As I finish my Cambridge Final Project, I’m happy with what my group and I created. The process has been challenging, but also fun. From brainstorming ideas to developing the plot and characters, every step has helped shape the opening scene. In this final blog post, I’ll reflect on the process, what I learned, and how my project has changed.
When we first started working on the film opening, I had several ideas in mind, from different genres to different ways of telling the story. But after talking with my partners, Camila and Charlee, and getting feedback from the teacher, we decided to focus on a crime drama. This genre allowed us to create a plot that was exciting and suspenseful, while also letting us explore different filmmaking techniques. We chose a story about Ben, who gets caught in a dangerous situation, and Detective Travers, who helps him uncover the truth. The twist at the end, where Ben’s true identity is revealed, added an extra surprise.
After a lot of research, we decided to use cross-cutting in our film opening between Ben writing a letter and the police preparing a crime scene. This created tension and drew the audience into the mystery. The use of close-ups, police lights, and sirens, which my group suggested, helped make the scene more intense. To keep everything ogranized, my group and I created a storyboard and a script, this made the production process easier.
Character development was one of the most important parts of the project. I used Vladimir Propp’s Character Theory to help make sure each character had a specific role in the story. Ben is the hero, Ivan and Maverick are the villains, and Travers is the helper who tries to assist Ben.
Throughout this project, the feedback from other classmates was very helpful. In group meetings, we shared ideas and gave suggestions to improve each other’s projects. For example, when Sofia’s group had trouble filming a moving car, we came up with an idea to use a still shot instead of a shaky handheld one. This teamwork showed me how valuable feedback can be in improving a project.
Looking back on this project, I’ve learned a lot about filmmaking, especially in crime films. From developing characters to creating tension with editing, every detail helped bring the story to life. I’m proud of how far my project has come and excited to show the final result. This experience has taught me important skills that I will carry with me in the future, writing this blog post, I realize just how much I’ve learned! This project has been constantly on my mind for the past two months and now it's over, I never thought I would enjoy it as much as I did.
Right after I finished filming, I went straight into editing my CCRs. In this blog post I will be discussing the editing process and some adjustments I had to make to prevent my video from being too long or too hard to understand.
To edit, I used iMovie since it was more convenient, especially because I had also used it to edit my film opening. I started by importing all my media and organizing it in the right order.
While answering the questions in the video, I added clips from the film opening to illustrate my point and help viewers better understand what I'm explaining. For example:
In addition, I added captions to help the viewers understand better what I'm saying. Since English is not my first language, I'm well aware that some words I pronounce might be hard to understand, so I figured adding captions would be helpful.
Both of my CCRs were filmed at my house. Today I will discuss the production of my first CCR that I filmed by myself focusing on questions #1 and #2.
When I got ready to film, I realized I had a problem: I don't have a tripod! My teacher does offer us tripods to borrow, but unfortunately I forgot to ask for one... I had to improvise a stand for my phone, so I glued my phone to an upside-down blender standing over a pile of books. It was great.
In the end, even though I didn’t have a tripod, I found a creative way to make it work. My setup with the blender and books turned out to be a good solution, and I was able to film everything I needed. This experience showed me that problem-solving is an important part of the process and I ended up having a lot of fun filming.
Today I will write the script for my second CCR. For the last two questions, I will create a video were I'm acting like the Cambridge Portfolio Project is a secret mission and filming the second CCR is the last part of it.
.jpeg)
When it came to editing, I originally tried using Adobe Premiere Pro, since I used it before for other projects, but for some reason I struggled with basic tools like changing a font. I wasted a lot of time trying to edit on Premiere and found it difficult to work efficiently. Because of this, I switched to iMovie, which was much more user-friendly. While iMovie has fewer advanced features, it was the best choice for me to be able to work efficiently with less frustration.
For hardware, I used a phone and shot everything handheld. This wasn’t due to a lack of resources, but rather because it was the most convenient option given the locations and filming schedule. Using a phone, I had more freedom to move quickly and capture scenes naturally without having to set up a tripod.
Overall, I learned how to work with different tools and adjust when things didn’t go as planned. Even though I had trouble with editing at first, I found a way to make it work, and I used both online and hardware tools to complete my project successfully.
In my blog post yesterday I wrote that I know what I'm going to do for my CCR videos... This morning in class I was talking to Cami and realized that my ideas are not very creative, so we spent the rest of our class time thinking about new ideas and we came up with really good ones.
Today I will write the script for my first CCR video, about a meticulous blog inspired by Harry Potter. Inspiration video: video
Today in class we got into groups to discuss our projects and CCR's. We were six people in the group: Andre, Isa, Layla, Danielle, Madison, and I. At first, we were all being shy and the conversation was small, but after Isa started talking and sharing about her process and her struggles, everything came more natural and we ended up having fun.
With the help from the people in my group, I decided that in my first CCR, i will play tennis with a funny twist while answering the first two CCR questions. The twist is that everytime I hit the ball the racket is going to change to a different object that's related to the film opening.
Talking with other people that are doing the same project as me, hearing about their process and ideas was very inpiring and helpful. I'm very exited to film my CCRs this weekend!
