Voice over

Other than the foley and title card we have to work on recording the voice over, which will go like this -            NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)
         A statement was released today by the
         family of boxer JESUS MONTOYA who was
         brutally knocked into a coma 4 months
ago after getting involved in a street fight.While In a coma his family has decided for him that he will NOT return to the ring upon his awakening,
Created using Celtx
which is another subject that has
         recently been in doubt.
Jesus Montoya becomes visible as the patient in the bed. He
is unconscious.
         Having shown no signs of recovery
         since he was first put in the
         hospital, the family has asked for
         privacy at this time at an attempt to
         decide what will be done about
         Montoya.
Camera approaching Montoya's unconscious face, eyes closed,
no expression.
Jesus Montoya left a large legacy, but if he ever does come back, will he be the same? And more importantly, will he ever return?
Opens his eyes.
Black Screen
Title Card

Tomas is just going to use his phone to record his voice and it should turn out just fine. Since we're in tv we have a lot of experience doing voice overs so it’s not going to be difficult. I can also edit the audio to actually sound like it’s coming from a tv using my editing software and adding audio effects

Title name

So I’m currently on a tv production trip in Seattle for school so I’ve  been pretty focused on that. We’re constantly out and competing or sight seeing so it’s been very hard for me to keep up with class work. And since Tomas and I are on this trip it’s hard to keep in contact with Rafa and Jonathan but we know we’ll finish everything on time. The I only things we have left to do is to record the foley sounds, voice over, and come up with a title. I was thinking the title can be something like “The Last Fight” but that didn’t make much sense to me because even though there is one fight with a lot of significance to it, it isn’t the “last” one. And then I also came up with “The Conquerer” because our main character will have to over come many any obstacles to heal from his wounds and fight his rival again. I will also be adding the title name at the last part of the film opening

Peer review #2

Elizabeth is doing a travel magazine for Miami. She's making it about unique places in Miami that everyone can find an interest in. She showed us a template for her magazine. She's doing something simple that matches the Miami vibe but at the same time there is a lot going on. The target audience for her magazine is young people mostly. We gave her our opinions on which set ups we like better for the text and picture placements. 

Mariana is doing a film opening about a girl growing up in a low class family. Her mom gets remarried but the man isn't a good person. He abuses his wife and after the mother passes away he abused the daughter as well. The daughter meets a guy who she falls in love with. However after the her father sees her and her boyfriend together he kills him because he is just a horrible person. He cleans up everything so there is no evidence of the killing. The daughter is so sad and angry she decides to kill her father but she doesn't care to hide it in that moment. So when the police come and she is trying to explain what happened, they don't care because they see that she just killed someone. She then gets sentenced to death row. This is where the film opening is going to take place. It's going to be the day of her execution and a reporter comes into to get the daughter's side of the story. The reporter asks "what happened" and there will then be flash backs of all the events leading up to this. The daughter then says "everything" and that's when the title card pops up. We suggested for the dialogue that she leaves a phone close to the person talking so the phone will pick up a clearer recording of the dialogue that she can then just sync together in the editing process 

Daniela is doing a film opening about a girl running away with her boyfriend. The opening scene is the girl packing her clothes to run away. There is going to be flash backs during the film opening on the girl and her boyfriend talking about running away together. They are going to present the girl is all nice and girly at first but when she goes to run away she is going to change her clothes to black and we suggested maybe adding colored hair extensions for an edgier look.

Sarah is doing a food magazine on healthy foods. She is going to have a page that talks about easy ways to cook healthy meals fast. Her double paged spread is going to contain how breakfast is really important and it will include three cooking recipes. We all thought her ideas were good 

Isabelle is doing a baking magazine. Since time was running short she didn't have much time to explain everything to us. She told us she is going to have her friend help her with recipes and how she is going to have a celebrity chef kind of section. She will also be adding pictures of really pretty cakes and what not.  

Using Foley

As I was editing and applying sound effects where it was needed, I went to the audio library to find punching sound effects. As I was going through them I didn't like any of them at all. They sounded really bad and fake. I did try applying them to the footage but it just did not sound real at all. So we decided that we should do foley for the punch sound effects.

As you can see, the punch sound effects sound really fake and just don't go with the fight scene at all. 

I watched some videos on different methods of foley for punch sounds. Some different methods are

• hitting pillows with different types of hard object like a wooden stick. 
• hitting a plastic like stick to a cabbage 
• hitting an ax to a cabbage 
• twisting and tearing leeks
• cutting a grapefruit in half and punching it with your fingers
• taking a wet towel and hitting it to a wooden platform
• hitting your arm or chest
• taking wooden sticks and breaking them with your knee, this could be used for the sound of breaking bones.
• Taking a wooden stick and waving it really hard, this creates a wind type of sound that makes it match with when the punch is being thrown. 

These are all really good methods to create the punch sound effects we need. They are also really do-able as in we are able to do them at home without many difficulties.

Tod, Chris Allan. “Recording Punch Sound Sources.” YouTube, YouTube, 14 Apr. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArqiTny3ZoM.

sound effects

So as I was editing, I felt really uninspired. I really wanted to make the fight scene stand out. That night, I was watching the movie Limitless. And there was a part in the movie where the shot was in slow motion of the main character fighting, and then the clip changed from slow motion to fast. And while it changed to the fast motion there was a small sound effect. It's all really hard to explain but I tried incorporating that into my fight scene.

Scene from Limitless

com, themeforx. “Limitless (2011) Favorite Moments.” YouTube, YouTube, 15 Feb. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrDAuU8Blhc.

Our fight scene

In our fight scene I tried incorporating that same technique. My sound effect is a bit different from the one in the movie and since the beat drops right at that same time it's a bit hard to hear but I did get my inspiration from the movie Limitless. I also made it slow motion at first then changed it to a fast pace just like in the movie.

To get these sound effects I went on to Youtube and looked up "sound effects for editing". And a video popped up that contained many cool sound effects. So I downloaded the whole thing a picked out what I liked.
xhashtagot5x. “SOUND EFFECTS USED FOR EDITING.” YouTube, YouTube, 18 Jan. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4s7LVCo6Mo&t=2s.

Another sound effect I added was when Montoya was getting knocked out and felt dazed, I made the crowd/talking noise distorted in the background, giving it an echo effect. All I did was copy and pasted the same audio track multiple times and dragged it to different places.

This effect really let the viewers know that Montoya is losing consciousness.

editing with music

As I started to edit I felt like the fight scene looked really plain. I didn't like how we were just hearing plain wind in the background. It felt too quiet and boring. So I decided I was going to add some music. I felt like adding some music would make the fight scene look more entertaining and draw the viewer in more. I felt like rap music would be a good type of music to add. I really did not want instrumental, I wanted something with lyrics. I first went on the Youtube library and searched up "rap music". But all the music that came up was instrumental. There were no lyrics, just beats. I then went on to google and typed in "royalty free rap music". However, all the songs were still instrumental. So I then went on to Youtube to try to find royalty free rap music. It took about 10 minutes but I then found a royalty free rap song that had lyrics and was not just instrumental. It was called  “Bushey - Hitta [Free Hip Hop & Rap].”  This song was slow at first but then had a beat drop so I decided I could start the fight when the beat drops to give it a more dramatic effect. I added the music and the video immediately became more engaging. The part when the boxers were walking up to each other is when the song was a bit slow so I made one of the scenes go in slow motion, and when the first punch was thrown is when the beat dropped and everything was at a faster pace. The music isn't over powering at all and it really sets the mood of the whole scene while also keeping the viewer interested in what is going on. 

NoCopyrightTracks. “Bushey - Hitta [Free Hip Hop & Rap].” YouTube, YouTube, 29 July 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpuV0Ra7234.

Tomas is also editing his version of the film opening just for fun but we are going to be turning mine in. His has no music. 

Tomas' version (no music)

In this video, there's a lot of annoying noise from the wind and such and I didn't like that background noise at all. It really just distracts you from the fight .

My version (with music)

In my opinion, I believe adding music makes the fight scene look way more interesting than having no music. It looks really plain with out the rap music 

My

Adjusting to the weather

So as we are setting up to film in front of Armando's house, it starts to rain. And it wasn't just drizzling. It was actually raining quite a bit. We put a bag over the camera and I had to stand and hold an umbrella over Tomas. In a way, the rain did help our actors look sweaty while they were fighting so that's one good thing that came out of it. I could also use cool rain sound effects and make it sound like it's thundering in the background and that will make the film opening a lot better. Adding these sound effects will make the viewer feel they are actually there.

We were also able to use fake blood for for injuries because as time went by the rain stopped so the blood wouldn't just smear off anymore.

We didn't finish filming till around 11 pm. It was a super fun time despite all the troubles we went through. I'm really excited to start editing it. 

Additional pictures and videos of behind the scenes 

Finding a new location

So after getting kicked out of Markham we are all texting trying to figure out a place to go to. Tomas ends up saying that there is no place to film at right now since we are going to get kicked out of anywhere we go to so he just tells everyone to go home. So I leave to go to hangout with my friend and my sister and then I get a text in the group chat saying to go to Armando's house, one of Tomas' friends. So I leave and I take my friend and my sister with me to his house. Tomas' friends were really nice and everyone came back to set up all over again in front of Armando's house. We got all the cars in a circle again and positioned our work lights. Even though the area was pretty small since we were in front on a house, we still made it work.

We also had to find a replacement for our actor Neil who was playing Booker Cannon, the rival. Neil couldn't come anymore so we used one of Tomas' friends, Manu, to replace him.

film set getting shut down

So on Saturday the 16th we decided to film the fight scene. Tomas and Rafa had already gotten the hospital scene from the night before. Jonathan and I couldn't go because they filmed it at 3 in the morning. It was a big process getting the hospital room. They had to wait a while to go into it and film and they were also on a time limit since this is a hospital and they might have to use the room for an actual patient. Anyway, they finished the hospital scene at 5 am.

That next night is when we were going to film our fight scene. We all went to the back of Markham at around 7:30 where there was this huge field. We set up all the cars in a circle on the field and started to get our fighters ready by putting oil on them to make them look sweaty. 

We were then ready to film and just as we started filming, a cop shows up. He tells us we all have to leave. And at this point we had already set up everything, the make up, costumes, the cars and even got the first few shots. But we ended up getting kicked out and having to go home

pictures of Tomas talking to the security people

Choreographing the fight scene

Today we choreographed the fight scene to prepare how we are going to execute our fight during the filming day. We are planning to start off the fight with Montoya winning the fight. This represents that he is a really good fighter. But then Montoya will stumble or mess up at some point which then leads to his rival, Booker Cannon, knocking him out. This is when Montoya will start to lose the fight. 

• example of a move

      Vincent move #1
       jab jab
       step back

script / preparations

we completed the script for the film opening. It's more of a rough draft since we've already made some changes, such as the character names. The script contains the dialogue, of course, and the settings of where each scene will be taking place in.  It also does contain descriptions for each scene and also what kind of shots we'll be taking in that specific scene. Fore example "A POV shot shows the painful blows that villain is delivering to Montoya, Foley sounds allow the viewer to feel how tired Montoya is feeling. With medium shots and closeups of shots being taken at Montoya and shots being missed by Montoya, we show that he stands no chance against villain."

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OsIQyJwe2Bail_d-LovZYsf4whZIDTaS/view?usp=drivesdk

This is the link to our script just in case because I don't know how well you are able to read it through here.

we are also making preparations for our filming day. Since Tomas and I will be on a school trip all of spring break, we want to have this film opening finished before then. We'll be filming on March 16th on a Saturday night at Markahm I believe. We've also made a huge group chat for all the other people we are going to include in our film opening as extras. We made a short list of items we'll need for our 

film opening which are 

• boxing gloves

• baby oil 

• work lights. 

We'll use the boxing gloves to put on our fighters, baby oil to put on our fighters since we want them to look more worked up for the fight, and work lights to make sure we'll have good lighting since we'll be filming at night. We will be perfecting our fight choreography throughout the week and we should have all our extras by the end of the week as well.    

Story Board

We completed the story board for our film opening. It contains the choreography for the fight, however I think we are going to work on our choreography more to try to improve it and we will also be having some practice sessions before the actual shoot. We need our actors to be fully prepared. Our filming process is going to be a bit lengthy because of this action scene. We're going to be have to film at many different angles and if our actors aren't prepared the whole filming process will just be a mess. I think our story board is more of a rough draft. We should be updating and perfecting our shot list throughout this week. I'm not so familiar with boxing terms but some example shots on our story board are "Low Angle, jab,cross". Or "Medium shot, uppercut whip up". We also decided we are going to have Rafa play as our main character and we may have our friend Neil play as our rival. We aren't 100% sure on Neil because he said he would talk to us at school tomorrow. We are also still working on finding about 35 extras to play as the crowd cheering during the fight scene.

importance of names

During class we were trying to come up with the names for our main boxer and his rival. Rafa and Tomas kept arguing about it and I didn't really understand why we were concentrating so much on the names because I didn't think it was that important. But after talking about it more I realized the names we choose for our characters are actually really important. They can represent some kind of meaning and be memorable to the audience. I read an article about the importance of names. It talked about how we should take time and effort to give our characters memorable names. A way to make the name memorable is to give uncommon names to important characters. According to the article Column D: The Name Game - Why Are Character Names Important? Part 1. "If you describe one of your characters as fat and you call him Sticks, the reader is likely to recall that.  The contrast between the name and the character makes it memorable."

So for our film opening we decided to name our main character Vincent Montoya. Vincent means to conquer. That represents him since he is trying to win his boxing match. And Montoya means hills and valleys, which can also represent him since he'll be having his ups and downs when he finds out he has to recover from his fight. Our rival's name is going to be Booker Cannon. The name Booker represents freedom fighter and that can be applied to him since he's fighting for himself.  



“Column D: The Name Game - Why Are Character Names Important? Part 1.” Script Magazine, 20 May 2014, www.scriptmag.com/features/column-d-the-name-game-character-names.

peer review

Last class we did a peer review and i was in a group with Sarah, Isabelle, and Ben.Sarah is doing a healthy food magazine and we offered that she should do a question and answers section on her two page spread. Isabelle is doing a baking magazine and she talked to use about how she loves to bake and that's what she does when she's bored so doing a magazine on that topic would be most interesting to her. We told her that she could buy a fancy cake at Publix or any grocery store and take some nice photos of them so that when she adds the photos to her magazine, the cakes look like they were professionally made. Ben is doing a film opening about kids who go into a forest and get lost or that something happens to them. I told him that his story line was pretty vague and it should include more of a variety of scenes instead of just kids going into the forest. We also suggested that there should be some reason the kids go into the forest in the first place since when he was explaining the story line, there seemed to be no motive at all as to why the kids were hanging out in the forest. I then explained my story line for my film opening. I told them about how we're going to do it about a boxer and have a whole fight scene and that we're then going to have our boxer get hit so hard he gets hospitalized. And that the film opening will set the story line of the whole movie which will be about the boxer trying to recover fast enough for his next fight. No one really had any complaints about it or any suggestions. I think they all thought it was a pretty good idea and that made me feel good about the direction we're choosing to go with in our film opening.

what makes a good film opening

Since we established what our film opening will be about, I decided to do some more research on how we can make the film opening the best it can be. The slide called “What Makes a Good Film Opening?” contained lots of good tips like. It mentioned that every film opening should 

• pull in the viewer's attention, 
• tell the genre or location of the film
• it could present the story line of the movie
• it should contain many different techniques like catchy music or fast paced editing
• most importantly the film opening should contain an element of suspense. 

I will be trying to apply all these techniques into our film opening. 
We'll pull in the viewer's attention by starting off with an intense fight. 

The setting/location will be established in the beginning of the film opening with a drone shot of a parking lot where the fight will take place. 

The story line will be presented by the end of the film opening when the injured boxer wakes up in the hospital and realizes he is going to have to heal from his injuries and train hard for his next fight and the genre, which will be action, will be introduced at the start of the film when the fight scene takes place. 

We will apply the fast paced editing during the fight scene. I could even possibly add a cool catchy song during that scene and edit the fight to the beat of the song to pull in the viewer's attention more. 

And lastly we will add our element of suspense during the fight and possibly the end of the film opening. We can apply suspense to the fight scene by making it unknown to who will win the fight. They could both be doing equally good until our main boxer gets knocked out. We may possibly give the feel of suspense towards the end of the film opening when the boxer opens finally opens his eyes and realizes he has to get ready for his upcoming fight. This can give off the feel of suspense since the viewers don't know what is going to happen next.

guestb419e3 Follow. “What Makes a Good Film Opening?” LinkedIn SlideShare, 19 Oct. 2009, www.slideshare.net/guestb419e3/what-makes-a-good-film-opening.

Story line Completed

So we've finally decided what we're going to do our film opening on. It's going to be about a boxer who is one of the best. Everyone knows him. The scene is going to open with a drone shot of the boxing match. This is when we will have our fight scene. We will choreograph the fight and use the tips I had researched and mentioned in my last blog posts.I was doing some more research and the slides I was reading from which is called , “What Makes a Good Film Opening.”,  mentioned that if we want the viewer engaged, it's good to do fast paced editing. So during the fight scene is where I will apply the fast paced editing. I'll have a variety of shots of different throws/hits the boxers will make.  By doing this, it'll pull in the viewer's attention more. This will make the viewer more focused on what is taking place and wanting know what will happen next.

jonsaward Follow. “What Makes a Good Film Opening.” LinkedIn SlideShare, 23 Nov. 2010, www.slideshare.net/jonsaward/what-makes-a-good-film-opening-5873057.


 During the fight we'll have his opponent hit him so hard he falls to the ground and gets completely knocked out. We then want the scene to shift to our main character in a hospital room laying on the bed. We are going to see if Rafa's dad can get us a hospital room since he's a doctor. If he can't we'll just use a normal bed room and that'll be where the boxer wakes up. Once the boxer is in his hospital bed, we want the tv to be playing the news in the background. As the camera is slowly zooming in on the boxer's face, we'll hear in the background the news reporter saying something to the degree of "The best boxer out there, {boxer's name}, was unexpectedly wiped out by his biggest rival, {rival's name}. Will {boxer's name} be ready for his next fight?." And during that last line we'll have the camera at a close up to his eyes and that is when he wakes up and opens his eyes and the scene ends and it will switch to the movie name. This will set up the whole plot of the movie which will be about the boxer healing from his major injuries and getting prepared for his next fight. This film opening will leave viewers at a cliff hanger. They'll be questioning what will happen next. They'll wonder "will he be ready for the fight on time?" or "what if he loses.?"     

Audio Library

I watched a video called “FREE - Royalty Free Sound Effects for Your YouTube Videos.” to learn how to access the audio library through YouTube since I knew there was one but I never knew how to get to it. The audio library contained so many royalty free music and sound effects which is really great. I usually go on google and go through many websites to get my royalty free music and such so it's really cool to be able to access all that in one location. The music in the audio library is categorized through genre, mood, and even instrument so it's really easy to navigate through. There's also a huge list of sound effects that are also categorized. There's a search bar so you can look up any specific sound effects you'd like. I found lots of sound effects I could use for the fight scene, like punches and grunts. I also really like the free music in the audio library. There's a lot of the same royalty free music that I constantly hear in people's projects but the music in the audio library isn't over used at all and I like that a lot.

Eves, Derral. “FREE - Royalty Free Sound Effects for Your YouTube Videos.” YouTube, YouTube, 1 Dec. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFtpzKYk-6U.

Storyline/ Fight scene tips

Last class we all came together and came up with the main idea of our film opening which is going to be about boxing. We are still trying to come up with a solid story line that can fit into our action genre. We drew a little sketch of the boxing scene and how we would set that up.

We also wrote a bunch of notes of the possible directions we can go with film opening for example, after the fight he ends up being pronounced dead when he's actually been alive, hiding in his home. Or he ends up getting horribly injured and wakes up in the hospital. This would then set up the plot for the whole movie ,which is, the boxer having to heal and become the best at fighting again.

I also did some research on how to create a good fight scene. A technique I learned from the article "6 Helpful Tutorials for Filming Realistic Fight Scenes", was to make the camera apart of the action. For example using quick pans or tilts, creates more of a sense of violence. Editing is also a very important part of the process. There needs to be many sound effects like grunts, hits or tears. Also in order for the fight to look very real, it's important to choreograph everything. Also according to the article,“Production Tips: The Proper Way to Record A Fight Scene.”, by using blocking to create the actors movement, it will really make the fight scene look amazing.


“6 Helpful Tutorials for Filming Realistic Fight Scenes.” The Beat: A Blog by PremiumBeat, 15 May 2017, www.premiumbeat.com/blog/6-realistic-fight-scene-tutorials/.


Janney, Robbie. “Production Tips: The Proper Way to Record A Fight Scene.” City Of Forks City Limit Sign - FORKS / WASHINGTON. APRIL 13, 2017 Stock Footage Video 28374238 | Shutterstock, The Shutterstock Blog, 19 July 2018, www.shutterstock.com/blog/production-tip-film-fight-scene.