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Problem #1: I was unable to transfer files on my phone to my computer in a way where the file doesn't get compressed. So, I just sent it to myself through WhatsApp and saved the file on my computer. This means that the video is going to have lower quality than usual. Buy, honestly I don't know any way to work around it, so it's staying that way.
Problem #2: It's Friday, and when I made the schedule I forgot it was my brother's birthday today. Holy moly, I'm a terrible brother. So, I can't finish the edit today since I'm spending the day with him. It'll have to be tomorrow, sorry Ms Stoklosa. However, I do have a line edit done, all I'm missing is graphics, captions and music.
Problem #3: I talk too much. I tried to get my footage to just what was in the script and it's still 4 minutes over. Whoopsie, I guess I have to find a way to work around this.
While editing, I used the best tool in all of Premiere Pro, Text-Based Editing. This thing is a time saver and the only reason I enjoy the method of self-torture known as "editing". The person who created this feature deserves a raise.
Bottom > bottom of a flower pot > dirt > burial site > dead boss
Charlette's dead boss emerges from the grave, sets up camera, and talks about the movie. It'd be fun to do something similar to the Who Was Show in a sense that the characters know that they are in a show despite being from eras where that kind of technology didn't exist. Here's a good example, during her introduction, Amelia Earhart discovers that the narrator is a man. She doesn't like that, so she walks off stage and replaces him with a women narrator. I'm not going to get the chance to make something with this many actors nor do I want to copy their idea. But I think something with that level of goofy self awareness would be fun to make. Don't ask me why it's in a language that I don't understand.
Hello Glorpie! This is just a quick update blog for the portfolio project. The plan was to finished these last week but oh god, life happened. When I say life happened I mean it happened. Anyways, I got After Effects open and got to work making graphics. I talked to the group about my text and we decided that ZebraWood is by far the best font to use in this situation. I think it fits very well.
Most of the effects I used:
Dagnabbit Glorp!
Guess what? Well, you can guess but you can't say what because this is my blog. It's literally a one sided conversation. By all means, speak to your computer screen, it won't respond though. Did you speak? It's fine if not, I won't make you guess. My portfolio project is due the 25th. T w e n t y - f i f t h ! ! ! That is in 7 days! And my mind goblins haven't even gone around to filming the CCR yet! I hope my use of exclamation points demonstrate my concern! I am very concerned!!
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Here's the plan buckaroos'.
Tomorrow is a Wednesday (19th). Tomorrow is an "A" day, meaning I will likely have minimal school work and homework. When I get home, I will grab my script, grab a wireless mic, grab my camera, and clime trees.
Thursday (20th), my 11 year streak of owning a green card comes to a halt as I swear my faith in America and become a citizen. Since that's a "B" day, I'll be chained down by my teachers' wonderful ability to assign homework that makes me want to tear off my ear and gift it to a cleaner at a brothel. (lib.berkeley.edu.com, 2019) But, regardless, an attempt at a line edit will be made.
Friday (21st), I plan to have the first video fully done by 10 am. I have no school so 7:00 am, so my little legs will be sat crisscross applesauce at my desk, ready to start editing. Also, the plan is to record my second CCR and get a line edit done (by 3 pm). A lot of work in one day, I know. Consequences of my actions. (I don't want to link the source of that reference because the artist is problematic and I'd rather not promote them. Just pretend this is a funny joke, maybe exhale a little bit of air through your nose.)
Saturday (22ed), I hope and pray to all the Mayan, Greek, and Roman gods to ever exist. By 10 pm I wish to have both projects done. This will give me ample time to overthink my work before submitting it on Tuesday.
Welcome Glorp to my humble abode. This is the first time I'm writing a blog post at 6 am. "Why?" I hear you ask. Well, I'm going to a renaissance fair at 9 and I also have a lot of home work. So, as Pokey from my favorite childhood book said, I'm putting work before play.
Dear Glorp,
Today I washed cars and begged people for tips.
If they are going to make me work, at least make me beg people for money. It's what I'm best at. (This is a joke)
Believe it or not, I'm not a people person when it comes to getting stuff done. When I fool around, I'll admit, I'm a goofy guy. But when I'm focused, all other things don't exist and I feel like my purpose in life was to be the thing I am doing. If I am writing this blog, my mother might as well said "this child will be writing blogs until the day he dies" during my birth because this is the only thing I am right now. Blogs. Blogs. Blogs. That's the only narration in my head because I am so focused. I am a blog. The real blog is me.
The only issue with being so focused is that I tend to be ignorant of other people. Which is bad when I'm working in a group. So, I learnt to cool off and be a little more passive this time around. I decided to expand my knowledge on westerns so much, my pert in this group became niche. Throughout this project I was the groups' Google. They'd ask me anything about the Victorian era and I would give a very specific answer.
Production wise, I'd say my skills are good, I didn't learn much because I've done productions like these before. I was just going through the motion. Zach did remind me that the rule of thirds existed and I was like "Oh, yeah right. I should start using that again."
Okay, that's all for tonight Glorp. Buh bye!
Hello Glorp!
Before I start, here's a photo that sums up my week. I am burning out :D
(His blog is down, so he gave me his group member's blog instead)
https://joseph347.blogspot.com/
Miguel is going to film soon, likely today he says. His story is in the horror genre. The plot follows a high school band with an outraged guitarist. After an argument, the guitarist get kicked off the band. This influenced his final decision to kill off band members one by one. Something I found really cool about his project is that the way the band members will get killed. It has to do with the instrument that they played. For example, the drumist gets drum sticks wedged into his eyes and the bassist gets strangled by an amp chord. They are also making their own music since each actor already knows how to play their instrument. I honestly really like that idea. Truly, I wish them the best.
https://education-rua.blogspot.com/
Her opening follows a group of girls who have a prank war every April 1st. During the preperation of a prank, one of the girls gets murderd. Sophia didn't say the genre, but I assume this is also horror. I really liked her idea of having two camera's on set. One recording the regular way and a small digital cameria for the girls to record as a vlog. I think there can be some really good use of POV shots with that, so long as it's used with intention. Sophia told me that the way she plans on showing the murder is by using fake blood and only showing the hand of the victim. This is a good way to hide the fact that we are jobless highschoolers and don't have the budget to make a murder scene look realistic. She was planning on making blood out of corn syrup and food dye. I suggested adding one part blue food dye and four parts red. This gives the fake blood a deeper, more realistic color. Also, to watch out for stains and to keep a wet rag near her, things can get sticky quick.
https://romancambridgeblog.blogspot.com/
Roman, if you are reading this, I'm sorry if I spelt your name wrong. Roman already filmed his project, he is doing something in the action genre. The opening is focused on two men involved with trading drugs getting caught by the police and being interrogated. The character played by Roman snitches to the cops. At first, I was skeptical. How is this kid going to get access to a cop car? Handcuffs? Police uniforms? A police station??? He assured me that, since his girlfriend's dad is a cop, he has access to all those things. I'm still a little skeptical. Personally, if I where a cop and my daughter's boyfriend wanted to borrow my expensive equipment for a school project, I'd say no. But, I'm not a cop, I'm a kid who hasn't even finished high school. So what do I know?
Talking to my group members, I realized my film has no name. I instantly texted the group chat.
So the film is now called Death Wears a Dress. I really like the name.
With my group, I went over the line edit and showed them the text I planned on using for the graphic. Miguel said to use the Zebrawood font because it looks more "western" compared to the Discourse font. He said it looked like a sticker from the 80s, I see what he means and I and agree.
Yes Glorp, I know these blogs are out of order. So sue me.
Today my team went out and filmed the missing clips for our project. We had 2 - 3 shots we where missing, and they went out and got them.
Zach recording Emi and her cross.
Hey Glorp!
Back in the day, I would grab my phone and my microphone and film myself climbing trees while talking to myself. So when I heard about the CCR, which is expected to be me talking to a camera, that's the first thing that came to my head. I plan to go out around 3 pm and maybe stay for the sunset. I'll also have a script and bullet notes so I know what points I wanna make. Lucky, question #1 is one I've already asked myself.
"How does your product use or challenge conventions, and how does it represent social groups or issues?"
We decided that our protagonist should be female. This is to challenge how the protagonist of a western is always a white man. Many women where cowgirls back in the Victorian era, they just have never gotten the same representation in media as men. The western landscape was a lot fairer than people make it out to be, most believed that woman were equal so long as they can do the job as well as a man. I know western movies aren't always known to be historically accurate, but the genre can do with a little change up in gender. This will expand the target demographic to women and younger people. Not to mention, women in the western genres are typically a damsel in distress. Our character isn't in distress, in fact her personality is very masculine. Not using this trope at all turns the convention on it's head, and shows that film can be made without using tropes that reinforce the patriarchy.
Guess who's still sick? I am! This morning I awoke level headed and forced myself to school. But the hellish critters violating my immune system forced me to the nurses office. Suffice to say, Glorp, I had to miss the recording my group did. Here's a update blog.
While I was resting at home, my group went to the recording studio in the TV room. They stayed in there for a good thirty minutes or so to get the line right. Zach and Nico instructed Emi to say her lines in a morbid, ponderous voice. According to her, it took a few attempts, but she eventually got there. They decided to only say 2 of her 4 lines since the spare 2 might give too much exposition.
Hello Glorp! All of today was spent filming and editing. Now I’m at a social mixer hidden away in a corner because loud noises overwhelm me. Anyways, Zach finished the line edit! We plan to have a voice over the entire thing, but we haven’t recorded any of it yet. Also, the music we added is temporary and will likely be changed. I also plan to add more noises like wind, dirt, and clothes with foley and free online sources (pixabay.com)
Today I am traveling to STN! And tomorrow’s post will be in Tampa! I can’t wait!
Anyway, when we went to Vista View, for completely forgot that the fine people of our town enjoy running. The park was filled with joggers and bikers. We had to talk to the apex of the biggest hill in the park to find a place free of people. By then, it was already 10 am, we met at 8. From then we took all the necessary shots from the story board and did some improvisation. For example, one of the shots was a low angle with a flower in focus. That was something Zach came up with last minute, but I think it really added to the story. More on that in an oncoming blogpost.
Another problem we faced was Emi’s painted nails. They didn’t really have painted nails in the 1800s, and if they did, Charlotte wouldn’t wear them. At first I tried to chip them off, but her nail artist is too good at her job.
So instead, for the close up of her cross we had to replace her hands with mine. I’ll show how we did that in an upcoming blog too!
Aside from that, the rest of the shooting went smoothly! Three out of the four of us know a lot about video production, so we didn’t have many issues. That’s all for today, by Glorp!
Hello Glorp!
I have a looming fear that the project will fall to its doom when we are at STN, though that's unlikely to happen. We got 90% of the shooting done this weekend, which is amazing. All we are missing is the editing and to get the remaining 10%, which we have 31 days to complete. But I keep thinking the product isn't good enough, despite having an astonishing product from yesterday. I feel like we are missing something big, like we didn't research enough or our opening will be filled with continuity errors. I don't know. I shouldn't feel this unsure but I am. Let's hope to god this just paranoia and not instinct.
What if we need to reshoot?
What if Zach's computer explodes?
Well, not literlly. But adobe is well known for it's ability to crash computer. As someone who expirences a time crunch every week due to STN practice, I know that computers can sometimes just give in with no appaert reason.
What if the project crashed and we lose everything?
Hi Glorp!
Audio does, in fact, make the world go round. Or at least, it benefits our existence as living beings. Think about it, if a bunny can't hear a fox, how will it prevent itself from being eaten? We are beings who evolved from animals such as these, and evidently find great importance in audio. Therefor, when a landscape sounds off, we will notice it and be pulled from the story. "Audio is more important than footage" as they say.
Westerns focus on how wild the west is. It's strongly locked onto the nature of a scene more than the human part. Humans also don't talk as much as in other movies because of this. This is prefect for us because we will have someone filming audio on set, likely Nico or I. That way we can get as much natural noises as possible. Also, it's so we don't have to record foley for everything, which is a huge annoyance. As someone whos made five foley projects over that past three years, I have a strong distaste for how tedious it is.
This blog is quick because I have to go out and film today. It's 7:14 am an I have to leave at 7:30, so I should really go and get ready to leave. I'll update!
This day has been an unnerving one. I've completely forgotten that STN, the national film compaction I'm going on, is in eight days. EIGHT! I'm prepared to miss almost every class, I finished some of the work I had for the week I'm going to miss. But, I forgot to plan a day to film this project! We had a schedule but it had to get scrapped since our teacher thought we needed more time to research. Now, we are going to film on Saturday but we still have so many things to do!
Hello Glorp!
I still had to find our characters' actual names since the entire Monday was dedicated to practice for a competition. When I got home, I slept for twelve hours, from 6pm to 6am. Back on topic, I'm not sure how we created these characters. I think they manifested in the air after talking to my group.
Emi's Character Development:
Emi's character was decided to be female from the start because she is our only actor. So, we didn't really have a choice. However, we found a way to work around that by making the plot based on her gender and doing a lot of research on how people interpreted gender back in the day. I really wanted Emi's character to be an absolute "wizard" (english.stackexchange.com 2014) just like Mary Fields. Fields really drove Emi's character, but I wanted her to be calm and calculated to balance out the "wild" part of the wild west.
Nico Development:
Nico's character was really just manifested from thin air. I asked Nico and him. He wasn't really sure where it came from. I think we just needed a conflict in the story, and we developed Nico's character to have something happen. Aside from that, the personality and such was created in post #9, where I suggested to the group that Nico's character should have a bad relationship with his father but still love him. Never having told his father until his disappearance, making the decision to kill Emi's character even more conflicting.
That's all for today folks! Sorry if this post is very disoriented, I'm next to an individual who won't stop talking about his rectal canal. It's pretty distracting.
Hello, Glorp!
Here is the script to our film opening. Also, our characters are yet to be named since I'm a picky little baby and want them to be historically accurate. I plan on researching that tomorrow. For now, the characters are named after their actors. Nico is playing the son and Emi is playing the cowgirl. Okay, that's it, enjoy the script! Also, good night.
Hi Glorp! It's a lovely Saturday morning, and I just spent the last hour and a half procrastinating on writing this blog. Acceptance is the first step, as they say.
Story:
Our story for the film as a whole is about a cowgirl who accidentally kills her boss. In an attempt to compensate for his death, she travels across the Wild West to find his son and lets him decide whether or not to take her life. The son, conflicted, wants revenge but chooses to let her live. The cowgirl's pacifist philosophy rubbed off on him.
Protagonist backstory:
Kind, quick-witted, and quiet, our protagonist was born in the New World, inside a city in New England. The protagonist's family ran to the Wild West in hopes of bettering their financial situation. The protagonist grew up learning to be self-sufficient in the west, picking up her dad's skills in herding and shooting. After the death of her husband, she decided to join the workforce. Hired by a wealthy man for her impeccable cowgirl skills, she quickly learned how brutal working can be. Her boss was very aggressive; any attempt to calm him down would fail. During an especially tense burst of anger, the cowgirl failed to save him from death. She felt wrecked by guilt and quickly left everything behind to find the man's son.
Clothes:
The protagonist wears pants sometimes, while riding horses, but most of the time she spends it in a dress that stops right below her knee and stockings. She also wears men's clothes on top of that, like a vest. Her long hair is almost never tied up and out of her face. She not only enjoys the feeling of having her hair free, but she also uses it as a statement. "Look at me, doing things men do all while not eradicating my femininity."
That's all for tonight folks! Bye Glorp!
It feels weird talking to a nameless void, so, in an attempt to make this blog my own, I decided to name the reader Glorp. I hope you, the reader, are okay with that.
Hi Glorp! This blog is not just a measly research blog, no. Oh no, no, no, my dear friend. This blog plans to answer all the questions my little snotty-nosed gremlin-toddler brain has. And since my grade relies on also researching a media theory, I'm going to do that too. These blogs have no word limit; be prepared for the most in-depth data you've ever seen. I woke up this morning with a wack ton of energy, and I'm going to USE IT!
First, what is a cowgirl/boy? Western movies gave me this vague idea that they were just people who rode horses, maybe traveling long distances and lassoing wild animals. No, that's not accurate. It turns out that they are people who own and tend to livestock. ¹ Back then this required the skills often seen in western movies: sharpshooting, horse breaking, and herding cattle. Rodeos were later created as a way to show off these skills and entertainment. From here, a cowgirl is the wife or daughter of a cowboy who learned the same skills as her male counterpart. ¹
A very brief Google search led me to a page of cowgirls, outlaws, and gunslingers. A briefer skim convinced me all of them were "not to be trifled with" as heck (english.stackexchange.com 2014). Here's my favorite one from the list:
Mary Fields (1832 - 1914)
The page never states if she's a cowgirl, outlaw, or gunslinger. I assume she's a gunslinger, since she never owned land (so no livestock) and never reportedly did anything illegal.
Also, let me note that she was six feet tall. I'm 5'2, and from my knowledge, the lack of proper nutrition and health services in the past made people shorter. Meaning that the amazing individual known as Mary Fields was probably a tower of badassery compared to the people around her. Should I have been born in the same time and place as her and met her, I would be terrified. I'm sure the mayor of Caacad felt the same. All jokes aside, Mary Fields was probably allowed into saloons and such because she behaved and had the height of a man. Demanding and quick to anger, tall, intimidating. I assume she never let people tell her what to do. She probably had to play a masculine role to be seen as equal to men, hiding her femininity to protect herself from ridicule. Which, to me, is depressing but makes sense. Back then, women were seen as weak, needing to be protected. Though that's not the case anymore, through the writing of my character, I should show this suppression of femininity. Something else that's a shock to me is that Fields is wearing a dress. This brings me to my next question.
This one is piggybacking off the last one. You'd think that, on a farm where an individual is almost completely self-sufficient, there'd be a priority of efficiency over visual appeal. Why did women still wear dresses if they spent the day milking cows and pulling weeds? Especially in the supposed heat of the western landscape, what's the point?
Here, I planned to make a smooth transition into women's independence. But I can't think of anything because I need water and don't want to get up from my comfy chair. With the expansion into the western part of America, pioneers had very limited resources and people. Therefore, as long as you had the skills, you were needed to work. Gender was given no regard. As my mom put it, "There was no time to be sexist; cows had to be herded." One thing the western genre did get right is that laws didn't really apply in the lawless Wild West, so women joined the workforce when men couldn't. Sadly, women weren't entirely equal out in the west. "There were plenty more men than women out west, and many of them paid handsomely for female company." (historyhit.com, 2025)
When I wrote these questions, I wrote why I'm asking them (the statement above) and then googled for answers, opening only the sites that look genuine. Then I assume things from there. But with this question, I was just completely wrong. Every site I opened called Texas, California, and the general West a desert. I genuinely just got the geography very wrong. That is very embarrassing. I'm including this in the final draft, though. Why? Because it's my blog, and I can do what I want. Don't judge.
In the 8th grade, when I was learning US history, I genuinely wondered if the people in British colonies like Jamestown had British accents like we know today. Where did the American accent come from? Where did the southern accent come from?
I found this video; it answers one question of the 20 I just spouted.
Southern accents also originated as a way for people to distinguish themselves. "...wealthy British traders started dropping the 'r' sound from their speech as a distinction...of their class" (magoosh.com, 2025). These British traders then went to the New World and participated in the slave trade, picking up a little of the accents from enslaved African Americans over time. Especially once African Americans won their freedom and became a part of the working class. The white workers alongside them picked up their accents. Later events like the Great Depression would change immigration patterns and solidify the southern accent into southern culture. This means that your character not having a southern accent is completely historically accurate if we tie it into her backstory. As long as she grew up around people without a Southern or British accent, we are set. This way our actor won't have to fake an accent and possibly mess up her performance.
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