More filming and editing

 Guys our film is finally starting to come together. Today I focused on two things, the filming and editing aspect of our movie. My family helped me film more of the interrogation scenes for about a hour or two. I didn't want to start filming the end just yet. I used iMovie to edit again. It was kind of hard to figure out but eventually I got the hang of it. I dumped all of the footage. It took a while because we had many takes for each scene. After I did this I had to narrow it down. I watched all the takes and only kept the ones that I thought looked the best. The transitions from each scene to the next was like a swipe kind of motion. This somewhat bothered me. I wanted to try and fix it but for today I just left it alone. I also wanted to add in music but Jasmine and I didn't find any free music yet. So over these next few days that is on my list of things to get done. While editing I noticed that the dialogue was heard but it could've been higher. Luckily iMovie has a feature where you can increase the sound of a take. I ended up having to do this for most of the takes that included dialogue. I sent some of the edited footage to my friends to get their opinions. So far they seem to think everything looks good which is great!

Re-filming the beginning of the movie

 Hey guys I had another successful day of filming. This time I re-filmed the beginning of the movie and also started to film the middle. My dad was actually excited to film today because he barely had any lines. So before I started to film I had my younger sister make fake blood. She used corn syrup and red food coloring. It took her a total of 20 minutes. I found some of my dressy clothes that I didn't mind messing up and put them on. Then I smeared the fake blood all over my parents bathtub. I used a paintbrush and my hands for this. I also put some of the blood on my clothes. After doing all of this I got in the tub and laid down in a position that i made it look as if I was murdered. My sister started filming my bod from top to bottom. At first she did a close up and then switched to an establishing shot. My dad, who plays the victim was standing over me holding a large knife covered in blood. Eventually we finished shooting this scene and started to film the flashback scenes from earlier that week. I also played the role of Briana, Stephanie's (the victim) bestfriend. My mom played the detective interrogating me. While filming I noticed how bright my kitchen lighting was so I realized I had to darken the lighting while editing. My sister played the role of a random person in Stephanie's life. My dad played the role of a man that was just released on probation. My mom interrogated us all. We had to record many takes because there were several mess ups. Overall, today was a productive day!

Change of plans

 Hey guys I have a new update for you. So as you can see by the title of this blog there has been a change of plans. As you know I've been filming this week. Well today I decided to start editing the footage that I've recorded to get an idea of what it would look like. All of the footage rounded up to 2 minutes total. This was only the beginning of the movie, we didn't even get to the middle yet. Once I realized how long the beginning was I decided that something had to be changed. After texting Jasmine we decided to cut the beginning. Now we will start the movie off straight from the murder scene. After that scene then the flashbacks will occur. I think this would be the best thing for our film. I didn't delete the footage that we already have because I wanted to keep it as a backup. Also, I realized there was an error in our storyline. Since the name of our movie is "Who did it?" I realized that the audience isn't supposed to figure out who did it. But in our storyboard we made it to where the killer would be revealed. To fix this issue I decided to do a black screen with a voice over of the killer on the phone with a voice disguiser. This way the killers real face or voice won't be seen. Hopefully, jasmine and I can figure out a way to properly edit that part and make it look good in our film. Today I was going to film but I decided not to. Tomorrow I will get back to filming and hopefully I'll have everything filmed by the end of this week.

Another day of filming

Hey guys today I continued filming some more. Today I had help from both of my parents. I had my dad dress in all black and a hat. He was supposed to be portrayed as a robber. For this part I had to use a long shot. Since this scene was mainly focused on him I was able to record these takes. It only took us a couple of takes. While my dad was walking around the house looking for me (Stephanie) I used a high angle. I bet you're wondering how. Well I stood on the top of my stairs and stretched my arms as far as possible. This made it look like a high angle which was the goal I was aiming for. My dad forgot some of his lines so we had to film many takes until he got it right. After we did that I switched back into my clothes and started filming the next scene. In this scene I was in my room listening to music while packing my luggage. For this scene there was no dialogue which made it easier to film. I used a long shot and a mid shot for this scene because I wanted the luggage to be shown but not at all times. My mom assisted during this scene as well. I had her call our house phone. She did this so that it would ring and I would pick it up. This is where the suspense started to build up. After picking up the phone several times I heard nothing, this happened a few times before the climax was set into motion. When I grab a knife I make sure to get a close up of this to add emphasis. Eventually the action scene takes place. I used a zoom shot and a tracking shot for this. When I saw my killers face that's when the zoom shot was used. After this the camera was extremely shaky. Due to the tracking shot. I had to run downstairs and my sister was filming so she did also. When running I also used a hand held shot. I did this to show my face while running. After this another action scene will occur between my dad and I. In the end he will kill me and flee the scene.

Second day of filming

 Hey guys I’m back again with another update. I’m slowly making progress with the film. Today I filmed the 2 scenes. The scenes that I filmed were the scenes where I was entering my home and began to walk upstairs. Last time I filmed I left off filming right at my front door. I used a close up shot for this to show my hand movements as I opened the door. I forgot to mention that I have new filming equipment. Today was Christmas and I got a new ring light. I also got a small tripod. I used the tripod for many close up scenes or scenes with me walking. Anyways, back to what I was saying. Today I had to film many scenes using a tracking shot. This was because I kept walking in many scenes today. For example, when I was walking in my hallway and the stairs I had to use a tracking shot to track my movements. When we finally began to film me entering my room that's where it started to get difficult. The angles were kind of hard to get but we made it work. I had my sister stand in a far corner in my room to record me entering. It looked as if we filmed this part using a wide shot. When I opened my closet I used an over the shoulder angle which switched to a trunk shot. I wanted the audience to see two different perspectives and I have a good feeling we achieved this. I've decided to film certain scenes on my younger sisters ipad pro. I made this decision because it carries more storage than my phone and it also had a great camera. For scenes that require hand held shots then of course I'll use my phone. I can't believe I spent Christmas afternoon filming, however it was a very productive day.

First Day Back Filming

 Hey guys we're finally on winter break which means that my partner and I are back to filming. We decided to split the filming and editing process. I will be filming the entire movie from my home and Jasmine will be editing everything. Of course, I will be assisting with the editing and giving my input. So today I pulled up my storyboard. After reviewing it I decided that I will be filming the first scene. In this scene I will be getting into a car and driving while having a conversation. I don't have my licenses yet, however I do have my permit. While I was driving today I had an adult over the age of 21 in the car with me. Since my character was a lawyer I decided to put on a business casual outfit. I also had my younger sister record everything. I used a tracking shot when I was walking into the car. I had to record several takes for this part because I had to make sure not to get my house in the background. The goal was to make it seem like I was just getting off of work. In the car I used a wide shot so that the entire background could be seen. I drove around my neighborhood rather than the main roads because I'm not a really experienced driver. During this time I was talking to myself. I did this to make it seem like I was having a conversation with Briana, Stephanie's (me) bestfriend. After recording several takes and driving around my neighborhood for a good 5 times I finally pulled into my driveway. For this scene I used an establishing shot from the front and back. I did this because I didn't want the licenses plate in the movie. This was basically everything that I filmed today. Below is a picture of the outfit I wore.

Re-editing

 Hey guys today was another day of us not filming. However, we did manage to get some things done. Before Jasmine and I decided to put a hold on our filming schedule we had already filmed some scenes. We had also started to edit. Even though we started to edit we didn't get as far as we wanted to. So today I had some free time on my hands and decided to review the footage. After I looked over the footage we had I decided to start re editing what was already edited. I normally use iMovie to edit. iMovie is a great editing software on apple devices. However I also wanted to use other editing software as well. So I did some research of my own. I ended up finding an app called "Videoleap Video Editor". It's basically a free video editing app. On this app I'm able to combine different video clips together and add thing such as special effects. I think this is really going to help us when editing. I never planned on using any special effects but now I might want to add some in. I started combining the footage and it looked great. However, I wasn't able to figure out how to insert music with this app. I might have to use iMovie for that. Although, we didn't get any filming done today we still managed to have a somewhat productive day. I can't wait to see the final product of our film!

Another day of not filming

 Hey guys so by the title of this blog you already know what's happening. Unfortunately my partner and I didn't film today. After discussing our options we came to a decision. My partner and I decided to continue filming the rest of our movie over winter break. Winter break is two weeks for us. That should give us more than enough time to film an edit our movie. We decided to do this because we think that it'll give us more time. This way we won't have to rush to film and edit like we are doing now. This is definitely something that causes a lot of complications when filming. This virus has changed the way that I have to do everything. For example, I can't film a movie like I did last year. Last year I was able to use a camera provided by the school as well as a tripod. Now I have to use my own devices. Furthermore, my partner and I reviewed our storyboard. Originally we thought everything fit perfectly. After we reviewed it we decided to change some of our scenes. For example, we chose to tweak our murder scene because we felt like it was too predictable. We want to keep our audience guessing. And we also want to keep the suspense throughout the entire movie. We also changed our interrogation scene. All we really did was switch up the conversation between the characters. Overall I think that we really had a productive day even though we weren't able to film.

Starting the editing process

 Hey guys, we already started filming. We just had to adjust the way we filmed as previously mentioned. Anyways we have started to start editing as well as searching for music. For example, we have been editing and finding music for our film. You're probably wondering how we started editing already if we don't have all of our final footage. Well to answer that question, we started to edit the title page and edit the footage of the scenes that we have already filmed. We've also started to work on adding words in between flashback scenes of our movie. We decided to do this so the viewers won't be confused when time goes back during the film. For example, during a flashback scene we plan to put words such as "earlier this week". Things like that will alert the audience that this particular event occurred before the present scene taking place. While doing this we realized our film needed background music. We wanted music during the suspicious scenes. Another thing that we wanted was music during the ending of the movie. Obviously we would have to get permission from any artist that we choose to use music from. We have to do that unless we're able to find free music that fits our film. We're currently looking for music that have the audience anxious and on edge. I think if we do this it would make our film 10 times better. Our main goal for this movie is to give our viewers a feeling of suspense and excitement mixed together. While the plot is slowly building towards the climax of our movie we want the audience to literally be on the edge of their seats. Hopefully we'll have music picked out by the time we start to put all of our footage together and edit it. 

Starting to film

 Guys guess what!!! We finally started our filming journey. The wait is officially over. I am beyond excited guys. As you all know we are currently still in the middle of an ongoing pandemic. Due to this we had to adjust how we film our movie. Jasmine and I both started to film. However, we filmed at two separate locations. She filmed one scene at her house while I filmed another scene at my house. I decided to film the murder scene. So basically this scene was the climax of our movie. I started filming upstairs in my bedroom. I had my younger sister assist me with holding the camera at certain angles. During this scene there were many different camera angles. I mainly used a high angle and a low angle though. In this scene I played the role of Stephanie, the victim. I kept stumbling over my words when filming so there were many takes. I also used my ring light as a stand to hold my phone. It was also used for better lighting as well. After filming upstairs I went into my parents bathroom. My younger sister created some fake blood for me. I was supposed to pour it into and around the bathtub to stage the crime scene. But I was unable to do this because I had to go somewhere. As of right now that's where I stopped filming guys. Everything went great! I'll be back with another update later.

How we didn’t film

 Hey guys I can’t believe we’re in December already. We just came back from a week long Thanksgiving break. Although we wanted to film over the break unfortunately we couldn’t. We both had busy schedules. Also I had friends and family stay with me during the break. Even though we weren’t able to film we did get some things done a couple of days before the break started. For example, we finally launched the website for our film “Who did it?”. Our website has several things on it. It has information on the movie. It also has social media links to our film. We did this to give our fans the option to keep up with the making of our movie by following our social media accounts. Moreover, we plan to film during winter break because that would work best for the both of us. We have midterms coming up. Because of this we decided to prioritize studying for our exams first and then filming. We also plan to edit over the break as well. I think our biggest issue is figuring out how to film. COVID cases have recently been rising again. Due to this are parents want us to social distance as much as possible. Hopefully we’ll be able to meet up and film while following the social distancing rules. If not then we know how to accommodate. We will just film different scene separately. Afterwards we’ll just edit everything over the phone. Hopefully we’ll have a better update next time.