How Editing Went

    Over this whole week I've been working hard on editing my short film with the goal of finishing it this weekend. I'm pleased to say I've done just that! I had originally mentioned that I had issues with the length of my short film, but after adding some clips and getting the footage I forgot to get of the empty room, I made the short film get to 4 minutes and 55 seconds. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I had planned on editing on Adobe Premiere Pro, but unfortunately neither of my computers were able to support such a heavy program, so I ended up using CapCut after talking to my friends in the class, who mentioned they also had to resort to the same thing. This worked out really well, as it allowed me to work on the project during my spare time at school and when I was out of the house. 

    I split the the days up by priority, first focusing on the look and coloration of the short film and then focusing on sound. For coloring I made it so each color character was incredibly saturated, while Death was very undersaturated, but would slowly gain saturation and they also gained another colored aspect from the other characters. I messed around with a grainy filter here and there, and realized I didn't really like the look, so I kept the filter very minimal.

    As for the sound, this took the longest (almost two whole days). For the ending, I already knew what I wanted which was something very peaceful, yet intense. It wasn't hard to pick copyright free ambient music off of YouTube (where I got all of my sound effects). 

 

For Yellow's section, I decided a heartbeat in the background would be most fitting since they are always so worried about their physical "symptoms" and what they could mean, and as they began to panic more, the heartbeat gets faster. For Purple, since the character itself doesn't care about death, I figured I'd keep it simple and just add some outdoors noises to the background, since I had to remove them from the original clip since it was way too loud and drowning out Graesen's voice. 

    Green's section was by far the hardest as nothing seemed to fit right with the scene. I tried everything, from sad music, to no background at all, but nothing fit. I knew I needed audio in the background because it felt too empty, so I turned to my friend Grace who had taken this class last year for advice. I showed her, and couple of the people who were in the project what I had and asked what they thought. They liked it, but also didn't really know what to put for the background. Grace agreed that something was missing from Green's section. That's when my sister Mariana, who plays Green, suggested something like traffic noises. And so that's what I did. I made the background noise for Green's section be an auditory representation of Green reliving the car crash and moments after, with the sound of the car crashing and an ambulance in the distance. 

After sending the first draft to Ace and Gaby for some feedback, and making some final adjustments, like adding a zoom out animation to the end credits to make the empty room a little more visually interesting, it's safe to say I'm finally done! Overall, I loved how the film turned out and I am so proud of myself for what I've created. Getting this short film edited has been my main priority this past week, and I'm pretty sure my friends and family are ready to stop hearing me talk about it all the time. Still, I'm so excited to show everyone what I've created!

Final Group Meeting (oh my)

    My oh my the clock is ticking and the end is terrifyingly near. As we enter the last week for the project, we had one last group meeting to check on everyone. Its safe to say that overall, everyone in my group is doing well, and has a plan for where they are going. Same for me.

    Although not mentioned yet on my blog, I have started editing and have most of the film at least sequenced together. I tried to use Premier Pro at first, but my computer wasn't able to support it and would constantly shut on and off, so my next best option was to edit on my phone using Capcut (more on that later). But I mentioned to my group that I did have most of my project sequenced together, aside from a shot of the empty room that I forgot to get which I am getting later today, and the end credits. That being said, I am currently at a four minutes for my project, which has me a bit nervous, but I have a solution! In the end sequence, when the colors are flashing on death, when a color that matches a character appears, it will cut to a flash of the character to add time to my project. 

    As for social media, I told them I was planning on creating a banner post and some story posts for each character. For the post card, I mentioned highlighting Death and having a picture of them holding the flower like at the end. Tai mentioned a really cool idea that I'm thinking of doing of making the post card look like the death tarot card. Abby also mentioned a website that has royalty free sound effects and music that could be useful for my project called artlist.io.

    While the pressure is most definitely on, I feel confident that I'll be able to get everything done well!

Production Overview!

     I am happy to say that I have the full short film shot!

The morning started with me covering Death's purple shirt in fake fake blood using food coloring and setting it out to dry. Then my dad picked me up, and we headed over to Trader Joe's to get blue flowers. When I got there I realized that naturally occurring blue flowers are decently rare, but I was able to find a bouquet of blue flowers with yellow centers that were gorgeous and perfect. Once I got to my dad's house, we cleared out the office space, and waiting for everyone to show up. I had told Clara to get to my dad's house at 1pm since I needed to get the most shots and takes with them. We had a small issue with the purple shirt since the red food coloring hadn't show up as much as I thought it would, so I took some of the fake blood I was going to use for purple and smeared it onto the shirt. Then we hung it to dry in the bathroom and used a blow dryer to speed up the drying process.

    Everyone else started arriving at around 2pm, and by then we basically got all of the shots done for Clara. Once everyone got there, we got the shots for Yellow, Green, and Blue without any hiccup. Since I made sure we'd have plenty of time in case something went wrong, we were all able to hang out and take a break between takes. Clara did the bruise make up for Mariana, who was playing Green, and it ended up looking really cool. They also gave Ayami, who was playing Yellow, some eye bags to make her look more tired. Once we got all the shots for Death, Yellow, Green, and Blue, we were only missing purple, but we had to wait for the sun to go down since it would be filmed outside and we needed the purple light to be seen. We had a couple hours, so we all hung out and ate some snacks, and eventually everyone left, and me and Graesen drove Mariana home since I wouldn't need her help to film this last part.

    By the time we got back to my dad's apartment, the sun had set enough where we could start setting up. Graesen still had not tried the herbal cigarettes that my friend Ace let me borrow for the project (Ace used the same cigarettes for his AS level project last year), and so he tested one out and we both realized just how terrible they smelled (but at least they looked realistic!). After that we set up the bottles into the right spot, and set up the camera (my phone) and the light. We go to turn the light on... and nothing. The light doesn't turn on. We thought maybe it was the outlet, or the plug, or even a loose wire. But nothing got the lamp to turn on. At this point it's 7:45pm and I'm stressed. My dad, Graesen, and I run over to the nearest Walmart and thankfully there's a color changing sunset lamp, and we grab it, pay, and drive back over to my dad's to get the last section for the project. After a couple of minutes of confusion, and I'll admit slight panic on my part, we finally got the new lamp to work and got started on the final part that I needed. The rest of the time went without a hitch, however cleaning up the fake blood got a little tricky since I didn't realize it would stain skin and it subsequently stained Graesen's hands red, but we got it (mostly) out!

     Overall filming day went really well, besides a couple bumps at the end but I'm so happy with how the shots came out! I am super excited to start editing and hopefully start getting more posts on the Instagram! 

Props (so many props...)

    While production is already complete, I just realized I never made a post discussing props, so before getting into production and how that went, let's take a little dive into the props. For "Stare" I need a lot of props and specific costume pieces in order to make the film look how I want. I have a little notes page on Notion with literally everything I need for this project so I made a check list of everything I need, and checked off all the things I already have. The green flannel and yellow button down I borrowed from friends, Clara who plays Death, and my friend Ace.

    For Purple's scene, I needed a lot of fakes and special effect props like fake cigarettes and fake blood. I was able borrow herbal cigarettes that are completely safe to use from my friend Ace, who used them for his AS level project last year. As for the blood, I got a small bottle of edible fake blood, that even came with capsules to bite, however we didn't end up using the capsules. I also bought two purple shirts, one that Death would wear that is covered in blood, and one that Purple wears during his scene.

    On the day of filming, I got the blue flowers that Blue and Death would use. They ended up having a bit of yellow in them since I realized that blue is not much of a naturally occurring color, but they are still really blue, and got the job done nicely. I also covered Death's purple shirt in blood that day. As for the rest of the props, I thankfully had them all available at my own home or at my dad's so it was all a matter of keeping track of everything when I needed it.

Pre-production (Shot List)

 Preparation for filming continues! I've created a rough shot list of every single shot I need to get on Saturday..

1. Wide shot of the empty room

2. Wide shot of death appearing in the middle of the room

3. Medium shot (close up?) of death looking to the left and right, then forward

4. Medium shot of Yellow trying to find the thermometer

5. Close up of Death staring

6. Medium shot of yellow looking for tylenol then looking up at camera

7. Close up of death 

8. Medium Yellow panicking

9. Close up of death

10. Close up of yellow panicking, begging

11. Medium of death turning to the right

12. Medium of purple sitting on a lawn chair smoking

13. Medium of death tilting their head

14. Close up of purple

15. Medium of death looking at the table and back purple

16. Close up of purple coughing

17. Close up of Death, intense stare

18. Medium of Purple coughing up blood

19. Medium of Death, purple shirt covered in blood

20. Medium of Purple falling off chair still coughing

21. Medium of Death turning to the right

22. Wide shot of green sitting in a bathtub

23. Close up of death

24. Wide shot of green crying in bathtub

25. Close up of death, vaguely confused

26. Wide shot of green crying/screaming

27. Medium shot of Death backing away (V.O. of Blue)

28. Side view medium shot of Death with green shirt on

29. Full front close up of Blue

30. Full front medium/close up of Death

31. Close up of Blue smiling at death

32. Close up of Death staring

33. Medium of blue handing death a flow

34. Close up of death taking flower, and looking back up at blue

35. Medium of Blue walking off frame

36. Medium of Death staring into camera, frame closing in

Getting the Cast Together!

     With two days left before filming, its time to get the cast together! I've had the cast predetermined for a while now, it was just a matter of seeing if they were available on the day that I plan to film. Thankfully everyone except for one person is available on Saturday, so my sister is stepping in for that person. As for the rest of the cast, it's literally just my friend group because I had easy access to them and we all do theater together, so I was able to fit each person with the character I thought they would be able to play the best. Below is the cast list in order in which they appear in the script:

Death- Clara Pangalangan

Yellow- Ayami Ratnayake

Purple- Graesen Pethtel

Green- Mariana Aldana 

Blue- Isa Saralegui

Change in Filming Location

     Over the weekend while finishing the script, I knew that I would need to get a lot more shots of Death, since the ones I took before, were more test shots. While trying to coordinate how I would even get everyone I need to be in my project down to my dad's office in Doral, I realized I was sitting in my dad's new apartment, with an office room that only has a couple boxes and household items. I asked my dad if he'd be okay with the everyone coming to his apartment to film my project, and if I could move the boxes out of the room, and use it for Death's room and he agreed! 

    The blinds on the window will be fully shut during filming, and thankfully its one of those windows that faces the center of the building (its odd to explain but basically little to no sunlight gets through), so it won't interfere with the lighting inside of the room. All the other settings I wrote in the script I wrote with the specific intent of filming at my dad's apartment. Even the outdoor scene will be filmed out on the balcony. Thank goodness my dad just moved into his apartment and hasn't finished furnishing or unpacking the rooms! :D