CCR Question 3

     This post will focus on the third question of the CCR. There actually won't be a post for the fourth question, since I uploaded a post on the group meeting we had yesterday in place of it. The fourth question is extremely straightforward and easy to answer anyway, so it won't hurt me that much if I don't prepare for it as much as the others. The third question goes as follows:

How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

Planning

    The blogs acted as a guideline for me during this project. They showed me where I needed to be for the planning phase, production, and post-production phase. They also helped me space out my time enough so I consistently made progress on it throughout each week. Although they take a lot of time to complete, they have kept me on track and prevented me from procrastinating. Let's start with the pre-production phase.

    For every production, you have to plan beforehand. Without planning, your production is bound to be low quality. This class has taught me the importance of pre-production. For me, the longest blog posts were the research ones. I really disliked having to do them, but in the end, they were valuable to the production of our project. They allowed me to take inspiration from similar films and see what does/doesn't work for the type of film we wanted to make. 

    After the research phase, scriptwriting and storyboarding were next. The research phase heavily influenced these processes. Our script would definitely have been hindered if it weren't for our research, and important things like loop motifs might not have been present if we did not know about them in the first place. This part of pre-production was a relative breeze once we all were on the same page. The only problem really just came down to how we wanted to structure the loop, but after we solved that we completed the script and storyboard in quick succession. Then came the general pre-production stuff, like how we wanted to incorporate audio, mise-en-scene, and character development. The blog posts leading up to this phase helped us significantly with figuring this out, and once again it was a pretty simple process.

Remember this? I do NOT miss trying to figure that out.

Production

    Our production for this project was extremely quick. We shot the entire thing in one day. Without our intense planning beforehand, this would not have been possible. We had the script act as a checklist for what we did or didn't film. We also didn't film in chronological order, like I usually do for my projects. Since it was a time loop, we filmed all of the shots for the different loops as each event happened. For example, we filmed multiple angles of T. Jacobs when he asked about the files at the same time to compensate for the multiple times it happened in the film. This saved us a lot of time in the end and was a big factor in why production went so fast.

    Another factor was the fact that we only needed to film at two locations. The first was the therapist's office (which we filmed at Grace's house) and the second was the parking lot outside of the therapist's office. We filmed those scenes at a nearby plaza. We filmed everything at each location before moving on to the next, which made the most sense. If we did film in chronological order we would have to drive back and forth between locations, which would be really annoying and time-consuming. All of these factors led to a quick and organized production.

Changes 

    We changed quite a few things during production. The first was the use of a cuckoo clock, which we changed to a digital one since Rachel already had one. The second was the outfit and nametag of T. Jacobs since we changed the overall vibe of my character and realized that he wouldn't wear a nametag at a place where he already worked. We also changed a line very slightly from "How does that make you feel?" to "How does IT make you feel?". This was because we had already filmed the first time Schultz said it, and in that shot, she said 'it' instead of 'that'. We did not feel like reshooting, so we just changed the line for the rest of the time Schultz said it. 

    We also changed the scene with T. Jacobs slightly so he gets waved off instead of setting the files on Dr. Schultz's table. We realized there was no room for me to place the files on the table without it being awkward, so we just altered the scene slightly to that. In the end, I think it helped showcase Schultz's character better, and was a positive change overall.

The clock we ended up using:

Reflection

    I would certainly say the skills that I have improved the most during this project are organization and proper planning.  I have always been really unorganized when it came to actually filming, and I never really made a script or storyboard for any of my other projects in the past before this class. The most I would do was write a brief outline of what I wanted to happen in my notes app to guide me. I used to just get everyone together and essentially wing it as we went. This typically ended up producing less professional and lower-quality products.

    With this project, however, I have finally understood the importance of pre-production. If you are filming a decent-sized production, all of the shots kind of blend together in your head amidst the chaos. Order is super important, and I don't know where we would be if we did not have the script to act as a checklist. In the past, I would commonly realize I missed a shot or two when editing, and it would often be too late to shoot any more footage. Now I am significantly better at understanding how to research, as well as how to plan and stay organized during production.