Week 2/Fixing our Midterm!

 On recent regards of the midterm for our movie, my partner Lucca and I now have to discuss trying to fix/improve our midterm for the final cut. We are always constantly thinking about how we can make this movie the best we possibly can, so what is it exactly that we need to fix? 

Looking at my own personal perspective of what we need to fix there are a few factors that come to mind. The main first factor that comes to mind is lighting. Based off the 2 main locations we filmed in- my partner Lucca's house and a nature preserve- it was hard to get the lighting which would generally be used in a thriller/horror movie. For example, even trying to get a shot with some short of shade on the characters faces was extremely difficult. We had never ruled out the idea of it for our movie, although due to the circumstances at the time, like not having much time to film, we had to try our best with what we had. To fix this problem we have to think about a few things. At the time we filmed the movie it was mid-day so maybe we will film at a later time near sunset when it is darker. Something else we might have to consider is that we need to change locations completely. 

Another factor was our camera. At first we had an amazing plan and a decent camera. We were able to get the decent quality camera from my sister in order to record. We tried it out and looked at the film to check the quality and it looked great! Until on one of our filming days it had taken a turn for the worst. Right before we were about to film some of the last shots for the film the camera had no battery and died. This was the week prior to the week we had to submit it. The week before submitting was set aside for editing too, and editing was definitely going to take a while if we wanted to make our movie better, so we had no time to reshoot anything. This also meant we would have to use my iPhone instead to record. Now, there was going to be a different quality at a random part near the end of the movie and on top of that we recorded vertically instead of horizontally! When editing footage in adobe premiere pro, the editing software I used for the movie, I realized how much of a mistake this was. Along with the change in quality at a random part near the end of the movie, there was film which didn't cover the entire screen. What I mean is when recording with the camera, the film would cover over the entire screen with the footage, but after recording vertically with the iPhone it would only partially cover the screen when viewing it. This gave an overall sloppy look.

Next, I can look at the perspectives of my fellow classmates in class to consider what is needed to better my movie for the final cut.  In class we watched everyone's midterms and wrote reviews on each one describing parts about the movie like technical strengths, areas of improvement, suggestions, etc. After finishing watching everyone's movies, these papers were handed out to each group so they were able to read them and take anything they want into consideration for parts of the movie that were well done and parts of the movie which could use improvement. Having multiple different perspectives of our movie allowed us to narrow down any suggestions we saw multiple times, meaning it was most likely one of the weaker areas of the movie we needed to focus on. 

One of the main things I noticed repeated for suggestions was actually something I expected. Part of something I realized we missed while filming was a build up to the climax. The climax of the opening to our movie is that when the bird watcher finds the missing person, the missing person is meant to be looking away and as Eric backs up in fear from the missing person, he steps on a stick he walked past earlier causing the Ray Capulto to quickly turn his head and look at Eric. This scares Eric and causes him to run away. Although, the footage of Ray turning his head quickly got corrupted so there was a big plot hole in the movie. When it comes to reshooting for our final cut we will add this footage.

Overall, there are a few big takeaways I have from both self reflecting and student suggestions. My partner and I will figure out a time best which allows us best lighting that fits a thriller/horror movie, or we will change locations completely. Also, I will make sure to always keep our camera fully charged. Lastly, I will make sure that there is an addition of footage to help fix the plot hole near the climax, as suggested by fellow classmates. Speaking of my fellow classmates, below I have included 6 photos (3 papers in total front and back) which are examples of the student review papers that allowed me to make this blog post and help plan on fixing the movie.