Signing off #33

     Man, this project was fun!

    I don't normally say that when it comes to projects ;-;

    But this one was different.  I always really like making these types of projects where I get to grab some equipment, go outside, and shoot something spectacular with my friends.  While I've done it before, I think this time is probably the best.  Me and most of my friends are in our junior year, while a lot of my friends are in my senior year.  Because of this, I really thought it was imperative that we shoot something together before a lot of us move away this year.  It started with one of the earlier projects this year, in which I really set forth to try and make these sorts of projects count.  I'm only going to be able to do these for so long, minus well make them awesome :)  Hence why I think these projects are so much fun.  I don't look at it as school work.  Or even work in general.  Just me having some fun.  

Hopefully, I'll create something in the future, but as of right now, I'm signing off once more.

Thank you all for this opportunity,

-Noa

A Level Project #32

 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1YLWkzMVuDyR1bBzI1Lnoxc1gF8jS33Qt?usp=sharing

Right above is the link for all the components.  For easy access, I'll also list everything right in this blog post!

YouTube Video (Short Film)

https://youtu.be/k6oBH3ZkYf8

Digital Component

https://www.instagram.com/fightsimulatorvrfilm/

Physical Component

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k1_J-FNEwRvB2EmUKkf2sK1j_amLH_ke/view?usp=sharing

Critical Reflection #31

  Originally, Fight Simulator VR was just going to be parallel to most of my other films; an excellent way for my friends to get together and create something new.  A lot of my past projects were seen like this, especially the film introduction during AS Level.  I’m always super excited when receiving these types of projects where I have free reign to essentially create whatever I want, hence my excitement when I reach out to my friends, David and Saloman, and told them about the idea of a fight-oriented, sci-fi/action short film that I was cooking up in my brain the instance my teacher talked about the possibility of a short film.  Fast forward to the end of the year, and my short film is steadily coming together, but I needed to ensure the proper amount of depth to go into the project, as opposed to creating a hollow film with no structure.  

Regarding that depth, it was tricky coming up with the message or the bigger picture with my film.  As I said, I was originally making this short film as a nice little amusing project, not really focusing much on the ulterior messages that could lie within.  But over the course of not only writing, planning, filming, and editing the project, I also managed to find inspiration from other classes, mainly as a means to find the issue and message that my film tries to uncover.  For instance, my film, Fight Simulator VR is about a near future, in which the main character, David, straps into an extremely sophisticated VR headset, entrapping himself into a VR video game tutorial that he can’t escape from, ultimately dying in the process!  This technological concept may sound familiar, as a lot of my inspiration came from Ready Player One, along with the dystopic technology feeling of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, both of which I read during my English class a couple of months ago.  I used both these books as such heavy inspiration, yet neglected to apply the fundamental values that they speak towards, instead opting for the more fantastical aspects that these stories offer.  And that’s where I went wrong during the planning process of my film, and I only realized and managed to apply it during the rest of the production.  And I believe that’s what my film is truly striving to represent.  While appearing like a fantastic idea of a future regarding technology, it also speaks towards the potential dangers that come with it.  Obviously people aren’t literally going to physically die while bearing a headset, however, I think in terms of the dangers that technology could inherit later in our future is an underlying message, a warning towards a future that virtual reality that could completely swap our very way of life, consuming us humans into a digital universe that we may not be able to recover from.  Hence why David’s experience is so surreal and immersive, symbolizing the possible immersion humankind could potentially fall into.  It’s seen a lot within technology-related dystopias, in which the main characters find themselves engrossed within the technology, only to break out and figure out what’s wrong, which is correlated and seen within my film as David dives into the headset, only to figure out it’s not what it seems, following similar genre conventions.

After all that philosophical verbiage, now it’s time to talk about one of my favorite parts of this film: research!  Research, and especially the planning phase for this project was extremely unorthodox.  Usually, when I sit down to create something, I’ll plan, write, and eventually storyboard the whole thing before hopping toward the next step.  But remember when I emphasized that my film was fight-oriented?  That’s where I ran into some issues.  Creating a fight scene on paper is extremely tough, which not only led me to the internet but the outside world.  Regarding the Internet, I managed to find a YouTuber named Rustic, who is a professional stuntman and has a nice in-depth series about filming fight scenes and making sure they look nice and fluid.  After taking some notes, I would take my friends, go outside, and practice some fight maneuvers along with teaching my friends the fundamentals of pretending to hit each other.  The video above really emphasizes the idea of planning, not only to ensure safety but also to secure fluidity in the fight scene and make it look natural as opposed to simply looking loosely put together.  We would practice for about 2 hours every Saturday for two weeks, improving moves and recording them in order to be sure that they could be replicated during the final shoot, and you can check out the progress here!  Other than that, more of the research took place indoors, in which I would study a lot of my favorite action movies, like The Matrix and John Wick, and study not only some of the awesome moves they perform but also some other elements of those films like branding and engagement with the audience.  These films tend to cater towards a not necessarily niche audience, but a specifically large one; male, 13-28 range, middle-class status.  So when viewing these films I would follow the movement speed of the punches, editing tactics regarding camera movement, and even dove into the social media.  

Speaking of social media, I centered my branding on films that fit into my genre, like the movie Ready Player One, and would garner insight into their social media, which I would then employ. For example, the Instagram page for Ready Player One has some color branding in which the futuristic colors of retro blue and glaring purple would be used in order to give the title a color to correlate to, along with an easily recognizable, futuristic font to go alongside it.  Additionally, you can even see the posts they create and put out some of the vibes and color coordination with the many overall colors, giving a sense of consistency. I would match this style on my page, in which my color palette of red, white, and black would be applied to other content that I put out, along with a glitchy-looking sort of font.  As you can see, the font and color scheme is consistent when it comes to the postcard advertisement, along with the post regarding the release of my short film on YouTube.  The Instagram page would also include behind-the-scenes material and extra insight into the creation of the short film.  I would then take this consistency and directly apply it to the final short film, which can be seen in the props, fake flood, and title card toward the beginning

The bigger picture PP#30

     My project has come a long way, and it was such a blast to film, make, and edit.  You can probably tell once you watch it that we had a fun time creating this piece.  I asked my friends, in particular, to come to help me make this film, just because it's our last year together, in which we're heading off to college in around a year, I really wanted to create something that we could work together, and that would be able to be preserved on the internet for the test of time. An internet time capsule!

    And while all of this seems nice and awesome, I still have to relate this to the project at hand and one core question: "How does this project represent social groups or issues?"  This question was mainly the only one that really had me stirred once I was taking a quick gander over the questions I needed to answer.  It had me really stumped because, from the start, I really didn't think of this question in hand.  I didn't pick and choose a social issue or idea that I wanted to explicitly describe in my film at the beginning, I just wanted to make something awesome.  But at the end of the day, I think over the process of concept, practice, filming, editing, and everything in between, being able to extract an abstract idea from my short film will prove extremely beneficial.  

    Immediately right off the bat, I don't think my project relates to any social or minority groups, instead leaning towards more issues prevalent within today's society.  And while my short film definitely has a comedic tone to it, and isn't necessarily supposed to be taken extremely seriously, I do believe that could be an underlying social comment underneath all the bad words and blood.  

    I think the idea of technology and how it can/could be used in the future is defienmtly a major takeaway to be seen within my short film.  As you may already know, my short film shows off the main character, David, diving into a virtual world that is essentially like real-life, only to realize that not everything is what it seems.  This canbe seen in other types of pop culture, especially dysoptian ones.  

    Take Ready Player One for instance.  Not only was this a huge inspiration, but offers a similar ideal as to how destructive technology can be to our society.  The book makes an even better encompass regarding the ideology and dark side regarding technology, in which the main character, Wade Watts, totally submerged himself into the Oasis, only to find out all along, that the only place that is truly real, is reality.  With this, it kinda goes to show how technology, and this idea of conformity can hurt humans if we become too conromfatble with them, enough to the point where they replace relaioty like in the film.  

    Another great example can be seen in Aldous Huxley's classic, Brave New World.   Interms of inspirations and examples for my short film, I've mentioned Ready Player One a whole lot, but Huxley's book is a great example.  I read it this year during my language class, and the role technology has in that book can be seen somewhat within my film.  In Brave New World, technology pretty much shapes everyone's existence, from reproductive procedures, all the way till later in life.  One of the major aspects, like soma, which is essentially like a drug in that book, can be seen sorta resembling the VR headset in my film.  Once David lifts up the headset, he acts like its an ancient relic.  And while a VR headset is cool, David pretty much is consumed by it, even enough to the point where he literally dies at the end.  

    Definitely something along technology, and the social implications it has on us, humans!!!!

-Noa

Done editing PP#29

     I'm done editing!  This last week has not necessarily been filled with much editing, just minor touches.  Usually, when I edit, I'll edit all the clips together in a super rough format, then I'll proceed to go back at it and refine it, and refine it some more... and more... and more... all the way till every end when I think the final product is complete.  This is because I'll be viewing my product so far, then as I watch it again and again, I always noticed small things I can add, every time that I watch.  And up until I get to a point in which I'm left with very little to add, that's when I call it complete.  

        This is the final timeline of the video.  Although it doesn't really look like much except for a lot of overlapping videos, this was probably the most ambitious project I have done.  There were a lot of new elements put into here that I simply just had to discover and implement into my story.  For example, I used a lot of filters and overlays that I haven't been used to.  When I wanted to create black bars on both the top and bottom of the screen, I just used some black screenshots and made the bars there myself!  Additionally, I had to do a lot of color correction when it came to certain scenes that had action in them, like when David and Saloman would start to fight.  

    In this part, for instance, the black bars give it a lot more cinematic feel to it, while the color filter gives a more desolate, desperate feel?  I really don't know how to describe it, but it just looks cool as fuck!!!!

    Also, the fight scene itself was like a whole other beast to handle.  The tempo and speed that the fight scene needed to operate were really different from anything that I'd done before.  Usually, I've only edited dialogue together and haven't really needed to match to any sort of beat or rhythm, and it was simply just merging dialogue cuts in between each other in order to get a coherent idea across.  But fighting is different.   Matching movement is so much harder than matching language, just because language is naturally split up.  Take a conversation for instance.  Usually, when one person speaks, another person responds, and vice versa.  But fighting is a little bit different.  Usually, someone will throw a punch, and they'll get punched back, right?  Wrong!!  I've come to learn that there are different aspects that come with fighting, like momentum, reaction, and speed, that all affect whether or not the final product will look legit or not.  That meant that when it came to fights it was a process to align each punch and make sure the reactions would match the impacts and whatnot.  

    Also, fighting is like a music video.  Sort of.  Take any pop culture, fighting content for instance.  Usually, there'll be some music or song going with the flow of the fight that'll take it to the next level and make it seem really awesome.  But adding that sort of music is really tough as it has to correlate with the punches and impact, so it flows with the overall flow of the fight.  

    A great example can be seen in this instance, in which Saloman is in the air as David takes him all the way up in a super cinematic maneuver.  Super cool stuff, David knows his wrestling and his moves.  But as David threw Saloman into the sky, I managed to find a brief pause in the song and match that with the aerial motion of the fight.  It sounds super cool! 

    Those are just a couple of examples of some of the editing nuances I had to overcome.  I had a ton of fun editing it, and I can't wait for it to be seen.  

-Noa

Print component progress (PCP) PP#28

     I'm done with my editing, which I'll talk about in a later blog post.  I've made quite a bit of additions to my social media page, which can be seen here.  Now, all that's left is the print component.  I started it a couple weeks ago, and had a ton of concept ideas for it, and last week I started actually creating it, and even though I only have the first page, I really like what I have so far. 

    You might recall this postcard ad, I made it a while back as just concpet.  I couldn't really use it as my actual photo becasue the person on the bottom isn't David lol.  As cool as it looks, I would need to personalize it a little bit by adding my own photo, but I still wanted to keep the basic premise of the idea above.  I actually even got some feedback in my class when we did little groups regarding our blogs.  I showed my class mates the concept photo above, and they though it was really cool, so I knew I was heading in the right direction.  

    This is my postcard ad!  As you can see, I kept a lot fo the core elements, swapped some things around, and even added some new things.  First of all, I added my main actor David to the poster, just so his face is readily seen and is going to be associated with the film, while also still showing that headset lodged onto his face.  Additionally, I added a quote to the side, given by me.  I took some inspiration from the cover art of Deadpool, whci can be seen here:

    As you can see, there's a quote made by Deadpool, which adds like a funny notion to the film , and how it'll add funny elements with some dark elements.  And although the cover above is a video game, the overall premise I want to convey with eh quote can still be used within my short film.  It's an action film, so chances are the viewers aren't really going to dive headfirst into the story, instead simply enjoying the action ensuing on the screen, simply saying "awesome." 

It's funny, I liked the stupid satircal aspect to it, and the art deign of it seems pretty cool, and overall I'm happy with the design!

-Noa

Social Media Additions PP#27

     I've unfortunately neglected my social media page for about a week, so I decided to come back to and I really wanted to make some posts, along with giving it some more identity.  

    Font was a major issue when I was trying to figure it out, but sine I managed to stick to a really cool font, that sorta looks glitchy, I've implemented that into the profile picture, with a splatter of blood behind it because my film is going to have a nice element of blood that's going to hopefully make it memorable and distinctive.  Additionally I did some posts regarding the cast, in which my main actor David is shown, and I'll give a little insight as to him as a person, and how he plays into the film.

    Some other posts I did were some behind-the-scenes, like some outtakes regarding some shots that wouldn't make the final film.  I personally love seeing these when it comes to media that I consume, so I figured that it's cool to also post it for potential viewers who would like some insight as to how we created the film.

Another cool thing I put was the fight list and the shooting location.  The fight list I really wanted to include because it was super unorthodox for me at first, and it was entirely new.  Similar to my last reason for the behind-the-scenes, I guess I just wanted the viewer to have some more insight onto the production!

-Noa