Making My Own Titlecard...

     Hey people! Now that I'm in my editing stages I know the most important factor of this opening will be my unforgettable TITLE CARD!!!

    I've taken it upon myself to design my own rather than just grab the fonts from Adobe Premiere Pro and have at it. I wanted to make it fun and true to the character I developed earlier in this project. The title card has sort of 2 title cards... rather than 1. As I said before Thomas is a spy who is addressed by others as Tommy for how young he is compared to the other spies around him, and he hates it. So I made a title card that represents that.

This is the original title card, the first one you'll see as it is the name of the film opening.

This is the second one, the one that represents the character more than anything, he hates his nickname and he hates the title of this film.

Footage is DONEZO

     Hey guys!

    I finally got all my footage in for this film opening, I do have to say it took me some time but I'm glad I was able to get everything done with the help of my amazing actors and friends who have been here with me through all of it. 

    

I've had so much fun making this film opening with my friends because it really was an eye opening experience for me, it made me realize how much I love this kind of stuff and I'm so ready to continue working on things like this in the future. Here's a quick little shot of me filming the last scene in the opening, a scene that took us about 20 minutes to get perfect.

Drone Footage YIPPEE!

     Heyyyy guys.

  So I finally got my drone shots and I thought my wonderful people over at Cambridge might want a sneak peek into what I've been up to. First and foremost I'd like to thank my friend Santiago Salguero for allowing me to use his drone and operating it under my direction.

The drone shots I found were pretty simple but I think they'll add some professional kick to this film opening that was obviously made by someone who isn't a professional just yet.

Below is the shortest drone footage we have of the house we used, thanks to our actor Enzo who offered his house up after our first filming location didn't work out.

Goodbye Elevator Scene :( + NEW LOCATION!

     Hey everyone! So, as I said before, my filming was a flop. The location wasn't good especially because it was a completely public area that made it practically impossible to have 0 background noise or at least background noise that isn't entirely distracting. 

    Thankfully, Enzo (who plays Thomas) has offered up his house to use for filming, I'm going to try my best to make it look like some sort of secret spy base, might have to bring random screens from my house there to his house but I'll make it work. That being said there is a sacred scene that I now have to let go because of this :(...

We have to say goodbye to my elevator scene...

The elevator scene was actually my base for the combat sequences in this film opening and I'm so sad with this new location I'll have to work around it as obviously a house isn't going to have an elevator there.

Filming... Was a Flop...

     So! This week I finished filming my combat scenes for my film opening, I had this grand plan and getting to filming took a while because I was waiting for props as making my own became too trying on top of my other school work. I filmed for about 3-4 hours in Weston's Town Center shopping center and came out with about 55 seconds of footage, which was fine because that wasn't the only thing I planned on filming, I was simply waiting for my car to come back from repair. Except... my footage was god awful.

    My app of choice was always going to be Adobe Premiere Pro for editing as it's what I'm used to in the editing sense. I really REALLY tried to pick out my good clips from what I filmed and use those except the clips simply weren't good footage. Now, most of these sequences actually came out well but for some reason about .5-1 second of footage from the beginning of clips was ALWAYS missing leaving out important movements. Along with that, the elevator sequence that my entire script started with was done terribly by one of the actors who wouldn't take it seriously (she's since been taken off my actors' group chat). 

    I'll have to refilm everything for these fight sequences when my actors have another available day all together, Friday morning has already been agreed upon. Tomorrow I'll be filming my car sequences with a drone I'm borrowing from a friend (thank you Santi!) and that'll make up about 40-50 seconds of my footage. I've had to entirely go off script for this film opening which is frustrating but I like what I've got planned so far! 

    Updates soon to come...

Stage Combat!

     Hey Cambridge! Obviously with filming comes what actors have to do, and obviously in a spy film, we'll need plenty of combat. Now teaching stage combat to people who have NEVER done it before is incredibly difficult but I didn't find troubles for the most part. Most of my actors are in theatre so they've taken previous lessons on this but others... have never done it before.

    Particularly my main actor, Enzo, who plays Thomas in my film opening had never even been on camera before or acted in anything. After the first time I saw him read the script and I met with him about the film, I knew he was a perfect fit and I'm so happy he's gotten into the role well.

    This one specific scene I was able to film with him and one of my stunt actors, Stephanie, really showed that he knew how to adapt to the scenarios around him. 

In this scene, Stephanie had to jump onto Enzo's back and practically beat him in the head, Enzo then had to fight her off of him and punch her. With the use of a very odd angle for me, the punch looked REAL! And the use of different angles used for the jumping scene, the fighting seemed a lot longer than I had filmed, which I honestly loved since these fight scenes were a lot for the actors, physically. Using high schoolers definitely makes this vision more challenging but I chose the right people.

My Official Props and Technology List

     Hey everyone! I've gotten in from Amazon (thank god for Prime) all of my props and technology that I'll be utilizing for my film opening!

Starting with the bottom, ski masks, now I could only find cheap, good quality ones in packs of 2 so I'm hoping to make the most out of it since I only NEEDED 1. I also bought myself a tripod so I could film easier as I tend to have shaky hands, hopefully it'll also help with different angles. My car keys are also there as my car is going to be THE CREDIT SEQUENCE, the opening scene of my car rushing through traffic (yes I'm being safe and using empty roads don't worry Cambridge) is where my credits are going to come into play. I also have bought Bluetooth microphones that connect directly to my phone for better sound quality, they also came with clips so I could hide them under my actors' clothes. Last but not least, Thomas' gun. Yes, I know it looks VERY realistic but it is just an airsoft gun with absolutely NO AMMO in it. It was an honest mistake on my part buying it without reading because I thought it was just a really good prop gun, thankfully my parents checked everything and it is absolutely safe to use with no ammo!

    Everything in this photo will REALLY make or break my filming experience, the mask is going to become a big part of the storyline I leave on a cliff hanger at the end of the opening. The gun is a simple prop that simply adds to the reality of the film, it being a spy film. My car is also a pivotal part of the storyline because in all honesty Thomas is fully of himself and is EXACTLY the kind of person to buy a sports car, and yes that was lowkey a dig on myself and my cute little sports car. The microphones will only really help with Thomas' dialogue as he's the only person that has any.