Written Reflection

To my knowledge, our film opening introduces a story concept not seen before in any major films. This film is about a veteran who recently returned from deployment and his struggle with PTSD. Like most war related movies, our film will include some war scenes. However, war scenes will not be the focus of our film. Our film will focus on life after the war, war scenes will only serve the purpose of a flashback explaining certain event. Through this, we aim to represent the veterans who fought in war, and illustrate the mental war fought back home. The struggle with PTSD is not often represented correctly although it is a serious social matter. IN the United States, 9% of all homeless people are veterans. This shows how seriously the post-war period can impact veterans

Our film engages with the audience in various ways. We engage the viewer through the use of close-up shots and the plot. The plot of the film opening is quite dramatic and is bound to incite some feelings of reflection in the audience. Close-up shots help show the emotions of the characters, aiding in the delivery of the drama. Families who deal PTSD victims would likely be enticed to watch the film. We will engage with them by doing our best to accurately represent PTSD victims.

Throughout the production of the film opening, my production skills were constantly improving. I saw this mostly in the editing process, however, there was also some improvement while shooting. Since I would do some of the filming, it was important for me to hold the camera steady and effectively capture angles. Throughout the shooting process I saw improvement in my knowledge of angles and severe improvement in how steady I held the camera.

During the editing process, I steadily gained knowledge of the program and constantly improved. When I started editing I was slowly making decisions, and I was not fluent with my use of the program. Over time this changes as I would then quickly import files, cut and adjust videos, apply filters, adjust audio, and much more. Most of these things took me a while to even figure out how to do in the program. By the end, I had amassed much knowledge of the editing process.

The technologies we used were certainly essential to the creation of the film, as they helped facilitate much of the process. For filming we used Artur’s camera which captured the film at a very high resolution. This helps the film seem of higher quality and more sophisticated. For the editing process, I used two programs, Adobe premiere and iMovie. I used both programs because some edits were easier to do on one program than on the other. In Premiere I made most of the effects, cuts, sound adjustment, and organizing. I then imported this version into iMovie. I used iMovie for importing sound effects and for saving the video. This was the easiest way to do it since I am not 100% fluent with Adobe Premiere.

Final Project

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9ZkNhNf0qk&feature=youtu.be

CCR

CCR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvT3o7Zq360

Production Post 17

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Since we are nearly done with production, we will have to be focusing on editing soon. Editing is very essential part of film making, and can sometimes even be more important than shooting and acting itself. I will be taking care of most of the editing for the film, since I have Adobe Premier on my computer. On this program, I can edit the film to our liking, and will have more options and ability compared to software like iMovie.

The rest of class time we have to work on the project will be used to focus on editing, and discussion on what to do. The group will discuss as we often have differing opinions on certain things.

Here I posted a short shot that we have filmed. This shot is in the outdoors and is supposed to demonstrate the veteran's flashback. This shot shows the environment in which we are shooting in, and accurately presents the aesthetic.

Production Post 16

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This week our group has begun shooting for our film. We took advantage of out spring break and decided to get ahead and shoot. We recorded the majority of our outdoor scenes and some of those indoors. While shooting we decided to make some minor tweaks in the plot and dialogue. These changes will be discussed in later posts. We are not finished and will try to meet up later this week to make more progress in out filming.

While filming we decided to record some of the folly noises that will be in the film. As of now we are going to focus on shooting the scenes. Once we finish all the shooting and commence editing, we will focus on the audio.

This video shows a scene of the veteran's trigger that leads to the flashback. This scene is an essential part of our storyline, therefore needs much focus. I am personally thinking of redoing it, as I am not fully satisfied with it.

Research 15

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On Wednesday, our class had a peer review session with students from different groups. Here we shared our progress on of our portfolio with other students to criticize and give each other ideas on our projects.

I students who reviewed my portfolio gave some important feedback. After telling them our concept of the film, they all agreed that the idea was quite original, and could be very interesting and well-done if executed correctly. They said that they have never seen a film with a similar plot to mine, and like the fact that it raises awareness to a concerning issue in American society. This was all quite flattering but I was more focused on the criticisms.

They criticized my blog-postings and portfolio by saying that I have been leaving out some information. This information is what would happen after the flashback scene. Realizing that we did not dive deeply in this part of our film, I have been brainstorming to further develop these scenes. Because of this criticism, my last couple blog posting were about this part of the film.

Another criticism they gave me is that my group should focus on shooting. They said that the shooting process can sometimes take longer than planned so our should organize and prioritize this task.

This peer review was very helpful. I feel that by having other people's feedback, one can build their portfolio further with more impressive material. I hope my feedback had a similar impact on the other students.

Research 14

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My group and I had planned on meeting this week but unfortunately, one of our group members could not make it to the shooting. We unfortunately had to reschedule our meeting to later this week. We will meet up begin shooting the first scenes on this meeting. I'll keep you updated.

I went to talk some more about the ending of our opening.
After the scene showing the veteran in severe distress, I want to show the reaction of the people he lives with.

We decided to change the situation of the veteran from having a family to living with roommates. The veteran lives with his brother and his friend, who are younger than him. He could not find a wife before or after the war so unfortunately he lives with them. His disorder hinders him from interacting with new people, so he is even further emotionally isolated from everyone.

After the distressing scene, his brother is going to walk in in panic and console him. This scene will use medium shots and shot-reverse-shot to show dialogue between the two. This scene will illustrate that these panic attacks frequently occur. This will be done through the dialogue and the reaction of the brother.