Fin

     Aaaaaaand, I'm done! Finally done with this month long journey!

    I wanna thank everyone who helped me get this point, my mom, my spotify, and my dog of course. I feel I've come very far during this process and can't wait to see where I go next. Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy Retrospect. 

Here's the link to the google drive containing the finished product:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jgFZJP6dA0Ee0Whk2NIhI9aE46ePnAzT?usp=sharing

CCR Creation

    Creative Critical Reflection. Wow! Even the name sounds daunting and intimidating. Full disclosure, I have been dreading this portion of my project. I just feel that I am absolutely horrible at expressing my ideas and knowledge. It's all up there, it's in my head, but you're telling me I have to organize my thoughts and present them in an academic fashion? Ummmm...

    But it's okay! I take a deep breath and destroy, absolutely demolish, slay even, these questions. Here's how it's going: 

    

  

    I decided to just make a google doc to write all my ideas and scrip down. And YES, maybe I DO have an entire page dedicated to jokes and skits. That was the easiest part to come up with. I consider myself a pretty funny and lighthearted person so I plan to portray that in my CCR while still presenting all my information. 

Editing - Check!

     After acquiring all the necessary sound aspects that I needed I was able to slap it all into premiere and mess around a bit. This was my first time experimenting with audio in such a way and I had fun, I even had to use volume dial, which I didn't even know existed in premiere until right now. But anyway, everything came together, it was tedious trying to get everything to sync but we did it! I think I can safely say I'm done editing now. 

    I got all my titles and credits in order. I did have to move around my footage a lot again and cut out some portions. But that's just editing at the end of the day, a lot of back and forth. You think you're done but usually you're not, and when you fix something another thing gets messed up yada yada yada. Shoutout to premiere tho, I love that program, it has done me nothing but good in all the years I've used it. Also shoutout to my 7th grade film teacher for showing me how to use premiere. 

    Now enjoy looking at the monster that is the timeline of my project on premiere: 

Music

    I just got confirmation to use the song I planned to use on my film opening. I'M SO EXITEDDDDDD!!! I will admit, it took me awhile to decide, I just had too many to choose from. Music is the joy of my life and I think it is such an amazing tool to convey emotions. I had made a playlist with almost 40 potential songs on it, so maybe a little bit much. Anyways, what I did know is that I wanted to choose a smaller, lesser known, artist. I know I'm not a famous movie director or anything, but I like the idea of potentially increasing a small artists audience, even if only slightly. Especially since I plan to post my film opening on Youtube, Tik Tok, maybe even Instagram.

    The song is titled Thrifted Youth by dalynn. I've actually been listening to her music since 2019 so I was slightly stars struck when she answered. This song is sooooo good and I think it matches the vibe of my opening incredibly well. I highly recommend you give it a listen, and check out dalynn in general, she's very talented. Since she is less well known and doesn't have a record label or anything, I resorted to sending her a direct message on Instagram. Perhaps a little informal, but she said she was cool with it! 

    A picture of the DM's: 

Sound

     Alright so regarding all the sound editing that I planned to do. I found all of it on youtube. This was my first time using the Youtube Sound Library and it was pretty good, very easy to use and it got the job done. The thrifted youth mp3 was the only one i didn't get from there, I just had to download it from youtube as an mp3 to add to my project. Down below are the three audio files I incorporated in my project. 

    Although I had already recorded the ambiance of my house for the film opening, but I thought it necessary to add a little more to it, so I found that Ambient hum from an air conditioner sound and though it was perfect. Then the ear ringing was that tinnitus, panic inducing, sound that I was looking to add in at the end when Arlo gets stressed out by memories of the past. Oooooooooouuooo!

These are the audio files, don't mind the 'Out of Space,' it hasn't meant anything so far...:

Editing Update

    PHEW! I'm pretty much done with the brunt of editing. I have such a love hate relationship with editing. My hatred grows as I find myself in front of a computer for several hours, but the final product makes it all worth it. I have finished organizing all my footage and cutting it up to fit within the 2 minute time frame. 

    All that's left now is refining everything a little more if necessary, adding sound, and adding credits. It's exciting to finally see everything coming together at last. This has been a doozy of a project. Seeing all the cut up clips is pretty funny, it always looks so messy to me, but well that's art for ya. 

Filming - Check!

     I'm finally done filming. There were a few bumps along the road, definitely had to reshoot an embarrassing amount of times but we got there eventually. All of the filming was done by yours truly, so there was definitely a lot of awkward positions I had to be in while the camera was rolling. If anyone walked in on me I must've looked crazy, thankfully no one did. Dodged a bullet there with that one... 

    Anyway, I am NOT looking forward to having to watch my atrocious acting on repeat while I edit this opening. It sucks yes, but I couldn't find anyone willing to help me, and I wasn't going to force them. I also just feel more comfortable with it being me on the basis that I know what I want. Sometimes I struggle to give directions or effectively convey my creative vision with another person, so then it doesn't turn out how I want it and I'm too shy to ask them to do it again usually because I think I'm bothering them. I definitely have to work on that if I want to be a director in the future... crap...

    Here's a funny clip of me realizing the camera is in the wrong place:

    And a picture I took while filming the flashback: