?usp=sharing

Sources:
https://livestream.com/blog/62-must-know-stats-live-video-streaming
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adambvary/streaming-services-you-probably-didnt-know-existed
https://www.allmovie.com/subgenre/courtroom-drama-d545

Giving Credit and Moving On

     I kept playing around with ending clips, and I think I'm at an end point that I'm happy with!  It's 2:03 minutes, the end is as smooth as I could make it, and I'm finally satisfied with it.  I'm currently moving on to do the CCR, but first I thought I should include a couple of sources for audio I used.
    I bought and downloaded the main music the overlays a lot of my opening, which was from audiojungle.net.
 MAIN MUSIC SOURCE: https://audiojungle.net/item/serious-science-logo/25852940

     The other audio I used was the door of a door opening, which I used as Jackie enters the room.  Even though you could hear the door opening in my clip, it was too soft so I used this sound as reinforcement.  This, I downloaded for free off of https://www.fesliyanstudios.com/.
DOOR OPENING SOURCE: https://www.fesliyanstudios.com/royalty-free-sound-effects-download/opening-closing-door-54

    I got pretty lucky with the rest of my audio, and was able to use and reuse all of the audio from clips I'd collected myself.  In doing this, I think all of the important sounds in my opening are heard well, and I worked hard to balance all of the sounds and am happy with the final product.
     Now, I'm starting to work on my CCR.  I have all of my research on audiences, genre conventions, and distribution from earlier on in my process, but now I need to get everything together so I can write out what I'm going to include.  I haven't decide yet how I'm going to do my video, but I have a few options.  Basically, I could either talk in front of the camera, having photos and videos to play along with me, or I could stay behind the camera, talking over a PowerPoint or similar presentation.  I'll be developing my CCR more over the next couple days, and will get back to you guys in my next post with an update on my progress. 

My Concerns

     After messing around with a few small things, and deciding on my fonts (font #4 for the title, #1 for everything else), my opening is essentially done.  That being said, I'm not sure I'm 100% happy with it, and here's why.
     First of all, no matter which parts of the conversation I use and what clip I use last, the ending looks a little bit abrupt.  It was really hard to piece together a mini conversation from the clips I had, and one that actually flowed.  Overall the conversation isn't that choppy, it's just that I'm not completely satisfied with the end of it.  I played around with a lot of different options, and I think the only way I'd be completely happy with it would be to reshoot a few clips, which thanks to COVID-19 isn't much of an option. That being said, I still think the conversation works, I just thought I should explain how I'm feeling.

     I also made a minor filming error.  Since the office was so backlit, I had a little lamp that we were shining on my dad's face for some of his shots, and you can see the lamp in a couple of the shots.  I purposefully left it in the shot for his establishing clip, since we needed it where it was, but the lamp magically disappears and is never seen again. The lamp is dark blue and skinny so it's actually not even that noticeable, but I felt obligated to mention it since it was something that was bothering me.

Fonts!

In order to complete my opening, I need a good font for my movie title.  Since I'm using Adobe Premiere, I have access to their big font libraries, so I've been looking through what they have.  Since the title of my movie is a court case, I could either go with a kind of typewriter font, or I also liked the look of a handwriting font.  I looked through a bunch of fonts, and picked out my few favorites.  Here's what my top five looks like:

The top two are both variations of a typewriter font, which gives a nice businessman feel, and along with the third one, looks clean and professional.  That being said, I also like the look of the handwriting fonts, as I feel like they give the case more of a personal feel.  After looking at them against the clip they appear on, I think I like font number two and font number 4.  Both give slightly different tones to the title, and I can't decide which I like more yet, so I'm going to hold off for a couple days before I put my final decision in.  That being said, I can definitely rule out the other fonts.  With all of the text being on to my opening, it's really coming together!!

Adding the Little Things

     Mechanically, my opening is set, so I've moved on to fixing the little things.  Thankfully, since I cut out a big chunk of the conversation in the office, I had a lot less color correction to do, since there's only a couple back-lit shots now.  That being said, there was one or two super back-lit clips, so I had to do my research and figure out how to do the color correction for those.  The problem isn't exactly that they're dark, it's more than that they're super blue tinted, when all of the other office shots have more of a yellow/orange tone to them.  This is kind of hard to fix without making the clip look exaggeratedly colored, but I did my best and even though it doesn't look perfect, the clip at least matches the others a bit better.  Here's a before and after and what that looked like:

      I also have been editing the sound, making sure my music fades in and out correctly, and also that it's at an okay volume.  While I want the music to be heard, I also want the sounds of Jackie walking and the sounds of the street activity heard as well.   I actually got pretty lucky with how the city audio sounded, as the car noises, walking, and chatter sounds super nice and almost like I added it in myself.  That being said, sounds of the city noises from clip to clip were a little choppy, so I overlapped and faded a bunch of the audio clips so that the noise sounded more cohesive. I also added in a door opening sound effect as Jackie enters the room, and adjusted the audio levels of their conversation to try and have all of their lines match in volume. 
     Before I finish, I'll probably play with color correction a bit more and try to make everything perfect, but for now I'm making good progress on finishing my opening up!

Music

     As I get closer and closer to finishing the basic editing, I figured it's time to look at music options again.  Revisiting my previous options, I didn't feel like any of them really captured the tone I was looking for.
     I began browsing for more options, and ended up on audiojungle.com.  Even though you have to pay for these sounds, I really liked what I was hearing so I added a few options to my cart.  Narrowing it down, I was then left with two options.  I felt like both of them would work well with my opening, but each would give slightly different effects to my scene.  The first sound is super powerful, which would emphasize Jackie's frustration and assert her as a dominant force.  The other sound was less powerful, but has more of a tense feel to it, instead emphasizing the strain being put on Jackie.  Both sounded pretty good over the shots of Jackie walking through Miami, but I realized that the second sound could be reintroduced at the end of the opening for a few seconds for a smooth and cohesive ending.  Because of this, I decided to go ahead and purchase the second sound option. It sets the tense tone that I originally wanted, and also will help tie in all of my clips by allowing me to use it during the beginning and the end.  Here's a glimpse of what the ending shot of my opening would look like with my audio:

My Editing Options

     As I've continued to edit my opening, it's getting hard to try and cut down my opening to 2 minutes.  25 seconds cut out of a conversation is a lot, so at this point I'm considering different options.  I could stay with strictly the conversation, and just choose a different start/end point to the conversation, maybe ending it a lot sooner in.  Another option is to put back in all of the shots of Jackie walking through Miami, and then have her walk into the office and her and David have a mini conversation.  I feel like this might be more interesting, since it has all of the outdoor shots and the conversation, instead of only office shots.  If I do this I would again just have to decide at what point to stop the conversation.  This may make for a more abrupt ending to the opening, so that could be tricky. 
     The thing is, all of my shots were filmed in Miami and in my dad's office, which is now closed because of COVID-19.  So, I basically have to find a way to work with what I have right now, unless I want to reshoot the whole thing.  I'm leaning towards trying to have shots of Jackie outside and then a shortened version of her conversation with David, but I'm just worried that it won't flow well this way. I'm playing around with different versions of the opening now, and trying to see what I like. 
     Also, I showed my parents what the 2:25 minute conversation looked like earlier, and they were very proud of their acting skills and how it worked out, even though neither of their acting skills were actually good (shh don't tell them).
     UPDATE: This is me coming back to you guys a bit later in the day; I played around with editing a bit and I think I have my solution.  I put back in most of the Jackie walking clips, and then used just some of the clips from her conversation with David to make a 2 minute scene.  I think the conversation still sounds cohesive, and even though the end isn't as dramatic as it would've been originally, I think it still works well!! I'm going to keep on editing to make everything cleaner of course, but I definitely like how it's coming together; at this point its 1:53 minutes long, so I should be good on time.

My Overestimate

     So, I laid down all of the office clips in Premiere, and it turns out I'm insanely bad at estimating.  The office clips alone are over 2 minutes long.  So my fears from filming day of the office conversation running too short were definitely wrong, and I don't think I'm going to be using any of the clips of Jackie walking up to the office.  This isn't that big of an issue, since my original plan was to only have the conversation anyways, it just means I wasted a lot of time filming and starting to edit those clips.  I think it would've been cool to have her walking up to the office and then have her character revealed once David's office is shown, but not having it isn't going to affect my over all tone or anything. 

     Even with the conversation alone, I'm over time by a solid 20-25 seconds, so I have to see where I can cut time and maybe snip out a couple lines.  Turns out 2 minutes is a really short period of time, but I think I'll be able to cut everything down enough.  I'm hoping I can still make it flow well and avoid it turning out choppy.  My thinking is that I can cut a couple lines off of the end and still have the same affect, and cut out a few words in other lines.  It also helps to overlap the clips a little, having the audio of one clip start over the end of the one before in.  25 seconds is a pretty long time, so cutting that many corners off is going to be difficult but I think I'll be able to figure it out. 
     In other news, I figured out how to change the fonts! For some reason it was just wasn't letting me before.  I'm getting better and better at navigating through Premiere, which is good and makes editing easier and easier.  One bad thing about Premiere is that it's really easy to cut and trim clips, but almost too easy.  Even while you're just trying to move clips around it'll accidentally cut edges of clips off, which is kind of annoying and makes it where you have to pay really close attention to how you're moving things around.  That being said I've just learned to watch really closely to what I'm doing and try to be careful. 

Editing Struggles

     I've been editing my video for a while now, but I'm definitely moving pretty slow.  I'm editing on Premiere Pro because I realized I have it as a part of the Adobe package I already have, and figured it would be a pretty big step up from something like WeVideo.  The only thing is, I've only used Premiere a tiny bit, so trying to figure out how everything works is really time consuming.  I have to keep looking up videos and articles to figure out how to do things like change the font and zoom in.  It gets really frustrating because sometimes I'll watch a video or two and still not be able to do what I need to.  For example, my program won't let me change the font like all of the videos are telling me to.  I decided that I don't really need to mess with the text until the end of editing anyways, so I'm going to come back to this issue a little later. 
     This being said, I'm really happy with how my opening is turning out so far.  I edited a lot of the first half, which has shots of Miami and of Jackie walking up to David's office.  I'll most likely go back and tweak this first part after the office clips are all in, but I wanted to lay them all out first.  After I know how long the office conversation is, I can edit the first half to be longer or shorter depending on what I need.  Once I start putting in all of the office clips, I'm probably going to do be doing a lot of color correction since the lighting varied a lot throughout the clips.  All of the shots of David are slightly back-lit, but some are a little more than others, so I'm going to have to try and make them all match each other.  I haven't quite gotten there yet, so I'll update you guys when I do!