CCR is here!!

After a long journey and hours of editing, I present to you.... My CCR!!!

Here's a link to the CCR:
https://www.wevideo.com/view/1656326850

FINAL FILM OPENING!!!

HEY GUYSS HERE WE HAVE THE FINAL FILM OPENING!!

 I just wanted to thank my partners, Isabelle Gambrill, and Maria Jauregui for creating this film opening with. Thank you for helping me through this tedious production process.

HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOY!!

Reflection

After completely finishing, the film opening, filming and editing it I have learned quite a few things. Before, we began the project and were just brainstorming we had in mind to film a scene to the film opening where Elena got hurt in one of her races. This was to be the conflict, but she would eventually recover in time for the race where the scouts were to attend. After further brainstorming and a meeting with our teacher, Mrs. Stoklosa, we thought it best to focus on the other parts of the film opening. The film opening we meant to serve as a way to develop her track career and establish her as a main character to the film. Then the last thing anyone would expect happened a global epidemic, COVID19. This causes a bit of change to our project as it was now harder to get together to film and school was closed. A scene that was originally in our plans was to film a clip of an in-person meeting Elena was to have with her coach, in which she was to mention the importance of the state race where the scouts were to be. Elena was to do good because this would grant her the ability to get the money for college, a scholarship. In the end, since schools closed we had to modify this scene. We decided for it to be a phone call with her coach where we made it very clear she was talking to her coach about the important race. I believe, in this process, I have learned a lot. Among those things is that anything can happen at any time and sometimes we need to adapt to change.

Final CCR research post

In this post, I will be discussing the third question:

How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

Through this process, I have learned quite a few things about film. Prior to this project, I had really not put together a film opening or anything close to that. I really learned how much work is put into films after finalizing this project.

Additionally, I realized how important every aspect is to a film, whether it be the location, shot type, and the music. Every single thing adds to the end product in some way. When filming I also noticed how having a variety of shots matters because if the film was the same shot the whole way through it would be boring for the audience. Furthermore, the lighting of each shot is very important.

Lastly, I understood the significance behind the target audience of a film. This is because it decides how well or poor the film will do.  Moreover, films that have a specific target audience tend to do better in the movie industry. Overall, I believe this was a learning experience that really taught me the value of hard work and dedication.

MORE CHANGES

Update: After we listened to the music we planned to have put in our film opening, we decided to go with a different sound. This is because we found our original choice didn't go as well with our plot/storyline as we anticipated it had before editing the opening.

The original choice was the TIK TOK (No Copyright Sound) Rap on Beat HamburgHood Records - (FREE MUSIC, Trap, Instrumental, Beat) one we found on YouTube.

As mentioned before, we thought the song didn't match up with the vibe we were going for as much of the film opening is her running. Instead, we decided to go with a song we found on Bensound under the motivational/sports column. We believe this matches up better with the pace of our film and the sportiness aspect of our film.

Here's the link:

https://www.bensound.com/index.php?route=product/search&search=punky&sort=relevance&order=DESC

 

Representation clips

Since, Elena is a Latin-America, specifically from Colombia we decided to make this very clear in the opening, We decided to include additional clips of her room. As of before, we had the clips of the medals in her room, the participant numbers, and the wake-up scene. But, we decided to incorporate more.

First, we decided to film a clip of some Colombian soccer shirts with Colombian hats that Elena has hung in her room. This helps to show not only her Colombian heritage but how she really is proud of her Latino origin.

We also decided to add a note in which her mom tells her she left early and wishes her a good day at school. This is also of course to emphasize her Colombian heritage. We decided to put the note on her headstand because we thought it was a place that made sense as she would see it when she woke up in the morning, it is a reasonable place. 

Another CCR post!!

Yes, I know I have made quite a lot of posts on the CCR. But, this is because I plan to do as much research as possible beforehand. This post will be about question number four:

how do you integrate technologies- software hardware and online- in this project? 

For the project, we decided to edit using the editing software system WeVideo. This was because it was the only we found that was free and multiple could edit at one time. Especially because of corona we couldn't meet up to edit so we did it through WeVideo. 

In addition, when adding the audio we found originally on YouTube and mentioned in an earlier blog post we encountered some problems. We found the sound was not downloading properly and therefore we had to find an audio converter to be able to insert the music and make sure it sounded good. This was especially helpful to us for the clip where Elena is talking to her coach about the upcoming race. 

We also play to distribute our film through Youtube. We found through our research that it was the best platform to upload the opening due to our budget, lack of contacts in the industry, and lack of experience. Youtube is free and basically, anything can be uploaded to the site as long as it is appropriate. This is perfect for us as we have no budget and are very inexperienced in the field. 

We also decided to distribute our film opening through the site called FilmHub. This is a good choice for many reasons. First, 80% of the profit goes to the owner, us and there are no additional fees. Also, it is free and we get to keep the rights to our film. In addition, it is good to use because the platform tells you when's the best time to release in order to gain the most profit. They have specialized analytics that does this for the creator. 

CCR script finally here!!

Here is the long-awaited CCR script:

Hi guys, my name is Sophia Blanco and today I’m gonna be speaking about a film opening, by the name of Running Out, my partners, Isabelle Gambrill, and Maria Jauregui and I have created.

Before deciding on our final idea, we decided to do some research about the genre we were leaning towards. My partners and I decided to do a sports drama mainly because we all play sports and can relate to the character we plan to develop. This genre combines both drama and sports film conventions. Our film challenges some of the conventions of sports drama because they are usually on a real person. They are commonly biographies of famous sports stars. The sports that they are mostly on are football, baseball, and boxing. For example, Rocky 2 is a sports film about boxing. In addition, most famous sports films star an older male lead. Instead, our film is on track, an uncommon sport in these types of films. We also star a female lead who is in her teens. Our film is not based on any person in particular and is completely fiction. But, like most sports films the opening of our film establishes the sport the film will be on. Also, they are usually focused on one person instead of a team and our main character is, of course, Elena. Drama films usually contain a character that can relate to the audience. These films also rely on conflict to make it more dramatic. Running out's conflict is a lack of funds she has to get into college. Of course, she relies on track to get a sports scholarship, but in the opening, it is not guaranteed she will do well at her meet. It is that sense of wanting to know what will happen next that we will get the audience interested in watching the rest of our film. In addition, one of the most obvious aspects of our film is Latin representation, as Elena is a Latin-American teenager. This was demonstrated through shots of a Colombian shirt she treasures and hangs up in her room. Another shot that will show this will be the note on the fridge in Spanish Elena's mom left for her. Her low class was also shown through the setting we plan to film at. In addition, the FAFSA form she has incomplete on her desk and the conversation with her coach as well. We chose to represent a group that is not highly represented, a low-class Hispanic. Furthermore, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California released a study on Monday that found that of the 100 top-grossing films each year from 2007 to 2018, only three percent featured Latino actors in lead or co-lead roles. According to the Independent newspaper based in the UK, Women represented only 36 percent of major characters in film in 2018 – a one percent decline from the 37 percent recorded in 2017. The representation of Latina actresses, however, decreased to four percent over the past year, three percentage points lower than the seven percent achieved in 2017. Although this true for most films, one film that inspired me to create this film was McFarland USA, which also is about track and represents the low-class, but has young male leads.

For our film, we chose our target audience ranging from teens to young adults (14-25). We included this range to get the best out of the young population or the highest amount of people we thought would be interested in our film. Our film stars a senior in high school who struggles to find the funds to go to college. But, being a track star this serves her to her benefit as this is what potentially could help get in and get scholarship money. This is how we look to engage with our target audience, through relatability. This is because people within this age range are people in school and a major part plays sports, therefore, they might find themselves in a similar position. It is said that people watch films they can see themselves in or a character that in some way represents them. Since our audience is one that is very up-to-date with technology and all over social media. They are considered the tech-savvy generation. Therefore, we believe the best way to distribute our film opening will be online. The main platform we will be using is youtube, here our audience will be able to find the entire film opening. We also decided to distribute our film opening through the site called FilmHub. This is a good choice for many reasons. First, 80% of the profit goes to the owner, us and there are no additional fees. Also, it is free and we get to keep the rights to our film. In addition, it is good to use because the platform tells you when's the best time to release in order to gain the most profit. They have specialized analytics that does this for the creator.

Through this process, I have learned quite a few things about film. Prior to this project, I had really not put together a film opening or anything close to that. I really learned how much work is put into films after finalizing this project. Additionally, I realized how important every aspect is to a film, whether it be the location, shot type, or the music. Every single thing adds to the end product in some way. When filming I also noticed how having a variety of shots matters because if the film was the same shot the whole way through it would be boring for the audience. Furthermore, the lighting of each shot is very important. Lastly, I understood the significance behind the target audience of a film. This is because it decides how well or poor the film will do. Moreover, films that have a specific target audience tend to do better in the movie industry. I wanted to include how we came up with our name. Overall, I believe this was a learning experience that really taught me the value of hard work and dedication.

For the project, we decided to edit using the editing software system WeVideo. This was because it was the only we found that was free and multiple could edit at one. In addition, when adding the audio we found originally on YouTube we encountered some problems. We found the sound was not downloading properly and therefore we had to find an audio converter to be able to insert the music and make sure it sounded good. This was especially helpful to us for the clip where Elena is talking to her coach about the upcoming race. We also plan to distribute our film through Youtube. We found through our research that it was the best platform to upload the opening due to our budget, lack of contacts in the industry, and lack of experience. Youtube is free and basically, anything can be uploaded to the site as long as it is appropriate. This is perfect for us as we have no budget and are very inexperienced in the field. We also decided to distribute our film opening through the site called FilmHub. It is a quick and easy way to distribute a film opening for us because we are not very experienced, but it is also free which is a plus. We also used the website storyboard that to make a rough draft of the scenes we wished to include. One of my personal favorites was using blogger because it was just a really fun experience. Now looking back on my blog I can really see all the work that my partners and I put into this now-completed project. I just want to say thanks to my partners and my teacher, Mrs. Stoklosa for really helping me get through this tedious and long process. Lastly, thank you Cambridge for allowing me the opportunity to create this project that I have really had so much fun with and thank you for watching my ccr bye now!

    

    

Explaining filming and shots

Here are some screenshots of what I've been editing so far. I still have a lot to do, but luckily we are editing the footage. The first thing I did was pick the best looking shots out of the bunch, therefore we start off with shots we are most pleased with. Of course, on our filming days, we overshot to have variety and just have different ones to choose from.

Sometimes we had to redo the shots because at the time of filming the sun was out and shining so the camera did not have the usual sharp quality. In this shot, Elena is running, already tired and she is running in her neighborhood, being of low-class we decided to shoot in a trailer park. The first clips are of her afternoon run.

It was close to sunset and the next clip was during the sunset. She usually takes 30-40 minute runs and this is why we decided to show slightly different lighting in the clips. In the clips, being a track star, Elena runs with workout clothes and has her water to stay hydrated in the sun. 

The next clips took us quite a few tries not gonna lie this is because Isa had to learn the script right then and there for the phone call. This was probably the hardest one to shoot because it was the one where there were actual lines to recite. 

The location we shot we chose to make look the most basic we could to reinforce her class. Of course, we would not want to film in a neighborhood that would make her look rich. The running clips also change location to indicate the passage of time as she has been running at least half an hour. 

The first ones are of her at the beginning of her run therefore, she is shown as dry. In the last clips, she is shown sweaty and wet as this also indicates the passage of time. This also shows the reality of track, when you run a long time your body sweats. 

In addition, we decided to include the caution tape in the video because this reinforces she is probably not in the safest of neighborhoods. This is because her mom is a single mom and doesn't make the most of money. Therefore, they live in a trailer park, which is all her mom can afford. 

CCR Research

In this blog post, I will be conducting research on the second question:
how does your product engage with the audience and how would it be distributed media text? 

For our film, we chose our target audience ranging from teens to young adults (14-25). We included this range to get the best out of the young population or the highest amount of people we thought would be interested in our film. Our film stars a senior in high school who struggles to find the funds to go to college. But, being a track star this serves her to her benefit as this is what potentially could help get in and get scholarship money.  This is how we look to engage with our target audience, through relatability. This is because people within this age range are people in school and a major part plays sports, therefore, they might find themselves in a similar position. It is said that people watch films they can see themselves in or a character that in some way represents them.

Since our audience is one that is very up-to-date with technology and all over social media. They are considered the tech-savvy generation. Therefore, we believe the best way to distribute our film/film opening will be online. The main platform we will be using is youtube, here our audience will be able to find the entire film opening.

The reason behind these choices is because the main way our TA accesses technology is through their phones. These apps are also mostly used on cellular devices. Therefore, they are more likely to view our film openings as they are already on these apps. We also decided to distribute our film opening through the site called FilmHub. It is a quick and easy way to distribute a film opening for us because we are not very experienced, but it is also free which is a plus.