Trey-ffects (PART 2)

 

Because the bully scene was filmed on a different camera than the rest of the shots, the raw portion footage looked jarring in contrast to the rest of the opening. To mask this, I used my halftone effect in Photoshop and overlayed it over the footage using the opacity controls in Premiere. To make it look good, I had to resize the images and keyframe the position. The overlay made the speech bubbles/text boxes look much better as well.

The action words were created using the BiffBamBoom font from Adobe Creative Cloud.

Without further ado, here is the rough draft of Trey's Split!

I'm going to give it to Drew so he can do some touch-ups, create a title sequence, and add more effects. I plan to continue working on my CCR.

Trey-ffects (Part one)

 I decided to make the mise-en-scene comic-based and imaginative to implement Trey's interests and dynamic perspective on the world around him. This was tough because I couldn't use external sources, so I had to create all of my effects in Photoshop from scratch. I began creating the text boxes using the shape tool. I added a black stroke along the lines of the boxes to give it that classic 2D feel. I wanted to add a shadow to them to make them look more cinematic but I decided against it.

The font I used for the text is called "Captain Comic", which is prominently found in Graphic Novel prints and other comic book works. I typed the text and sized it precisely so that it would fit within the shape. 

 Next, I created a halftone layer in Photoshop and placed it above the textbox, creating an image that looks like it came straight from a comic book. I did this process with three other images.

Because the bully scene was filmed using a different camera, I decided to mask it in a really creative way using the halftone overlay. If you wanna find out more, catch me in the next post! 

Trey's Sound Effects

 TREY'S SOUND EFFECTS

We decided to get most of our sound effects from a sound base provided by Mrs. Stoklosa, and we recorded dialogue from a booth. I recorded raw audio of my bike moving as well as the sound of the brakes at my house.

I layered multiple tracks under the Basketball scene to capture the ambiance of the park, as with the bully scene as well. For the majority of the opening, I decided to leave out sound effects as it would drive attention away from the V.O. 

To properly sound bridge between scenes, I used a constant gain effect to make the transition sound subtle and smooth. If I left it out, the audience would hear a quiet "pop" noise, which could be immersion-breaking. Audio is everything when it comes to film. If the film has bad audio, then the audience will not be engaged.

If you thought that was cool, just wait until you see my comic book effects! Stay tuned for the next episode of Trey's Post-Production Z Kai! (Much better name if I say so myself)

TREY'S SOUND

TREY'S TUNE

To illustrate Trey's varying interests in cultures, I decided to use a rock song and a rap beat. A band I discovered many years ago called "Good Kid" actually has DMCA-free music.

 

Thus, I downloaded an instrumental for my favorite song, Slingshot, and imported it into my timeline.

Finding the rap beat was fairly easy. Many producers post their music on YouTube to gain notoriety, and many of them are free to use and DMCA-free. I found a free "Kanye-Type Beat", downloaded it, and imported it into the project. The music fits well with the opening's aesthetic.

Rock music is meant to symbolize Trey's unique side. It's music that he resonates with the most, while those around him wouldn't appreciate his tastes. The music is played over by dialogue where Trey provides information about his background, his interests, and his personal feelings. The rap beat is slow and mellow to match Trey's feelings of isolation. Whereas the rap beat is played over by dialogue where Trey talks about his disgruntlement with society as a whole. Rock symbolizes passion, while Rap symbolizes conformity. 

BULLY RESHOOT!

 TREY'S BULLY (HOW LONG CAN WE KEEP THIS UP?)

Today we refilmed the Bully scenes. We decided to film in my neighborhood since our friend, who also happens to have a good camera, lives there as well. Plus, it looked much more natural than it would in a school setting. We filmed at 9:30am to get it done fast; it would only take us 15-20 minutes.

Filming went great, and even better than we filmed the first time! I'm going to import this footage into the timeline today, along with adding the sound and the music. FOLLOW UP NEXT TIME ON TREY'S SPLIT POST-PRODUCTION Z KAI!

EDITING TREY

 THE START OF A NEW TREY
Today I will be finally editing Trey's Split. I imported all of our clips into Premiere and started working on it.

I removed the audio and cut out the extra filler from the clips we got for the opening to be concise and natural. The microphone on the camera is poor, so I completely left it out. As I was rendering the rest of the clips, I noticed that the colors on the footage were very bland and desaturated, which didn't fit with the theme of Trey's Split. To fix this, I added an adjustment layer above the raw footage and color-graded it to make the scenes more colorful, perfectly fit with the movie's spirit, as well as meet the audience's desires. Here's a before and after.

BEFORE

AFTER

Before I added any effects or music, I made a line edit of all the clips I wanted to include in the final cut just so I had a clear picture of what I wanted for the opening. Throwing everything that you've recorded into the timeline isn't a good idea, since you're not going to like every shot you've gotten in pre-production. Only including the best ones will make your life much easier (Trey wouldn't know anything about that LOL!).

I'm gonna add music and audio tomorrow, which happens to be the same day where we're going to refilm the bully scene! Stay tuned for the next episode of Trey's Split Production Z Kai! (We're going to have to work on that name...)

CCR

 I’m currently working on the CCR

Problems

We ran into quite an issue today. As we begin the editing process for the video, we’ve come to realize that we had actually lost the footage for the bully scene. Me and Drew were very stressed about this, not knowing what to do next. We used someone else’s SD card and so we went to them to see if he had the footage, and to our dismay, he did not. 

We decided to refilm our video on Tuesday to make up for this.  We’ll let you know how it goes!

Time to Hit The Booth!

TREY'S LINES

 Today I went to the soundbooth in the CBTV room to record my lines, and I went into this knowing it'd be tough. I naturally speak very fast, so reading a full fledged script would be difficult for me. So by the time I checked out a mic, sat comfortably in a chair, and cleared my throat to speak, my assumptions were correct. I mumbled, stuttered, and all sorts of obstacles arose. To remedy this, I slowed down my speech and spoke more thoroughly. 

I decided to give Trey a bit of a Floridian accent when he gets emotional to show that he code switches between two dialects: that of proper English and AAVE. While I read over the lines about the nicknames, I decided to throw in an additional N-WORD  because I felt like it would be synonymous with how other kids his age speak and illustrate his cultural background.

I finished, listened back to the recordings, and decided to re record the lines at a later date.

The Plan For This Week

Drew and I have planned to begin the following processes this week.

VOICE OVER
We plan to record the voice-over tomorrow during our seventh hour together. A professional mic will be used to record my voice reading Trey's dialogue, and it should take us the entire period depending on how many times I screw up. I want to portray my character in the best way possible, so I don't want it to sound unprofessional or choppy.

 NAMETAG PICTURES

We're planning to take pictures of the nametags we wrote on and scan them so we can use them in the opening. This should take us five minutes since we're both working on it, and we plan to do this during our Aice Media Studies period. We're going to plug them into Premiere to see if they fill out the frame, and if they don't, we'll just simply write some more.

GRAPHIC RESEARCH

As we begin our editing process, we plan to do some extensive research on the graphics that will be used for the video. We want to ensure that the VFX looks good and professional, even if we have to use After Effects. We're going to take a look at comic books, video game aesthetics, and tutorials to help bring our vision to life.

EDITING

We're going to make a line edit of the film without music or graphics just so we have a good baseline to start from. We plan to work on this after school and during spring break.




I'm looking forward to this project!

Filming The Bike Scenes

 TREY RIDES

Right from the start, Drew and I decided to film the biking scenes very experimentally rather than just placing a camera on a tripod and having it track the bike riding in a straight line. Instead, we tried multiple techniques to see what stuck and best fit the film. 

 GENERIC WAY

At first, we went the basic route and placed the camera on a tripod, but we made it more creative by framing the shot to look more unique. We liked how it looked, but some of the shots were too plain to include in the final cut, so we ended up choosing a handful of unique ones.

 COOLER WAY
We asked our friend to drive his car while Drew filmed me from the side in the passenger seat. We liked how it looked, but in some parts of the footage, I drove too far away from the frame. However, what we recorded was still usable, and we plan to edit out the bad parts of the shot.

 COOLEST WAY
This time, we decided to get a shot of me biking from the back of the car, but we didn't really know how to execute the shot. Drew tried filming me from the backseat sticking out the window, but it was unusable because you could see the car. Thus, we only had one choice... THE TRUNK. By far, this was the best biking angle we've gotten during filming. However, I biked a little too far away from the camera, so we decided to keep in the shots where I was proximate to the camera.

Trey Gets Cancelled

I had just finished walking my dog when I saw a brown package on my doorstep. Confused, I let the dog inside and scrutinized this bizarre contraption. Everything seemed true. It had my name on it. It had my address. Even my number. My heart started thumping as I ran back to my room to open this gift to unveil its contents. Without much hesitation, I opened it. I slowly entered my hand into the box with caution. I felt... a bag? Wait. IT WAS THE NAME TAGS! ngl i was disappointed lol

The next day I decided to write some names during class for the opening, and memories flushed of all the colorful names I would be called during Middle School. Cleveland (black guy from family guy), White boy, for speaking proper English, Oreo, clown, Blackest White dude, you name it. Kids were creative during Middle School, to my detriment. I wrote these insults with nostalgia followed by bursts of laughter.  Yet, none of those names amounted to the one I was the most familiar with, and a word that was loved by unfiltered pre-teens during the 2010s. "Nigger". I looked down at an empty name tag with the sharpie in-hand, reluctant. A part of me was scared to even acknowledge the word.

The word Nigger was used to torment me for who I was and where I came from, and kids back then went trigger happy with saying the word to me. Hearing the word made me feel unsafe, and it actively separated me from the other students from my school.

I am not the only one who feels this, nor am I the only victim of the word. If I really wanted to accurately portray my main character's struggle, I had to include it in the film to highlight the issue. So, I began to write down the word and felt... relieved. Once I acknowledged I felt like I overcome my trauma with the word, using it to represent others who have faced similar struggles.

If all things go according to plan, the N-word will be featured in Trey's Split to spread awareness of racial equality.

Day Numbah Two of Filming

DAY TWO OF FILMING
It's day two of filming. Today, we decided to film the basketball and bike-riding scenes. Since it was a Saturday, we expected a lot of people to be at the Basketball courts playing, but to our surprise, more people were playing on the pickleball field than there were on the courts. However, we noticed a group of kids we know from school playing a matchup, so we asked for their consent to film them. They said yes! We filmed scenes of them playing their game, me dribbling the ball, and bike-riding. We got a wide range of shots for each activity, so much so that I feel we overshot. But overall, filming was a success! We plan to film more on Sunday.

I wasn't able to get pictures of the footage, but I do have a video of us messing around and shooting the ball. 

Day One of Filming

DAY ONE OF FILMING: OREO STYLE

Drew and I currently share a seventh-hour class period, so that is when we decided to film our video. Since that same class happens to be a TV production period, we asked our friends to help us record. Today was when we were going to film the bully portion of the opening, where Trey collides with a bully and gets called "Oreo." We recruited a Black actor to play the bully, but he could not attend the shoot due to communication errors. To remedy this, our friends suggested that Drew should play the bully. Upon hearing this decision, I was quite hesitant at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I actually enjoyed the idea. Instead of framing the bully as another Black person who doesn't understand Trey's nuance, it could come from an ignorant white person who finds Trey's behavior to be reminiscent of that of a White person.

We used a 90D camera for maximum quality, a tripod, and a shotgun mic to record the audio.

We got multiple angles of Drew bumping into me and calling me an Oreo, and luckily, we could finish before class ended.

Props for Da Flick Yuh Fee Me??

After completing the storyboard for the movie opening and settling on the locations we had chosen to film our project, we started looking at the props we needed for the film. Here's what we came up with!

CALL ME OREO! OR CARLTON! Or A BUNCH OF NAMETAGs!
We decided to get these cool nametags for the introduction scene. They have a comic-book look to them, fitting perfectly within our story. I ordered them online, and they are set to arrive on Thursday. 


MY BIKE (Not a paid actor)

We're gonna use my personal bike for the film. It's a bit rusty on the edges, but it'll do well while we film.

BASKETBALL FOR A NEWLY ADDED SEQUENCE

We decided to use a basketball for a portion of the video where Trey dreams about being good at basketball. This scene was added to the opening to fill in more space for the voiceover.

TREY'S FIT

We decided that I should wear a varsity jacket, and sweatpants and used Nike Dunks to portray the character, as those types of clothes would fit him the best.

And those were all the props we decided to use for the video. We started filming yesterday, so I'll show you what we came up with today!

Trey’s Sketch

 Drew and I have completed our storyboard! We plan to film this week, and currently we’re mapping out how our recording schedule will work. Here’s the storyboard.

Becoming Trey

Becoming Trey

To prepare for my role as Trey, I decided to look at this video to get some acting tips to help me navigate the part. This is what I've learned.

Your character is not an actor

Whenever you play a character, the audience needs to think that you ARE the character, not an actor. This means I’m going to have to portray, haha, “Trey”, in a way that feels authentic. This won’t be hard, since Trey is a bit of a self-insert of mine, and I’ve been on camera numerous of times prior to this.

Do not over act

As said before, I need to make sure that my performance feels natural and real. For this character, I can’t be too dramatic or look skittish, because that wouldn’t make sense for the character. To play Trey, I need to act like I’m cynical, self aware, and insecure. 

Overall, the video gave me a good idea of how I should go about becoming Trey Rider, but I think it might be a good idea to look back at my previous performance to see where I could improve. So without further ado, let’s take a look at some previous videos I acted in.

How do I take it to the next level?

Last year in 2023, I acted in a friend’s video for their Aice Media Portfolio project. My performance wasn’t too bad, but it I was kind of uncomfortable and unsure with how I should go about my role, and that was fairly noticeable in the video. But since I have a good idea of Trey, this shouldn’t be a problem anymore.

Group Blog Review/Reflection

Group Meeting Post: Introducing Trey to Strangers

Today I met with the other students about Trey's Split. At first, I felt quite nervous about revealing my project. It wasn't a matter of insecurity but rather a fear that my fellow classmates simply wouldn't understand the nuances of Trey's Story. So I explained the premise to them in a very blunt way for them to truly comprehend what my movie is about. Here's what they said;

Trey's Story is Relatable

To my surprise, people can actually relate to Trey's struggles of not being able to fit in with his respective culture. One classmate states that because she's a lot more religious than the other Latinos in her school, she's never able to fit in with them.

Production Advice

Since I'm a member of Cypress Bay Television, they asked me a lot of questions about how I would go about filming and editing my opening. I told them about the equipment I would use, the locations we would film at, and the post-production resources that we would need to make it all happen. They also asked me for assistance with their own projects, seeking to make their productions look more professional. I told them that they could get equipment from BECON TV for free, and that if they really needed something I could check the equipment out from the CBTV studio for them (under my supervision of course.)

Praise For The Production/Reflection

The general perception of Trey's Split was positive, and they really liked the aesthetic I was going for with this project. 

I learned that my film can spread its outreach to different cultures and races in ways that I could never imagine. Every misfit could relate to Trey's struggles, not just those from the Black community. I've come to realize that there is a lot of pressure to make this video turn out good. Not just for the grade, but for it to truly resonate with people who need to hear the film's message.