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.
Today I’ll be creating the script for the CCR question how does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
Here is the script:
My film connects with the audience by making them feel emotions, like sadness. I decided my target audience would be teenagers and young adults, around 15 to 25 years old, because the story is about a teenager dealing with drug addiction, and I think people around that age can relate to it or learn something important from it. I picked this audience by thinking about who would understand the pressure young people go through and how addiction can ruin someone’s life.
To keep my audience interested, I made sure the story was emotional and serious. I used close-up shots to show the character’s feelings, and I added flashbacks, like old videos of the character when they were a kid dancing. This makes people feel more connected to the character and sad about how their life has changed. I also used dark lighting and music to make the mood feel more real and serious.
Since I’m an amateur filmmaker, I would share my film using things that are free or easy to use. I would post it on YouTube so anyone can watch it, and I would also share it on social media like Instagram and TikTok, because that’s where a lot of young people spend time. I could make short clips or trailers to get people interested. I would also try to send it to film festivals like Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival or South Florida Film Forum. To get more attention, I could make fliers or posters and share them at school or around my community.
I chose these ways to share my film because they don’t cost a lot of money, and they help me reach my target audience, especially young people who are online a lot.
Works Cited
Fort Lauderdale Film Festival + Fliff Cinemas. Fort Lauderdale Film Festival. (n.d.). https://fliff.com/
South Florida Film Forum. (n.d.). https://www.southfloridafilmforum.com/
In class we had another group meeting to talk about our film openings. My group this time changed so it included Ariana, Samara, and Nico.
Nico was in my group last time, so I got to see how his project was coming along. He is doing a sports drama about a powerlifter/body builder. He didn’t have all his clips because he filmed on his partners phone, but he decided to keep the illness and journal part we discussed last time in his film and after explaining it to me, I think he was able to pull it off.
Ariana’s opening film is a sports drama too about a teenage gymnast who is injured but wants to compete. She lies on a consent form to attend the competition despite her injuries. Ariana already had her opening edited and we got to watch it, I think it was very very good I was impressed. We tried to give critics but couldn’t find anything until Samara pointed out that one of her credits was hard to read because the text color is the same color as the background.
Samara's opening is also a sports drama about softball. She's almost done editing but she did her editing on a personal computer so she couldn’t show us. She told us she faced problems with her actors. Her brother and her brother's friend were going to help her but then the friend couldn't so she asked her cousin who also couldn’t film that week. It was a big mess, and she said she had to end up stepping in.
We all needed help for the CCR as we had no creative ideas yet. Also,, Nico and Ariana both had questions about it so Samara and I helped them as best as we could. Then Samara suggested that Ariana does a guess who type of video with all her group members answering questions, but she would be the focus. Samara said she was thinking of doing something inspired by Gossip Girl, she would start the video with Hey Cambridge Samara here, then she would answer the questions as if she were telling gossip. She wasn’t sure if she liked the idea, but we all said it seemed like a cool idea. Then Ariana suggested a baking show. My mind immediately went to the baking show scene in the Cat and the Hat movie for some reason
but unfortunately no one knew what I was talking about. Ariana said she got the inspiration from a youtuber called Rosana Pansino. I actually like the idea of a baking show and may end up doing it, Nico mentioned he may do it with cooking as he's better at it.
Today I’ll be creating the script for the CCR question How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
In a previous blog post I researched genre film conventions, I researched the films Beautiful boy and Manchester by the Sea. In this research I learned that a good drama movie needs strong characters and a good emotional story. If the audience doesn’t care about what’s happening, the movie won’t be interesting. Acting is super important because if the emotions don’t feel real, the whole thing falls apart. The dialogue also has to sound natural, or it can feel forced. A good drama makes people feel something, whether it’s happy, sad, or even frustrated. Also, the way they are filmed is pretty simple, with a lot of close-up shots to show emotions and soft lighting to make things feel more personal. Drama movies usually take their time telling a story so the audience can really connect with the characters.
Here is my script for the CCR:
For my film opening, I followed a lot of the typical genre conventions of a drama. A drama movie needs strong characters and a good emotional story. A good drama makes people feel something, whether it’s happy, sad, or even frustrated. Also, they are filmed with a lot of close-up shots to show emotions and soft lighting to make things feel more personal. Drama movies usually take their time telling a story so the audience can really connect with the characters.
In my project, I stuck to these rules because I wanted the audience to connect with the character and feel the emotion in the story. I didn’t try to challenge these drama conventions because I think they are what make drama movies powerful. My goal was to tell a serious and emotional story about addiction, so I followed the normal drama conventions to make sure it felt real and strong.
My film represents teenagers who struggle with drug addiction. A lot of times, people think drug addiction is just a choice, but I wanted to show how it’s really a deeper problem and how it affects young people who once had big dreams. My character is someone who used to be successful dancer, but drugs took over their life. I think this is important to show because it helps people understand the real struggles some teens go through.
Works Cited
Franco Seguer. “Manchester by the Sea (2016) - Opening Credits [HD].” YouTube, 25 Feb. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrP1Tl8xuNo. Accessed 13 March. 2025.
mclovin456. “Timothée Chalamet Beautiful Boy Opening Scene.” YouTube, 30 June 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBt8RVLNo4w. Accessed 13 March. 2025.
Im going to go ahead and start planning for my creative critical reflection. The question I’m starting with is: How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?
For this project, I used different types of technology to help with filming and editing. I used my phone to record all the clips and a tripod to keep the camera steady. I also used my iPad to access editing tools and make changes to my project. For editing, I had originally planned to used the website elevate.io because I had experience with it but it wasn’t working on my iPad and my laptop was broken. So, I had to find another option and ended up using Clideo.com instead. All of these tools helped me put everything together and create my film opening .
Today I’m going to start editing!
In past projects I’ve used the website https://elevate.io/ so I was planning on using it again. However, when I tried using it this time I ran into an issue, it wasn’t working on my iPad. Normally I would use my laptop instead but since it’s currently broken I had to find another website. After searching for other options I found the website https://clideo.com/ to use. While it’s not a website I’m familiar with it will still work just fine and I found it easy to work with.
Citations:
Elevate.io. elevate.io. (n.d.). https://elevate.io/
Video editor & tools. Clideo. (n.d.). https://clideo.com/
New problem! While filming I realized that the text message I had planned to show in my film was not going to work since I had to show it on my iPad since I was using my phone to film.
So instead of using this photo like I had planned
I filmed this instead
I’m thinking of re filming it though because I feel that it’s a bad angle.
An important part of my film opening is to find a way to show representation. We learned all about representation in class. Here are my notes.
My film opening shows representation by focusing on a teenager struggling with drug addiction. Addiction is a real issue many people deal with and my film shows how anyone can deal with addiction, even teenagers. It represents the stuggles addicts face and how it changes their life.
