Our obstacles and how they’re affecting our process

 

Welcome back to our short film adventure. Whilst in the smack middle of this process our group ran into a major obstacle that surely flipped our process upside down. This has to deal with our group member Morgan. She unfortunately has to go into a major back surgery very soon. This is incredibly important for her health and will take a toll on her for a little so of course this is going to switch up our group’s dynamic. Because after all, the group just isn’t the same without her. She will be in the hospital for almost a week and then will be home recovering but unable to work as she did before. But just like in the real word movie industry, set backs like this happen all the time. It is a good thing that we are all super close and are able to effectively communicate with each other to keep on progressing. Even though Morgan can not be as hands on as she would like right now she’s still just as much in this as ever. Jake, Avalon, and I consult with each other everyday on what to do and how to continue with our short. That is why we planned on doing all of our filming before her surgery. So now we have all of footage that we need as of right now. Then when editing time rolls around we can figure out which scenes work and which don’t. We may need to re film. When and if we do we will just have to work around Morgan’s situation. She is being so strong right now and we are all so proud of her and can’t wair til she’s better. With the help of each of us I know this is going to turn out to be the best short film ever! Morgan is just a phone call away. Plus, Avalon is always right there with her and can keep Jake and I updated as we work through this. 

Short filming continues!

 

Hello and welcome back! I've been having the best time working through the filming process for our short film. Its always a blast working on set with my amazing group members and together we always end up with a fantastic finished product. We all spent a good few hours working together to film a few days ago and got about half the scenes done, so now it was time to film the other half. So we all got back into costume and went to work. First I helped Jake set up the rooms we filmed in. I took out some modern decorations and threw blank white sheets over furniture to help make the rooms look more abandoned. Then I took out my phone to look at our script and see which scenes were left to film. Throughout the night I helped direct and set up each of the scenes.  Telling our helpers, Savanna and Kate, where, when, and how to film us actors. Along with where to shine the light. In the scenes that I was not acting in I helped film on our IPhone cameras. After each cut we got together to rewatch the clips and see what needed to be adjusted. We collaboratly decided what we liked and didn’t and went from there. I also helped to suggest what could be different than what we originally planned in our storyboard. I feel like our shots look very professional and could be taken as a serious short. We put in so much effort while filming and put on our best performance. I enjoyed this part of the process so much, it definitely tops as my favorite. I can not wait to begin editing and see it all come together. 

Research for Titles

 

Hello! As my group and I move further along in our movie making process there are some additional things we needed to think about. One of those being that, like our big project last year, we needed titles in our short. We all have some experience with using titles and some background information from our work done last year. The titles that will be integrated are our credits, what production, company, editors, music, actors, costume, and the last being the director. My media group makes up these credits. When editing time rolls around we will split it up depending on who did what.  Even though the titles are subtle they can have a huge effect and how the opening in perceived to the audience. Since our genre is horror we want our titles to be striking and an eerie feel to anticipate the viewers for what's about to come. This is very common especially in older horror films like ones in the image above. If we did a more simple or formal font on our titles it might seem like its for a different genre. Coloring of the fonts also plays a role. Last year for our horror two minute opener we used red a red and black font which we are considering using a again. There re so many different variations to choose from. However its important to think about where thee fonts that we want to use are going to be actually available for us to use. We might have to end up using two different software's to use our preferred title. My group and I have been discussing titles and which would best suit the type of short we are trying to make. We came to the conclusion that we would like to use a font similar to Jacmax Horror font or Sorrow Horror Font.

Short: First Day of Filming!

 

Hello! I am so excited to announce that we have officially started our filming process for our short movie Possessed. On December 5th my group members and I all gathered at Jake's house around 5 pm so we still had some daylight time to get in our first couple scenes that needed to be shot outside. Our two good friends Katelyn and Savanna also tagged along to help us out with whatever we needed. We forgot the original mirror prop we were going to used that fit our aesthetic so we needed to improvise. Jake had a pink circular mirror with a pink handle so we fixed it up. We took one of Jake's black socks and wrapped it around the handle but then we thought about how in our script we have markings on the mirror. So I took a scrap crumbled piece of white printer paper and wrote down symbols we thought to look like mystical markings that needed to be decoded. Then after that was situated we headed outside of Jake's house to film the opening scene. To help out with lightening we used the flash on the iPhone camera and we had Katelyn shine an additional flashlight on us. My group and I ran through our lines a bit and did our shots of us walking up to the "abandoned" house, discussing it, and walking through the door. We did the takes about 3 times each to ensure we got it just the way we wanted like the angle and to make sure there was nothing in the background that would throw off the mood like the neighbors xmas lights. Since all four group members was on camera we were all helping guide Savanna where to stand and shoot from, when to start and stop recording, etc. so that our vision was really brought to life. The next thing we did was rearrange and take out items in Jake's house to make it look more abandoned and also threw some white bed sheets over the furniture to add to the effect abandoned effect. Next I shot and directed the scene where Avalon finds the mirror with the spirit inside. We tried out multiple shots and angles that way when we film we can pick the one we like the best. Then since we had this area set up we decided to film all of the scenes that took place there. We ran through ad shot those multiple times as well. 

Running our social medias!

 

Hello! One new found part of our marketing campaign that my group and I have started is our social media accounts! Each of one of us took it upon ourselves to set up a different social media platform account and be in charge of it. These accounts would have some information about our upcoming movie in the bio, the creators of it, and also a profile picture to represent the film. I made a Twitter account. Avalon made the Instagram account. Jake made the YouTube channel. And Morgan made the FaceBook account. Utilizing these apps to get the word out about our film is such a smart and effective strategy that hundreds of thousands of real life producers do for free advertisement. It reaches so many different people of so many different backgrounds and age groups. It’s easy access and is a great chance to be interactive with those interested in the film. There, just like my blog, updates on the film can be posted. Not only did we set up our accounts to be successful but we also went and followed all of our fellow AICE Media Studies classmates short film social media accounts. I think it will be great to see through these accounts how our movie making process grows and get to also see the same from our classmates. And who knows running the social media campaigns now could be good practice if something were to happen in the future where we needed to do it for the real deal. We don’t have much of anything as of right now posted on these accounts. But it will not stay that way. We will be sure to post on those as much as we can and make it as legit as we can. I’m so excited to see how these accounts turn out and how much exposure they get! Woo hoooo!

Short: Why we haven’t started filming

 Hello! So, so far my media group and I have done tons and tons of planning for our upcoming short film Possessed. We’ve spent several weeks picking out and planning how we want to make this short, and now the next step would to be to execute those plans and actually film. Over the last 9 days we had off from school for Thanksgiving break. This would’ve been a great opportunity to get in some filming days but unfortunately we were unable to do so. This was because I went out of town to go see my family for Thanksgiving. In order to film this piece like we want all 4 group members need to be present so we did not film during this time. However we did not let this free time go to waste. Over video calls and text message we continued to discuss ideas for filming. We will be filming everything on our IPhone X’s since we do not have access to other cameras. Although I do think using our phones to film would be our best option so that we can easily alwuas have it with us to look back at. Also good for fast importation for editing later on. I definitely wish we could have started filming over break as do my other group mates. But we still have plenty of time to do so. We will be filming on 2 or 3 separate days to get in all of our shots and do each of them multiple times to ensure we get it just as we’d like. I’m super excited to begin this part of our journey. Filming days in our past projects have always been my favorite part. Getting into character and directing becomes so fun it doesn’t even feel like work. My group and I will be filming in the near future at our designated picked out locations and are very very excited! I just know it’s going to turn out amazing! 

Short: Picking our music

 Hello! As my media group and I progress through our short making journey there are some other elements we need to begin thinking about. One of these being, the music. The music included in a piece of film can drastically change up the feeling or mood that comes across to the viewer. The music can create a build up of suspense or lighten the mood or even create a sense of uneasiness. It can help formulate anything you want when used correctly. Since the short movie that we are making falls under the genre of horror we wanted to make sure when selecting the music we were to put in that it matched with the mood we wanted to make. My group and I via video call began to brainstorm some ideas. We collectively came to the decision to incorporate the song Rob Zombie in the beginning of our short in our intro. We feel as though this has the right vibe we are going for and would really set the tone for the next several minutes. The next thing that came to our minds was that we needed to ensure it was okay that we use this song for copyright reasons. The most simplest way to do so would to contact the artists/their people via email. We haven’t done so yet but we will be in the near future. It is important that we get the okay first that way we aren’t illegally using material that doesn’t belong to us. We haven’t selected all other background music that will be used, but we have some pretty good ideas of options. I think we will be looking for noncopyrighted creepy or spooky music found on YouTube that we can use. These can be used to build up to an important or striking scene in our short or create emphasis on an event. I believe that with the addition of this music is really going to make our movie great. When our editing days come along, having the perfect music is going to make it go from good to great. I cant wait to see how it all comes to together and my whole group and I are very excited to continue on this film making journey.