CCR Production

 Hey Blog!

As we begin to wrap up the final editing stages for our film opening, we also begin the process of producing our Creative Critical Reflections, or CCRs, for short, and, honestly, filming these has been more difficult than it was the opening. Don't get me wrong, the film opening was a lot of work, but I have found the CCRs to be more difficult considering it is me on camera, and I laugh, a lot, and I forget what I'm going to say even more. Also, I've never actually been on camera in the way I had to be for these two videos I filmed for CCR, so it was quite awkward at the beginning. Thankfully, a couple of my friends agreed to help me film my CCRs—some wanted help in exchange, some saw it as a cure for their boredom—and having them there made it a lot easier and more natural for me to talk to the camera.

My first CCR consisted of my friend, Manuela Correa, interviewing me and asking me the required questions in a sort of sit-down, talk-show type interview. We sat down at her couch and just got to talking as I answered questions 1 and 4 as stated by my blogs, "how does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?" and "How did you integrate technologies–software, hardware and online–in this project?" The camera was set up, on a tripod, in a way that showed both of us, as we sat in front of each other to show the way the conversation was more "natural" and relaxed. However, it took us about 12 takes to get one serious, and continuous take because we could not stop laughing, and I'm not kidding when I say 12, it was bad. Once we finally got some good content that was actually usable though, I felt a lot more confident that this wasn't such a horrible task to have to complete, and I felt more prepared for the next day when we'd film my second CCR.

Here are some screenshots of a couple of the times we couldn't stop ourselves from laughing:

Day 2 of filming CCRs consisted of filming my second video in which I answered questions 2 and 3 as named in previous blog posts: "how does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?" and "how did your production skills develop throughout this project?" For this CCR, I wanted to use themes present in my film opening, so I pretended to be packing for college as I answered these questions. However, it turns out I cannot multitask for the life of me so pretending to pack while thinking of my answers for these questions turned out to be impossible. So I decided that I'd pretend to already be done with packing so I could concentrate fully on my answers. Though I did not need anyone else on camera with me this time, some friends still helped me set up the camera and remind me of what I wanted to say when I looked lost. Unsurprisingly, it took me a lot less takes to wrap up filming since I did not continue to break due to having my friend in front of me. This one I wrapped up in 5 takes, so I was rather pleased that it could be done as quickly as possible so I could begin editing.

Overall, production of CCRs was so much fun yet overwhelming and it was so much hard work, but I am so pleased to, not only have them done, but also with the final result. I think they have so much potential and I'm ready to edit them in the coming days.