Behind the Scenes and Music Permission

Hey everyone!

So I filmed my whole opening Saturday morning, without any major disruptions or challenges. YAY! I was incredibly pleased with the shots that I got, and it was truly amazing seeing my imagination come to life right before my eyes. 

To the right of this text, you can see a headshot from my main actress, Catalina Castro. I'm extremely proud of her performance as Leah Winters, and endlessly thankful for her willingness to help me with this project. Since I've known Catalina for years, our friendship allowed her to easily understand my directions and the picture that I formed in my head. However, we  did run into some issues, as there were times that she would focus on trivial parts of the filming process, or she would get so caught up in the character, that she'd forget the directions that I gave her. Nevertheless, it was still a great experience that benefited both of our skills.

Additionally, I decided to share some behind the scene pictures so that you could get a deeper understanding of my filming limitations. 

The set was the dining space of my house, and there were few props.

This is me playing around with the lights.

I used over four lamps to be able to play around with my lighting.

One of the most important things I learned with this process is that filming in a small house is no small task. As seen in the bottom right picture, my house was a mess. Since I wanted white, simple walls, I had to take a huge painting off the wall - it was extremely heavy. The dinner table needed to be moved, so it instead blocked the whole hallway of the house. The lamps served as a barrier between the 'set' and the rest of house, so it was usually very uncomfortable for me to move around and change positions. Regardless, I dealt with it and just had to adapt to my conditions.

After many spams by my various email accounts, I finally got the permission to use Lindsey Stirling's 'Crystallize', so now, I'm elated to start the editing process and combine the visuals with the sound. You can see the written proof down below:

***I reviewed the link that Ms. Fletcher gave me and indeed, my project falls under "Fair Use" that the email referred to, and I'm good to go, since "In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include...the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes" , which gives me the permission to use the music, so really, the email is more of a courtesy and confirmation of that.

Now, I've started the editing process with the app iMovie. I decided to use iMovie on my phone because its one of the easiest editing programs and its the one I'm most familiar with, yet I don't have access to an Apple computer at home. Although it isn't the most ideal situation, I like being able to work on the editing whenever I have a free moment. To speed up my process, I watched a Youtube video that gave me quick tips on the management of the app so that I could get the most out of it. I found it very helpful, and I'm actually using many of those tricks whenever I edit.

I'm hoping to be done with editing tomorrow, so that I can focus on my critical reflection the next few days.

It's crunch time!

-Isa

EpicTutorialsDotCom. "IMovie for IPad & IPhone - Top 10 Tips & Tricks for Mobile Editing 2016." YouTube. YouTube, 12 Jan. 2016. Web. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87fTLbZlDJU>.

 "Fair Use." Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use>.