Creative Critical Reflection

Final Products

Postcard Advertisement

Website

http://existingfilm.weebly.com/

Short Film

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwAkYkJWyX2sdDJWSl9sMEhTWjg/view

Final Thoughts

I would be lying if I didn't say that I'm glad this project is over with. The stress I have been putting on myself to make this project has been getting to me lately, and finally getting to relieve myself of that stress is a huge weight off of my shoulders. Creating this project has been more daunting than any project I've ever taken on. But, at the end of the day, considering everything we went through while making this film, Jania and I created something that I feel I can be at least a little proud of.
Thank you for following me along on this last little adventure for Shortcake Studios, and I hope you enjoy our projects final results.

Working Hard

I'm currently in Puerto Rico visiting my family, so working on the project this weekend has been pretty difficult. I was even working on my website in the airport while waiting to board the plane. I still have lots to get done, however, so I'm going to have to set aside an entire day during my trip to work on everything and make sure I finish up. The good thing is that I have my postcard finished and a lot of the website information blockeed out. It's gonna be crazy, but I know I'll get it done!

Postcard Process

Working on the postcard took me longer than I thought, but I actually enjoyed doing it and I'm really happy with the end result!

I started off with this image for the back of my postcard. I knew I wanted a lot of empty space to include all of the necessary information, so this image was a perfect starting point with the positioning of our actor.

Next, I wanted to blur everything in the image except for the actor, ensuring he would stay in focus. At first I thought about leaving the image like this, but then I started playing around with filters on my photo editing app and I found some really awesome effects.

 

Since I was trying to go for a hand drawn type of aesthetic, the filter I ended up choosing felt perfect. Having it be in greyscale felt appropriete for the subject matter of our film. Plus, it left a nice big empty space to fit all the postcard's information in a way that it could clearly be read.

Last Day of Filming

I won't sugarcoat it. Our last day of filming was a mess.

As I've mentioned in my past posts, one of our biggest obstacles has been working around our main actor's busy schedule. Originally, we were suppose to finish filming last weekend, but our actor had to cancel at the last second, and the only other time he was available this week was on Tuesday after 4:00 PM. Since this was our last week for filming, we knew we would have to finish filming everything in that one afternoon. Despite my state of overwhelming anxiety, I knew we would just have to make it work, so that's what we tried to do. We planned accordingly with our other actor who agreed to film with us on Tuesday and provide us with the setting as well.

Flash forward to Tuesday when things fall apart even further. Jania and I are together getting some last minute details together at the dog park before filming, when we get a call from our other actor. He tell us that he has to cancel, and that we can't use his house to film anymore. 

So. It's one hour before Jania and I have to start filming, and we're suddenly left with neither a second actor, nor a place to film. We start scrambling like crazy, trying to figure out who can fill in and what to do. After about half an hour of Jania and I freaking out and thinking we were totally screwed, one of her friends replied to us and said he would be able to film that night after 6:00. He wasn't a particularly.... good actor, but we were totally desperate and he was willing to act for fast food. We ended up filming in Jania's house until 10:30 on a Tuesday night. Towards the end of filming, Jania's camera started to die, so we had to rush through filming the last few parts. Hopefully that won't come back to haunt us.

All in all, it was a disaster. But, at the end of the day, we got it done. Now, lets just hope it all comes together a little more smoothly from now on. 

Wasted Week

This has not been a good week for me. I have been super sick and dealing with other personal issues, so as a result, I've been absent from school and we've fallen way behind on our project. We were suppose to be filming this weekend, but our actor had to cancel again. Now we have to finish filming on Tuesday, Jania has to finish editing, and I have to finish putting together our postcard and website; I'm just terrified that we won't be able to get everything done before spring break at this point. Nothing seems to be going right for us, and it doesn't help that I'm feeling overwhelmed by outside issues. Our poor time management skills have once again backed us into a corner. I'm just so mad at myself for letting this happen again.

Building Our Website

When Jania and I started this project, we agreed that we shouldn't put much focus on creating our poster or website until we were done filming. However, neither of us thought we would still be filming this late in the game. So, to try and compensate, I've started creating the movie website. I obviously can't finish making it until we're done with the film itself, but starting on the basics isn't going to hurt us.

So far, I've decided on what tabs I want to include on our website, as well as the content I'm going to include on each page:

Home
I want to include our postcard as a title image at the very top of our home page, and underneath an embedded link to the film itself.

Synopsis 
This page is going to include a brief summary of the film, as well as our film's intended purpose. I'm also thinking about including a little slide show of pictures from filming and behind the scenes photos.

About the Creators
This tab may or may not be included, I haven't decided yet, but I thought it would be interesting to include a page where Jania and I can share a little bit of our own personal stories, as well as why we each wanted to create a film about this topic and what this short film means to us. I think it would be a good way to connect with our audience on a more intimate level.

Getting Help
I want a section of our website to include ways for people struggling with mental health to get help. That includes the numbers for suicide hotlines, links to resources on how to identify symptoms, and other sources like these.