CCR - Researching/Script for Question #1

    It's time to start planning for my Creative Critical Reflection. We have already gone over and took some notes on all the important information that needs to be presented in the CCR during class.

Here are some things I jotted down:

    In addition, I already have an idea of what I am going to make for my reflection. During the second group meeting yesterday, I was given amazing suggestions by Maia and also Luke that really helped me get inspiration for my CCR. I believe I talked about this in my Group Meeting #2 post, but as a refresher, Maia had suggested I should make my stuffed animal "Lamby", interview me for my reflection. I thought this was hilarious and a great idea. Luke had then suggested that I could use Lamby as a puppet, using a high pitched voice for when he talks. I am definitely going to incorporate this into my CCR because not only is it funny, but it is also using a prop/character from part of my film opening. I just love how connects my CCR with my actual production opening together so smoothly.

       Continuing on, there are four questions based on our film opening we will need to answer in this reflection. However, today I am just focusing on question number one:

Question #1:

How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

   I believe my product has challenged the conventions of a teenage girl. The typical teenage girl usually does sports like gymnastics, dance, or figure skating. Allie, unlike other girls, does a more masculine driven sport, taekwondo. On the contrary, the film embraces quite a few general martial arts movie conventions, such as highly detailed action shots and bright color schemes. It also includes some coming-of-age conventions like voiceovers and a setting of a teenager's bedroom. Allie does fall into the category of being a teenager in general. For instance, she wears comfy clothing such as hoodies, shorts, and slides, when she is not training. Allie also uses her laptop in bed, as many teenagers do. This film opening represents the athletic social group, specifically of martial arts. Allie is seen to be practicing in a dojang with a real taekwondo uniform and black belt. She accurately represents taekwondo and her status of being a black belt, by showing her impressive movements and techniques. My product highly emphasizes the issues of mental blocks and injury, mainly with athletes. When Allie goes to do her flash kick, she hesitates at the last second, leaving her with a broken ankle. Essentially, the audience can see that Allie needs to become more mentally resilient, while also needing to heal her foot in the process.

   

 

Sources:

Manson, D. (2021, August 17). Representation in martial arts media. Martial Journal. https://www.martialjournal.com/representation-in-martial-arts-media/

Codes + Conventions: Martial Arts [Prezi presentation]. (n.d.). Prezi. https://prezi.com/6uuulatmd37g/codes-conventions-martial-arts/

Codes and Conventions of Coming-of-Age Films [Prezi presentation]. (n.d.). Prezi. https://prezi.com/svyzdw4qndq4/codes-and-conventions-of-coming-of-age-films/

Albishi, W., Alajlan, F., Alshehri, S., & AbuDujain, N. M. (2025). Athlete’s mental health and quality of life after sports injuries. JBJS Reviews, 13(9), e25.00123. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12445178/

Shooting Process -Computer Scene-

     For this specific scene, I wanted to include different angles and shots so that the audience would be able to see Allie through various perspectives. I first filmed a long shot of the whole bunk bed. This showed how her room was set up and it represented her type of style through symbolic objects, such as the USA dobok top hanging from her bed, her adidas slides below her, and her stuffed animals above her.

    The USA uniform symbolizes her passion and dedication to taekwondo. The slides represent her athleticism. The stuffed animals exemplify that despite participating in a tough sport, she is still a kid with a big heart.

    The other shots I filmed act as a way to get the audience to see Allie's sad emotions when she realizes how long her ankle will recover. I use a series of close-ups and medium side shots to illustrate this.

Here are some examples:

    After filming these, I recorded my blank computer screen from my POV as Allie. Then, I screen recorded myself typing, "how long does it take for a broken ankle to heal" on Google. So when I edit this in my project, I will overlay the screen recording to align with my computer screen.

    The reason I didn't just take a video of me actually typing from the computer in one take, is because the picture quality of the screen would've look pixelated. I think it is clearer to use a screen recording because it is more clear and can be seen better by the viewers.

Here's what it looks like separated:

The Editing process -Credits-

     Now that I have all my footage recorded, it is finally time to start editing my film opening. That being the case, to begin my editing journey, I started off importing all my video footage and audio, including my production logo, into Clipchamp. This way I can easily access each clip during my editing process. Clipchamp will be the main editing software I will be using throughout this project.

     Next, I displayed my production logo as my beginning scene and used a transition and a cool sound effect to add more dimension and to make it look more professional.

Here's how it turned out: 

    After that, I started to experiment with different types of fonts to use for my credits. Choosing which font style I want is a very crucial decision because it decides what type of aesthetic the whole production will be. I need to make sure the font matches the actual film opening.

    I decided to use the Staatliches font. It is very simple yet affective, as it gives off a white and bold looking appearance. I chose this font because I wanted it to resemble the sports aspect of the film. Similarly, I connect bold, uppercase letters with the sports aesthetic.

    For the background of the credit sequence, I wasn't sure if I was going to add any sort of video to it because it may be too distracting for the viewer. As a result, for now I will just leave it as is, black. As for the music aspect, I decided to time the beats with the appearances of the credits. This makes the scene look more cohesive and connects the visuals and sound together.

Here's what the credits look like so far:

     UPDATE!!! I just figured out the perfect color to change my font to. Gold! Gold is the perfect color to match the black background because it has the same color scheme as a taekwondo black belt. The belt is obviously black and the letters are embroidered with gold thread.  And not only that, the lettering in English uses all capital letters, similar to the font for my credits. Overall, this small change creates a huge impact on the meaning and message of the story.

Here's what my whole first scene looks like now:

    ALSO VERY IMPORTANT, I have finally chosen a title for this production. I will be naming it, "Mind Over Mat". I love this title because it is a play on word of the phrase "Mind Over Matter". The title truly represents the message of willpower through mental resilience in the film. It suggests that the power of the mind will impact and will help overcome physical obstacles. Moreover, I will be including this title into my credit sequence.

Group Meeting #2

    Today in class we had another group meeting, however it was with a different group. I like how we changed up our groups because it allowed us to get more insight from even more perspectives. This meeting was genuinely very helpful, as I got a better idea on how to do my CCR thanks to my group members. Here's how it went:

Me:

    While I was talking about how I filmed the scene where I injure my ankle and reversed it, the group said it was a clever idea. However, they suggests I should speed it up and cut to the falling scene right away to make it look more realistic. I also showed them my POV shot of me doing a round-off. Luke said it was very creative and he suggested that I should try to use small increments of it just so it doesn't look too fake. Maia had suggested that my CCR should incorporate my stuffed animal, Lamby. I hadn't thought of this before and I thought it was a great idea. Luke had also recommended that I should prop my phone up high and almost use Lamby as a hand puppet. He also suggested I should use a high pitch voice for Lamby, which I will definitely do. I loved all of the ideas they gave me, not only because they incorporated my childhood stuffed animal from my story, but also allowing the CCR to be funny and giving my viewers a good laugh.

Maia: Blog Post: https://lifeofagirlwithablog.blogspot.com/

Her story

Title: Maia: unfiltered

A girl gets bullied because she is very childish. She likes baking, crocheting, playing piano, taekwondo. The film opening is her voicing over her character and explaining/introducing her character.

Fun fact: She decorated her room with star garlands and decorated her phone with gems to emphasis the personality of her character.

CCR

She is thinking of doing a vogue 21 questions type of interview. Crocheting, baking, and any other hobbies while answering questions.

Noah: Blog Post: https://noahawadalla.blogspot.com/

His story

Title: Straight A's (he wanted it to be seen as sarcastic)

About a rich kid named Oliver whose parents think he is a good person and is smart in school. However, he is actually a bully and does bad things such as smoking. The film opening shows two different sides of him. It will follow his character acting differently around his parents, while being a whole other person at school. The film opening while include scenes of him in his fancy bedroom and on the way to school, with his mom. He wants to use two types of music to show two different sides of his character throughout the story. 

He wanted to have a scene of him smoking, but he did not actually want to smoke. Maia suggested that he could use a fog machine to get smoke. Then I recommended him about fake cigarettes at Spirit Halloween or to use the smoke from incense. After that, Luke had mentioned that the scene could show him with a cigarette in his hand but with smoke in the background, so the audience can imply smoking.

CCR

He had an idea of one side of him is interviewing him and the other side of him is answering his questions. We suggested that he should use different costumes to distinguish the characters even more.

Jade: Blog Post: https://eattraveljade.blogspot.com/

Her story

About a girl named Avery, in a mental asylum whose best friend dies. Everyone thinks the girl is crazy. The girl tries to convince the police that she has nothing to do with her friend's death.

Fun facts: They used a dog cage to represent a dog cage. They used wallpaper for the prisoner walls, which looked very realistic. I saw some of the clips and the set looks very authentic and cool. Also, the police was played by one of the girl's dads.

CCR 

We gave her ideas about possibly being interviewed by a police officer, maybe being a witness of the case of Avery.

Brennan: Blog Post: https://darkest-insight.blogspot.com/

His story

A thriller/suspense about Asher and Austin, two opposites. The film opening consists of Asher passionately working on a project, however Austin steals it and becomes a disturbance to Asher. Taking revenge for what Austin had done, Asher had murdered him.

 Brennan showed us a video recording of his tracking shot. Overall his filming was great quality. However, Luke did suggest him to use a stabilizer because his footage was slightly shaky. Other than that, the rest of his footage looked very professional. He is part of CBTV after all, and used some fancy cameras when filming.

Fun Fact: Brennan said it was quite a challenge to act because he is usually behind the camera, as he is in CBTV.

CCR

He had an idea wear he was being interviewed by his character, in a prisoner jumpsuit. I agree that this was a great idea. Maia had also recommended him to somehow creatively use the project he was creating during the film opening as the CCR.

Luke: Blog Post: https://boldbiscuitblog.blogspot.com/

His story

Title: To Will (inspired by the letter)

It is about two friends, Will, the antisocial bed rotter, and Derek, a social butterfly and caring individual. The first scene starts in Will in his bedroom as he gets call from his friend Derek. Derek calls Will to ask if he wants to hang out. Will rejects Derek's offer, the next scene cuts to Derek standing outside of Will's door, looking defeated by Will's response. The last scene illustrates Derek drop off a letter to Will's doorstep. Our group liked the way he ended his film opening because it leaves the audience questioning what was written in that letter.

CCR

We had suggested that Luke should use Derek's letter for each question of the CCR. We thought this was a creative way to drag the film into the CCR itself, as for many of our other group member's CCRs.

   Ultimately, this meeting was super collaborative, supportive, and helpful for not only me, but for all of the group members. I really enjoyed listening to what others had to say about my project, as well as giving others feedback on theirs. It is so cool to see how everyone's portfolio project is so different yet equally impressive and well planned out.

Anyway, here's a little group picture from our meeting in class:

Group Picture!

The Shooting process -Dojang scene-

    Due to the fact that most of my film was shot at the dojang, I needed to film right after the last class of the day. This worked out perfectly though because my class is always the last one to finish. So after practice, me and my friend Alexis, who was helping me film, got to work. We first captured the still shots to get the easy parts out of the way. We recorded close-ups of all the belts hung on the walls, the quotes, the equipment, and of the American and Korean flag.

    After that, we started with the hardest part... aka filming me. I consider myself to be a decent actor. But it is SO easy for me to break character and start burst out laughing. And it doesn't help that my friend Alexis was the one recording me too. She would make me laugh every five seconds. However, we got the job done and recorded all of the shots we needed.

   For the scene where I hurt my ankle while coming out of the round-off, I came up with a clever way to shoot this without actually hurting my ankle. I started with a close-up my ankle in a twisted position, then I jumped up so my feet were out of frame. And when you put this video in reverse, it looks like I landed right on the side of my ankle.

Original Video

Edited Video (Reversed)

Here's some BTS footage!!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pfRr8C8FTU2kna4_W2UBWr-utZA7SBai?usp=sharing

The Shooting process -Bedroom scene-

     The time has finally come start the filming process. I decided to film the last few scenes in Allie's bedroom first, primarily because I think it will be the easiest to shoot, and also because the set is literally my own bedroom so I don't have to drive anywhere. I used my phone as my camera and my light up mirror for some better lighting. As much as I wish I could've have a better quality camera for this project, you can't always get what you wish for. Anyway, I still believe my project will turn out great either way.

            Lighting/Camera

    (light up mirror)

    (phone camera)                   (lamp)

     

     I have never acted in my life and I know nothing about it, so it was definitely a challenge for to play the main character. However, I intentionally made Allie have a similar personality to me, so at least I didn't have to change too much about myself to play her.

     As I have displayed before, Allie had a taped up foot from her ankle injury. Ironically, two days before filming, I had twisted, bruised, and almost broke my pinkie toe during taekwondo training. This injury set me back in filming because I wanted to rest my toe for a while. And the injured toe just happened to be on the same right ankle that was supposed to be a fake injury. Turns out I didn't have to do much acting because I already hurt myself lol. To save some of my athletic tape when taping my ankle, I knew that I would only record the right side of it, so I left most of the left side of my ankle bare. 

Here's what it looked like:

Surprise!

On the spot, I decided to include a very special guest into this scene. I needed someone to act as Allie's parent. So I believe it was only right for me to cast my actual parent to play my fake parent in my production. Drum roll please....... my one and only dad!!! (also known as Dr. Le)

    My dad was not only a huge help for his acting, but also for his behind the scenes work. During the scene where Allie throws her stuffed animal to close the door, the plushie wasn't actually heavy enough to close the whole door. So I had my dad actually stand behind the door from outside of the room, and close the door at the same time I threw "Lamby", to make it seem more realistic. I'm not gonna lie, we had to reshoot this scene so many times because it was so hard to match my throw to my dad closing the door. In total, we had shot 9 takes to finally get one take to look somewhat realistic. Although it was a pain to film, I think my dad secretly enjoyed being apart of my project.

Here's a video of all our attempts:

Easter Eggs!

    Hidden throughout the bedroom, I placed little details for viewers to spot, such as Allie's USA dobok, her adidas slides, and I even cameoed my personal tkd training bag.

(Also look how clean the set looks versus the messy side of my bedroom that was not being used as a background lol)

Production Company Logo Creation

    My Company Logo is a crucial part of this project. I mean it's the first thing the audience sees of course. This logo will set the tone for the whole entire film opening. That being said, it is important that I come up with a fitting design that matches the aesthetic of my production, as well as adding in my own personal style into it. I am creating the logo through Canva.

Starting Point:

    I want to incorporate my initials for the company name, but I want to create a more unique way to write it without just putting "A.L." in some boring font.

Here are some of my brainstorms:

     

    I like like the last style the best. Now I just need to add some animation and perhaps a background to it. I also love how the first "E" in entertainment can also be connected to the "L" to create Le, which is my last name. It is somewhat of a cool way to incorporate that into the design.

Final Result:

(If the video isn't loading.. here's a picture of it)