As someone who's loved film since she watched La La Land for the first time since she was 10 years old, doing something like this didn't just excite me, but it taught me that there are so many options in life. I never even thought of this as an option, but thanks to this option and this class, I see that this is something I might want to work with in my future.
Not just that, but it was also a great way to express myself, my opinions, my thoughts. Though the film opening I made is science fiction, some of the themes in it are real. And I've always found that it's better to speak out about what you believe in rather than keep it to yourself because you're scared. Awareness and self expression is important.
At first I was scared and second guessing mysef. "What if it doesn't come out the way I want to?"
"What if I can't do this?" - "What if it's not good enough?" I struggled, but I remembered that I know I can trust myself, my process, and my vision. And in the end, it came out looking pretty damn good. Not to be cocky or anything, but I really am happy with it. And I hope that people enjoy watching it just as much as I enjoyed making it.
After some progress on editing yesterday, it's time to finish up my editing. Today my goal is to put in the sound and music, add the credits and title, and fix any transitions or mistakes to make sure it turns out good. Like mentioned in my last post, I hope the transition I'm adding puts a few more seconds to my time, and if not I'll try and extend or add SMALL extra scenes in.
This time, I didn't take a time lapse of me editing, solely because I felt like it'd look pretty identical to the last one, but I'm going to be going over each step of today's final process. his time editing took me 3 hours, so a bit more than yesterday.
First I started by checking all the clips once more, making sure they were all in place. Which they were! So first step gone right already.
Then I went into music. For copyright free music, I used Epidemic Sound, which required account creation. I didn't mind because I felt like it was the best choice for the quality of what I heard. After going through some songs for the first half I was left with three choices. And after some advice from my mom and friend, we all agreed that the pacing and vibe for the song "Starfall" by Roots and Recognition was the best choice. There's not much else to say about sound but the fact that I really didn't think I'd have to use that many sound effects, but as I started using them, I saw how it enhanced the feel of the product. So to my surprise, I ended up using quite a few, for things such as footsteps, slamps, and other sound effects.
(Sound Effects Shown Above)
After watching some tutorials on how to put text, photo, and edit sound, I found that editing was a much easier job than I thought it'd be. Did it take me a sum of 5 hours to edit a 2 mintue clip? Yes. But as my first time doing something like this, I found that I did it decently well. I almost found it fun, too. Who would've thought?
Though, I didn't do it alone. Every so often I asked opinions of my friends and family. Such as "What do you think of this hue?" or "What do you think of this font for the credits?" Because though the responsibility of this project is on me, I also found it important to hear opinions from others to know what an outside perspective thinks of something I'm making.
I felt like shedding a tear when I was done since it took so long, and I'm happy to finally be done with this part. Now onto my next part, which I'm already a bit late for. Let's get going.
I FINALLY got to get the first half of my editing done today. I say finally like it isn't on me that it's like this, but oh well. Sometimes we have to complain for no reason. But anyway, today I set up every scene and synced them one. To be honest, this is probably going to be the easiest part of editing since tomorrow I have to add the music and credits, along with one fancy transition between the two scene I want to include, but I think it'll be okay. Before I thought I could've even do this but it turns out it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
I only filmed half of my editing process, which was about 2 hours and 30 minutes, and I made a time lapse of it. I wish I could've screen recorded it but I wasn't sure how to do that on this PC, so I went for this option instead.
(Peep the paint on my sweater in the first few seconds)
There was a few times where I had to change my music and give attention to my dog, but I was pretty on task for most of it. Since the software is so simple, I got the gist of most features off the bat, but I looked at one or two tutorials to understand some things. I imagine I'm going to have to look at a lot more of these videos tomorrow. It was honestly really helpful that ClipChamp has their own channel with tutorials, though. Often times, online things like this have tutorials but they tend to be out of date or confusing, but the ones I watched were easy to follow.
I didn't have many issues but one. It was TOO short. When I finished putting in all the clips I intended to use at first, I ended up having 1 minute and 30 seconds. I panicked a little bit here, so I went to ask one of my old Group #1 members, Arantza, for some advice. She told me that our teacher had suggested to make use of the maximum of two minutes in their entirity, which I understood, but was stumped on what to do. Luckily, I figured I still had to include the production logo and some extra scenes I had.
This actually ended up turning out pretty well for me because not only did I simplify my production logo to something more simple (which I liked better since my old one kind of looked like a perfume label)
And as for the including some other shots, I'm glad I did. When I filmed the first scene, I thought that her rummaging through multiple bags was going to be too long, worried that the video as a whole would be over the limit, but it turns out I was way under the limit. So not only did I have footage to fill what was missing, but I think it also made it more believable since she goes through multiple bags before getting to the last one instead of it seeming like she got a magical feeling to choose the last one and actually find something in it.
I ended up ending with 1 minutew 53 seconds after this process, which isn't ideal, but I didn't have much more to include that wouldn't appear to messy or out of place. I figured that it'd be better to be 7 seconds short than to cram things into it reducing the flow of the film opening. I'm hoping that with the small transition I'm going to add, it'll turn out at least 1 or 2 seconds longer, but I'm not too mad with my results right now.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with today's editing process and I'm excited to finish it tomorrow so I can finally get to my CCR and have enough time for it.
Maybe it's me or maybe it's the universe teaching me more lessons about how things don't always go the way we want them to, but I had more problems with editing than I thought I would. Something came up on Saturday so I wasn't able to sit down and edit anything, so I left it for today.
Unfortunately after going through all the footage for the last time and picking which one's I'd be using officially, I was stumped when it came to transferring the footage to my computer. I managed to send the footage from scene #2 to my computer, but I had issues with the GoPro Quik app. Having downloaded footage from road trips before, I knew (or thought I knew) that it would work quickly. Maybe it's because of my low phone storage or because I'm transferring so many at once, but something weird happened.
On the app it said it downloaded to my photos, but when I go to my photos, there's nothing there. Even further, it pops up when I open my photos on apps like Instagram, but when I go back to my photos, like before, there's nothing there.
Then I tried sending the items to myself, but the files are too large to send through any text messages. I figure that it might just take time, so I'm going to give it until tomorrow to properly load onto my phone because something like this has happened before (even if it took less time).
As for the second half, I've only put them in order. This is a bit of a set back, which is not great at all. I hoped I'd be done editing by this weekend so I can start worrying about filming my CCR, but it looks like I'm going to have to hustle and work on them both at the same time.
I hope it all goes well tomorrow, I'll see you readers there.
To film, I used two different devices. On the first day I filmed, I used a GoPro Quik. I'm not really sure why to be honest. I got it as a gift from my brother when we went on a road trip and we thought it would be a good substitute for an actual camera for filming. And it was, at least for the first time since there was no dialogue. But for the second part, the GoPro had an issue. The speaker wasn't good at all and no microphone that was being offered in class or on Amazon would fit it. My iPhone was the next best bet.
In the end I think it worked out because the resolution for the GoPro looked a bit vintage and darker than the resolution on my iPhone camera, which fit the vibe I was going for.
I used a bluetooth microphone and connected it to my phone to film the second part of the opening with smooth dialogue. I had a little trouble figuring out how to use them, but then I realized I had to turn the individual little microphones on . . . and then everything went okay!
For scene #1, we just relied on the natural lighting of the sun. For the second scene we used the ceiling light in my dining room and the natural light coming from the window. So . . . not a lot tech used there.
Lastly, I filmed everything by hand or with a phone stand to keep the camera still.
2. Online Use:
I used Canva to create my logos which was so easy to use since they offer so many different fonts and designs to use. The only update I have for that is that I might change the company logo a bit because it might be too cutesy, but I'm not sure yet.
For editing, I will be using ClipChamp which looks like a simpler alternative to Adobe Premier Pro which I had a lot of trouble with in the past.
I emailed Gustavo Santaolalla about getting permission to use the song "What We Can't Feel," but I have yet to get a response, which is sad but not a huge problem since I can just use a song from a copyright free database like Pixabay or BenSound.
In addition, I used the GoPro Quik app to transfer all the footage from the GoPro onto the app so I could save it to my phone.
I've also been using my PC and my laptop to edit and record and share my progress and what I've learned throughout this project process on Blogger!
The third CCR question is relatively easier to answer than the others. At least I think it is. The question is "How did your production skills develop throughout this project?"
Production Reflection
I say this is easy to answer because before taking part in this class and this project, I knew almost nothing about production. In November and December I practiced with editing a magazine cover and editing a 50 second clip. Besides that, I've always had a good eye for taking photos, but I've never experienced a project like this.
When I started, I barely even knew how to zoom in the camera I was using for the first half. Along with that, I knew the different kinds of shots and angles, having watched examples like videos of them in class, but I was stumped on which ones to use to make it look best. For that, I tried it from various different angles with many shots, and ending up with going with a tracking shot. After getting used to it a little more, it was easier to shoot the second half, especially since I did it with my phone.
In my blog, I spoke about how I viewed different film openings, like the ones of Interstellar, Mazerunner, and the Hunger Games. But I went further than that. I rewatched a few of the Hunger Games movies and A Quiet Place: Day One. To be honest, I also watched these for fun, but also to take note of how different shots and angles made the scene feel. In Mockingjay Part 2, when Panem (the Capitol) is bombed by President Coin, the camera follows Katniss from some different angles. But I noticed that as the camera followed her, it wasn't completely still. It was as we were walking with her as we watched, and at the same time, it made us feel the disarray the characters are feeling in this scene. Everything is messy and going up in smoke, and the camera reflects that. Something similar is shown in A Quiet Place: Part 2 when the alien creatures first invade the city and the camera follows Samira through the rubble and dust.
Inspired by this, I used a tracking shot to follow the main character and reflect her feelings of desperateness and hunger. I'm glad I did this instead of just several different still shots.
I didn't just learn about the shots, but also how important it is to be prepared. I noticed the big difference in between both days of shooting. Though I knew what I was going to be doing on the first day, I didn't prepare a shot-by-shot script. Therefore, it took a lot longer than the second time around where I wrote it all down.
Technology has never been my strong suit, so I don't know much about it. Having not edited yet, I can't say how much I've learned with that process until tomorrow. I'm going to dedicate this weekend to complete my project. When I practiced video editing for the first time, I used Adobe Premier Pro, but I had a very hard time. My new Media Studies teacher suggested that I use ClipChamp, a tool provided by Office365. It's editing software that is much easier to use. Once I get to working with it on Saturday I'll update on how much I learned from that.
Though, at this point, I started in January, being completely new to this kind of production product, and now I can confidently say I've learned how to shoot scenes and direct in a productive way. I also learned how interested I truly am to this topic, and I had so much fun going through this process. Sure, it was stressful, but I think that was part of the fun. I've always liked movies and TV shows, but it never occurred to me that I could do something with this interest for my future, not until I took this class and did this project.
The second CCR question is "How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?" Which stumped me when I first read it, but after a thorough class discussion, I understood it a bit more.
1. First, I must address the target audience of my media text, but let's narrow that down.
In the past few years, the dystopian sub-genre has become increasingly popular with new generations. Making the leading audience for it teenagers to young adults. One of the causes of this interest is current situations that are shown in these media texts. Some older audiences also stay tuned to these movies because they're fans of the books that came out when they first started getting into it. (Which was a while ago.) As for gender, there's no statistic that shows that interest for the genre shows in a specific gender.
2. How do my choices engage that audience?
As discussed in my last blog post, my media text shows examples of real-life issues within the contents of the opening. It's a direct criticism to certain practices around the world. The text also follows the typical conventions of a movie in this genre, such as a young protagonist. This increases the relatability (to a certain extent) to the audience I'm trying to reach. Though the majority of them don't know what it's like to scavenge for food, some could relate to having shaky relationships with their parents and definitely the feeling of being a bystander when being confronted with a complicated situation. Everyday, whether it's online or in their own communities, young people are presented with harsh situations. Being young, a lot of them don't stand up or say anything because they feel like their voice doesn't matter or that it wouldn't make a difference.
3. How will I make my film available to these audiences?
Putting myself in the mindset of a new filmmaker trying to get their product out into the world, I can't sit here and say that I'd want my film released in theaters or Netflix. I'd release it on small platforms like Youtube and Tubi, but also present it at events like a film festival. Beyond that I'd release a poster or snippets on my own social media to promote it.
The first Creative Critical Reflection question is "How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?" But . . . what does that mean? I mean, we know what it means, but what kind of answer does this kind of question require? Let's answer it in parts.
1. What are conventions of dystopian films?
Luckily for me, I already researched the typical genre conventions of a dystopian film. This is why recording your research is important. Films in this genre usually follow a young protagonist who questions or is against the totalitarian government of the universe/nation they live in. Said main characters are always on the "lesser" side of society. Dystopian movies also represent situations that are exaggerated versions of the world we live in now, or what the world could be in the future. Many of them are set in the future. Lastly, there are smaller things like dim lighting, rundown or controlled settings, futuristic technologies and cities, things like that.
2. Now, does my product use or challenge these conventions?
When it comes to the last part having to do with the mis-en-scene, setting, and those sort of details, my product uses those conventions to amplify the tone of the movie and have it be more believable. Along with that, Beatrice is a young protagonist who questions the system who also happens to be on the short end of the stick. Her problems, and everyone else's, are rooted in the government's tyranny. Though, my product differs in it's genre because I didn't set it far in the past nor in the future, but rather in the present. I wanted it to be clear that something like this isn't a fantasy or a fairy tale, but a possible future that isn't 5 million light years behind or ahead of us.
3. How does it represent social groups or issues?
Though the gravity of the situation in my film opening turns out to be a bit exaggerated, I derived my details from real life situations. There are many countries all over the world that have societies facing hunger and poverty. I was specifically thinking of countries like Cuba that have a rationing system. I've been familiar with the situation in Cuba for most of my life, being Venezuelan, since our countries share similar issues. Either way, I did more research. Due to the economic situation, a lot of Cuban families and individuals rely on government rations for their daily bread, literally. With a rationing booklet, which is marked off each time, Cuban citizens are given one roll of bread daily. This bread is stale and hard, and in the words of YaneisyCANTA ( or @yaneisycanta_98 on TikTok), a Cuban influencer who sings and documents her struggles in Cuba online, "Si te quieres comer el pan de hoy, tienes que esparar para mañana." Which translates to "If you want to eat the bread of today, you have to wait until tomorrow." She also says things like Spam are a luxury, or anything like oil and salt to make the bread taste a bit better. In my product, I included these details I learned. Beatrice and her mother are shown eating the loaves of bread they were both given for the day, along with small pieces of canned sausages and 2 or 3 dried blueberries.
Secondly, the aspect of police brutality shown in my product. A boy is shown bumping into a young military official, and the official is enraged and decides to take violent action. Being used to this, Beatrice's mother closes the curtain and ignores it. There are and have been many instances where police officials, or other non-official divisions of power, have taken advantage of their position. George Floyd, Renee Good, and Liam Ramos and his family are just a few examples of victims that have faced this. Though there has been a lot of outrage for the horrors imposed upon these people and other victims like them, there has been an excess in ignorance, too. My inclusion of this issue isn't only to show the ongoing problems in this universe, but also how "normal" something can become if a society keeps turning their heads and ignoring grave situations.
5. BBC News. (2026, February 1). Boy, 5, and father detained by ICE return to Minnesota after release. BBC News. Retrieved March 4, 2026, from https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwynzw7jd4go
I was thinking and I realized I forgot an important step to this project, which is naming it. Naming the movie I want to make. I figured that it's something I want to know before I start editing, since I'm including the title at the start and not the end.
To making the title I'm going to use Canva like I did with my production company logo because they have many fonts I can work with and it makes my life easier since maneuvering through Canva is a piece of cake.
But before I make it as a page, I need to actually know what the title will be. I was thinking of "A World We Accepted" but I don't think it's very catchy. Then, I came up with "The Quiet Before" which I liked a little more. I just really want to emphasize one of the biggest messages of the movie opening, showing how silence, even innocent silence, will lead to something way bigger than some would imagine. I decided to go with option #2.
This is the final product:
I wanted to make it so the hands represent the hands that cover up atrocities, trying to hide it from the public eye. But the letters are so big and bold that you know what it says if you just stop and look.
And on the more technical part, I chose a big, bold font to echo the themes of the movie. As for the hands, I got various images of different black and white hands and cut out the background. Then, I shaped and turned them to make them look like they're gripping into or going over letters.
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