Creative Critical Reflection

I'm officially done with my CCR!

Click here to watch my first CCR-An Interview

Click here to watch my second CCR-Production Presentation

Finally, the last piece of this entire process is here. I hope you have enjoyed this journey with me and that you have a great day!

Film Opening

 The day has finally come! After a long time full of trial and error. I am happy to announce that All The Shades Of Blue is available here on my YouTube channel!

Reflecting

I can't believe it's almost over. This project seemed so far off at the beginning of the school year. I think I'm gonna miss this project. However stressful it became at some moments, I will miss the planning and editing. This project has taught me that sometimes projects are meant to be about the process, all the steps in between, not just the final product. When you are able to pay attention to the details, when you analyze what went wrong in order to avoid it in the future, you end up with a better end product than if you had been hyperfocused on the end since the beginning. With just my phone, some lights, and my computer, I was able to create something I think is beautiful. I think I might plan on keeping up with blogging the process of any future projects I might do, whether through this blog or a new one. As annoying as it can become to have to make them, I find that they were more helpful than I expected.

Editing Day 3 - Finalizing

I spent all of Yesterday editing, animating, and finalizing my movie intro. It might not be perfect, but I am extremely proud of my results. Honestly, this week has been so much fun, editing is truly my happy place and I hope to do it more often in the future.

Progress Clip:

In lieu of a progress video of the entire thing, this is a clip of the beginning, which was the bulk of Yesterday's focus. I plan on posting the entire intro tomorrow.

Timeline:

Fixing the Title Card:

Old

New

With Music

Since previously the animation did not give the viewers enough time to read the title, I simply made it end at the same time as the descent of the music ends, giving the audience a second or two to read the music. This worked wonderfully, although I was unable to fix the t in "the."

Fixing the B-roll:

The b-roll in my first draft of this video had been bugging me. There was something about the shots I had chosen that felt flimsy. I think it may have been too shaky? The second and third clips were just composed weirdly maybe. I had been convinced, at first, that they were the best clips I had, and if that was true then I knew I'd have to re-record. Luckily, this was not the case, I gave all the original clips a second look over and found two clips that were not only composed better and less shaky, but they were also long enough to replace those three clips. I do not know how I did not pick them sooner. The door, however, still felt too shaky to me and I did not know how to fix it at first (more on how I fixed that later).

Creating/animating the Logo:

I knew I wanted to make a logo for a fake production company, but I did not know what to call it yet. I genuinely just love all kinds of flowers, but one of my favorites is Lily of the Valley. These flowers are beautiful and delicate-looking, but they are extremely toxic to humans with no part of their anatomy being safe to eat or even touch (click here for more information). However, they are "A symbol of purity, joy, love, sincerity, happiness and luck" It's like finding hope in something seemingly unredeemable, which reminds me of the themes of hope within the darkness that the movie would have. Due to this realization, I decided to call the production company "Lily of the Valley Productions" and to include one in the logo.

I am not particularly skilled at drawing, so it took me a few hours to come up with this shape in Procreate. I planned on adding the title in After Effects.

At first, I wanted to animate the flower slowly growing into the image I made, but I quickly realized that would take much longer than what I wanted, and decided to make the image start small and spin while growing into what the original picture is. I also wanted to replicate the animation style of the title card, making it look as if the title was being written, but the font was so small it looked choppy, so by deciding not to make it "stroke sequentially" I achieved a similar look. Honestly, it worked out for the best. I decided to make the letters appear once the flower animation was over, and having learned from the title card, knew to make it end a few seconds before the clip would. Finally, the logo was too green and vibrant for the vibes of the intro, so I decided to color-edit it until It matched, by changing the temperature, tint, and saturation of the clip. (you can watch the final title card near the beginning of the blog post).

The look of the Logo with the title.

After Effects Workspace after I traced the title.

Color Settings

How the logo looked after

It's a simple animation, but I think it looks pretty cool.

Audio:

I decided that, although it's hard to hear sometimes, I was quite satisfied with the sound levels of the raw clips, so I did not make any changes there or with the levels of the main song. I found a song in the YouTube Audio Library by Jimena Colmenares Called "Frigtmare" By choosing this song, I did lean into the creepy vibes I had been avoiding, but I knew that the first few seconds of this song were perfect to put over the logo and door in the very beginning. I made this song fade out as "Spellcraft" faded in to give it a more seamless feel. I am most worried about making the audience believe that this movie is meant to be scary when really, it isn't.

Stabilizing:

All hail the "Warp Stabilizer" effect in Premiere Pro, the only thing capable of somewhat reversing the shakiness of the camera caused by my hands. (I had previously alluded to this effect a few blog posts ago)  I only found it helpful to use this effect on the b-roll. 

This effect was capable of turning...

A small but crucial difference. Yes, you can still kind of tell I walked a bit too harshly, but it almost feels seamless now.

The Credits:

The most fun yet time-consuming part, the reason I stayed up until one in the morning editing. I knew I wanted the text to appear/disappear with the movement of the camera and objects. The "Linear Wipe" effect in Premiere Pro was my lifeline when animating these credits. (to see three examples, look at the clip in the beginning).

I chose a font that was simple, rounded and small to make it look professional and innocent. I chose an off-white color rather than a full white since the full white stood out a bit too much.

This is the timeline for the clip including the screenshot above. As you can clearly see, I made sure, frame by frame, that the Transition Completion % and angle of the effect matched the letters perfectly to what they were hiding behind.

Now What?

This has been a long, stressful, and exciting process, and I cannot believe I am this close to the end, but I am proud of what I've done. I could've managed my time better, like I mentioned in one of my earlier  blog posts, time management is something I know I struggle with, but I managed to end this with enough time to complete my CCR and I consider that a success. I am ecstatic with the results, and I can barely wait to post them tomorrow.

PS. After rereading some of my blog posts, I believe I never specified my audience here as much as I did in my head. The audience is children, which I have mentioned before, but I'd like to clarify that it's specifically, children aged 8-12.

Editing Day 2 - Fixing Issues (Mostly)

 Today I just kept editing, I fixed some continuity errors, color-corrected, added the music, and created the title card. I still have a long way to go before I am done since there are still some issues to fix.

Progress Vid:

Timeline:

Fixing Continuity and Adding the Music:

In terms of continuity, I decided to go with the "jump cuts." This ended up feeling smoother than showing each and every movement. I had been skeptical about this choice before, but it's much more efficient than my original plan. I added the music and decided to turn on the audio of the clips for now. I also cut down the rummaging to one shot. Due to the music being shorter than two minutes, I changed the pacing a bit to try to end it on a note that doesn't make the video feel finalized. I edited some cuts to fit the beats of the music better.

Notes: I might reshoot some/most of the b-roll tomorrow, some of it is too shaky, and you can see the movement of my steps when I was shooting the door. Add a logo in the first few seconds. For the most part, I believe I'm done majorly changing the timeline.

Color Correcting and Sharpening:

Before:

After:

I color-corrected the shots mentioned in my previous blog. Since they were all much bluer than the other shots in the video, I first turned the highlights and shadows to a more yellow shade and then adjusted the midtones, until I felt that the right shade of blue was back and that it matched the rest of the shots as much as possible. I also turned the sharpness to 100% on all the shots.

Notes: I think I did a good job at color-correcting, and that the sharpness improved the look of the intro as a whole, I plan on doing the same if I end up replacing any other shots.

Creating the Title Card:

It just so happened to be that close to the exact moment that I had been planning to add the title card, the melody descends. This descent in the melody gave me the idea of having the title be in cursive and animating the movements. I decided to use After Effects even though I have minimal previous experience with it. I found a quick and simple tutorial for just what I wanted to do. After some searching, I decided on a font type called "Blithe," and played with the size, color, and position of the letters until I was satisfied with how it looked. I picked "Blithe" due to its playfulness and relative readability, because of the target audience of children. Creating the animation was a surprisingly simple, although time-consuming, process. 

The Tutorial:

The Title Card:

The Workspace:

Notes: Considering I almost never use After Effects, this was a pretty successful first attempt. I plan on shortening the animation to only the descent of the music since currently, it goes on for longer than it should. Also, I want to smooth out the T in "the." I need to add the credits to the video, I do not plan on using After Effects for this as of now, but I might try. I want to create and animate a logo, probably will be using Procreate and After Effects. 

Now What? (yes I changed it this time)

I've made a lot of progress, but there's still so much left to do. I am quickly running out of time, but I am still fairly confident I can pull it off. Once I fix every issue I previously mentioned, (while keeping in mind that no project can be perfect) I will work on my CCR. 

Editing Day 1- Blocking

I finally started editing today! I am happy to announce that I'm not even done putting all my shots in, and I already have more than 2-minutes worth of content. It is extremely relaxing to know that I am not short on time since that was my biggest concern. Today's cut is extremely rough, I have not added the music yet, and I have a bunch of continuity errors to try and fix now. I will say though, that I am extremely happy with the results of the lights. 

Progress Vid:

Timeline:

My Notes:

• Continuity errors in the cuts during the rummaging part (00:22-00:30) 
• Continuity errors while Sowing (01:15, 01:27, 01:32, 01:39, 02:08, 02:10) These are all due simply to the fact that there's a lot of movement while sowing, sometimes her hand would be in a different position than the last shot, sometimes I forgot to shoot a simple movement. I can either lean into the jumpcut feel and make the whole process more fast-paced by focusing only on the important actions, or I can try to make it feel as smooth as possible. Luckily, the last two continuity errors can be avoided by taking out that part, since I'm overtime and still missing the title and the logo in the beginning.
• Jump cut at 01:09 because I did not change the angle enough between the shots but it's sadly the only way to keep the continuity. Might play around to try and make it feel smoother.
• At 00:44 you can hear me saying "ok." Mute it/cut it off.
• Add the title right after/with the reveal of the bunny.
• Cut off the video mid-sowing of the eye in a way that makes it clear there's more coming.
• I might cut the rummaging to just one shot (extremely glad I added the sowing idea because now it's the main part of the intro).
• Color-correct these shots: 00:26, 01:07, 02:05, 02:08.
• Add music
• Try adding the sound of her rummaging in the b-roll.
• Add the credits!
• Try adding cute stings, especially in the reveal of the bunny. 
• If I cut off the single shot showing her face, all the shots will not show her face. I can use that to create more mystery around who/what she is.
• I will probably not add the shot of the other girl.

So What?

It's not perfect, but I am proud of my results so far. I'm gonna spend more time editing tomorrow and hopefully finishing the intro. There might still be some mistakes to fix, but that always happens with any project, and I still have time to fix them. I will focus on the CCR as soon as I'm done with the editing.

Finding the Music

Sound is a crucial aspect of any production. Both the lack and abundance of it should be a deliberate decision made when creating a scene. Whether to use music or not was a question I have asked myself throughout the stages of this project. However, I believe having music is likely to be the best idea for me. For this reason, I will be searching through multiple royalty-free websites to pick some options for my project.

I used the following websites:

• purple-planet.com
• bensound.com/
  

What I Need/The Mood:

Music/sound is essential to establishing the tone and mood of a scene. Since my opening is all about creating mystery, the music should add to that feeling. However, I am still able to lean my mystery into multiple sub-tones. I could create a lighter, almost happy mystery or I could make it somber and creepy. I believe I'm gonna lean into the lighter category of options, but I still wanna explore all my options before settling on any conclusions.

My Options:

After searching through three websites (the two previously mentioned and bulletproofbear.com for which I need to be verified) I only found 4 viable options. (It could be 8 if bulletproofbear verifies my account)

Curse of the Dolls - Purple Planet

Link

Pros: It is mysterious, sad but with a hint of playfulness, i like the flow of tension and believe it could fit with my timeline, long enough for the intro (a few seconds short but that shouldn't be too hard to deal with).

Cons: Might be too creepy.

Spellcraft - Purple Planet

Link

Pros: It is also mysterious, leans into the playfulness even more, has a fantastical/magical mood, I also like the progression of the mood and believe it could fit with the actions happening on screen, it is long enough for the intro.

Cons: Might be too whimsical, could feel like a true fantasy rather than a magical realism.

Magical Storytime - Purple Planet

Link

Pros: I like the way it still feels mysterious while establishing that she is good. 

Cons: Might be too happy, definitely too short.

November - Bensound

Link

Pros: I like the way it kind of leans into the calm sadness, still mysterious, it is less overwhelming than the other songs, definitely long enough.

Cons: Might be too slow/not progress well with the story, might be too sad.

Decisions:

So far my personal favorite option is Spellcraft, it is mysterious yet whimsical and sets the right tone for the scene, although the ghost is sad, she is doing something that makes her happy and gives her hope. The other two Purple Planet songs have too much going on for my liking. Surprisingly, given that it's a polar opposite, November is a close second option and I might still play with both options once I start editing 

So What?

None of the songs I was able to list perfectly captured the vibe I am going for with this intro. Bulletproofbear has a few options that were better fits than either Spellcraft or November, if my account gets approved I will dissect these options in a future blog post. I honestly believe I will probably be using Spellcraft, and I am pretty content with it. Next week I need to finish editing and work on my CCR.