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As post-production of our final film is wrapping up, it presents and opportunity to reflect on what we as a group learned throughout the entire production process of the movie.

One of the first things that immediately became apparent to us was the importance of scheduling during production. Everyone in our group had tough schedules and circumstances to work around, a problem even more exacerbated with having to take in consideration the actors' schedules as well. Because of this, we had very little opportunities to film, with two out of four group members being absent for the first filming, even though the actual location we used was very flexible and open to use.
After finishing the rough cut, we also learned the importance of repetition and reshooting. We received a lot of criticism on the rough cut from both others and ourselves reviewing the footage, and ended up having to film the entire thing all over again. This wasn't anything unusual though, and is actually quite normal. It's very rare anything gets right on the first attempt. One of the main criticisms we received for the rough cut was sound. Sound has been a consistent criticism throughout the entire year, but with proper sound equipment, it should have been better for this film. However, due to the sensitivity of the microphone, the fountain in the background made out the majority of the noise, and it was hard to hear anything else under that. While before, we had to try our best to pick up as much sound as possible with small phone microphones, now, we had to consider what extra things were being picked up with full-scale microphones. Another criticism we got was the quality of the acting and cinematography, both of which were products of rushing filming, though we did replace the actors for the next shoot. We took our time in the second shooting session, as there were more ideal conditions on that day.

Overall, the process of filming for this final project was hands-on experience on how production was actually handled in the industry. The lessons learnt here was crucial in creating the final cut of this film.

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Independent Distribution and Marketing Plan - The Penny

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Independent Distribution and Marketing Plan - The Penny

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1.  Theatrical distribution is a large undertaking that seems too out of our scope, and the direction of the film we are making does not seem to have much appeal to average theatrical audiences today, which are typically more interested in large-scale blockbusters. Film festivals/markets could be a way otherwise to get into theaters and gain attraction from large studios, but it depends on their interests.
The main route we would take for distributing would mostly likely be streaming. Talking big players, Disney+ seems to be the best fit overall, as a they provide a plethora of other family related content on their platform that our film could fit in well with. Netflix could also be a viable option, as that similarly applies there. If we were aiming for these platforms, Quiver Digital would probably be the best aggregator we could approach. They charge a couple of upfront fees, but in exchange, they take no backend percentages and seemingly have the most contacts with the biggest streaming platforms out there. Realistically though, our film would be more likely to end up on more niche streaming services, such as Frndly TV, a small-scale platform revolving around family friendly content for all ages. Approaching these nicher platforms directly, cutting out the middleman, would be easier as well. If we were to approach an aggregator in this scenario however, Filmhub mainly focuses on distributing more small-scale indie films to a wide variety of nicher VOD platforms for no upfront cost, though takes 20% in backend percentages. The main benefit of using an aggregator here would be that our film would likely reach a larger number of platforms than if we were to try to approach each streaming service we wanted directly.

2. The title of the The Penny is short and simple, and refers to an important object in the film's plot revolving about desires and wishes, driving up intrigue about the story to ask: what is so special about this penny? However, it can be argued that the title is too vague about what the movie is actually about, and can be misinterpreted as some sort of heist movie or other genre. Nevertheless, The Penny remains as the title of our film, as it is still a fitting short term to subtitle the story and its themes.

3. With the prevalent theme of desires and wishing fountains, a fitting tagline could be "Wishes come true.".

4. The target audience of the film are people in between their early/mid-teens to early middle ages slightly leaning towards females. People who are online on social media often and mostly consume their entertainment through streaming services like Netflix. In real life, they may also go to theaters fairly frequently and might like hanging out at places like shopping malls, or anywhere they can have a good time during the day. Similar to the movie's genre, they also like reading drama stories in books as well. Overall, someone outgoing that can get attached to well-developed characters easily.

5. Online would be one of our main advertising outlets, especially social media. It's where our target audience is active on very often. Traditional online advertising, like banner ads, video midroll ads, and targeted advertised posts on social media can be the backbone of our online presence, with sponsored posts, trailers, and behind the scenes/interviews also being content that can push the film even more. In the real world, typical print advertising like newspapers space can help out as well. Other examples include brochures/fliers, billboard ads, and magazines as well.

6. Our target audience is fairly active online, especially the older part of the demographic on platforms like Facebook. With the film's theme of wishing, there could be certain marketing campaigns such as sweepstakes or giveaways for dream vacations, getting people to participate or interact to have a chance of winning, or some sort of viral stunt where people at random are given free expensive items or tell their wishes and have them fulfilled. Such stunts have become extremely popular online in recent years, with content creators like MrBeast coming to mind, and have the potential to have a large pull to our film.

7. Most award-winning posters focus on one type of color temperature: either warm or cool, giving the key art a sense of theming to it. Art with cool colors in our poster can represent a wishing fountain, while warm color art can represent the penny itself. We can also use a contrast to represent a penny being thrown or submerged in the wishing fountain itself. Creative use of shadows also seem to be frequent in award-winning posters. A use of shadows that could apply to our movie is creative lighting with pennies in the fountain, or more contrast with characters in their reflections, such as showing an aging grandfather, which is a central plot element of the film.

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In this blog post, an outline of the editing style for our film and our objectives in that field will be discussed.

The film we are creating, The Penny, is intended to be character-driven, emotional story. The opening is a one-on-one between a grandfather and his grandchild in a park, where they discuss their wishes on what they want to do before they died, then jump cut to the future where the child seemingly tries his best to fulfill his grandfather's dream by saving up enough money to fund a trip to Polynesia. The editing and effects of the movie here should not be the central focus to the viewer, and its presentation should be relatively simple. There'll mostly be straight cuts at normal speed, for example, with possibly some fading text for credits/title at the beginning and a few sound bridges in order to pace scenes better. Cutaways could also be used somewhere, as it could be used to seamlessly hide an error in cinematography, or also pace the scene better.  While this could seem lackluster, any more dramatic, "in-your-face" effects, like fast-forward or split screens, that distract the viewer would actively take away from the story trying to be told here.

Like with the editing, the logo should be something that shouldn't pop out to the viewer that much. It'll be an intro element that'll fade in during the opening shot that'll fade out a few seconds (8-10) later. Likewise, this simplicity should be reflected in its design: an acceptable logo could be created by using a fitting gothic font in neutral colors like gray or black with our movie title, alongside a small visual element, such as symbolic icons, for our film. Similar movies like Forrest Gump have simplistic logos that look very similar to this style.

While it was mentioned that the movie will most likely consist of simple straight cuts, there is still room for other simplistic transitions as well. This includes fades and dissolves to transition into and out from the opening credits; wipes are slightly too distracting to be a good fit. At some point in the opening, there will be a small time skip to another location in the future as well. This is where something like a jump or match cut make a perfect fit.

In the best case scenario, the nature environment around the park setting should take care of most of the natural ambiance automatically. Realistically however, some sound effects will need to added or modified. This includes volume adjustment and stock sounds taken from other websites. Copyright is a potential concern, but being careful of where we source our sounds from should address most of the possible issues: high quality nature sound effects are particularly common on royalty free sound libraries anybody can use. We could also create sound effects on our own if we need to, provided is something simple that is within our scope (The sound of crunchy leaves, for example.). Music, on the other hand, may be slightly more difficult. We plan to have a light piano theme to begin the opening credits and set the tone of the film, but finding something that is both fitting and does not have any licensing stipulations could be complicated. It is something we need to look into now to see if it is possible to add an opening theme into our film. Getting permission to use licensed music or creating our own theme is likely out of our scope.

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Part of the journey in making our final film project is analyzing other openings from films of similar genre to see how they applied various writing and cinematic elements to deliver their story.

1. The opening shot of the film is a long take of a feather floating through the sky descending to a park, while the credits of some of the people that worked on the film plays. The feather passes through trees, people, and cars, until it lands on the ragged shoes of a strange man, Forrest Gump, sitting on a bench. He opens his suitcase and places the feather in an unknown book before a bus arrives and drops off a woman. Forrest tries to talk her, offering a box of chocolates and discussing about life in general, but the woman is clearly disturbed by his odd mannerisms. The scene ends with him emotionally lamenting over his mother.

2. The film is a drama, a genre that while generally more popular with females, appeals to both genders equally in this case. In the beginning, there's already tension between the characters of Forrest Gump and the unknown woman, who is slightly disturbed by Gump's ramblings while he himself seems completely oblivious to it. Towards the end of the scene, we see him start to tear up as well over his mother, indicating that he holds much sentiment to elements of his past. The box of chocolates may also be a light representation of the romance genre, as offering someone of the opposite gender chocolate is a common romantic gesture.

3. The opening credits of the movie takes place during the long take of the feather floating around in the park. The way is presented is very simple: basic white text with names fade in quietly throughout the shot. It is clear the main focus should be on the feather's journey right now: the scene is framed in a way that makes it obvious it represents some sort of symbolism of the plot or the main character of Forrest Gump right now that the reader doesn't understand yet.

4. The long take opening has the feather start up high in the air, and as it slowly descends the camera pans over and tracks the object, give multiple high-angle shots of the scene. The feather inches closes to the floor until it suddenly   shoots up, resulting in the camera panning up for a slight low angle shot, until it lands on the floor next to Forrest Gump, where the camera is back on level. After we pan up again to see a medium close-up of him, he puts the feather in his suitcase, we cut to a shot more zoomed back from the bench on the other side of the street, where we see a bus arrive and drop off a woman. Here, Forrest Gump starts talking to the woman and the camera slowly starts zooming into him, where we end with a medium close-up shot once again.

5. For most of the opening credits, the calm music playing centers stage while you can only hear some subtle, quiet sounds from the world itself. The music gradually rises in volume and focus until the feather lands near Forrest Gump, where it starts to fade out. Here, diegetic sound takes centerstage for the rest of the scene. We hear a bus stopping, dropping off someone, and then leaving again. Forrest Gump then starts talking, which makes up the sound for the rest of the scene. He rambles on normally until near the end of the scene, where he seemingly starts getting sentimental and emotional.

6. A lot is left up in the air by the end of the opening scene. Who is Forrest Gump? Why does he have such strange mannerisms? What is his history? Who is his mother? Much symbolism in this scene is established and shown, such as the shoes and the feather, but they do not have any obvious meaning to them at this point in the film. While it is hardly a mystery movie, the questions asked in the opening hooks the viewer into wanting to watch more of the film to find answers to their thoughts and inquiries. Unlike the woman on the bench next to him, the audience is interested in Forrest Gump and his story.

7. The editing here in this scene is very simplistic, intentionally. There are very little cuts and any digital graphical effects that are present in the scene are subtle or practical, such as the movement of the feather. It establishes a calm, mellow mood; there are little distractions to take your eyes off the credits and the feather. Beneath the surface, it can be assumed a moderate or significant amount of sound mixing was done so the sounds of the world are in the background of the music until it stops playing. The color composition of the shot was likely also slightly corrected to be more grayscale. There is also a lot of camera movement in the scene, and while most of it is probably physical, it's possible portions of the shots, like the zoom in at the end, could have been done post-production.

8. Typically, in a drama, emotion takes center stage. The development and interaction of the characters between each other and the world are the main focus, and people are written in a way that makes them believable or gets the viewer attached to them. The first minutes of the film here already provoke a emotional reaction here, whether it's some sort warm, nostalgic, peaceful feeling from the long take of the feather in the beginning, or a strong first impression towards the character of Forrest Gump: either thoughtfulness, discomfort, or curiosity. Conflict, which is also a central point in drama, is also established quickly here; the visible awkwardness between the quiet, uncomfortable woman on the bench with the oblivious ramblings of Forrest Gump immediately displays tension. This interaction also highlights Gump's difficulty and hardship with talking to other people and sets it up so his character is further developed in this aspect later down the road.

9. The conflict of the film isn't immediately established in the opening minutes and in fact remains ambiguous. While the main character's hardships and struggles are made apparent, it's not clear what journey Forrest Gump will go on to overcome those at all, if he even does. Drama films also typically have high stakes at hand in their stories, and from the opening alone, you cannot tell if this will be the case with this movie.

10. Forrest Gump is a film adaptation of a book that centers around the life of a man with an intellectual disorder. Both film and novel has been praised overall for its strong, positive representation of mentally impaired people and how society treats them, from both the general audience and critical reviewers alike. Not much of Forrest Gump's life living with this disability is shown in the opening, but a lot is already told within those few minutes. From out the gate, you can decipher his fascination for objects many others would find insignificant with the feather, his difficulty of how people interact with him, and how his condition affects his outlook on life. It shows that Gump leads a life fundamentally very different from one that most people would consider "normal", without saying that he has a disorder nor ever saying the disability he has is inherently good or bad, just different.

11. Forrest Gump went through the usual theatrical release cycle: an initial release in theaters, then made available in physical form such as DVD and VHS before finally making its way to be aired on television channels, with online stream and video-on-demand coming when those forms of media became popular. It is safe to say it went through these typical stages due to it being a fairly traditional high-budget Hollywood production, with it being produced by Paramount Pictures and starring multiple well-known actors, such as Tom Hanks. What is unique about about Forrest Gump, though, is about how it was originally a novel before being adapted as a film. After it became a very popular best-seller, multiple of the big Hollywood studios approached to see if a film could be made of the book, which then after production would start.

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Over the course of the last few months of last year we learned more about the process of post-production in a film's development - mainly editing, sound, and color, as well as the unique specifics that goes into creating a screenplay. We watched multiple documentaries and videos going over the history and importance of these aspects film, such as The Cutting Edge, about editing, Making Waves, about cinematic sound, and an extended video about color. The screenplay to the entirety of The Incredibles was also read by the rest of the class, teaching us how to correct write a screenplay, which we did using specialized scriptwriting software. These drafts are the basis for our next midterm project in the course: to create a short two-minute movie opening about a dream horror sequence, shot and edited by ourselves.

This film has many conditions and prerequisites to show off what we had learned over the last semester. Everything in this film behind the scenes had to be done ourselves, which meant the entire script, filming, and editing of the project. However, we could not appear as a main actor in our own movie. Furthermore, we had a list of specific cinematic cuts that needed to be used. This includes a close-up, a dutch/angled shot, a high/low angle shot, a smash cut, multitake, or subliminal cut, a minimum of three cross-cuts, required incidental music or sound motifs, sound effects, a match cut, sound bridge, an intentional use of color and cinematic complexity in a shot, and even more for extra credit on the assignment.

The film had to be carefully constructed in the pre-production and production stages to be sure to be able to meet not only all of the requirements, but also have to adhere or break certain audience expectations. Aside from the required cliché of creating a horror sequence within a dream, things such as lighting choices here conform to the genre's cinematic codes, with lowkey lighting prominently being used at the beginning in a room only lit by a computer screen and quickly disappearing sunlight to create an eerily quiet atmosphere. The main character being absolutely alone in this environment also helps contribute to the tone. To differentiate from the dream sequence, subtle details were added, such as persistent sound effects only present in one world, like the clock ticking in the bedroom, or the sound being slightly distorted in the dream, as well. One way expected conventions are being broken here is a relatively lack of sudden scares that get a reaction out of the viewer, compared to other horror movies. The horror here is mostly a manifestation of the fear of consequences and embarrassment from not following through with your end of responsibility for others, a fear that can be born from, at times. the peer pressure of group projects. The main demographic being represented in this film are students, like myself and others, who sometimes share similar fears in situations like this. The thought of what others would think of yourself if you happened to be the reason they failed the class can become overwhelming as a deadline approaches, especially if you have some particularly important role such as being the sole editor on a video project. The film is not to say this is a bad thing, however; a small amount of stress is needed for being a motivator to complete tasks.

The overall concept and pitch of the story seems to received very positively by peers who have seen the script during production. It's a scenario most teens can relate to at some point in their life. Unfortunately, the story inherently has one significant problem: it can be very hard to shoot. We were expected to film most of the project over winter break, and while that was easy enough with the first subset of scenes that take place with one person in a bedroom, the dream sequence is harder as in it needs multiple people and, more significantly, takes place in a classroom. This meant I had to wait until after break before I could even start shooting these scenes at school. The only opportunity we'd get to film in a classroom without my dedicated Media Studies period allowing filming was during lunch, which I'd have to reserve in advance. This, paired with limited time as well as the commotion around midterms being right around the corner made it difficult to get all our required shots, and its something I should have considered while scriptwriting. The rushed nature of these shots show greatly in the final project. Many improvised adjustments had to be made in areas such as how to adapt the scene to work with less people: there were a greater amount of people intended to be in the classroom in the original script.
On the positive side, minimal equipment was needed to properly film all the scenes, really only consisting of a phone camera and props already found around the rooms. The quiet environments used for shooting made it so actual microphones weren't essential. Most of the touch-ups came from post-production editing, mainly the abundance of sound effects added in. This includes the constant clock ticking heard in the bedroom scenes, symbolizing an incoming deadline, as well as miscellaneous elements such as mouse clicks and phone sounds. All of the sounds and music used were sourced from royalty-free stock libraries found online. Scriptwriting was done using Arc Studio, software that specializes in creating screenplays. Arc helped the process go more smoothly, as half the script was actually rewritten at some point, and the streamlined features included saved valuable time while doing so.

This horror movie opening is definitely the most intensive experience I've had making a film so far, being as all responsibility aside from acting fell on me. The experience in making this movie opening not only taught me more about how films are shot and edited, but also demonstrated greatly how preproduction goes along; this is the first time we as a class explored how this part of filmmaking works, and will be important knowledge to know as we continue heading towards the date of our finals film project.

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In class, we covered over various different types of genres that exist in film. These included Action, Thriller, War, Animation, Comedy, Musical, Mystery, Romance, Superhero, Horror, Science Fiction, Sports, Drama, Crime, and Adventure. To fully develop an understanding of all the different types of genre, each of us were tasked with creating a presentation of the conventions, codes, as well as the audience expectations that came with one of them. These are the expected stories, characters, settings, emotions, and cinematic elements that make each genre unique. Then, we would take notes over specific movie clips to show what we learned about each subject.

To go along with this, we started discussing about which genres our previous films belonged to the most. Amongst our group, we realized not much thought was put into that matter at all when first creating our movies. Despite this, there were some places in our projects it was possible to tie them to a specific genre. On the Run is quite obviously a crime movie: it involves someone specifically running away from the police, with some light action elements tucked away near the end. The Golden Hamster, an adaptation of the original The Golden Adventure, is an adventure movie, clear and clear, as the protagonists have to hunt throughout the entire school in a race against each to find the treasure the aforementioned golden hamster first before the other group gets their hands on it, intended to convey a sense of journey. It can also be considered a hybrid with drama, as there is a lot of argument and conflict between characters at certain parts of the movie. Minor action segments are mixed in as well, and it could be argued it's also a family movie, since the characters are all supposed to be late elementary/middle school kids. In this sense, despite there being little thought given to which genre our original films conformed to, they surprisingly connected to a lot of traditional conventions that would be associated to each category.
One discussion that arose was if any of these movies could be considered comedies at all. It is almost unanimous to almost everyone else that these are funny movies, at least on a first viewing, but they were not intentionally made to be specifically comedic. Personally, only The Golden Hamster has any actual merit to be a comedy movie, due to certain pacing decisions and parts of its editing, but there are likely to be many arguments for On the Run to be one as well.

Moving forward, it is important that as filmmakers, more consideration is taken in what genres our movies conform to.
With a third film project coming up, we've been tasked to consider how we would apply what we learned in making our next movie and to generally create a new synopsis. One idea I am fond of is making some sort of heist crime/action movie. The two protagonists start off at the entrance of the school, or the "target", and try to infiltrate it for treasure. Throughout the way, they take out guards, avoid security, and find out a way to the vault. When they finally reach the gold, one of them thieves betrays the other - a common trope in crime movies - and try to escape impending reinforcements. Overall, the film will stick to traditional conventions of genre, but the action and great potential cinematography could make it something special, if executed right, of course.

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For our second major movie made in this class, we were tasked with remaking another student film submitted in our period, with the aim of improving its script and shot composition based from the knowledge we had gained in the prior weeks. Once again, I took up the role of being the editor for this project, which I had much experience with at this point, as well as acting as a main character.

The film we had decided to remake was titled 'The Golden Adventure', which involved two groups of four teenagers competing to find a valuable treasure before the other team gets their hands on it first. We were given much leeway on which direction we could decide on remaking the original movie, and ultimately we settled on creating a more lighthearted, childish tone. Now titled 'The Golden Hamster', the plot now revolves around four elementary school kids trying to find the teacher's missing golden hamster first in order to impress them and become the favorite student. We had chosen this as the overall synopsis because many of us had experience teaching or babysitting with young children from over the past summer and memories of similar experiences from our childhoods that we drew many similarities from the original film we were remaking, though in retrospect, much of the group wished we had went with a different story due to how much difficulty this plot would cause in creating a workable script.

One of the main requirements of this film was that ten different types of shots must be included in the final project submission. How the shooting of the movie went followed what shots was needed at the end. The types of shots we had decided to go with were a zoom out at the beginning, multiple two and three shots with the two groups of protagonists in the movie, wide shots, long shots, long takes, high angles, over the shoulder, extreme close ups, and tracking movement in almost all directions.

When presented to class, the movie was generally received positively, although with no shortage of constructive criticism. While sound continues to be a major problem, the overall plot itself was also a large point of contention - mainly, how the final movie didn't clearly communicate what was going on that well. This could be mainly attributed to not only audio but how the entire film had to have been cut; a missing shot in the cafeteria scene meant it was not entirely clear the four kids knew what the golden hamster poster was about or how they split off into the two groups, and a major continuity error later on in the chase scene where Khang impacts the shark statue directly, but next shot only the map is on the floor for Skylar and Zachary to grab. Originally, Khang was supposed to hit the shark with only part of his arm to drop the map, but again, the correct rendition of this shot was lost. It's clear there needs to be an improvement to how clips are handled within our group by the next project to avoid situations like these again.

The shots themselves were also well-received, but some ideas did not work as effectively as hoped in the end. Much of filming was partially hindered as incoming storms near the end of the days required us to go under the cover of campus quickly, or else face consequences by administration, resulting in many clips having to be rushed without reshoots. The extreme close-up of Skylar's face surprisingly worked well for communicating her shock, ending up becoming slightly iconic as the film's thumbnail. Other scenes did not have the same amount of luck, however. The chase sequence is supposed to actually be from Zachary and Skylar's POV, but this was made unclear in the actual film as they both don't speak at all in the scene, and the camera moves in a way that seemingly makes it look more like an ordinary handheld shot instead. The wide shot confrontation also suffered greatly; though the aim of the shot was to make it seem there are two opposing teams on each side of the screen, Zachary's body partially obscures Skylar, making it look like there are only three people in the scene rather than four. Without the chance of reprising these scenes later on, these flawed shots were forced to be left in.

Overall, while I am personally unsure if this film was really a significant improvement over the original, many seem to think the final product was very solid, with a few points of criticism that need to be taken before going forward. Generally speaking, the main issue with film can be attributed to poor planning, various disagreements among our group, and many last-minute changes that had to be adapted to quickly.

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For our first proper assignment in AICE Media Studies, we were tasked with filming a short two minute movie to get a feel with the whole process. While most of our group had never made a movie before, two of us, including me, had already taken a TV production course the year before, so some of us already had preliminary knowledge on what to do and how everything works.

Despite this, the movie still contains a number of improvements that could have been implemented in hindsight. My main gripe with it is the acting; while the film clearly has a lighthearted, semi-ironic tone, the dialogue and actions of the characters on screen still feel awkward at times. We also only looked over the clips at most once and then decide if its good enough or not right then and there. This really came to bite back in editing when many of the shots cut too short or people started laughing too soon before it ends. You can see this clearly with the knockout scene - the slow motion was a bandage remedy so the entire sequence didn't go by too fast. I attribute a lot of the problems partly due to a lack of time, but mainly because there was a lack of any plan going into this. Nobody agreed on what the movie was even gonna be about until the last second, and a lot of it was made up along the way. We had to made sure the film was still going to be produced, so a lot of corners were cut along the way.

Overall, I am actually quite happy with how the final product turned out, especially given the circumstances. The film was quite well-received when shown in class. The consensus seems to be the editing and story were the main strong points of the movie. Aside from the already mentioned issues, the audio was the other aspect that was criticized, but it seemed to be an issue consistently present in every other film shown, and I suspect would be improved on easily by acquiring the proper equipment.