Final Project

Well, I spent the whole day finishing up. Here's the final project!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Voky3xxJhbucQQZXpRLq0qeGF8lUCmBy/view

Aaand I totally forgot the CCR... whoops.

Music Cover

I wound up covering the Flinstones theme instead. All credit goes to original composers Joseph Barbara, William Hanna, and Hoyl Curtin. Here's the video, check it out!

Schedule

So I had a surprise visit form my grandma we spent the day together, and now it’s too late for me to shoot. Now I suppose I might as well set myself a schedule for this week that I’ll hopefully stick to.

Monday- Edit in class and shoot as much as possible at home

Tuesday- Go to dog park for the outside shots, get the music

Wednesday- Finish shooting / get editing

Thursday- Edit in class, finish at home

Friday- Reflect

Weekend- Edit and post critical reflection, post link to project

Is three days not enough to shoot everything else I need? It’s possible, but I have to try, I guess. I’ve been efficient with editing in the past so hopefully I can grt through that quick as well. Oh, and the music but that shouldn’t be too time consuming. Now that I think about it, I recall having to record and post how I do it if it’s a cover of someone else’s music or something. Guess I’ll be able to show off my chops in that area here.

Did I procrastinate too much? Absolutely. Will it happen again this week? I sure hope not. I’ll try my best to stay on the ball but old habits die hard. I’ll just have to keep reminding myself that this is the big final project and I need to keep myself motivated. What a fun way to start the quarter. We teenagers really like making it hard on ourselves, huh?

Filming finally

Right then... I procrastinated a little morethan I should've and now the break's almost over. Whoops. But some filming is better than none, right?

This is my favorite shot so far. It feels like a great transition-y shot and it looks super professional. Well, at least the action does. The quality itself is surprisingly poor for my iPhone 6. Maybe I'll reshoot later with more focus or something but if not, I like this one, despite its potato cam quality.

Here's a runner up for best shot [in my humble opinion]. I could probably edit it to speed up a little later on. I like how well the tilt up matches with her looking up and it really helps show something above has gotten her attention.

And finally, this one. Sne's all chilling out here. Really relaxed and stuff. I like how she kinda just smacks her lips there, or whatever dogs do, it shows how she's just chilling. I probably could've held this shot a little steadier, huh?

Anyway those were today's highlights. I'm definitely filming some more tomorrow so stay tuned.

Filming, almost

It’s spring break and I might as well start trying to get some shots of my dogs. One positive is that they’re good to go, for the medical issue has come and gone. However, now I’m uncertain as to whether or not I should give them a bath. It could be too obvious if I cut between shots of them being fresh and less fresh, perhaps. But wouldn’t being snow-white contribute to the overall cuteness appeal?

I can’t decide but I’m not going to go and do a whole other pros and cons list. It is just about time for them to get a washing right about now anyway. If it’s too noticable then I’ll reshoot afterwards with the less clean dogs or just try and cover up the discrepancies with editing. Either way, they’re bound to end up looking the same as they are now. Excellent!

Anyway, it’s getting pretty late actually so I’ll get to work tomorrow. Oh, and I spoke with my mom and she’s fine with letting the dogs roam freely for the project, she’ll take care of the baby. Although, it’s up to me to clean up all the toys and everythinng said baby has left strewn around, but I can just get around to that tomorrow as well... I wonder if the URL I chose for this blog is influencing me or if I just know myself that well.

Oh, and apparently it’s national puppy day or something. Celebratory puppies inbound

Film Title

Why the heck haven't I thought of a title yet? After all, it's like the first thing everyone sees/hears about a movie so it's pretty important, and people often really like to judge a book by its cover, unfortunately.

Titles of dog movies are usually something like the names of the dogs (Old Yeller, Mamaduke, Hachi, etc), something describing the dogs (Air Buddies, 101 Dalmatians, Show Dogs, etc), or something descrbing what the dogs do (All Dogs Go to Heaven, A Dog's Way Home, A Dog's Journey, etc). For mine I'm leaning towards the latter two since just having the protagonists' names feels rather bland.

Now, if I do one describing the dogs, how could I describe them?  Looking at them the first adjectives that come to mine are cute, and furry, and white, but none of those feel like good movie titles. I guess I'd end up calling it "Lost Dogs" or "Spirited" or "Puppers" or something. That last one is modern slang so yay for appealing to the young hip crowd, I guess.

On the other hand, for a title describing the dogs' actions, I could be a little more vague. A semi-cryptic title would probably incite curiosity in a potential viewer, right? For that, I could go with "Running Free" or "Life Unchained" or "Pursuit". Going with a more light-hearted theme, I would think that last one might fit better. After the whole setup of the intro it could fit in well, popping up as the humans chase the dogs, too. Now that I think about it, since I already determined the title would come up there in the kinda-storyboard I did, that last one would probably be the best choice of the bunch.

In the end I believe "Pursuit" would be the best title. I briefly considered throwing "fur" in there for a pun, but "Fur-suit" brings with it some... undesirable connotations, especially in today's society. Anyway, I could probably design it as a colorful little pop-up to appear in the opening once I'm editing the final product. I think I'll have some little muddy dog prints on it for extra light-heartedness. That's all for now.

Complications

Well, I was hoping to start filming around now, but it looks like I'll have to put it off for a little. For one, my little dog's got to wear something for medical reasons and I was hoping it would be off by now but apparently it'll take a bit longer. Such is life, I suppose. Perhaps I'll be able to get some footage of my other dog in the meantime...

Anyway, another issue is that tmy carpeting just got removed, and now I got a hard floor like everyone else. My dogs used to love running around, chasing each other left and right on the carpet. This is something I really wanted to capture to emphasize how the characters just like having fun and all, but I presume ithat now they'll slide everywhere and run into things with that momentum and no rug to slow down on. Or maybe they'll get used to it quickly, time will tell.

One other problem I have now is my sister started walking and my overprotective mother insists on keeping the dogs restrained for the baby's safety because she's afraid they'll play rough and she'll get involved. Mothers, am I right? I hope she'll loosen up if I tell her I need to let the dogs be themselves for this project when it's time to film, but knowing her, it's a bit of a risk.

In case things come to the worst case scenario and all these issues persist, I suppose I can bring over my older dog to a friend's house where she can play with his dog and I could just film that instead. The only issue there is that if I need tons of footage I'd have to be over there a LOT, but desparate times call for desparate measures, right?