Dec 18: YOU CAN'T STOP IT IT'S TOO LATE

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

The chosen pitches were announced today. Sadly, mine was not one of the chosen scripts- probably because I didn't keep it realistic enough and didn't sell the plot convincingly enough.

I was put into a group with Hannah, Dom, and Tony. Tony was our director, and together as a group we looked over his script. 

Also together as a group, we unanimously agreed that we had to tone down his script as- looking at it realistically- it was extremely hard for us four students to accommodate for his settings and characters. Taking into account realism, we decided that a rewriting or at least a few revisions were in order. 
  • Changing the main antagonist from a Middle Eastern terrorist bomber named Muhammad Khalif to something more racially sensitive.
  • Cutting down on the number of stock characters that require details we can't provide (i.e., multiple stock FBI agents with weapons and full gear)
  • Changing or even fully removing settings that we can't provide for, i.e., an arms factory in Massachusetts. 
  • And changing from a newscast (which we felt we wouldn't have time to provide for and create in a professional, legitimate-looking manner with quality greenscreening and backdrops) to a radio. 

IB LEARNER PROFILE

Today I had to be communicative with my group, and all of us had to be open minded, especially our director. Although we made a lot of changes, he stayed open minded to our ideas and agreed that we could as a group work together to make the film work. 

Dec 13: it's happening

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

Today's class's focal point: everybody's pitches.

I think I over prepared, being the only one who did not go up with nothing but a script. Technical difficulties got in the way of the presentation, which I feel really took away from the whole thing. 

I also think, after watching a few of my peers' presentations that I did not talk enough about themes and my plot, focusing more on details like setting and character. 

That was a mistake. 

IB LEARNER PROFILE

Had to be reflective today, as while listening to people's pitches I realized the mistakes I made in preparing my own pitch, and added changes consequently. This requires looking back and comparing my potential performance to theirs, seeing how well they sold the story as opposed to how well they would sell the film. 

Dec 11: oh god

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

With the script done at 11 pages, I finally started the storyboard. I know that this is very late, but the script had to undertake rewritings and revisions many times. 

It can be read here

The storyboard was lots of fun, and I took some time to make each panel clear in stage directions and even expressive of what emotions actors have. 

Fascinating.

We were also briefed briefly on how to pitch our films. I asked if we could make a presentation. I did a little research into how to pitch, too, but a lot of my results said that seeming over prepared was overkill, underprepared unprofessional. I think I will stick to making a presentation as some details are hard for me to explain with the spoken word, most particularly how the portals are supposed to work. 

IB LEARNER PROFILE

Today I was an inquirer, not only asking questions but also investigating pitching further. 

Dec 9: A list of people who have been shot

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

Today, the class did individual practices of two film exercises. The task was to create a shot list and overhead diagrams for a section of an episode of The Twilight Zone. This is particularly helpful as a lot of students, myself included, were confused by some of the requirements in the Crit. A rubric. I had had previous experience in making a storyboard before, and I know how to write a script, but I'm only vaguely familiar with what a shot list does (beyond the use of noting good or bad takes during a shoot) and I have no idea what a overhead diagram is. 

I chose the episode that I did our previous analysis exercise on, "The Masks". I used the opening sequence of the episode. 

Before I actually got to do the exercise, though, we were given a helpful packet of information regarding various camera angles, the different scales of shots, different types of camera movement, and overhead diagrams. Once I was finished reading the packet, I started on the shot list as I had more of an idea as to what to do. Conveniently, I found that a shot list requires information about each shot, most notably angles, scales and movement, just as explored in the packet. 

Despite this information already provided, I still found it quite difficult to complete and although I only recorded five shots, it took up the remainder of class. Recording every action and actor movement, every single bit of information- even the duration of the shot- was a practice so thorough I was simply not used to it. 

IB LEARNER PROFILE

As a thinker, today I had to read and understand the packet and use the information that I learned from it in practice. The subject matter was, as I said, something I was not fully accustomed to, but it's a necessary exercise in preparation for the Criteria A assignment. 

Dec 4: Crit. A: Game start

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

We were briefed on our Criteria A assignment and with Ms. Wong, unpacked the criteria. Essentially, the task is to create a full pre-production portfolio, inclusive of a script, a storyboard, a shot list and a series of overhead diagrams. 

When we were introduced to the theme of The Twilight Zone, and the more specific idea of portals, I got an idea for what I wanted to do pretty much straight away. However, when I began writing the script (and pulling up a bit of research what the plot would center around) I found that there was quite some difficulty in trying to 'keep it real'. This was because the way I pictured the film in my mind would realistically be very hard for a no-budget student production to carry out, regarding both setting and character props. 

IB LEARNER PROFILE

I had to be pretty reflective during this class because I had to reconsider my work by reflecting on it throughout the process, while I was writing. This is better than reflecting on potential mistakes after the script has been completed, as being able to weed out problems i.e., setting and props as well as actor safety as my script uses portals simply by falling down a lot and actors could get hurt; Safety is a concern that needs to be taken care of, if my pitch gets chosen. 

The Twilight Zone: Notes (Nov. 29)

WHAT IS IT?
popular 1950s tv show by rod serling

each episode is a mixture of self contained fantasy, science fiction, suspense or horror
often concludes with a macabre or unexpected twist
introduced many americans to serious scifi and abstract ideas through tv

Review: The Twilight Zone episode "The Masks" (Dec. 3)

SUMMARY

During Mardi Gras, a dying old man (Foster?) has his family come over for his last hours. Instead of what the family expected (discussion about his will and how much goes to them), Foster insists on making his family wear masks, specially chosen for each of the family members by Foster as his final "request" before he gives them the entirety of his ownings. After hours of what the family feels to be unbearable in their masks, midnight strikes and they take off their masks (as Foster dies) and realize that their faces are the images of their respective masks. 

THEMES

Obviously, there's a huge overarching theme of greed here- the entire reason that the family is there and the plot is existent is because the family wants to have Foster's will in the first place, waiting for him to die. They are promised this, but with the masks acting as a final act of revenge on Foster's part against his greedy family, he manages to toy with their moralities by the end, even from beyond the grave. 

Regarding my own notes about themes for Twilight Zone, I think it really falls into "good versus evil" here, although there's no defined "good" because in a way, Foster is "evil" as well.

SYMBOLISM OF THE MASK

Foster uses it to reveal the family's true selves. A pivotal point at the end that is the real shock twist and the macabre-ness of it all, even before the masks are taken off.

RELEVANT HISTORICAL/SOCIAL/CULTURAL FACTORS THIS MAY BE COMMENTING ON

It's a personal belief of mine that The Masks was commenting on social factors- the way people in general would act. It was a very clear and obvious moral that people are not always what they are on the inside- the masks only work as an opening to show the hyperbole of their personalities, referred to as "caricatures".

However, after doing some research into what exactly happened in 1964, I've been lead to believe that there's a possible link to to the "War on Poverty Campaign" declared by President Lyndon Johnson, explaining the ridiculous greed displayed by Foster's kids and grandchildren.

i cannot into pul[p fiction (nov 21, 25, 27)


ORDERING PULP FICTION CHRONOLOGICALLY

1. Scene 2: Hitmen Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield (under employment of Marsellus Wallace) shoot up Brett and co. They take the briefcase that Wallace wanted them to pick up that Brett allegedly stole. 

2. Scene 8 (The Bonnie Situation OVERLAP): Technically this is the same scene as the chronological first, but from a different perspective and far extended. 

This scene starts with a guy standing outside the door and hearing what happens. After the bible speech, and Brett + co. are killed ('cept for Marvin), he smashes through the bathroom door and tries to shoot Vincent and Jules. Every bullet misses them cleanly, and they kill the guy. They take Marvin, who was their informant (for Marsellus) and during the ride back and a discussion about miracles where it's revealed Jules is thinking about resigning as a hitman. When Vincent asks Marvin what he thinks about miracles, he accidentally kills him and blows his brains out all over the car. In fear of the cops or other complications, Jules goes to the friend who owes him a favor (Jimmy) who insists that they sort it out before his wife gets back from her job. Jules calls Wallace and it's stated that a "Mr. Wolf" comes to sort things out. He does, and they get the car cleaned up and the body taken care of. They go to breakfast at a diner.

2.5. Scene 1/Prologue OVERLAP: A small-time criminal Brit couple are discussing heist locations, then decide that a restaurant would be a good idea to stick up because they would be able to take the customers' wallets.

3. CONTINUATION OF 2., Scene 8: Once they arrive at the diner, they continue their discussion about miracles and Vincent goes to the bathroom. 

The stickup by the Brit couple begins. Jules and the guy in the couple, dubbed Ringo, have a face to face when Ringo notices the briefcase. After revealing what is in the briefcase (?) Jules turns the tables around and gets his wallet back, but gives the money to Ringo, to "pay [for] his life". There's more religious stuff, Vincent comes back and tenses things up a little bit but everything is sorted out and both the couple and the hitmen leave the restaurant. 

4. Scene 3 (Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife): Marsellus is speaking to Butch and paying him to lose or win his fights because he's betting on Butch, I guess?

Vincent and Jules enter the room. Meeting for the first time, neither Vincent nor Butch like each other. It is here that Marsellus hugs Vincent and asks him to take his wife Mia out to enjoy herself because he's leaving town for a few days. 

5. Scene 4: The next day, Vincent is picking up high quality heroin from his dealer Lance. He tries it out, and it's clear that it's the hard stuff. He drives back to get Mia (who does like, a heckton of cocaine), and together they go to a 50s/60s-ish themed restaurant. They dance until it gets late, then they go back to the Wallace's house. When Vincent goes to the bathroom to talk himself out of hitting on Mia, she finds the bag of heroin and snorts it, thinking it's coke (???). She passes out and Vincent comes back finding her in a bad state, taking her to Lance's house. They wake her up with an adrenaline injection and Vincent takes her back home again. They part on peaceful terms, both agreeing not to tell Marsellus. 

6. Scene 7: Butch dreams of his childhood where he as a child was given his dead father's watch. 

7. Scene 8: He wakes up, and it's time for his match. Although it is not shown, it is revealed (with masterful editing/directing!) in the same scene in his taxi drive back to his motel that he killed the man he was fighting instead of whatever Marsellus wanted him to do. His driver, Esmerelda, seems to be intricately fascinated with his opponent's death. 

Arriving back at the motel, he greets his girlfriend and they agree to take their money from winning the boxing matches and leave [the country???] in the morning. The next morning, Butch wakes up to the sound of a war/action movie on the TV (possibly referring to his father and the trauma Butch had to go through as a kid) and they prepare to pack until he realizes that the watch from his father is gone. After tearing up the apartment, Butch attempts to calm down and takes his girlfriend's car to his old apartment. Because of the fight, the entire time he is on edge and making sure that there is nobody (i.e., Marsellus's guys or Marsellus himself). He enters without problem and finds his watch, but lingers for a moment too long and realizes there is indeed someone else in the house with him when he sees a machine gun on a counter. 

It is revealed that that someone is Vincent, and Butch kills him (catching Vincent before he can react coming out of the bathroom). 

He leaves and thinks that it is over, driving away, but as he stops for a traffic light Marsellus turns and sees him in the road crossing before him. In a moment of recognition, before Marsellus can do anything, Butch hits him and swerves into a light post. Both pass out and wake up almost at the same time. A chase occurs, and both make their way to a audio? weapon? something? shop. Butch is about to kill Marsellus, but is stopped by the shop owner. 

Both are knocked out and wake up bound and gagged in the shop owner's basement, who implies that a "cop" named Zed is coming.

Zed arrives and the captives take out a leather slave/gimp guy to keep watch over Butch, while Marsellus is taken to be raped. Butch manages to get out of his bindings and knocks out the slave guy. He is about to escape when he hears Marsellus suffering and decides to turn back, taking a samurai sword with him. 

Arriving in the basement, he manages to sneak up on the store owner who is watching the rape and kill him. He manages to stall the rapist for long enough that Marsellus shoots him in the crotch with a shotgun, rendering Zed unfit to do much more than roll around on the ground. It is during this scene that Marsellus and Butch agree that "[they're] cool", and presumably, the boxing scandal is not brought up again. 

Butch leaves and picks up his girlfriend. On Zed's motorcycle. And they go. 

NOTES (and thoughts- do not read, half of it doesn't make sense it's just for my reference)

Nov. 6: you only get funny titles if there was something funny about the day

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

While Darren and Amarik went through the footage we captured on Monday afternoon/night, and I exported the ADR we got yesterday afternoon sending it their way as well, Joseph and I went through possible options for soundtrack and music for our film. Unfortunately, we had to find an alternative to our original wanted soundtrack from the video game L.A. Noire, because it was copyrighted. Luckily, I know of a very good royalty free music creator and composer, Kevin Macleod, who has hundreds of free-to-use songs on his website Incompetech. On there, Joseph and I sifted through dozens of pages of songs, in the Noir collection as well as anything that is tagged "unsettling". We found and managed to compile a list of songs that would be able to aid us in our own scenes and is below.

IB LEARNER PROFILE

We had to be tireless in our search and picky with what song would fit what scene. I think that meant we had to be principled and reflective on what we were doing to get the ideal soundtracks for each scene, and keeping that discipline was tough (it got boring fast). 

LIST

i knew a guy- car scene
comfortable mystery 4 for monologues (and maybe 3)
night on the docks (trumpet or sax)- ????? it's very sad and slow; reflection type music
oppressive gloom- rooftop
thunder dreams- the fadey chords for the parts
wounded- final scene into credits for sure
impromptu in blue

Nov 3rd

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

After agreeing on a plan for how and what scenes we would shoot after school, everybody gathered around to finish the assembly edit (which it seems the editor and director were fine tuning/rough cutting at the same time) while we considered trying out ADR equipment. I know for sure that we'll need a pop filter, but hopefully we won't have to borrow any equipment from the film lab (we haven't had time to fill out the form) because Joseph has a microphone of decent quality of his own. We messed around a little with recording and playing back to see how we're going to set up ADR tomorrow afternoon as well. 

IB LEARNER PROFILE

Possibly open mindedness, since we need to keep an open mind for new ideas and possible solutions that might be better than the one we choose to go with. This is especially true for our ADR-ing, I think, and probably our shooting later today. 

Oct. 17th: Editors, Assemble

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

We went through the good clips and noted down which ones we needed to replace the dialogue of. This is concerning as we're doing this so late but it seems like we don't have a choice. Darren and Amarik continued to edit as well. It was strange because we did have good results, but like I said last time there were also bad scenes. Some of the good scenes that we shot were the car scenes (possibly the best shot in our whole collection of footage thus far) and the bar scene looked pretty good, only requiring an entire ADR overhaul. Treading the line was the rooftop scene, where we really felt the brunt of the wind problems during the shoot. And far away in the dankest corners of our all-nighter shoot was the seduction scene shot when the sun was coming up and we were exhausted, without any use of lighting beyond the actual lights on set. Needless to say this means we do need a reshoot ASAP, but as I've mentioned Project Week is tomorrow, and mid term break right after (both Darren and I are out of town), forcing us to rendezvous and film on our first day back at school.

IB LEARNER PROFILE

Today's lesson required us to be careful planners and yet at the same time taking measured risks- a combination of risk taking and being well balanced. We need to be able to test our limits as a fimmaking team, while keeping our goals realistic. It's going to be extremely difficult work for everyone, but hopefully the risk that we're taking pays off with a good end product. 

Oct 15th: aaaaaaAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?!

Over the weekend we had a wonderful opportunity to film and finish filming, and we managed to get through all our footage together.

It was one part good, and two parts "never let these clips see the light of day" and our director insisted on a reshoot. When this will happen nobody is sure (Project Week and Midterm are in the way) but simply put it's going to have to happen since as DP I really have to agree. To be fair, the quality of work did start understandably going down as we started going through the clips taken from 3AM shooting, and got progressively worse, but it was an agreement that a reshoot was in order. We started assembling a few of our clips, too, but Darren is probably going to get the brunt of the work in his own time.

IB LEARNER PROFILE

Being reflective helped in this situation, especially finding inventive ways to get over the problems during our actual shoot. Some of them included me not being able to access the script (and thus appropriately storyboard and account for during the shoot) and my parents having to take us and our equipment around town. Mostly in the very early hours of the day, which was pretty awful for everyone. I guess ultimately these problems did help us realize how difficult shooting a film (especially crammed so tightly into a time frame) is, production preparation or no. 

Oct. 10th: since when did I become the producer this is an alarming turn of events

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

Today was a busy day for me because I had to act as my group's producer. I set up all the locations for my scenes and organized a time and place with my parents and organized the entire shoot that we're planning in one night. I sent an email to the owner of the bar (I scouted for bars and other locations like parking lots and building roofs last night and managed to obtain a few business cards) detailing the shots that we were going to do.
http://puu.sh/59Qim.png
However, it wasn't a 100% guarantee that we would get it so I was sure to alert one other bar and to bear in mind the contact details of another. All of this took a surprisingly lengthy amount of time, although reflecting on it now I guess it makes sense as we want to get our entire film shot in one night + the morning, so it's going to need shipshape production. I created a template for our shotlist too, as we're shooting on sets in order of priority as opposed to chronological order.

IB LEARNER PROFILE

Communication plays a big role in production, I guess. I had to talk to (and probably negotiate afterwards) owners of the locations we didn't have permission for, set up shooting and such (being the DP as well). It is a bit tedious but a necessary role somebody needs to play. 

Oct. 8: storyboarding yay

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

While the other guys in my group made progress on the script, I storyboarded what was there so far of it. That is, the intro sequence that had been written during the last class.

It was pretty difficult, though, and even employing the stuff I knew from all the previous experiences with storyboarding I found it tricky to imagine past maybe 20 different shots.


IB LEARNER PROFILE

Having to be knowledgeable like the last time I storyboarded was important, obviously. Previous experiences helped me think of the most appropriate shot angles and such. 

Oct. 4th- skills make kills in the editing room later

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

While Amarik was still developing the script, the rest of us tried to improve our knowledge and understanding of our specific roles. Mine, being cinematography, involved quite a bit of research on a lot of lighting effects. This was because after watching a few film noir movies and a lot of clips, I've discovered that the shadows in many scenes are cast with very hard edges, no matter what the atmosphere is there are always hard lights and shadow. It's a fair assumption to make that these shadows come from harsh lighting. That is, with a proper set of lights (usually 3-point, I gather). Even if we weren't going to use a lot of lighting before (we were) this was the final push. I also took a few small notes about the sound and soundtrack.

IB LEARNER PROFILE

Today's lesson, since it was mostly a standalone for each of us to work on our own roles, was all about inquiry. Not just in the sense of asking questions about my topic but investigating and researching more, that's what inquiry is about I think. It's an important trait for research, taking in walls of text from Wikipedia isn't the only way to go.

NOTES

-dramatic moments have dramatic slow zooms to accompany them with harsh, harder light
-shadows cast are actually sharply outlined
-even when the scene is calm and 'relaxing' there are softer lights but COUPLED WITH HARD LIGHTS
-sOUNDTRACK NOTE: tangerine, used in the 1940s and 50s for film noir- popular choice- used in double indemnity and sorry, wrong number (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgavV9phYgM ?? LOOK AT SUGGESTIONS FOR MORE N VIDEO)
-LA noire???
-Royalty free music: Kevin Macleod?????

2nd oct

And thus began the horror filled maelstrom of criteria B. 

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

Since we were briefed on what was going to go down in terms of graded assignments it was time to actually start doing them and the class was split into their groups for the biggest assignment of the unit- our Criteria B product, a 7 (approx.) minute film noir. 

The people in my group, Darren, Amarik and Joseph, and I started brainstorming the plot of our film. I feel like we probably should have been focusing on our individual roles, but we were still mixing around our roles today anyway (even now, I'm still not entirely clear cut on whether I'm DP or sound and hopefully this gets cleared up soon, but that aside) so it was probably good to get some headway on the script. 

IB LEARNER PROFILE

Being open minded today to each other helped a lot. There would have been no way that we could have made any progress without being able to listen to each other's ideas and taking that and adding onto it. Communication was also important here, obviously, going hand in hand today with open minded-ness. 

Sep. 27

Reflecting on the notes (just in case whoever sees the metric ton of notes and skips past this)

The thematic notes I've taken here today are extremely helpful to bear in mind as we were briefed on our two big assessments today- Criteria A and B, but specifically for criteria B. I really hope that I get to be the director for this project, because I've never gotten a chance to direct during all my years taking the MYP film course. It's a pity, because I feel like it's a job I would enjoy. I have some ideas especially for this film noir course, but I'd be fine if someone else took charge. Also, I hope my group doesn't make me play the femme fatale- I know that acting like that kind of character isn't my strong point.

For our Crit. A piece of writing, though, if I decide to document the history and evolution of film these notes contain great points about why people turned to film noir in their creative age as well as inspiration and examples to back those up. 



WHAT IS FILM NOIR?
• French for black film
• Genre that peaked in the 1944-1955 period

Sep. 18

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

My group split up into two sets of partners and each pair of us got to edit our footage from the last class in our own way. I was paired with Joseph, and after a brief editing review with Mr. Chiang (see below) we got down to business. 

The first thing we did was go through our clips, and throw out any of the simply unusable ones. For the clips that might have been useful for either sound or video we kept and labeled as such. Then came the assembly edit, then a simple cut. Because this was only an exercise and we didn't have time, it wasn't a rough cut or a fine cut, more a rather average mix of both that resulted in our final product- at least, in terms of a cut. Along the way, I also fixed the sound to the best of my ability, changing the volume levels of each one to fit the last shot, and also trying to reduce background noise by making the volume come up or down based on which part has the most gain. 

Then we found our worst shot- the final shot, which was extremely shaky and hard to see, and looked through how we could fix it. As it turns out, there is a very helpful video filter on Final Cut Pro that steadies and smoothens the entire thing, and it managed to look like a very convincing Dutch angle which we were quite proud of. Finally, we added a grayscale filter- it was film noir after all.

IB LEARNER PROFILE

Today's lesson, even with the review in mind, still required a lot of beforehand knowledge of editing and using Final Cut, and thus the most applicable facet would be 'knowledgeable'. 

CHOOSE SETUP
>Format > Apple ProRes 422
>Primary scratch disk > Documents > Final Cut Pro Documents
-scratch disk: auto save files, etc.

Sep 10th: Storyboarding Double Indemnity

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

After watching and finishing Double Indemnity for homework, this class we got to start storyboarding a scene of our choice, presumably so we can act on this storyboard afterwards. It was a fun activity for me, as I enjoy drawing, but despite having storyboarded before this is the first time I've reverse-storyboarded- that is, done a storyboard to an existing scene. It was a strange experience, and if anything just as difficult as making up the shots. Low angles are hard for me to draw, I think. But ultimately it does help as a handy reference if we do shoot this as a proper scene later without having to watch the clip over and over again. 

IB LEARNER PROFILE

Being knowledgeable probably applied a lot today- there were people who came to me (?!?) for advice to draw some of their scenes and that required knowing what I was doing at least to a degree. 

Sep. 6: Notes about continuity editing

What is continuity editing?

-Breaking down a scene into a series of shots
-Making it feel believable to the watcher
-Creates coherence and helps spectator orientation
-Shots are edited so the viewer can actually piece it together (into a story) like a puzzle

Sep. 4

watched film: double indemnity add reflections afterwards on the film i guess idk

Sep. 2nd

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

First half of the class:
While Stephanie speed edited our footage with some of my direction and Hannah's advice, the rest of us started sending all of our sound effects and soundtracks to her. We discovered that we missed quite a few, more than we had expected and it turned into a mad rush to get the perfect sound effects while I took over the syncing with the audio and video. It was sloppy, I didn't get to equalize everything in every sound. I missed a couple of sound clips though, and it definitely showed in the second half of class.

Second half of the class:
Then came the screening and it turned out alright. It could have been better- the soundtrack that we eventually decided on could have been better but in the rush of things that was pretty decent, I believe. Ms. Wong felt that our selection of clips was pretty effective, and I agree somewhat, though the very choppy editing didn't help at all. There was some people who disagreed, and they said that one of our clips of choice- a clip where one of the main characters is piercing the other main character's ear, because it was too easy to see what was going on. 

IB LEARNER PROFILE

Risk taker. We took a lot of risks today when we edited that quickly, especially in terms of quality, but in the end it all paid off. Things like the choppy editing- scenes flashed by so quickly nobody fcould really tell what was going on, and that turned out to prove to be useful, very useful. There was one scene where there was a prank being played on another character and it looked like it was actually a gory scene. However, it was apparently very effective and there were people who actually were taken aback. Our risk had proven to turn out okay. 

Aug 29th

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

The exercise from last class (editing a film to make it seem like it's something else completely) progressed a lot today. The group gathered, and after reviewing the raw clips that we had, we agreed that we would split up, one pair looking for music and more importantly, sound effects, to overlay on top of the original audio. This was necessary because the original audio very much heavily implied it was a comedy, the soundtrack being upbeat and childish, the sound effects very obviously comedic. I'm not one hundred percent sure how it worked, exactly, but we decided it would be best to just do our own sound editing over it (save for the dialog, which we hope will co-operate if we fade it in and out at the right times). I compiled a list of sound effects we would be finding, while Kelly and Stephanie worked on putting together a rough cut. For some reason, they trimmed the clips (very tightly, I might add) first instead of putting together an assembly edit, but it seems if we just slow some of our clips down and throw in a lot of filters and transitions, it should go off without a hitch. Though we didn't finish our ordered rough cut, Stephanie will get them done while I cover all audio issues. The first half of the next class should be enough to put everything together, toss on some fancy titles and be just in time for screening.

IB LEARNER PROFILE

During our actual working times, that being the bulk of the class, being clear with communication was probably the most important skill as Hannah and I weren't left out completely. We offered our opinions and formed conclusions with the edits all as a group, to create a product that everybody could be satisfied with, and personally, I feel like judging from what we have so far, it would be fair game to say that despite the fact we don't have that much yet, the results are looking to be promising. 

Aug 27th

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

Today was the first class of film, and after going through the rules of the film class we watched a couple of clips, two trailers for the same movie. One was edited to make it look like the movie (Mrs. Doubtfire) was a horror film, and then the original, which showcased the original style and feeling, which was a comedy soap opera kind of thing (well, by my judgement without actually seeing the movie). I had a bit of a hunch that, after seeing the initial horror-edited trailer, it was a comedy, mostly judging by the bits of story we could garner from it, especially a few key moments that simply would be completely out of place in a horror film. That's not to say that it wasn't well done horror, because it was pretty chill inducing, but it also felt kind of overdone at the same time. That was our introduction to our first unit, editing. We got into groups of about 4, and started planning the editing exercise where we have to do the same thing as the Mrs. Doubtfire horror trailer did, but with another movie. Our group was split a bit in terms of movie taste, which was a conflict we didn't exactly resolve but glossed over by just agreeing to the other two's movie choice, The Parent Trap.

IB LEARNER PROFILE

To be honest, I think most of today's class would be thinking. Most of the class was just taking in new information, brainstorming and such, which is generally classified to be thinking, and it felt pretty satisfying to get it right.