CCR - Creative Responce

Tech Integration

CCR - The 3 Written

The 3 Written

Question 1: Challenging Conventions

 

My "Chicken Man" killer alongside Michael Myers from "Halloween"

Our Film "Chicken Chess" challenges the conventions of a menacing villain or intimidating killer for a horror film. It does this with its very concept, a chess player putting on a chicken mask and killing his players. This takes the silly convention of an animal mask and uses it to create a more creepy feel.

We also represented the chess group, and that sub section of players that hate loosing. They would do anything to win, even kill to gain a victory over their opponent. We took that logic to its conclusion in this film.

Question 2: Engage in Distributions

  

A shot of my film, showing the Chicken Mask   Along side the distribution YouTube

We engage our audience with our film by wrapping them up into a chess game and seeing our loser's loss with the anticipation of the mask with our panning shot. Where the film goes in the second half and the rising tension keeps the viewers locked into the film.

We would use YouTube, and TikTok to distribute them as it would have the best chance to reach audiences on TikTok and have a better lasting impression and memory on YouTube.

Question 3: Producing our Skills

Two Timelines, My film "Chicken Chess" on the left and "Discord Shenanigans Remake" on the right

My skills in film making began with this film, and experiencing a organized and planned production is very new to me. Learning to plan around different scenarios and issues is a different experience, one that is very different from off the cuff YouTube videos. 

Speaking of YouTube, editing a film production is wholly different. There is a different pacing and logic in putting together scenes and creating an unnerving atmosphere, than editing down a long video and implementing humorous and silly effects. It is a whole different process that I did not understand until I edited my teams film.

Chess Film Final Cut: Chicken Chess

Chicken Chess

Production Post 15 - Picking up the Pieces

 

Picking up the Pieces

    We as a class all showcased our films current stages, the sound on my computer did not work so they only could critique the visual aspect of the film. It all worked well, the cut out hand worked and the pacing was mostly well done. there were 3 things that did need improving however.

         1. There was too little color in the film, which made a few shots that could of been powerful weak.

         2. The final shot lasted for 8 seconds, and could be cut down to make the ending more powerful.

         3. The intro to the hallway area was a shallow focus shot, and did not work to set anything up.

    After that, I went back and made a few key alterations to fix up the film.

            1. I re-added in the color of the film, then made sure to keep it's warm gamma tones, some desaturation to make it starker, and the contrast up to make it pop. I believe this balance of colors helped make the close up shots especially more impactful and memorable.

This is me fixing the color in the film, making the colors pop more

            2. To fix the pacing of the films' ending, I trimmed the cut off to end at the beat instead of at the poll. Now the film both does not drag on and I have time for the end credits.

This is when I cut the final shot shorter to the beat of the song

            3. The shot of the hallway cannot be fixed, it was shot like that and is essential to our film, so it stays as a blunder to fix for next time.

    With that all sorted and the film fully edited out, I add in the end credits and Title card and wrap Post Production. This has been such a unique editing experience, and nothing like I have done before. So wildly different and out of my comfort zone. However, this is what you need to do to grow as an artist and creator to improve your craft.

Production Post 14 - Sound A-Like

                               Sound A-Like

This is the audio editor of our choice, Davinci Resolve Fairlight

    Now all the visual aspects of the film are done. Now it's time to implement the sound. My Sound Designer, John David, gave me all the files I needed to import and implement into the film. We decided to use Kendrick Lamar's instrumental track "Duckworth" as our song to fit with the duck theme, then he slowed down the track and added a distortion effect to both sync up to the film and make the film more eerie. He also sent over a footstep sound effect for me to put into the middle bit when the Winner walks down the alley.

    My job was to add in all the sounds and line them up correctly. It did take a while but it was a smooth and easy process thanks to him guiding me through it. Our teamwork made everything flow and come together.

Progress Post 13 - Pasty Hand

Pasty Hand

The software for visual effects work, Davinci Resolve Fusion

    It is now time for the visual effects portion of the post production. Something that I decided on back in the last day of production is to turn my skin into something that resembles my co-actor John David. Which means I need to cut out my hand 60 times to fully cover the length of the shot.

    This was a process took a long time. Hands have many curves and are dynamic, and some chess pieces go in front of the hand of which i needed to cut around as to not destroy the shot blending in well. It's a delicate process of cutting it out well, but not taking weeks to do a 3 second shot. Once that was done I switched gears to the second aspect of this effect.

The red dots are different vertices to change the line's shape into my hand's shape

    The second part of this effect is the change in color. The fundamental difference of the two of us is the fact that John David is Caucasian and I am Caribbean. This makes the shadows and creases in our skin very different and hard to emulate into each other. 

    I studied mine and his skin tones a lot, and discovered many things. 

            1. John David has a very bright pink undertone to his skin, which shows a lot in his palms. I                        have pale palms since my father is part African American, so this allowed me to isolate the                      pale parts of the hand and add a slight pink tone to it.

            2. My skin has a lot of ridges and creases to it, a very detailed hand. John David's hand in                            contrast is smooth and does not have as much detail. I can lower my level of detail in my hand                 using the "Mid/Detail" slider in the color tab.

The two color panels and effects i used to change my skin tone

After all of this work I ended with an effect that while not perfect, it sells the fact that it is the Winner character in the shot and not my hand trying to substitute as the Winner character. It falls apart when you look closely but in motion it works well. Not everything needs to be perfect, it just needs to work.

Progress Post 12 - Color me Down

                        Color me Down

This is the color correction software, Davinci Resolve Color Tab.

    It's time to change up all the color in the film. I wanna strike a more creepy and off putting atmosphere while make it clear what is going on. So I decided on lowering the Saturation significantly while increasing the Color Bost to have a dark color pallet where you can still tell what color everything is. To then add some more unique color, I added warm colors to the gamma of the shots. I then increased the contrast and balanced the Shadows and Highlights to make it really pop and punch. ending up with this style.

        The color of the shots from Chess film edit 3-5

Progress Post 11 - Pace out your Trim

Pace out your Trim

    The next part of the editing of "Chicken Chess" is the goal of trimming the film down to under a minute, and making sure that it's still enjoyable to watch. We currently are at 1:15, so we have to cut off at least 15 seconds. Now there are two ways of cutting time off a video, you either

            a. Cut shots out of the film

            b. Speed everything up

    Since we have about 20-25 shots, speeding every single one up would help fix the issue. However since we cannot make it obvious that the movie is a quick series of shots thrown together, I can only speed it up 10-20%. Due to that, we need to now cut some shots out of the film. These are the ones me and my team chose.

            1. The overhead shot of the chess match

            2. The Winner's smug smirk

            3. The Winner's step back in reaction to the Chicken Man

            4. The Chicken Man looking out the corner.

These are the shots that got cut in the order i listed them in

    Once all of those were set up, I re-paced the film and sent it to my team. They then suggested swapping a shot which gave me the final paced movie. Thanks to the collective efforts of the team, we quickly gained the pacing for the film. Always check in with your team because they might give you ideas you would never have.

Progress Post 10 - Editing Kicks off

                          Editing Kicks Off

The timeline of the first cut of the film

    With production finished we now enter Post Production. My goal now is compiling all my clips and make my rough cut. However, I still need to import all my shots and some still are corrupted and wont load on the timeline. I ended up using Adobe Premier Rush to export the shots as MP4 files, which make them compatible for use!

    Now that all my shots are in the timeline, I began sorting the shots into the rough cut, and with the shot list it's simple and easy to put all together. After that i trimmed it all down into the fine cut to get the pacing somewhere where we need to be. Thanks to all the preparation the team did it is al, simple and easy to get into place. Preparation is key to a successful production. 

    

    Currently the film is 15 seconds over a minute, I need to find a way to trim that down.

Progress Post 9 - Final Day of Filming

            Final Day of Filming

    Today was the final day, and it started off with us grouping together and coming up with a plan since my co-actor John David was not there. We decided on cutting a few shots out of the film and replacing them with different ones to make the story flow well.

    After that we began filming and got through all the chess match shot. We then decided with some help from our producer to re-record the hand clench shot that now pans down to the chicken mask which sets up the second part of the film. 

    We then wrapped up with the last four shots of the film. We re-recorded the dragging shot, then filmed the two shots where I picked up the metal and hold it up. Lastly we filmed the tracking shot of me walking away. 

Three stills of the shots we took today

    Production ended real smoothly as we had plenty of time to nail each shot and double check what we needed to get done.