Project: Post production/editing part 1

 I am now beginning the editing process for my film. but note that in one of my previous posts that my backdrop did not come in time, so I am going to have to reshoot some scenes if its necessary, since the black paper replacement backdrop I used is a bit reflective in the light.

Hopefully this won't be a major setback for my film.

I am using Adobe Express for my film, but some scenes like the opening production title I might need to do it on a separate platform since I am not sure how to do the transitions and animations I want. 

My planning is to simply just lay out all the resources I have and follow my storyboards, and the empty scenes in between will be the scenes I would like to reshoot. I just want to get the main frame of my project in so I can have a good grasp on what I am working with. 

The biggest obstacle I am coming across is the limited range of movement and animations that Express provides. There are specific camera movements and transitions that I want but Express doesn't have. I am not sure if I have to input specific file or code to "my stuff" category, but I am 55% sure I am going to have to create the transitions and movements in another film program. 

For the title card of my film, I am going to go with Baskervald ADF Std. I thought about using other futuristic looking fonts like IMBF Nanomaton or Anders. But I felt like those fonts were kinda pushing it, too upfront that my film is sci-fi. So I went with a simpler font. I was mainly inspired by the movie Emma (2020)

I really like the title card for Emma, showing the main character in the middle as the title surrounds her from both sides.

I plan on doing a similar title with my film except it is going to be a full rocket ship in the great distance in a extreme wide shot rather than a person. 

As for the images of the planet, I simply used free stock images from online.

Project: 2nd group meeting

The people in my group are selena, santi, camila, Isa, Macie, and Andre. 

Andre: A bit into the group meetings, I was put into another group to further balance out the room since some people were gone. So I missed much about Andre's idea, but I know she is working with Trisha who is making the horror robot idea from the last meeting. She also discussed using text messages as the credits, which I think is a very creative idea. 

Selena: For me, Selena has one of the more unique ideas. She has not started filming yet but she does have a pretty vivid idea of what she wants. She is making a horror opening of a creepy thin man under a spotlight in a dark parking lot. Kinda like slenderman. The thin man will be acted by Selena's brother, who is 5'11". But the other people in my group suggest she try to make the figure look even taller using camera angles. 

Although I do think she should try to forgo the texting idea, where the main female lead gets a bunch of text messages. I feel like text messages is a bit cliche. 

Selena said she would try to get a park ranger to accompany her and her group so they can film in a parking lot past late. Although I would have suggested she try to research into more parking lot locations to film at, like a closed publix or walmart. 

Santi: Santi's idea is pretty complicated and kind of all over the place. His idea is about a doctor who releases a deadly medicine that gives people 48 hours to live once ingested, and a random guy named Maverick goes out to save everybody. He would show Maverick typing on his computer in a over the shoulder shot. 

Filming started on Friday, and it is impressive the set up Santi has since his dad is a sports anchor, so he has his own little studio to use. It is a really good place for shooting and even making a podcast for the CCR. 

My one bug though is that I heard before from one of Santi's group mates that he was not really on board with the idea. It appears that Santi is mainly the visionary or director, but his groupmate did seem very unsure about the film idea. I hope Santi and his group resolved this problem, and are all on the same page.

Camila: Camila is working with a another group member who explained the idea much better. Camila appears to just be an assistant. The idea is of a girl who tries to overcome her grief over her dead sister. 

Because I discussed this idea in my previous meeting post, I am not going to discuss this idea much, but I do really like the simple yet effective idea since so far, I have not heard anyone else do this type of idea. 

I also really like the idea of the film opening beginning with just the title, and only accompanied by the sound of waves. And sound appears to play an important role since Camila and her group mate were very specific with the sound. They are using Imovie, which I am a bit worried about since Imovie, at least from phone, makes some really low quality videos. But Camila and her groupmate are using a very high quality camera so hopefully it'll work out. 

Isa: Isa appears to have the biggest problem of scheduling since she said how it is hard to get the cheerleader and football actors together since the football guy is always playing his games. The idea is about a cheerleader and jock smuggling drugs. 

Addressing the main problem of the actors being together to film, I wonder if Isa should have gotten a different actor. I get the respect of authenticity to use an actual football player, but if the guy is not available most of the time then maybe it would be better to just have a tall broad actor than an actual football player.

I really like Isa's idea of making one of those sticker board interviews where the people being interviewed peel off stickers on a board to reveal the questions. Honestly I don't see anyone else who thought of this idea.

Macie: Macie has the most thought put into production. Her story is basically about a janitor finding someone frozen while cleaning. I was very impressed with Macie's production of a magazine showing the advertisement for the cryo-freeze sleep. I like Macie's simple yet interesting premise, relying less on a complicated plot and instead on interesting concepts and world building. 

I don't have much to say about Macie except maybe expand more on her simply plot, but then again the plot for my film is very simple too so...

Production: Shooting

Ok. I kinda have a problem.

Before shooting, I ordered a backdrop frame and curtain, both were ordered separately. The frame and curtain was supposed to be the main background of my space scenes.

The frame came but the curtain didn't. And stupidly, I didn't notice I was missing the curtain until I began building the frame. Apparently my curtain got lost or was sent to the wrong address. Whether or not I get a refund, it is not going to come in time for shooting. 

I do have a solution. I have a backdrop made from black painted cardboard, and I also have a roll of black paper to use. But I have no idea if these will look as good as the curtain. So this might mean that I am going to have to reshoot some scenes in post production (Sounds very bad I know). Hopefully the darkness will conceal the cardboard background. 

But I can't do anything else except just go with the flow, so that is what I'm going to do. 

I tried using the cardboard backdrop but it was too heavy and was not clinging onto the frame well. Afterall it is two years old and barely being held together with duct tape. So I went with the other option of using the black wrapping paper roll I had, which came out surprisingly well. My only concern is that the paper is a bit reflective, so I hope that it does not interfere with the light that much. 

Timelapses

Because I was shooting mainly in pitch darkness, most of the timelapses I shot were too dark to see anything happening, even when I cranked the brightness all the way up. So only two timelapses that one can see something happening is me animating the cockpit scenes. 

Shaking scene from inside the cockpit

Wide shot of the windows and control panel

Production: Building the sets

Production begins and I am now building the sets. I'll have three sets: Main space ship, capsule, and cockpit. I never built a spaceship before so hopefully this turns out well!

I will be using soda cans and aluminum bottles as my main base for my space ships, since they are light and round. (Yes, I fetched these out of the trash. Don't worry I cleaned them)

I will also being using watercolor paper to wrap around the cans to make it easier to paint and color and give it the sleek designs of actual space ships. Water color is a bit thicker than ordinary paper, so it should not easily crumple or leave any dents.

For the main space ship, I taped electrical tape around it since electrical tape looks cleaner than just using black paint. 

For the rocket caps at the bottom, I used black bottle caps and glued them to a piece of cardboard before gluing them under the main shaft of the rocket. 

Then I painted two bottle caps grey and glued it onto the top of the rocket. This'll be the scaled down version of the capsule. 

For the capsule, I taped two soda cans together before gluing it onto a bowl. I used more cardboard to make it thicker and give it a proper shape. 

I used blue paper tape since paint will better attach to it than ordinary office or duct tape. I then used electrical tape to cover any crevices which might make it harder to paint (Leaving any holes while taping will lead to the area under it unpainted, and lead to further careful painting afterwards).

Then comes the most fun part: painting.

I used a metallic gunmetal grey paint, similar to the color of stainless steel. And for the names Pioneer and Hammer, I simply used red and orange paint. 

I originally was not going to put the name of the ship on the capsule, but I was inspired by the Japanese robot Mechagodzilla. I thought it was cool how it had its title imprinted in bright color on its arm. 

(Reference)

For the cockpit, I simply took apart a box, cut out two trapezoids for the windows, painted it grey, then added a small piece of cardboard as the main control panel. For the windows I simply taped transparent plastic in them. To cover the cardboard holes in the windows, I used paper tape to cover it up before painting over them (Still pretty visible but in low lighting it should be unnoticeable).

And for the joysticks, I simply painted two popsicle sticks glued with cardboard. 

All sets are now completed. Now it is time for shooting. 

Doggy approved

TIME LAPSES

Rocket ship

Capsule

Cockpit

Planning: Sound list

 Here is a list of sounds that I will be needing for my project. I will explain again that the story for my project is simply an astronaut blasting off into space on a rocket ship.

I will mainly be using sound effects from Pixabay and Elevenlabs

Diegetic Audio

-Water droplet (For first scene)(Underwater sound)

-Rockets engines blasting/rocket launch (065110_Seamless Rocket Booster Roar & Crackle)(Huge rocket motor startup)(Rocket Launch sfx)

-Cockpit shaking (Napkin dispenser spring)(Rattling bolts)

-Sound of rocket blasting from inside the cockpit (Car on a highway)

-Rocket sections detaching (Explosion)(Nuclear)

-Buttons getting pressed (Keyboard)

-Switches switching up and down (Light switches)

-Thrusters (Air)

Non-Diegetic audio/music

Ephemera by Scott Buckley

Logo production

 My project is required to have a logo of a made-up studio to make my film look like a real movie production. The first thing I can think of whenever a production logo is mentioned is the famous Leo the Lion from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM).  

This will definitely be my main inspiration for my logo. Of course, I am not aiming for something gold and grand like this logo, but I do really like the inclusion of an animal as the main centerpiece. 

I am reminded of my dog, who although looks more like a big goofy white bear, still looks majestic in some photos as long as I get the right angle and mess with the photo settings a bit. 

I want to aim for something more minimalistic. Leo the Lion is very grand with lots of gold and oranges, and complex in its design. But for mine I think I want to do the opposite, aiming for something simpler and less bombastic, something colder and less warm. Maybe even make the logo and picture have a fade of silver to further emphasize its opposite nature to the MGM logo. 

I will be naming my production company "Juniper Productions", named after my dog Juni.

This is Juni. It was pretty hard to find a good picture of her since she is very goofy all the time, but I was able to find this picture: super elegant and majestic. Although not quite what I'm exactly looking for. Again, I want something colder and more serious. And the photo here is definitely warm and bright, like a sunny day. I want a more winter aesthetic 

I messed with the settings: mainly tweaking the shadowing,, filters, temperature, and brightness in order to get a colder look. Surprisingly not as hard as I thought.

This is the final edited picture. What I really like about this photo is that it looks less like a picture and more like a painting, combining the low quality of the original picture and the tweaking of the settings.

This will just be a still image, not a video like Leo the Lion where he opens his mouth and roars. I think that the beauty of my dog is enough as a logo; no need for any performances since her look alone is beautiful enough.

The editing software I'll be using is Adobe Express. 

Here is the full logo. The font I used is Bravo SCT Regular. I wanted my logo title to be a more mechanical, more industrial. Like I said, I want to do sort of an opposite logo of MGM. I also took inspiration from the studio logo of Tippet Studios since Phil Tippet is one of my favorite people in the animation industry, and his company is known for its amazing work on digital and practical effects. 

Some other fonts I could possibly use in the future:

Anders

Baskervald ADF Std

Equinox Typeface

IMBF Nanomaton

Bonus photo (My dog being goofy):

Project: Mise-en-scene: Planning for lighting

 I mentioned in my previous posts that lighting is very important, an essential element for a film. Without it, then a film might not be as effective it can be with proper lights. Even if a film has choppy animation, it can still look good as long as everything else in it catches the viewers eyes more than the animation. 

I said in one of my previous posts that lighting was the aspect I was most worried about, since although I have made stop motion animations in the past, they are a still bit choppy since I am a huge amateur. 

Right now all I have is an ordinary lamp and little finger led lights. The led finger lights are very good for lighting, and gives me better control of the lighting of a scene. But there is one main problem: they don't last long. In previous films I made, there is noticeable changes in lighting because the finger leds I was using would flicker and don't last long and overtime dim down. Afterall they are designed for party use, not film or photography. 

So I need to find alternative lights that are small, but also last long and do not dim overtime. 

The reason why I like using these little lights is because they not only make the atmosphere of my animations look more lively and cool, they also give much more freedom of how I want my scenes to be lit. 

I am considering these two choices. The first are these mini round button lights, meant for trucks and vehicles. They do not have any setting on them other than turning on and off. I don't mind this, after all lights are surprisingly expensive and I need to work with I can afford. And I also don't mind this not having a broader range of colored lights available (I can just cover the white lights with colored paper or plastic).

What I really like about these is that have sort of a flashlight shape to them, like the finger lights I liked to use.

However the main, possible, issue I am using is that these lights are not chargeable and need an adapter to power it. Which is fine since I already have plenty of AC adapters I could use, but I am not sure how using a wired light would effect the shooting of my project (I never shot a project with a small light that is wired). 

My second option are these small leds, again originally meant for vehicles, mainly motorcycles. The benefits with these is they are wireless, meaning they can be charged and can give me better freedom of where to place them on my set. And they are remote controlled to which I can control what color they are. 

This sounds good but again, the main problem I am seeing is that they are wireless, meaning they have a battery which could possibly make the light dim and maybe flicker overtime. 

I looked at the reviews of this product and they are fairly good until there is one really honest bad review of the same object. To which I am not sure if I should heed it or not. But the reviews are fairly good, so I am more leaning towards the probability that this is a good product.

These two lights look good, but I am wondering which one should I buy? Or should I just buy both? The button lights have better reviews and stars than the motorcycle lights, but the motorcycle lights have a better range of color and does not need a wire connected. I think I'll try to buy both of these, if my parents allow it, but I am also leaning towards the idea of just buying the button lights since they have better reviews.

And about my lamp. The main problem I have with my lamp is that it has a very reflective design; having shiny steel metal as the main hold and a white cone around the bulb. This means if I am going to use this lamp, then it'll be visible, even in darkness. Not to mention that it could possibly interfere with the light since it is white and metal. But I might just cover it up with black clothe or paper. 

I originally thought about using these, small light bulb holders. They are small, black (which will not interfere with lighting), and easier to move around than a lamp. 

Although, I am questioning whether these lights are necessary or not? Yes, I already have a lamp, but it is pretty imbalanced and pretty reflective. I'll definitely be thinking about it.