Final Project—The Greatest Act in Our Repertoire!!!

Testing, testing, one...two...three? Are all the mics on?? Can everyone hear me?? How are the lights?? Everyone ready, everyone good? Alright, we are live in five...

four...

three...

two...

one...

(Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV2j4v5BOTA&feature=youtu.be)


It is because of all of you and everyone who helped me make this project that I am able to present such a proud moment in my performance career. I am very thankful to the Cambridge program, to Ms. Stoklosa, to all my friends, my family, for helping me on this journey. There is no way to repay you except with this one amazing gift. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy the incredible:

Jeff's Last Stand.


Amalia Gonzalez

Creative Critical Reflection—This CCR Is Up and Running!!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the opening act to our spectacular show is now ready to be seen!! That's right, you've guessed it, our fantastic, our wonderful, our magnificent...


CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION!! 

That's right, everyone, one day early, our perfect little miracle's older brother is ready to see the world!! I hope you enjoy the process I've been sharing with all of you from day one, from a different perspective. Now, enough talk!! Here it is. I hope this process is everything you remember it to be.

(Link: https://youtu.be/aBIvz3HdN_g)

Testing, Testing...Is this CCR On?

Hello everyone!! Since yesterday, the process is coming along very smoothly, as we all have hoped. The last thing I have left to do is my Creative Critical Reflection—my CCR–and I'm hoping I'm on the right track!!

This part of the project, as I told you before, had absented my mind for a while, but now I'm coming back to the bones of it all. I'm going to be doing a director's commentary, which involves me gathering various pictures and images, and doing a voice over of me discussing my process creating this film!! This was an idea I really enjoyed and thought was quite clever, because I definitely wanted to speak when it came to my CCR (not that I had a choice, and not that I minded that!) and the images I add can make it fun and still interesting.


I began writing my script as some point last week, forgive me for not remembering the date, but it's coming together nicely. It's quite long and I double spaced it so there's no chance of me reading the wrong line during my recording. You see?? I promise I am a lot smarter than you make me out to be. Unless you think I'm a genius...In that case, you're right. I'm not that smart.

In my script I described everything I've done from day 1, including some fun jokes and references because I'm, you know, me. Funny is what makes the money, am I right??
The descriptions, I think, display a nice sense of what I've done as well as the process and how long everything has taken me. So, at this point, I'm good. Stuck at that meeting point of having all my pieces and needing to glue them together.

As for our film, it's all ready and set!! I'm just going to do a quick check over tomorrow and make sure everything is correct before I export it and submit. Ahhh, I'm nervous!! Hopefully you all like it as much as I do!! It really is something I can say I'm proud of.


Well, time to get back to business!! A director/writer/editor/student's work is never done.


Shaking from excitement as well as exhaustion,


Amalia Gonzalez

Google: "How to Edit My Life as Well as I Edited my Film"

Didja catch the confidence there? Yeah, I'm feeling pretty good about how my film is coming along right about now. Not to toot my own horn, but...

TOOT TOOT!!

Things are coming along smoother than butter on toast (that was very southern of me...good God I'm transforming) !! I began editing last night and so far, so good!! The only kinks I'm having are involving sound. My voice recording the use for the phone call, although great quality, doesn't sound much like a conversation heard over the phone. That was stressing me out a little, but I asked Ms. Stoklosa and she gave me some suggestions on how to fix that, like using Garageband and manipulating the file!! Hopefully, that helps me there. I'm planning on working on that either tonight or tomorrow.

I also had some trouble when it came to my text transitions that I'm using to display my graphics. The iMovie transitions seem to have a problem with being a little...sticatto, for those of you who know music terms. By that I mean the text appears to be slightly sticky; it would glitch as I was playing the clip and I couldn't seem to find a solution!! Luckily, though, I was able to find a replacement to the text I was using and now it's working smoothly (as it should!).

As for the rest of my film, it's looking great. All the shots came together very nicely and I didn't even have to shoot over one day!!

The way we scheduled it, Fede and I were able to have everything memorized and set up by 4:00pm that day, and w were done by 6!! Isn't that incredible?? And with the way everything came out it's hard to believe we had such a small time frame.

Nevertheless, things are really coming together. I'll get back to you tomorrow on my CCR and how that's coming along, but I'm sure it'll all be peachy!!


Here's to another day of progress.

Your intrigued director with a lot of work to do,


Amalia Gonzalez

Filming Beyond Belief

Oh my god oh my god OH. MY. GOD. YOU GUYS!!!

The moment has finally come, sort of, kind of, I'm too excited to make sense!! The point is, yesterday, I filmed!! Every last bit of my film now exists in this time zone at this very moment. Can you believe it?!

Let me tell you just how this process went.

So, picture this: it's after school, an uncomfortably warm Tuesday afternoon—the sun is at it's zenith in the center of the sky. My best friend, Federico, and I drive to Sunrise to my cousin's apartment and begin the exciting process of creating a film. Now, both of us are actors, so it was a pretty cool experience for the both of us to see how the other half lives!!

Overall we didn't have any problems filming, only at one point did my camera die but it only takes 30 minutes to charge it back up, and there was still a substantial amount of light, so we got everything done in no time!! The footage was shot on my Nikon D3100 camera so the quality of the footage was incredible, and just what I thought it would be!! Like I always say, I love visible progress. I can't believe how great this is coming together!!


Here are some screenshots from the footage. All of them include my star, Federico Payan.

This shot changes with a focus shift to show Fede in the back reacting to the dialogue. I love how the focus came out here to show the disarray on the counter from the party the night before!!

 This is an example of how I used my graphics in my filming. I like how subtle they are and how they fit very nicely into the scenario. I also used an over-the-shoulder shot here to show the family image that "Jeff" picks up as the dialogue continues!! I love how this shot came out.

 Here is my main actor, Federico Payan!! What a guy, we had such a great time filming. It's always great to work with friends, especially when it's your best friend!! This medium shot of "Jeff" in the kitchen as he cuts off his mother speaking helps display his distress and also his character and the state he is in.

I'm obsessed with this long shot of "Jeff" standing in his messy living room. His expression of annoyance with his mother and the apartment is very clear and helps establish the character!!







So, as you can see, things are looking great!!! I'm so excited to finish editing and get everything together!! I will report back to you tomorrow.


You have no idea how excited I am!! Things are coming up roses :-)


With much admiration, dedication, and starvation (is it lunch yet???),


Amalia Gonzalez

Lights, Camera, Jeff's Last Stand!!

 Hello all!! Another week, another blog post, am I right? Except this week is going to be a little different. I have until Thursday to complete my three postings for the week, because, drum roll pleaaaaasseeee...

OUR PROJECT IS DUE THIS SUNDAY, APRIL 10TH!!! 

Wow!! I feel like this process has whizzed by so fast. We've come from scraps of ideas to gluing them together to creating a final project, which is what I'm about to tell you today!!

Today is the day I finally get to let the glue set, for lack of a better term. I'm filming!! Now, I'd like to give myself an order of one slap on the back of the head for waiting so long to get started, bad Amalia!! Nevertheless, I'm glad I'm going to get everything done today. My scene isn't too complicated so I'm sure we'll be able to get everything done in one shoot and I can spend the rest of the week working on editing and my critical reflection!

Speaking of, let me tell you how that's going!! For my creative critical reflection, I've decided to do a director's commentary—I'm going to compile pictures and videos together using iMovie and put a voice over of me talking about my process creating this film. I think it fits my personality super well to create something where you can finally hear my voice (why do I think that's something you're curious about?? Oh, how my mind wanders!!), and see some cool new images that I've never shown you!! Also some funny ones to add to my constant comedic demeanor, which I happen to be very proud of. As you can tell by my many exclamation points, I'm very, very excited!! I can't stress enough how pumped I am to see the final project come together.

Now, I never did get an email back from the ring tone people (wahh) so I'm going to look today and find some copyright-free music to use for my funny ring tone. That way, there's no worries. Another slap on the head for me for not finding a better company but hey, what can you do? Maybe the right ring tone is just waiting for me out there, copyright-free and beautiful as ever.

One last update, I changed my title!! It's funny because I thought of it as I was typing the title to this blog post. Isn't it interesting how the things we need just show up at the most random times, right?
Instead of Last Stand, it is now:

Jeff's Last Stand

Don't ya just love it?! I think it sounds more humorous, relating to the film, with still that small sense of drama. Woohoo!! I love having everything set.

Today, my actor is working on his lines and will hopefully be as good as he can be for tonight's filming! I trust him so I know no matter what happens things will come together.

What a process this has been!! You all don't know how much I'm going to miss blogging and keeping you updated on my process. Who knows? Maybe I'll take this blog with me on the highways of life.


1/3 posts done!! We are almost near the end, my friends. A-Am I the only one crying?


With a lot of intense love and passion, and 10 buckets of excitement!!!!



Amalia Gonzalez

Re-searching for an Answer

Hi all!!

I'd like to make a special shout out to all those who commented on my blog posts. I really appreciate your input and I'm glad you enjoy my writing! Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week (or rather, for the next two weeks)!

So I took into account the suggestion to do a bit more research on my inspiration! Like I've told you before, I'm basing this film off of a short story. I had the Total Recall adaptation in my previous research but recently I discovered a few more cool films that came from short stories! Looks like I'm a lot more like those witty directors than I thought!

It turns out that Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock AND Brokeback Mountain were all based off of short stories!! Can you believe it!! I'm tearing up just thinking about how great this makes me feel about my idea...sorry, just give me minute... *sniff*

My same links from up there also show that all these films did superbly in the box office, so that's another bonus!! I'm feeling super confident about my concept now; even though I'm really far in at this point I know there is always room for growth.

Now, let's talk about concepts that these films and others use that I think would be good to incorporate into my opening. Breakfast at Tiffany's focuses more on implementing fashion and icons into their films, and I'm not so sure a party man in his mid 20s knows much about that. Oh, Jeffery, what are we gonna do with you?! My little character...not the brightest crayon in the box, you know.

The Birds is also a horror film, and as someone who is terrified of terror, I knew from the get-go I wasn't going to do a scary opening. However, there are still a few techniques that I really like! Hallelujah!! In the scene where Melanie and Mitch are in the bird shop, Hitchcock uses bright lighting in the scene to reflect the behaviors of the characters. This scene also created a contrast from the later, more intense scenes that received darker lighting. I like this idea of using lighting to create strong character development and establishing a tone for that scene in the film. I'm hoping I can find some place to include this technique, because I really like it! I'm thinking of making the lighting in Jeff's room, where he is more private and his true self, darker, and the living room very bright to show the persona of a party guy that he presents himself to be. Woohoo!! Turns out darkness really is my old friend.

Just a quick note about Brokeback Mountain. Y'all know what that movie's about right? Superb film, not so superb techniques that I can include into my opening. You go, though, Jake Gyllenhaal! Now that is what I call committed acting. (Just a side note. Let's move on, shall we?)

So here we are, making progress every day. Ms. Stoklosa reminded us of the creative critical reflection so remind me to work on that, okay? My sort of short term memory loss doesn't help me in these type of situations.
Also, I haven't heard back yet from the company for the ringtone! I'm fairly disappointed. I will try and email them again and, if not, I guess I'll have to find a new ringtone and contact a different company. Bummer! I really did like those nursery rock-n-roll rhymes.

Nevertheless, I know we are making progress every day. I think I'm going to film this weekend and next week so I have a few days to edit and work on my reflection. Other than that, we are golden, pony boy (That's a nice book. Ah, middle school reading memories. It's called The Outsiders. Give it a read if you like)!


Alright, I'll talk to you soon. Hopefully we keep taking a bunch of steps forward and no steps back.


With lots of love for you and pride for Jake Gyllenhaal's acting bravery in Brokeback Mountain (and Nightcrawler—have you seen that?! Sh*t's crazy),


Amalia Gonzalez

"IMDb - Brokeback Mountain." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 01 Apr. 2016.

"IMDb - Breakfast at Tiffany's." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 01 Apr. 2016.

"IMDb - The Birds." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 01 Apr. 2016.

"The Bird’s: Mise En Scene & Lighting By: Mandy Ashley." The Birds. 2014. Web. 01 Apr. 2016.

"Breakfast at Tiffany's: The Essentials." Turner Classic Movies. Web. 01 Apr. 2016.

"List of Short Fiction Stories Made into Feature Films." Wikipedia. Wikimedia 
Foundation. Web. 01 Apr. 2016.

"The Birds." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 01 Apr. 2016.