Goodbye

Welll. I just clicked export on my project. I guess this is it. It feels so bittersweet because on one hand, I'm so happy and relieved to be done with this project, but on the other, I'm gonna miss this experience so much. I'm so proud of the final result which came out of many sleepless nights, hours of stressing. and so many setbacks. I'm also so grateful to have gotten to work with Megan on this and for her to putting up with my insane ideas (I'm so sorry). This is my first short film, which is so something I've been wanting to say since I could remember, and I really hope I'll be making more in the future (hey maybe I'll even start a blog to document that). I'll miss posting my breakdowns into the endless void of the internet. I can't believe it's over. Can't wait for you to watch.

I'll miss this

God I Can't Wait to Sleep

So, I think this is my last post before my final two posts which is????? I can't believe how fast these last two months have gone. This whole experience has been so fun and fulfilling etc etc but to be completely honest, I can't wait to have a nice full night's rest once this is over. Between writing the script, blogging, social media, and filming I feel so exhausted. Case in point, we had our final filming session today. I got to Megan's house at 8:30 ish slightly sleep deprived and carrying about 100 lbs of equipment. While we waited for Mariano to arrive, we figured out the audio which was really stressful because the mic needed a microSD card but when I put mine in, it said it was the wrong format so I reformatted it and it still said it was the wrong format, so we just ended up using a wireless lav which luckily for us was fine since we only needed one scene with audio. Apparently, Mariano overslept so we basically had to drive to his house to drag him out of bed because we literally cannot film any other day. Then we drove to Dunkin to eat which was great cause I had only had a yogurt before and was already hungry.

We started filming probably somewhere around 11/12. Honestly, I was surprised at how smooth everything went. Like we finished a couple hours before I was expecting to which made me soooo happy. After we figured out the little audio problem, we didn't have any other equipment problems. Only thing was that we had to film on a different camera than last session so instead of the 33mm lens, we had a 50 and a zoom, so it was a little annoying having to switch between the two since the 50 wasn't as wide, but it wasn't that big a deal. We had to reshoot the opening because we didn't finish it last time, and we had to shoot the routine montage which was honestly kinda fun because we got to watch movie trailers for the scene. And then we had to get the final shot of the film which was honestly a little stressful because I really wanted to get an impacting final shot. But yeah, everything went really well!! When I got home, I immediately crashed and didn't wake up until recently. Now to edit until I forget what the sun looks like.

Photo Dump

Tripod dog!

Finalizing Social Media

Feels so insane to say but April 9th is so much closer than I thought. Like oh my god it's next Wednesday already. That's just insane. Luckily, I feel like we're pretty on schedule with everything, the only thing I'm worried about is getting the best possible edit done with just a couple days to work on it. But on the plus side, we've been good on updating our social media so far, so that's one less worry as our due date approaches. These last couple days especially we've been trying to get more posts on there and follower interaction. 

On Tuesday, we posted the finished logo inspired by da Vinci's Vitruvian Man drawing to represent that intersection between man and machine. Megan did such a good job on it and it looks so cool. 

On Thursday, we posted another behind the scene look of Megan and Mariano practicing lines together before shooting the final scene (fun fact: we shot that scene about a million time, and the angle we were shooting it at couldn't fit a tripod so I had to go handheld and basically had to hold my breath for the entirety of the scene, almost two minutes, so the camera wouldn't shake). You can see how much of a mess the room was in this picture lmaoo.

Yesterday was also SAT testing day for juniors and since I'm a senior, I got to miss class. And instead of going to the beach with all the other senior, I stayed home and edited...yay! I went a little more into that process in my last post, but during that long editing period, I did work on a little social media teaser. It was honestly a pain to make because color grading took way long than I was expecting, it was hard to find a riser/flutter that I liked, and Adobe After Effects is my greatest enemy. Seriously you have no clue how long it took me to figure out how to make those basic title graphics.

Finally, today we posted like that Instagram grid thing with multiple posts to spell out the title. She looks a little chopped but its fine. Sunday is our last day of filming so we'll probably do another bts post then or on Monday then we'll maybe do an out tomorrow post on Tuesday and then the official release post on Wednesday.

 Color Grading Ain't For Me

Actually, let me rephrase that: editing ain't for me. 

Today was SAT day at school so instead of like idk going out with my friends since I'm a senior, I decided to stay home and edit. Honestly, I'm complaining now, but I won't be next Wednesday, so I think it's a fair trade. I can hang out with my friends once this project is over. Either way, I tried to get as much editing done as possible today which honestly wasn't a whole lot because I'm a slow editor but it's fine. I worked on leveling the audio and making a more dynamic edit than the original line edit with inserts and voiceover. I feel like the first minute ish is better and a little more interesting. I tried to work on sound design but it was so unpleasant. I think I used about a hundred different risers and none of them matched what I wanted. So frustrating. And don't get me started on music. Everything involved in the post production process is just so stressful and frustrating. But anyway, this blog post is supposed to be primarily about color grading since it was what I worked on the most. 

Enjoy this stupid minion meme that I found on the beautiful thing known as the internet

When we first started pre-production, we had intended to have this very hospital, cold look to the piece. But when we started shooting, we realized that it made the actors look very washed out and the color just looked ugly. I realized it was better to go with a darker, black, white, and gray color scheme. Once I started editing the footage, I realized it looked a little to bright (?) and I wanted a bit of a more moody look. 

For example, the still below is from the final scene of the film. This scene is definitely more depressing, and I felt like the color just doesn't capture that look. I decided to bring the exposure down a little bit while raising the contrast and whites. The highlights in the whites were a little too strong so I brought the highlights down a little. Then I played a little with the temperature and tint to get that color that I wanted. And I think it came out pretty cool. Final result:

It's quite subtle and not very stylistic, but I think it captures the tone of the scene so much better. 

Then I moved to color grading the opening which was a PAIN in the you know what. We shot the scene with this red light that looked good in practice but the second I opened up premiere, I realized it looked absolutely horrendous. 

UGLYYYYY

I realized pretty early on that fixing it wouldn't be possible. So, I decided to embrace that red and just work my best to white balance it as much as possible just to make that red a little more subtle and a little less of an eyesore. I started off with the automatic white balance tool on premiere which is usually pretty reliable. Only problem was that there was nothing actually white in the shot so I had to go with the metallic thing on the clipboard. Luckily, it did actually fix the color a lot. I brought down that exposure a little for that moody look and brought up the contrast for stronger shadows. I also brought up the greens a little to contrast the reds, which I don't fully love the greens but I think it balances out those reds a lot. Either way, I think it looks SO much better now and I can look at it without wanting to vomit on my computer. Final result: 

Little fun story time. When I was at STN, I had a free day and decided to attend a workshop. But on the way there, I got distracted talking to some college representatives of a school that I got accepted into and was considering. When we finished talking, I realized that the workshop was supposed to start in two minutes so I ran over to the room and it was completely full like not a single seat empty. Since I had nothing better to do, I ended up walking into a random other workshop without knowing what it was. I accidentally had walked into Color Correction on Final Cut Pro. Mind you, I've never opened Final Cut Pro in my life. But I decided to stay. Mostly cause I felt bad leaving mid workshop. And to be completely honest, it taught me a lot. I feel like my color grading skills still aren't incredible, but they're so much better than last year. Yeah, I'm pretty proud of these final results.