Below are all the final links to my film opening and CCRs.
Film Opening: Cadence
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WqIZu7cnNcr1J7FlpdJ-ia9DIFh6_MlZ/view?usp=sharing
CCR (Director Commentary Slideshow & Interview Reflection): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1maBX-psbpjmQsd_ITJTJTSWJWjRLwI2_/view?usp=sharing
Creating Cadence has allowed me to explore on how ambition and mental health contrast with athletes. Since sports narratives; especially running, focus on triumph, my opening challenges that by introducing ambition as mentally draining.
QUESTION 1 - REPRESENTATION AND CONVENTIONS
Throughout my researching process, I identified some genre conventions:
- Low key lighting
- Slow pacing
- Diegetic sound
- close ups that convey emotional intensity
While sports narratives often conclude and prioritize winning, I changed this expecatation. Instead of celebrating an achievement, I shown Leo's ambition as destructive to that.
The most important factor in this was representation. Leo is the main character and he is percieved as a young male athlete who experiences the struggle of emotional vulnerability. This concept has challenged stereotypes of masculinity that silences the toil of mental health. By demonstrating the garage breakdown, I prioritized mental health as the essential issue rather than the physical endurance in the running scenes.
QUESTION 2 - AUDIENCE AND DISTRIBUTION
I concluded that my target audience ranges from ages 15-21, who is interested in psychological, character driven themes. Throughout my research process, I found that this type of audience values realism and emotional depth.
Techniques that were used to immerse my audience were:
- enigma codes
- cross cutting to increate suspense and tension
- intimate close ups
- diegetic sound thats rough and emotional
As an beginner filmmaker, distribution methods that seem realsitic to me are:
- Youtube
- Vimeo
- Film festivals hosted by students
These platforms align with my status and are super accessible with independent film distributors.
QUESTION 3 - DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY
At the beginning of my journey, my knowledge about cinematography was limited and basic. Through many hours researching, planning, and storyboarding; I refined my shot composition and lighting.
My sound project I did previously has significantly advanced my understanding and ability to layer diegetic sound which was my weakness. By comparing early drafts to my final draft this will demonstrate clear improvement in my framing, pacing, and emotional construction.
QUESTION 4 - INTEGRATION OF TECHNOLOGY
I used :
- Phone camera
- Tripod for stable framing
- Clipchamp for my editing
- Blogger for documentation
- Canva for graphics
Technology was a huge help and shaped the meaning. Cross cutting, brightness levels, and layering of the audio layering were essential in constructing tension mentally.
Overall, this whole project strengthened my technical, creativity, and analytical skills. I began this idea of simply being about running and developed it into a immersive psychological narrative.
The editing of my CCRs was a major factor in ensuring that my reflections were engaging and not a boring informational video. The app I edited on was Clipchamp that helped me to layer my visuals, transitions, and text in a way that also matched my intensity of Cadence.
In my Director Commentary Slideshow, I:
- Layered voiceover of my visual clips
- Inserted screenshots pulled from my research of relevant moments
- Used smooth fades ins/outs to maintain pacing
- Added overlays of texts when I defined vocab terms
For example, when I was discussing cross cutting, I placed the running sequence and garage breakdown side by side to demonstrate how the tension in these scenes were constructed.
When I was discussing diegetic sound, I had inserted audio clips of Leo's heavy breathing and foley shoe impacts to illustrate the realism.
VISUAL ENGAGEMENT
To avoid a dull format, I made sure:
- My graphics were big enough to be read and simple
- Text remained on the screen long enough to be read and understood
- Clips were trimmed to highlight specific techniques
- Techniques matched tone and theme of film
example:
In the Interview Reflection, I utilized jump cuts to maintain the pace in an intentional way. Also, added subtle, simple background music to prevent the silence and maintain professionalism.
TECHNICAL ADJUSTMENTS
During editing, I had corrected:
- Brightness inconsistencies
- Audio imbalances between the background noise and voiceover
- Clip timing to avoid the explanations being rushed into
heres my lighting for my garage scenes:
This process has improved my knowledge of how editing shapes the whole meaning behind my film. I came to a realization that pacing in a reflection is just as important as pacing in a film opening.
Post production made my CCRS from an informational video to a polished digital media products that expressed my analysis creatively.
heres my editing process so far on my questions 1 and 2 ccr:
For my Creative Critical Reflections, I showed you that I created two digital media products instead of just producing a talking head reflection. I wanted my reflections to show my technical skill, personality, creativity, and my knowledge about media terminolgy while responding thoroughly to all of the four compulsory questions. My main goal in creating this was the make sure the CCRs maintained the intentionality and meaning as my film opening Cadence.
PLANNING
From the start I always knew I wanted my ideas to mirror the theme and tone of my film. While Cadence focuses more on mental intensity and emotional pain, I formatted my CCRs in structures that would feel more cinematic rather than being boring and casual.
I chose:
- Director Commentary Slideshow for Questions 1 and 2
- Structured Interview Reflection for Questions 3 and 4
I wrote the full script way before recording to avoid general responses that the rubric did not want. This script guided me to incorporate certain media terms such as:
- mise en scene
- cross cutting
- diegetic sound
- enigma codes
- representation
Production of Director Commentary
For this reflection, I recorded a voice over layered over:
- clips from cadence
- screenshots from certain blogs
- genre analysis notes
- definitions of genre conventions
genre analysis notes that i incorporated:
I structured this slideshow to match and mirror with the pacing of my film visually which is, slow transitions, clear shot choices, and clear text.
When I discusses genre conventions, I referenced my research from:
- The Fault in Our Stars
- A Star is Born
- Se7en
These films influenced my idea to utilize close ups, psychological interactions, and emotional realism. When I had mentioned a technique I made sure that the clip that was playing, visually supported my analysis.
Production of Interview Reflection
For my second idea, I had filmed a structured interview, which means I had the questions pre-planned, where I acted as the director and my family member acted as the interviewer. This format has allowed me to express my personality while still having an academic depth to it.
To avoid a still, boring presentation, I incorporated:
- Cutaways to early drafts
- Behind the scenes footage
- Screen recording of my editing on Clipchamp
example of my behind the scenes and other clips i didn't end up putting in:
This evidence has improved my explanation of how my prodcution skills has advanced overtime, shown visually.
Overall, during the production of my reflections, I focused on:
- Clear audio
- Responses from script
- Stable framing of video
- Editing
- Proof of my claims
All of this has ensured that my reflection turned out to be analytical, creative, and strong.
heres me planning my script:
For my Creative Critical Reflection, I plan on just doing two digital media reflection to demonstrate my technical and creative skills. I looked over the rubric and it emphasizes creativity, engagement, and inetgration of research, leading to wanting my CCR to feel analytical and visually immersive rather than static.
#1 - DIRECTOR COMMENTARY STYLE VIDEO ESSAY
My first format will be a director commentary style video essay. I wouldn't want to limit my creativity so I will record a structured voice over and layer it over visuals I'll be showing of my production process rather than filming myself speaking.
The video will be divided into two questions.
Each section will include:
- Clips from Cadence to communicate textual evidence and shows my work
- Screenshots of films I researched
- Screenshots of my blog posts
- Graphics of images that define media terms
- Subtle background music to maintain engagement.
For Question 1, I'll be explaining how the opening follows and challenges genre conventions. When I research the Fault in Our Stars, a Star is Born, and Se7en, I carefully analyzed factors such as close ups, low-key lighting, diegetic sound, and pacing. Since I incorporated these elements in my opening, Cadence, it challenges the narratives about sports by introducing the theme ambition as mentally destructive rather than successful. I'll be focusing on scenes like the garage breakdown, to talk more about the mise-en-scene, cross cutting, and the sound. Also, I'll highlight back on the representation, especially about how a young athlete is portrayed through emotional vulnerability, putting mental health as the main narrative here.
For Question 2, I'll discuss how I figured out my target audience which is ,ages 15-21 thats interested in character-driven films, through research. I'll also be analyzing how long shots, close ups, pacing, representation engage the audience. Through demonstrating marketing strategies, I'll be discussing distribution methods like Youtube, Vimeo and student film festivals.
#2 - INTERVIEW REFLECTION
For my second reflection, it's going to be a structured interview where I act as the director. This can show my personality while also maintaining analytical depth. It will include certain cutaways to footage of my film, screen recordings, and early drafts to visually show my developement on this project.
For Question 3, I'll reflect back on how I evolved significantly from my first week of planning to the final edit. I will speak of how research and the storyboard I made defined my knowledge and understanding of shots, lighting, sound, and editing. I'll be comparing early footage to my actual final video to show that I improved my editing and cinematography. Also, I'll reference on my projects I did in this class before and how it improved my skill to overlay diegetic sound.
For Question 4, I'll be stating on how I incorporated different types of technology softwares into my production. First, hardware examples such as my phone camera and tripod to support framing; second, software that includes ClipChamp, Blogger, and Canva that guided my cross cutting, overlayering on audio, and graphic designs. I'll talk about how these technology tools influenced the meaning instead of just saying how it helped the production.
Overall, my CCR will be using two creative reflections to respond throughly to all of the four questions while showing research, text evidence, and media terminology to demonstrate how meaning was developed throughout my journey of producing this.
In order to prepare for the question #4, I started to examine how technology shaped my process creatively from planning to post production.
I used:
Hardware:
- Iphone Camera
- Tripod
- Natural and garage lighting
Software:
- Clipchamp to edit
- Blogger.com for documentation
- Canva for the graphics
I researched independent filmmaking and found out that strong shots/composition and editing typically matter way more than high end eqipment. This inspired my focus on the type of framing, lighting, and careful shot selection.
Clipchamp guided me to convey meaning through:
- Cross cutting between the past (running scenes) and present (garage breakdown) timelines
- Adding text overlays (ex. MILE 6)
- Layering breathing over music
- Controlling the pacing in garage scenes
Technology also helped me solve problems. For instance, adjusting the brightness levels corrected under exposed shots , while editing the audio prevented clipping and distortion of sound. I learned that post production tools is transformative - it mainly shapes tones, rhythm, and the audience interpretaion.
My prepartaion makes sure that my CCR response will show and clearly demonstrate a understanding of how both hardware and software influenced the outcome of my opening.
How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
For question #3 I am choosing to incorporate a creative format intentionally. I'm striving to present this question with question #4 as a interview reflection, where I respond as the producer and director of the project. I'm sure that this choice allows me to show my personality while still being structure and organized.
To begin this reflection, I'll be explaining my planning stage. At the start of my project my ideas were way less specific and more ideal. After researching different genre conventions and carefully analyzing thriller title sequences I began to focus and learn more about mise-en-scene, shot composition, and pacing. By creating my storyboard and script, it helped me visualize how meaning would be conveyed throughout framing instead of a lack of dialouge.
While producing my opening, I had faced challenges with lighting that was inconsistent and shot variation. Some scenes had relied more heavily on medium shots, which made these shots look similar and visually flat. After reviewing my footage, I realized that I needed more strong visual contrast, so I incorporated more close ups to highlight the emotion and long shots to reinforce isolation. By adjusting this I demonstrated how my understanding of the cinematography was developed throughout the filming process.
This project made me improve my editing skills significantly compared to the start of the school year. My sound project I did previously helped me understand how to layer sounds, which made me already know how to do that when balancing diegetic sound with subtle background atmosphere. Also, I became to be more confident to use pacing conveying tension through cutting techniques.
Toward the end, I noticed a shift in how I approach filming. I shifted from simply just filming scenes to carefully, constructing meaning through media language. My growth would be demonstrated visually in mmy CCR by including early drafts compared to my final product, showing my journey.
