Final Project Post

                            Final Project Post

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog!!!! We have finally reached the end, the goal. I hope you enjoy our movie opening that we have been working so hard on!

So our film opening starts with Aleena lighting the candles, and her friendship bracelet is meticulously shown. Then Amaya suggests that they should all play the card game "MAFIA". Amaya deals out the cards, and then a split screen shows who got what cards. Samantha got the police card (king), Zara got the mafia card (Ace), Evelyn got the doctor card (queen) and Amaya got the blank card which is the narrator. She then tells the MAFIA to point to who they want to kill, while everyone else has there eyes closed. It is not shown, but implied that she then tells the doctor to point at who to save and the police to point at who to investigate. It then turns to Maya, the narrator, making up a story on how Samantha died - in the game. Then she tells them all to discuss who they think the MAFIA is. They guess wrong and Amaya tells them it was Zara, and MAFIA won. They all look surprised and the sound of them all yelling is heightened. For dramatic effect, the sound is then cut and causes the audience to jump. It is made clear that it is later, and after the game is over and everyone is asleep. Samantha is shown walking outside and getting in the pool. A dissolve makes a cool effect with the water and shows the scene of Samantha (Me) drowning. This fades to black, and then a short shot of the friendship bracelet in the water fades from the black. It then fades to black again, and the titles sequences fades in. 

Blog: Update

                         Blog: Update

Hello and Welcome back to my blog everyone!!!! This is a very special blog post as today I will be giving the LAST update on our film! I will be explaining how we finished, what we did, and any last minute changes we made in editing! I will also give an overview on our movie opening 'vibe'!!!

    First I want to talk about how we ended up finishing our project! While we had originally fixed the Premier Pro glitch, it started not-working again. So we decided to split up the editing and do it like that. Sofia put all of the clips together in order, did a split screen, and cut the clips to the right size. Then she trimmed it down to get the whole thing under the 2 minute time limit! (This took a lot of time and she did an AMAZING job!!!). Then when she was done with that she sent me the project file and I finished it up. I added the text in the title sequence, changed the color on every clip so that the lighting matched, and added some effects to smooth out and make each clip look better. I also added effects on the words by making them fade in and out throughout the title sequence. This took a lot of time as well, as I had to go through every clip separately and change a bunch of settings to make them all look cohesive in the 'spooky' vibe. Then Amaya and Aleena sent me the public-domain sounds they picked out and I just added them in where they wanted them! Then I sent it to everyone in the group, and changed little things until we all agreed on the final look of the video.

    One last minute change we made to our movie opening was we decided to get rid of the extensive "pointing" scenes. For example, Amaya/Maya stated "police open your eyes and point", and "Mafia open your eyes and point" and then "doctor open your eyes and point". Our original plan was to cut to the person pointing after each of these dialogue scenes. Once we put it together, we realized how repetitive it looked, and it took up wayyy too much time without much purpose. So we just kept the main one - "Mafia open your eyes and point" - and got rid of the other dialogue and insert shots.

    

    We decided to make the overall look of our film opening a 'spooky' and 'old school' vibe by making it look more orange. I made the film look old by changing the color curve and giving it a 'vintage' style. We did this because we all liked the look of the teenage-early 2000's style film opening/TV show! In the end I think this was a great choice and made our whole film opening fit better into our vision and I think that this style matches well with the plot and mystery/horror genre of our film.

Blog : Editing Problems

                         Blog: Editing Problems

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog!!! Today I will be talking about our 'last editing weekend' scheduling problems. 

Approaching the last weekend before the due date of our project, we have realized that we still have ALOT of editing to do. Since two of our members failed in downloading Premier Pro, it is up to me an Sofia to finish. Due to some of the editing software glitches, Sofia and I are still having occasional problems editing together. We then planned on her coming over on Friday, so we could try and finish up most of the editing. This would allow us comfortable time to finish and fix the clips.

Sadly, Sofia can not come over because of personal reasons. Sofia also can not edit on either Sunday or Monday, also due to personal reasons. We are trying now to get it downloaded on Amaya's an Aleena's computer. Unfortunately, Aleena's computer does not have space and Amaya is having more problems. Now our plan is to try and split the project, and then edit them together. We also have to fix some of the lighting issues on the clips.

Blog : Fixing Editing Problems

                        Blog: Fixing Editing Problems

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! Today I will be talking about how we fixed the problems with group editing.

As I spoke about in a previous blog, we were having some trouble with Premier Pro. It was glitching, so even though Sofia and I were on the same account, we could not see each others progress or edit on the same project file. This was a HUGE problem as it meant that only one person could edit. This made it super slow, and also put a huge weight on that one person (Sofia).

We tried closing the program, shutting it down, restarting, and everything you could think of. The program STILL would not work. So we decided to try and open another team project file just to see if it worked. I could now see the project, but not the sequence. Sofia copied and pasted it all from her previous file over to this new one, and thankfully this worked!!! The only issue was that some clips showed up as "error" due to the fact that I did not have those clips downloaded to my computer beforehand. Sofia then sent them to me through email (which took forever), and I had to download them separately (which took even longer). 

Finally, we were able to edit together on the same project file! This sped up the editing process tremendously, and now that this is settled, we are very confident that we will get it fully done very soon.

Blog: Editing Tricks

                          Blog: Editing Tricks

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my blog! Today I will be talking about where we are learning editing tricks!

What we want to do :

In our film opening we want to make the editing look interesting. For example we are doing an insert shot. We are also looking to make some scenes darker and more "vintage-polaroid" vibe. We also wanted to make the names "fade in and out".

How we have achieved this:

In order to do the insert shot, we used google to figure out how to go about it. I am so glad we did because this shot looks amazing done. To make the lighting in some of the scenes darker, we had to ask a friend who is good with editing on Premier Pro. To fade in and Fade the names out, we just spent some time searching through premier pro band playing with the effects. 

Thankfully, we were able to achieve adding these edits, because it truly added to the feel and professionalism look of the film opening.

Blog: Update

                         Blog: Update

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! Today I will be talking about our project status as of right now!

Title sequence:

Regarding the VISUAL part of the title sequence, we are done. We have all of the visuals edited how we like them, and we have all approved of it. We still need to pick and add a song, and we still need to pick a font for the names. We have decided where they will be going and that they will be slowly fading on  and out on each scene. The font is the last part. But as of the visuals, I am very happy about how it looks and I know my team mates are as well! For the 

Main film opening scenes:

Now, the main scenes. We have finished laying out the scenes on Premier Pro but we still need to finalize the complex editing. For some scenes we need to lower the exposure since the environment was brighter on one day of filming compared to the others. We also have to add some effects and transitions between cuts. Most of those scenes have diallage that we already recorded, therefore we aren't worried too much about that.

Blog : Inspirations

                                                 Blog: Inspirations

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! Today I will be talking about our inspirations!

First, I want to talk about our movie inspirations. The main idea of the cards and the idea of "fate" comes from the movie Tarot. We also got the idea of heavy use of symbolism from this movie, as Tarot is FILLED with creative symbolism and little 'hints'. This is why we decided on giving each character specific cards to represent specific things. This is also why we look a lot of time to add little details like colors and accessories per character.

                                                      

Our movie is also very different from Tarot though, as we do not have supernatural elements but rather a mentally unstable main character killer. 

Next I want to talk about our TV show inspirations. The main idea of an 'all-teen girls sleepover' came from the TV show, Pretty Little Liars. The overall vibe of the film opening also comes from this show. As I previously stated, we are taking a lot of sound inspiration from this show including the suspenseful-but-fun background music.

                                                    

Our film opening is different from Pretty Little Liars as in our movie opening we have more people at the sleep over. Also our movie opening sets the scene for a film about WHO killed her, while Pretty Little Liars centers on that AND finding her body and what happened.

Blog: Update

                                                         Blog : Update

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my blog! Today I will be giving an update on sound and the process we have been taking to pick sounds such as the music. 

It has taken us a LOT of time to find and pick songs/sound effects for our movie opening. Amaya and Aleena have been the people that are mainly in charge of the sound effects. This is because Sofia and I are doing most of the editing, but we are all still helping with every facet of this project. 

For the sound that we want to put in the background of the beginning sleepover scenes, we were thinking a "pretty little liars" vibe. This would add suspense and bring an 'early 2000's' atmosphere to the whole film. We are currently figuring out how to get this sound/effect without it being a copy-write issue. 

For the montage scene, we want to put "Every Breath You Take" instrumental. This would also set a "creepy", "vintage" vibe to the film as the song is older. Once again we are struggling with copy write issues, and are taking the proper precautions to make sure we do not use any sounds that we can not.

 For the rest of the film opening we will use public domain background sounds in order to add to the realism of the movie opening. We have not found the exact sound we want for the title sequence part, but it will probably just be something instrumental!

Blog : Wishlist

                     Blog: Wishlist

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my blog! Today I will be imagining that I had a multi-million dollar budget for my groups' movie opening! What would I have done differently with that money?

    Let's begin with the actors! With this money I would have payed for professionally trained actors (No offense to my wonderful friend actors). While we did do a good job acting, we obviously are not the best. To no fault of our own, we just have never gotten any professional training on how to actually act. Actors can make or break a film. With that added money I would have invested some in picking actors who perfectly fit the part, and could effortlessly play into the personalities of each individual character.

    Next, the costumes. Our costumes were very basic, as we just wore pj's that we could find in our homes. One thing we had talked about was going out and buying matching pjs to further show how close-knit our group was. Once we decided on our full cast and realized how many of us there were, we also realized how extremely expensive a pajama set would be for all of us. With the added money though, we would have definitely gotten these costume upgrades. An example of what we wanted for all of us is :

    To continue, the setting/location. I'm not sure we would have changed the setting. This is because the pool was perfect, and the color changing lights in the pool also worked in our favor. The inside had a fake fireplace which set ambiance and helped easily create the atmosphere of the film opening. 

    Finally, I want to talk about the lighting, sound, and editing. For the lighting we would probably have just gone ahead and bought a better quality one. For most of the shots we used a small effects one (from Short Cuts TV), which was great, but constantly kept dying or turning off mid scene for us. This caused us to have to retake ALOT of scenes, wasting more time. For the sound we had a really high quality boom mic, which was amazing. For the other sounds though, we probably would have gotten a foley artist to do it instead of having to try and find online, copywrite-free ones that will "work alright". 

Blog : Specific Camera Shots/Angles

                               Blog : Specific Camera Shots/Angles

Hello everyone, and welcome back to my blog! Today I will be analyzing some of the specific camera shots and angles we used in our project. I will be going over the ones we used the MOST throughout the whole filming process, and why we decided to use them.

The close up 

We used MANY closeups throughout the film opening. We have at least one closeup for almost every character, and more than one per main character. We used close ups for many of the individual dialogue scenes. We did this for a variety of reasons. One being that we wanted the audience to fully be able to see and 'get in the head' of the character. By being able to see the entire facial expression, it allows the audience to focus on just that in the moment. The other reason that we chose to do many close ups was to create a sense of horror, since many horror films include close ups to show each person is 'in it alone'. These all occur in the sleepover scenes.

The mid shot 

We used quite a few mid-shots in filming as well. Such as when Maddi (me) was walking outside, and when Maya (Amaya) paced around telling the story of how the people in MAFIA died - being the narrator in the game. We placed these in certain spots so that both the facial expressions, and most of the body language could be shown. 

The overhead angle

One of the dynamic camera angles we achieved was an overhead angle. This was difficult to do as it required a ladder and help from family to make it work. It is an overhead angle shot of Maya, (Amaya) dealing out the cards. Even though everyone is together, the overhead angle gives an eerie feeling of isolation while being surrounded. It adds dynamic and also adds to the eerie atmosphere.

The long shot

We included a few long shots of everyone sitting down and playing the game of MAFIA. This allowed us to show the overall setting and where everyone is sitting in relation to each other. It establishes the scene, scenery, and allows the audience to grasp a mental picture and understand more clearly.

Blog: Editing Post 2

                      Blog : Editing Post 2

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my blog! Today I will be giving a little update on how editing is going so far!

- amount of time spent editing

    As we finished all of our filming recently, we have not been able to edit certain parts until now. So far we have spent some good time editing the parts we can, but we do still have a lot to go! We are currently working on the actual title sequence visual part of the movie intro. Such as the burning letter, polaroid's, etc. This is where the actual names of the cast will fade in and out. 

- people involved in editing

    As Sofia and I have both taken, or are currently taking, a videography course, we are the ones who are starting the base for the editing. We are having a few problems connecting to the same project file, so that we can work on it together. Once we resolve these glitches, we will also add Amaya and Aleena onto the program so that they can help with some of the effects, sound, and music involved in the editing. This way we can see what's being made, and we can talk about what we want different or what we like. This also allows us all to pull our equal weight for the project so that it comes out as good as possible.

- a discussion of additional filming you may be doing/ may have done

    Once we looked through all of the film scenes that we recorded, we realized that we never had time to do a few scenes that we had previously planned. Due to the fact that the equipment is going back in a few days, and the deadline for this project is approaching quickly, we have decided as a group that we will just cut this scene. We are confident that once we work out the glitch in the system, we will be able to finish this movie opening quickly and to the best of our ability!

Blog: Future Plans

                     Blog :Future Plans

                         

Welcome back to my blog! Today I will be giving an update on our future plans to film!

Now, for our plans to finish our film. It has been EXTREMELY difficult to find a date that works for all of us. As this approaching deadline slowly creeps towards us, we have been forced to pick a school night. Originally we did not want this because we all have a lot of studying and homework to do, but it is necessary. We have decided on this Thursday, February the 6th. This is an early release day, so we have decided to meet up right after school to finally get all of the filming done. 

The equipment will be picked up on Tuesday, so we will have it for a week. This way - worst case scenario- we still have the equipment a little longer. We are determined to finish everything so we have ample time to edit and make changes where necessary. Once this is done, we can finally focus solely on editing and not stress about having to gather more clips.

Blog : Representation

                                      Blog: Representation

Hello! Welcome back to my blog, today I will talk about the representation shown in our film opening.

To begin, our characters are highly stereotypical - in many ways. 

From the accessories they wear, to their hairstyles and personalities. 

For example :

The quiet girl with the book is the "smart one"

The girl with the pony tail and no makeup is the "athletic tom-boy"

The girl with colorful clips and pigtails is the "artsy one"

The girl with the messy, un-styled hair is the "carefree one"

Our film being highly stereotypical helps give it an 'old-school' look and overall vibe. We did not begin our brainstorming with the purpose of making our story stereotypical. That being said, it is very easy to create character's using stereotypes. It makes the characters easily recognizable to the viewers and helps ring a bell in the mind of the audience. This is because so much of the media already portrays people heavily based on their stereotypes. 

While our characters aren't perfect, I also do not think they need changes. To start, we have already filmed almost our whole opening, so it is too late at this point to re-film everything. Also, I believe that our characters being stereotypical adds to the film. We do not believe in judging people based on their stereotypes.