CAPhollywood Weekly Reflection #3

We are down to the wire. Our film is due by the end of the week, and we still need to edit our ending. We finally finished filming so we just need to mix it all up and drag in some music. Ugh. That is if we can find some appropriate music that doesn't suddenly go offline, because that's been the biggest problem we've been experiencing this week. We select the perfect background music only to have it disappear when we are forced to use a different PC. Our group has had to move from computer to computer multiple times and that has caused us to lose some audio files. We've even lost our introductory voice over which is a real problem. That voice over sets the scene for our story and introduces the viewer to our main character, a teenage girl, and to her involvement in the counterfeit money industry. Hopefully we can retrieve the old voice over from the hard drive of our original PC, otherwise we're toast. We will have to re-record that segment and it's been difficult to schedule time with our actress. We have to edit and export out entire completed film by the 24th, this Friday. I have faith in my group; we're all efficient editors and we have plenty of time to edit this week on the days when we're not taking HSAs. I will also have to put in some editing time after school to punch it up and make it good enough to get an A. Our story is worth watching, and in only three to four minutes, we tell a compelling tale. I want it to be professional enough to deserve a showing on the big screen at CAP Hollywood night.  I'm a little nervous because the school year is rapidly coming to an end and other stuff is starting to pile up. I have this film project, my Sophomore change project and all of my other classes gearing up for final exams. Stress!

Okay, where did it go THIS time!

Weekly Reflection #2

Bah! After all my experience with film making, I somehow forgot that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. This week I learned that we are not going to be able to film the rest of our movie until the 18th. This is making me very nervous. Our initial schedule called for us to film last weekend, but someone in our actress's family got very sick so she couldn't come. Now we're cutting it close. I am hopeful that we're going to be okay any way because we are ahead of schedule on editing the first part. This week we actually finished editing Act 1 and all of the footage we've filmed for Act 2. We put a lot of effort into the audio this week. First, I found a solution to the problem I told you about last week where we wanted to edit our voices out of the scenes on the Metro but keep the background noises. In the very beginning of the film we drowned out the voices with some calm, low key music from the Free Music Archive. It's just loud enough to block the stage directions keep the ambient noises in the background. The ambient sound we liked the most but that we thought would be the most difficult to retain while also taking out our voices was the rattling sound of the train on the tracks. Since this train sequence is supposed to be suspenseful, I decided to try dubbing a heartbeat in the background that grows louder and louder. This effect seamlessly removes our talking but retains the metro sounds while also serving the cinematic effect of emphasizing the actress's nervousness. Unfortunately, I was not able to show you this footage on this blog because it isn't compatible with my PC, but you can click here to hear the opening music track. One other success this week was that Mr. Bustillos recorded an AMAZING voice over for the fake introductory radio broadcast that starts the film. He sounds just like a newscaster reporting breaking news in a dramatic way. After hearing him I wondered why he didn't go into the radio business.
Now that we got so much done last week with our existing footage, we don't have much to do this week. We really need to finish filming. Until then I guess we can keep polishing and editing to make the film even smoother and more professional looking than it already is. I can get cracking on this after Tuesday when I finally get take my AP NSL test. I've been studying constantly for it so after I take it I'll feel free as a bird..... and ready to work on a different project  - this film!

Weekly Reflection #1

This week we started the post production phase of the CAP Hollywood project. We're done filming and now it's time for me to do what I do best, lock myself in a windowless editing suite for hours on end making this thing look GORGEOUS. Starting last Tuesaday, I helped import and plan post production, including things like scheduling when people can stay after school and when we can get Alison to come in and record all of her voice overs. She is the actor playing our main character so that complicates things. The group edited act one of the film last week, but it's a little worrisome that we only have two weeks to edit this. I'm pretty we'll work it out. For next week, I need to figure out how to incorporate all the ambient noises from the shots but without having the sounds of my group giving stage directions behind the camera. Here's a clip of Alison getting prompted on how to look panicked. I love the noise of the Metro in the tunnel, but I can't have the sound of people telling her what to do.

This is just one of the many things I'm going to sort out next week. I'm really excited to see how this is going to turn out.

CAP Hollywood Short Film

Money Girl
Becca, Kirin, Laura, and I finished up the script, storyboard, and shot list this week for out short film. The film is called Monet Girl and is about a fifteen year old who's involved in printing counterfeit money. She's being relentlessly pursued through the city streets by a man, but his identity remains a mystery to the audience until the movie's dramatic conclusion. I feel like we successfully created a sense of suspense and drama, and I can't wait until we get to the editing process. Editing is challenging and time consuming, but it's one of my favorite parts of making a movie. Editing can make or break a project.

Clapper Rail

Almost as soon as we stepped off the boat onto Smith Isand, we saw our first great bird --- another life bird for me. It was a clapper rail! An elderly birder named Howard had pulled out his iPod near a patch of reeds and began playing the bird's call. It's breeding season, so the rail appeared immediately and he was hopping mad. He figured he had a rival on his territory and he was ready to kick some butt. I'm not sure what went through his mind when he found a bunch of gawking people toting monster telephoto lenses (which were of no use since the bird was within arm's reach) instead. He stayed out in the open for quite a while giving everybody great looks. He was making a loud barking/coughing sound the whole time. The picture below that was taken by Evelyn Ralston.

Don't forget the sun block

I spent Saturday on a quest for some new life birds. What's a life bird, you ask? Well, it's simply a bird you've never seen in the wild before. I headed to Point Lookout State Park to catch a boat to Smith Island. From the boat launch, I scoped a great blue heron colony. The tall birds dotted the tops of the tall pine trees. They did alot of squawking and displaying. They look way more beautiful than they sound. From the same spot, I was able to observe a nesting pair of bald eagles, several opspreys, a common loon, some cormorants, and a fishing Caspian tern. All this, and we hadn't even boarded the boat yet. I observed more Caspian and some Forster's terns perched on a series of pilings as we cruised out of the cove.
The sun was blazing, but it was windy and frigid out on the open water of the bay. Pretty soon I forgot all about how cold it was when someone called out that we had northern gannets all around us. Gannets are our largest water birds. They have a six foot wing span. They're brilliant white with pointy black wing tips. Their light blue eyes are encircled in a blue line surrounded by jet black skin and they have a yellow wash on their heads. They dive into the water from great heights to catch fish. It was an amazing sight to see. Soon they'll migrate to Canada to nest in huge groups on rocky cliffs.
I saw many more great birds on the trip, and didn't notice that I'd developed a wicked bad sunburn on my face until Saturday evening. You should really get out and do some birding sometime soon. Just don't forget the sunblock.

The Minecraft April Fools Jokes for 2011 and 2013

This year Mojang, the company that produces minecraft,  made the best April Fools joke in history and I fell for it... really badly. Mojang talked to some of the most famous YouTubers and got them in on the prank. They got the administrators of the MindCrack server (a server that only people that are ridiculously famous on YouTube get to play on) to agree to release an exclusive update pre-release video and showcase an "update pre-release". So many things were added to the prerelease like, torches that burn out, the possibility to over feed animals, tinted glass, TNT slabs, and much more. I was so excited after seeing the video that I logged onto a multiplayer server and told everyone about the  pre-release video. This one player then told me, "lol, dude you know that was this year's April Fools joke right?" Well I had to admit it; they TOTALLYgot me. Here's one of the videos by one of the YouTubers who was in on the prank. Skip to 1:40 to see the features of the fake update.

There was also a good April Fools joke in 2011, so if you missed out on that look at this video. The joke takes place from 2:08-3:53