Re-shoots Might Not Happen Soon

   This past week has been very interesting, for the entire world I would say. An outbreak of a deadly virus has plagued the world as of recently. It is known as the corona virus or COVID-19. It first started out in China but quickly has found its way to the U.S., and even worse, our own county. There was talk about school getting cancelled for a few days but on Friday afternoon, our superintendent made an announcement that school would be cancelled the week of March 16th. Unfortunately, this was the last week of the third quarter. A lot of students and teachers were unhappy about this due to not knowing what would happen with grades. However some good news was that next week would be spring break though so we wouldn’t be missing anything if we had to miss that week too. This has impacted our re-shooting schedule though. Everybody is under self quarantine as of right now. The government is telling that we must practice social distancing for the time being. This means we should have the least amount of human interaction possible. This will supposedly help to combat the virus, or at least help to stop it from spreading so quickly. However, this means that we can’t do re-shoots for a while. We’re not sure what we can do about this and we’re scared for the future of our film project. For now, all we can do is edit the footage that we do have. I was planning on editing the footage either tomorrow or sometime next week but unfortunately my computer has broken. It will not start up and when it does, it just crashes. This is the worst time for my computer to be broken because after spring break, there’s a good chance that we may have to online school. If I can get a hold of a computer though, I will definitely work on editing some footage. Maybe I will even get a new computer, but I’m not sure at this time.

Here is a computer model of the Coronavirus or COVID-19.

What we need to fix

  In our AICE Media Studies class, we have had our film peer reviewed and are ready to start the next step, which is to reshoot and re-edit. The peer review gave us lots of insight on what we could do better in our film. For starters, in the peer review, it was mentioned and suggested that we clean up the story a bit. The reviewers pointed out that there were several plot holes in the story. This included character motivations and explanations as to how a character was in a certain scene at one point. We took this into consideration and realized the only way we could fix this is if we did a reshoot. We would use the reshoot to replace the old scenes that don’t make sense with new ones that do make sense. This would allow the film to have a better overall story. We also had a problem with lighting in one of the last shots of the film. This was not our fault because the lights in the park we were filming in shut off randomly in the middle of one of our takes. This was not very convenient for us, so the last three shots in the film are very dark and hard to see. So we’d need to reshoot those parts when there’s actually lights on. We also need to do some more editing. We need to add in some sounds, like for example, we need to add a thud noise in one scene. We also want to add some music to it as well to try and set the mood of the film better. We also want to edit in our titles. We know that they were supposed to be in the film in time for the peer review, however it just didn’t work out. This was mostly due to the fact that we filmed the Saturday before it was due. It was our fault for sure, but at least we could still add the titles. When we finished doing all of that, I believe our film will be really good and up to par with what Cambridge expects. I have a good feeling about our final product.


This is a picture of the bad lighting towards the end of the film.

Week in Review

 We have now completed the peer evidenced at the time of writing this. Prior to that however, we had filmed the Saturday before at one of my group members’ house. We all met there at around five o’clock. Another person who was not in our group was with us as well. He is a sophomore, just like the rest of us in the group, except he has his license and a car. The original plan was for him to just drive us around, but he ended up playing the villain character in our film. His acting abilities were actually pretty good, so there was no issue there. So we had started filming outside of my group member’s house, which was supposed to be the setting of a party. This is where I filmed my little comic relief moment and acted as a spring breaker. That was a very fun scene to shoot and it definitely took a couple of tries to get it right. After we finished filming at his house, we decided to drive to a park for our second location. When we got to the park, I got out of the car and they filmed the scenes that would take place inside the car. I could not be in there because there was no room, as it was a relatively small car, and I wasn’t a character in that scene. Therefore, while they drove around the area, I waited for them at the park. When they came back we wrapped up the rest of it, and I got to film my trunk shot, which was fun. We filmed the chase scene which took a couple tries due to lighting issues. Speaking of lighting issues though, during one of our takes, the lights in the park suddenly shut off, and you can actually see it in the film. All in all, filming this was a fun experience, and my favorite filming of the three projects we have had this school year. The peer review allowed us to get some great feed back on our film. We realized that we still have a lot of editing to clean up with our film and we are excited to make it as best as possible.

Peer Review

On Tuesday in our AICE Media Studies class, we did peer reviews on everybody’s final project/video.

Before the peer review, our group filmed, re-shot, and edited. The video that we produced was not the final product, however. We plan on making more changes editing wise, as well as adding more titles to the film. I do not believe re-shoot will be necessary.

The group that we graded had a great film. It was about a girl that wakes up in a simulation. She comes home and passes out, and then it switches to her in a training ground. The group was able to fill almost all of the criteria. I hope that our group can learn some things from the group that we peer reviewed, and implement it into our own film.

As well as peer reviewing another group, we had our video peer reviewed. Most of the comments were positive, but some were not. I have learned what we need to change and put into our film. One of the things being titles. Things such as "edited by" and "filmed by" were missing in our film. Our group will definitely be able to put these things into our film by the time it is due.

I am glad we had the ability to experience peer reviewing. It has helped me see what our group is doing good in, and what we are lacking in. I plan on going home and changing the video transitions. I will also add the title slides, and some eerie music.

We're Filming Tomorrow!

    My group is finally filming tomorrow and I can't be more excited. We have had almost two weeks to film and we are finally going to be filming. It is probably irresponsible to be waiting to film this late, but we've all been very busy. Between school, and extracurricular activities like swimming and band, it's hard to find a time to film where everyone can be able to participate and be involved in shooting. Friday is a good time to film because we're all free and available, surprisingly. It was hard enough to find a time to film for the music video. However, this time around, it was an even greater challenge. Another challenge will be trying to edit the entire thing by Tuesday. On Tuesday, our film is due, no matter if it's done or not. This is because we will be doing a peer review. A peer review will be very beneficial to us and our film project. A peer review will allow us to get feedback on what we did right, what we did wrong, and what we could improve on. Ultimately, it will help us perfect it (at least to the best of our ability) and we would be more knowledgeable. My group still decided it was for the best to not check out a camera. They still believe using one of the cameras in unnecessary and that we don't need to use one. Therefore, we will still be using someone's phone to film. All of us have the same phone, which is an iPhone 8. With everybody's camera quality being the same, whoever's phone we use depends on who feels comfortable using their own phone. Additionally, it also depends on who still has storage space available on their phone. Unlike the music video, we will not be filming with my iPhone. I did not enjoy doing that at all and it was too much hassle. I'm still excited to film tomorrow and see how our vision will play out through the footage.

Filming Has Not Started Yet

   In reference to my last blog, we did not film over the weekend. My schedule was clear and I was fine with filming so that was not the issue. The other members in my group said that they had homework from other classes that they needed to do instead. Therefore, this is our reason for not filming over the weekend. Personally I do not think this was a very good excuse, but I do realize that other school work is important. I am not too happy with this though, considering we only have one more weekend to film and then that's it. The final project will be due for peer review and we must have it done by then because I do not want a zero in the grade book. The plan as of right now is to film Friday night. This is because our entire film intro takes place at night. We are also all free on Friday night with no after-school activities such as swimming or band. Honestly, I did not want to film this late because I knew this would cause a lot of stress. It would be stressful because we have to cram in all of our filming, without the possibility of re-shoots. We also have to quickly do all the editing, which is stressful and because the editing is a bit more complicated this time around than it was in previous projects. This time, our camera angles and shots will be more sophisticated and we also have to add in titles. In addition to this, my group still does not want to check out a camera. They still think it's a great idea to film on someone's phone. I know for a fact that my phone will not be used though. As I stated in the previous blog, I did not enjoy filming on my phone for the music video project. I'm still looking forward to filming on Friday, even though this blog may seem like I'm not. I'm mostly excited because the story's idea is something I came up with, so I'm eager to see how my vision will turn out. However, all I know is that our project must be completed in time for the peer review, or we will find ourselves in a tight spot.

Beginning the Filming Process for the Final Task

    In AICE Media Studies, we have began working on our final task. At this point, all of our research has been completed. We researched genres and the titles in introductions in films. We have finished drawing the storyboard and writing a shooting script and sound script. We have until March 2nd to have our intro filmed and edited. It must be done by this day because we will being doing a peer review in class. In this peer review, we will be watching other groups' videos and critiquing them. In class today, we were offered to checkout camera's with tripods and SD cards. My group decided to make a decision I did not agree with. They had decided not to check out a camera. This is because of what happened when we were filming our music video. Back when we filmed our music video, the group member who had our camera happened to be out of town and we needed to shoot soon. Therefore, we ended shooting the music video completely on my phone's camera. So today in class when our teacher called groups up to check out a camera, my group voted not to. They assured me that filming on my phone was way better than filming with the camera. However, what they didn't know was the big struggle I had getting the footage for the music video from my phone to the computer. That was very time consuming and not an enjoyable experience for me. My group still decided to film on somebody's phone. This time though, it will not be my phone because first, I didn't like exporting the footage, and second, I don't have much storage left on my phone. In terms of creating a filming schedule, we are not quite sure what that is going to be yet, however we are going to try to get some filming in this weekend. As far as location, we will be filming at someone's house and there's a chance it could be at mine.