Final Film

 

CCR

 

Creating the basis for my CCR

 My typical editing style is a YouTube style video, so I decided to make my CCR into a YouTube skit. The basis is a teacher having a discussion with the class about the film they just watched (aka my film).

I had to first answer all the CCR questions which I typed paragraph responses to.

• How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? 
My film leans into the stereotypes of typical romcoms heavily. There’s a getting ready montage of the main character, there’s a voiceover at the beginning, the main character is a lovable loser, the love interest (or at least possible love interest) is shown within the first few minutes. With all this however, it challenges conventions since all these stereotypes are typical of *heterosexual* romcoms and this is a *homosexual* romcom. Typically, LGBTQ+ romcoms rely on the main character coming to terms with their sexuality or have a coming-of-age genre so there’s a deep-rooted issue within the plot. I denied these conventions of LGBTQ+ movies by making my film light-hearted and a feel-good movie. I feel like the LGBTQ+ community must deal with so many struggles daily and movies are meant to be an escape from this and if our representation on screen is always reminding us of our struggles as well, then there’s no escape for us. For that reason, I wanted to not only give a feel-good lesbian movie to show the community in a brighter way than normally presented, but I also starred a Hispanic main character with a Filipino love interest. There aren’t typically non-white main female characters in romcoms and there’s minimal representation of Filipino actors let alone actresses in Hollywood, so I wanted more representation for both these groups as well. In no point in the movie is the focus on the struggles any minority group faces; everything is presented as normal to get rid of traces of otherness films of this kind tend to have. 

 

• How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text? 

The film will have its own twitter, Instagram, and TikTok page in order to have social media presence for its release. With these accounts, we can trend hashtags on twitter and use the communities on there to trend our film and have discourse about it. We saw this with the release of Heartstopper, which widely trended on Twitter for the months following its release and allowed it to gain a strong fanbase. Fans will be able to interact with the accounts and our actresses will also have social media accounts to interact with fans to create this closer connection. 

My film won’t be released into theatres as there has been a recent shift towards using online streaming platforms instead. It will be released on main streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max since each of these services have a wide variety of LGBTQ+ movies. It will also be released on LGBTQ+ streaming services like Outfest and Tello Films which focuses queer women. 

 

• How did your production skills develop throughout this project? 
I’ve never had to focus on being a cinematographer before, so this film helped me with using a camera and researching shots. I never realized how much meaning just the visual aspects of a film could have just by the way the shots are framed and ordered. The mistake I made in my past film was the lack of dynamic shots we included, so in this film, I made sure to include more camera movements, including the tracking shot at the beginning of the film.  

 

• How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project? 

I used Adobe Premiere Rush to film and edit my film since I was familiar with the software from my last film. It was easier to use this time around as I was able to transfer all my footage from my phone to the laptop easily through the cloud on the app. I also used VideoLeap to mix the songs I used in my film since I mixed different parts of the songs together to make it fit the film better and my main editing software was this app, so I was familiar and the most comfortable using it. Most of my edits were done in Premiere Rush since I used their color editing presets and their advanced settings to add the vignette to my film. I also recorded the voiceover in Premiere Rush using my Blue Yeti Mic and adjusted the sound balance and reduction of background noise within the hardware.  

With the basis of my responses finished, I turned the paragraphs into an YouTube skit script.

Teacher: Ok class now that we finished the film let’s discuss how it was. 

Student 1: Ugh that ruins the whole movie 

Teacher: How did the film use or challenge conventions? 

Student 2: It really leaned into stereotypical romcoms. I felt like there wasn’t a lot of depth to the film and it was all very brainless and light-hearted. 

Teacher: Very good Gaby. The film leaned heavily into being a stereotypical romcom with the getting ready montage, the narration from the main character, the MC is a lovable loser, all of those things. 

Student 1: Yeah, and that made this movie so basic. 

Teacher: That’s where you’re wrong Ryan. This movie also represented a lot of social groups like the LGBTQ community. 

Student 3: Yeah, I’ve never seen a teen lesbian movie that showed their romance as something so normal. I don’t think anybody in the movie ever came out even. 

Teacher: You’re exactly right Melody. The movie uses typical heterosexual stereotypes and applies them into a homosexual love story. That’s where this film also goes against these same conventions. Typically, the main character in a LGBTQ+ movie has a big sexuality struggle to overcome, and this movie shows almost nothing to suggest otherness to this group. 

Student 1: Bro there were like no white chicks in the movie at all too, what’s up with that? 

Teacher: Ryan I’m sure there’s a better way to word that than “white chicks”, but that’s actually a good point. This film has a lead Hispanic actress, and the love interest is Filipino, which isn’t typical of Hollywood. 

Student 3: I liked how the movie felt like an escape from reality. As someone who’s lesbian, I liked seeing our relationships presented in such a positive way that doesn’t remind me of our day to day struggles. 

Teacher: And that was exactly the Directors vision when she wrote and filmed this film! If we turn to movies for an escape from reality and all the struggles we deal with in reality are the basis of the movies we watch, we’re never really getting an escape. 

 

Student 4: What site is the movie on though? 

Teacher: Well most of you guys have Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max probably right? 

Most of the class: yeah 

Student 5: No 

Student 6: You don’t get a trophy for being different Emily just buy Netflix like the rest of us. 

Teacher: Ok Britney you don’t need to insult the other classmates it was only a question. 

Student 5: Yeah and some of us still have cable actually. 

Student 6: Omg what year is it, 1812? 

Teacher: Alright class that’s enough. The filmmaker also distributed this film on LGBTQ+ sites like Outfest and Tello Films as well where they focus on queer women.  

Student 3: I’ve never heard of any of those actually. 

Teacher: Probably because they’re emerging services, but the rise of social media is helping spread some of their names out there. 

Student 4: Speaking of social media, anyone know the main character’s instagram cause she was so fine. 

Student 3: Don’t worry I looked it up right when the movie started. 

Teacher: The full cast actually all has Instagram and Twitter accounts. The movie production itself has an Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok account as well. 

Student 6: Yeah, I saw a TikTok video of some of the cast on my fyp the other day. 

Student 2: I bet that’s how they’re getting exposure for the movie right now. I swear nobody even goes into theatres anymore. 

Student 3: Especially for LGBTQ+ movies. The streaming service strategy works though, like look at how well Heart Stopper did and that was mainly from all the communities online that promoted it. 

Teacher: With shifting ways of distributing and discussing media, social media definitely helps a lot of these new filmmakers with getting their name and media out there.  

 

Student 2: I wonder what software she edited the film with? 

Teacher: There was an interview I read from the filmmaker that said she uses Premiere Rush to film and edit her films. She even edits the shots in the software as well to create more saturation or add vignette. She also uses VideoLeap on her phone to splice the music together that she uses in the film as well. 

Student 5: Oh I use that app too actually to make edits online, that’s so cool! 

Student 6: Wow you don’t have Netflix but you make edits online? Who are you even making edits about, the Property Brothers? 

Teacher: Quit the fighting you two. I have no idea what you have against each other but it needs to cut out right now. 

 

Student 3: I wonder if the people who work on films get into fights like these. 

Student 6: Actually from the video I saw on tiktok about the director, she directed, wrote, filmed, and edited this whole project on her own because she dislikes working in a group so much. 

Student 1: Damn, that’s so much more effort than I’d ever put into anything. 

Teacher: Trust me and it shows in your grades. 

Student 6: DAMN MRS. F IS TAKING SHOTS! 

Teacher: Everyone settle down, Britney is actually correct. During this project, the filmmaker decided to work on this project alone, focusing on improving her skills as a cinematographer by researching her favorite movies and using that as inspiration for a lot of her film. 

Student 4: Yeah, the beginning really gave me To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before vibes. 

Student 3: Judging from her following on instagram, I’m guessing a lot of her inspiration came from that movie anyways cause she made a post praising that movie. 

Teacher: The filmmaker has admitted that she took a lot of inspiration from her favorite movies, including that one to incorporate more aesthetically pleasing shots that kept the viewers attention. Did any of you notice how kinetic the shots were? 

Student 1: Why are we using science terms in a film studies class. 

Student 2: Because kinetic just means motion idiot. 

Teacher: Since nobodies answering the question at hand I’ll just answer it myself then, her last project used a lot of still shots that didn’t hold the attention of the viewer, so she really focused on making sure there was movement in at least some of the shots. 

This kind of video style and editing style is more my thing, so the CCR is coming more naturally to me. The CCR also allows me to have fun implementing the skills I learned during my production to make this since I'm editing in Premiere Rush instead of my normal VideoLeap now that I've gotten more accustomed to the software.