Film opening

 Here it is finally, our film opening for “Impulse”

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b1Kq_6ph5mygG-n3SsZIgrgUpdNv-6_h/view?usp=share_link

Creative Critical Reflection

 Below are two creative critical reflections. 

Filming Day 3

Blog speaks on events that happened 2/31/22
 Today's filming was the shortest and less intense out of all of them all we had to do was film the opening and a short sequence. 

Filming was relatively simple as all the lighting was already set up for the first shots in Ava's house. We then had to go to the country club to get an exterior shot of me walking we got that done as soon as possible. With we now have all footage we need and can start post-production. 

Filming Day 2

This blog speaks about an event that took place on  3/28/23 
Day two was perhaps the most chaotic day of the filming process, as there were a lot more people involved and more moving parts to the entire shoot. However, compared to the day before there were a lot fewer shots that we had to get done that day. You would think that meant that it was low pressure and we had our time to be slow, but like I mentioned there were about 7 people there to be in the background of scenes. All of them only had 1-2 hours tops to help us film as afterward, they would not be able to help. 

Before everyone arrived I had an issue to fix which was the glass doors where in the living room. Aby the shot they appeared in broke the immersion and ruined the set, so we needed a solution for this issue. What I ended up doing was using a comforter to block all the light from the windows  

Everyone arrived to my house after school at around 3pm but my partner ava had no way of getting there until 4 so we for one hour just set up and hung out to wait to start filming. After she arrived we got settled and started recording everything. Me and Ava would discuss the best way to frame she shot while I focused on who was going to appear in it and doing what. The filming process was lengthy but It went relatively smoothly. 

Making the drinks was also very simple as it was just ICE drinks and food colorant. 

Those where all the shots we needed at my house so we started to clean up the table that had the entire poker set, bottle, and Pepsi 2 liter which all fell with the table. Magically nothing broke and we got to live another day.  

Filming Day 1 `

This blog speaks about an event that took place on  3/28/23

Today was the least complicated as what we were planning to film was mostly incredibly simple things. Just close-ups and other things that did not require any extra people or sets. Just proper lighting and me in costume. 

The first thing we did was set up all of the lighting and camera. Lighting was challenging due to the nature of the room we were filming in and the great number of windows where light could get through. So figuring out what specific combination of closed curtains light settings and camera modifications will make it so the shot able to look like night. 

After the tedious time to figure out all the right light combinations the other parts of the filming process went more smoothly just doing various close-ups. However, another part I had to consider was the accuracy of the blackjack table I had to figure out what combinations will work the narrative we want to make it look consistent in between takes. 

There is more filming to do but this day definitely increased my confidence in our ability to do this 

Planning CCR

 My Creative Critical reflection is the last part f the Cambridge project I have to concern myself with. In this blog, I will be outlining how I tackled creative critical reflection and my process.  

The first thing I did was grab all 4 questions put them on google docs and write a paragraph answering them 

How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

Our film opening centers around a man struggling with a gambling addiction and his financial and mental struggles. The goal was always for the most accurate portrayal of gambling addiction within our opening, as we felt it to be an underrepresented group in media. Some conventions we followed like the idea of our character winning big and losing all the money again quickly after. However, there were key tropes of gambling addicts in media that we explicitly went against the main one being the idea of our character being happy when he wins it big. Showing our character enjoying winning would romanticize his lifestyle. It is inaccurate as most gambling addicts only care for the game and only feel slight relief when they win not happiness. 

How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

we will distribute it through two main methods of social media and Film festivals. On social media, we will upload it to youtube and Instagram to promote it as much as possible however this will only get us so far as Youtube and Instagram are full of content already and we won’t stand out much. Which is why Film Festivals are great options. In terms of Film Festivals, they are an effective method of getting people who are interested in specifically student films to watch and engage with our product. 

How did your production skills develop throughout this project? 

We in terms of hardware we used tripods, an GVM RGB 3-point light kit, Rhode,2 lavaliers and a Canon t8i

Softwares we used where Adobe Premiere, After Effects for editing, and Blogger for recording our process

Online youtube provided royalty-free music and google for researchI learned a lot from this project in terms of production, the subject, and management 

My production skills improved greatly throughout this project. My partner Ava was much more familiar with a lot of technical aspects like lightning, color correction, and the equipment, we would use. So a lot of the learning simply came from seeing her approaches to these aspects of the project. I learned a lot about how to do a production with more equipment as I was only used to only filming with an iPhone I learned how to properly use equipment like lightning kits and cameras. 

 I had to learn a good amount about the gaming industry and those with gambling addictions. Due to us wanting our film to be as accurate as possible, I had to learn how blackjack works to make sure the sequence made sense with the rules of the game. Then I also learned about the reality of gambling addiction and the mindset of a gambler 

How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

In terms of hardware we used tripods, a GVM RGB 3-point light kit, Rhode,2 lavaliers, and a Canon t8i

Software we used where Adobe Premiere, After Effects for editing, and Blogger for recording our process

Online youtube provided royalty-free music and google for research

With these answers, all I gotta do is transform them into the appropriate mediums. 

Figuring out movie name

Naming our movie is one of the last steps of pre-production that we have left. It is also an incredibly crucial and important part of the process. 

There are three metrics a good title should meet. The title should reflect the theme and tone of the movie, as well as be catchy and memorable. It should also be original and not easily confused with other movies or media.

After much deciding we went with the name Impulse as it represents our main character's lack of impulse control while being able to meet all 3 of the previously detailed metrics.