CCR

After a lot of hours of editing, here it is my CCR about my film opening: Payday

Thank you very much and hope you enjoy

Payday

This is it!!!

This is Payday:

Almost done...

My next post will be my finished film opening...

I am really excited but I'm also really scared. I am making some minor updates in the editing and then it will finally be posted. After this, I will be finishing my CCR in which I give an overview of my project and answer some questions.

Here are some sneak peeks of my project:

Reflection

I know this project has not been easy for me or any of my classmates. None of us would have thought that our school year would end up with all of us in quarantine due to a pandemic that is affecting more and more people everyday. I'm a senior, and I was really excited to join to this class because it would help me focus on what I will study and help me in my decision for a future profession. When the project was assigned it was all going great. I was working in class, sharing my ideas with my classmates, working at home, getting inspiration from the outer world, etc.

After all, the situation didn't stop me from being inspired to complete my project with passion and with the objective of doing the things right. I started with the development of my project in a time where Awards season just ended and I was becoming a really big fan of tragi-comedies and criminal movies. I was getting inspiration from the big Scorsese with his big classics, the Safdie Brothers who are just starting with their promising careers with amazing movies like "Good Time" and "Uncut Gems", the record-winning director Bong Joon Ho with his movie "Parasite", and many more.

I wanted to make a film opening with a lot of significance, not just the story of some guy who is a scumbag and is worthless. Well in terms of the story he is, but there is more to it. It involves the representation of traumas that a later developed with having anger issues, depression, drug abuse, alcoholism and more. There is always a deeper meaning, even when it is so simple, because real life is simple and scary at some points.

My character of Michael Ortiz was created with a whole background and with a kind of tragic "origin" story. Originally it was intended for a friend of mine to be the protagonist but due to the situation I had to become Michael (I am not the best actor but I tried my best). I didn't want to change the story when they told us that we must remain home because I was so deep into it. So I had to make some changes in the script and the production design.

I changed the film opening setting from making in the beach to making it in the bathroom of my parents. I was originally going to make it inside the bathtub but I changed in last minute to the shower but it actually looked better and I could achieve the same objective. In terms of production design I used all the probes that I originally was going to used. This are a vodka bottle (from my parents), a pack of cigarettes, pills inside an orange capsule, and just garbage. For the costume design, I used a suit that I haven't wear in a long time which involves grey pants, black shirt, black shoes and a purple tie.

After wrapping up with the shooting, I used the software of Premiere Pro to edit the opening. When doing this I additionally had to add all of my sound editing with extra audio, folley, and some correction. I also made color correction to make the opening have a dark look. I finally decided that I wouldn't add any soundtrack to it for two reasons; 1. Domino Records never answered me my emails if I could get the license of an Arctic Monkeys song. 2. I believe that by having no sound it gives a realistic tone to the scene and really shows the struggle of the character to the audience.

After all, this has been a really fun project that really requires a lot of hard work and dedication if you really want to make it right. With visual techniques learned in class and creating it with deep analysis learned in the school year.

Changes and challenges

Since now everyone is going through harsh times with all of the quarantine due to the COVID-19 with not been able to to leave their homes and everything. This project has become a real challenge since now I have to work with every resource that I can have here at my house.

As I said in my previous posts, I had to change my script and my storyboard to what I'm trying to do now. My script worked very well but I had to make a lot of changes with my shots when working on the production. I started shooting inside my parents bathroom since it's the biggest of the house and is the only one where my sister and I were able to work together. I made a big change which is that instead of doing in the bathtub, I changed it so that my character wakes up inside the shower. After making some overshooting I got everything required to start editing.

Something that I am not very sure of what to do is if to add a soundtrack or not to the opening of the scene. After insisting to the companies of the song; "Do I Wanna Know?" by Arctic Monkeys, I didn't get an answer if I could get the license of the song. So right now I am looking for license free music that have the same context, new songs, and waiting for a miracle if I could get the song that I want.

This week I will finish the editing of the film opening and begin working with my CCR.

Editing

Editing has been kind of hard to get all of the footage collected and organize it in a way that makes sense and that can also help to convey my message with everything shown.

The most difficult of it has been the sound editing. Starting with the initial voice messages, the ringing phone, the background noise, the actions, etc. But with patience I am achieving it.

This is just a small screenshot and overview of how I am editing in Premiere Pro. I had to edit in my Macbook Pro which has been kind of difficult because it is a little bit small and tight in the working space.

What I'm doing right now is making color correction for how I want the images to look. 

Production has started

Last tuesday I finally started shooting my film opening inside my house. With the help of my sister and my mom with camera work and make-up I achieved a major part of my objective.

This is my mom helping me to apply the bruises of my character. I have to be honest when make-up is been applied to you is the worst and I couldn't stop screaming.

This came up as I final result of my mom's make-up and the costume design for the scene.

This is just a small part of the floor of my production design for the scene. I also included the pills, the vodka bottle and a pack of cigarettes.