IM FINALLY FINISHED!!! After 8 weeks everything is complete and i’m so proud of my work and I hope you all at Cambridge enjoy it!
Here’s the link to my film opening: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HewBzQ8UtgHQb3XrvUQhuKjpGN8o-7hR/view?usp=drivesdk
Here’s the link to my first CCR: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IIZyL6GgKvhSHtXC-hNmpx3Za1wmKm9A/view?usp=drivesdk
And finally here’s the link to my second CCR: https://drive.google.com/file/d/180FOH9vzPPYwk5EQZkrqOfTk3PWsylfu/view?usp=drivesdk
This film opening project was pretty hard, but I definitely learned a lot from it. At first it seemed like a lot to do with the research, planning, filming, and editing but after breaking it down in a schedule it wasn’t so overwhelming. I’ve learned about camera angles, lighting, and sound in past projects, but with this project I had to combine everything together. It made things more challenging, but also more fun.
While filming, there were times when I felt stressed, like making sure the shots came out the way I pictured them. Editing was also tricky because i’m not very good at it but I wanted everything to flow smoothly and make the story emotional. Even though it took a lot of work, I’m proud of how it all turned out, and I feel like I got better at putting all the pieces together to make a full project.
Okay now that all my recording is done it’s time to edit my CCR.
I recorded my CCR in three parts. Part one was me answering question one, part two was the sponsorship ad for my app TicketScorer, and part three was me answering question two. I broke it up this way so it would flow better and make it easier to edit.
I was on vacation and didn’t have access to my IPad or computer, so I had to use my phone, and CapCut was the only editing app I could work with unfortunately. It actually worked pretty well and helped me finish everything on time.
To make my transitions more interesting, I added a countdown like the ones you’d see in news intros.
I also used a “woosh” sound effect when switching between the questions and the ad.
After editing everything together, the final video ended up being around 5 minutes long.
For my Second CCR I decided to make a podcast to answer the questions How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? and How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
I started by writing a script so I knew exactly what I wanted to say.
Then, I recorded myself reading it using Voice Memos on my phone.
The script made the process simple and helped me stay on track.
I also had to make an ad, so I created a sponsorship for an app I made up called TicketScorer. It’s kind of like Ticketmaster or SeatGeek, where you can buy tickets for concerts and events. I thought it would be a fun and creative way to tie everything together.
Overall, producing my CCR was a good experience and everything went as planned.
Now it’s editing time!
I watched all my videos and picked the best clips to include. I had to edit on CapCut unfortunately because i’m on vacation so that’s the only thing that works on my phone.
I found sound effects of a phone call on youtube to edit into my video and it worked perfectly! The video ended up being 2 minutes which is good. Also, CapCut had a template for rolling credits which made it super easy to include my credits into the video. Here’s a photo of the template.
It’s finally time to start my CCR’s!
To answer the questions How did your production skills develop throughout this project? and How did you integrate technologies - software, hardware and online - in this project? I decided to do a phone call between past and future me where past me asks questions as advice for the project.
I first started by developing a script
Today I’ll be writing the script or the final CCR question! The question is how did your production skills develop throughout this project?
Here’s the script I created:
My production skills grew a lot while working on this project. At the beginning, I didn’t really know how much work it would take, but I learned a lot through research and practice. First, I did research on drama movies, especially ones about addiction, like Beautiful Boy. I learned that drama films need strong characters, emotional stories, and realistic acting to connect with the audience. I also researched how other filmmakers used lighting, sound, and editing to create mood and emotion.
Then I worked on planning. I made a storyboard to organize my ideas. This helped me figure out what shots I needed, like the flashbacks and the close-ups of the character’s face and the drug use. Planning made the filming easier because I already knew what I wanted to film and how it would look.
When I started filming, I faced some challenges. One problem was that I had to film by myself because my dad couldn’t help me like I originally planned. So, I had to improvise and ended up using a ring light as a tripod to hold the camera steady. Another problem was my own mistake, I thought it would be easier to film all my takes in one long video and just cut out the scene I liked later. But I realized this made editing way harder and confusing, and I could accidentally use the wrong take. So, I decided to go back and re-film those scenes the right way, one take at a time.
Looking back, I started this project with just an idea and not a lot of experience. By the end, I learned how to plan better, film more carefully, and solve problems during production. I’m proud of how much I improved and how the final project turned out stronger than what I first imagined.
