CCR TMZ Interview

1. How does your product use or challenge conventions And how does it represent social groups or issues.
 -My movie follows the conventions for the normal introduction to an action movie. Most of the action movies that I have watched, the majority, have never been too serious. Most were comedies or light-hearted action movies, and that’s what we were trying to go for. In the beginning of action movies like, Guardians of the Galaxy, you are introduced to an old nostalgic song that instantly gives you a fun, up-beat mood. We tried to go for the same in our movie. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to use Teddy Bear by Elvis Presley in our movie because I sent RCA Records, the owners of the rights to the song, an email and they never got back to me. Instead, me and Andrew had to settle for a royalty free track that we found online. We checked through many different websites looking for a track that sounded similar to Teddy Bear but we couldn’t find anything similar. So, instead, we switched gears and went for a more rock song. Me and Andrew had two different songs we wanted to have on the movie and because he ended up finishing the editing over the quarantine we went with his song. Or he went with his song. A social group, maybe people who are too good at what they do. Let me explain. Our character is an ex-military sniper. He is retired obviously from the first few scenes. And then as he is eating his breakfast, that we see him make in the beginning, another government official comes to his front door knocking. Once our character opens the door, the official tells him that he has a new mission to do. Our character closes the door in his face. So what I mean by people who are too good at what they do, our character was good enough at his job that the government wants him to come back to do another mission. I don’t think we really highlight any active issues or any social problems.

2.  How does your product engage with audiences AND how would it be distributed as a real media text?
 - I think our product engages with audiences with the music, the different elements, and the comedy at the end. First the music. The music is loud, powerful, and hard to ignore since the starting second of the movie. It instantly changes the mood of the film and sets a mood for the rest of the 2 minutes. It is up-beat, it is happy, and its hard not to give any attention. The different elements of the room and his morning routine also played a crucial part. The breakfast was something relatable and something that everyone who is watching has done at some point. The way I would distribute this movie is through a film festival. The reasons are the budget and the cast. I think some of the props and the house that we used could’ve been better and more fitting to the situation. We also wanted our main character to be a grown, retired, ex-military sniper, but we had a young actor. I feel like this movie is like some of the movies in a film festival, where the point isn’t to be highly produced, it’s to entertain or to send a message and even though we don’t have an overwhelming message in this movie, we do try our best to entertain the viewer.

4. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
 - My skills developed so much over the course of this project. I learned how to direct the movie and have a creative eye for how I was going to approach something. One thing that I used to not completely understand was editing. I only understood the basics. For example, I would know how to import and export and occasionally trim the clips; however, after this project I learned how to do much more. I learned how to add titles and add music to the video. I also learned how to properly trim each video and how to zoom in, in order to get rid of any small video fragments that I didn’t see before. Unfortunately, because of the quarantine I had to leave the editing up to my partner, Andrew Cambron. Not to say that he is a bad editor or teammate, but I would’ve loved to be able to finish the vision I had for the project. I also learned how to constantly check up on our location to make sure that it was okay for me to go over there to begin to film. We filmed at Andrew’s house and I was behind the camera up until the very final scene. I think my cooperation to projects, also improved during this final task. I came up with the comedic bit at the end of the film, and had many other contributions throughout this movie. My teamwork also improved. Before I would ignore people’s feedback or contributions, but with Andrew I was always open to suggestions and together, we both came up with this product.

3.  How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project
-  Without the integration of technology this project would not have been possible. Firstly, I want to thank our teacher, Ms. Marchionne, for teaching us how to use this technology to the fullest. Anytime we had questions regarding editing or how to add something special to our video, she would help and explain to us what exactly we had to do. But computers and Pinnacle studios played a crucial role in making sure that we had the product that we wanted. The editing software, Pinnacle Studios, was a little shaky and didn’t work half the time, but when it did work, we tried our best to do the most amount of work possible. The biggest technology that really saved the day was Andrew’s computer, because going into quarantine, we still had a few additions we wanted to add to our final task. And I didn’t have an editing software, but Andrew did so he ended up finishing the project by himself. He sent it to me, to make sure that we both approved of the final product and we both did, so we turned it in. Another piece of technology was the internet. We didn’t get to have the music we wanted; however, we looked online and found some royalty free music that fit with the category and feeling that we were trying to portray in this film. Without technology this project would have never happened.

Growing and Learning Throughout The Year (Final Movie)

Throughout this year I have learned a lot of things thanks to the AICE Media Studies class. I have learned how to do things in and out of the classroom. In the classroom I learned how to edit, something that I've been wanting to learn how to do for a long time. I also learned how to coordinate and work with others better than I already do. I had to speak to all of my group members and adjust my schedule to theirs and be the most productive group we could be. Outside of the classroom I learned how to manage my work and how to remind myself when something is due. Before Media I didn't remember all that well, the work that was due for classes and almost always finished the work a few minutes before it was due. Media taught me how to combat that. It taught me to set reminders on my phone for upcoming work and to also help remind my teammates sometimes that work was due that day. Unfortunately, because of these troubling times we didn't record a CCR video. We didn't have enough time before the quarantine to complete it either. One thing that we do have completed is the final movie task. This movie was worked on for weeks. We added titles and music and we are both very happy with this final product. Although some of the editing is off, we still tried our best to make the greatest final task we could.