Sound issues and CCR instructions

Hi blog! I have been stressing out a lot because I have not been able to do any work this whole week. It was a very relaxing and fun week, but now the work is starting to catch up to me. I have just gotten back from my vacation over spring break and have finally regained cell service. I was finally able to communicate with my group members again about where we are in the project. The editing is almost finished, however, after we have started editing, we quickly learned that the sounds that we got from filming in the forest scene were not of great quality. We needed a way to fix this issue because we could not refilm all of the scenes to get the sounds, and we are very nervous that any sounds we insert into the films, such as panting, footsteps, or trees rustling, may not have the exact timing and pacing as the scenes we have filmed. Lauren was able to record herself running and we are going to insert those sounds into the film, however, the timing is not perfect. I am hoping that after we find royalty free music and add in the music, as well as add in the voiceover, the sounds will blend together. Below is the script that Lauren has recorded for the voiceover for the film.

I thought the most productive thing I can do today before school starts back up is to review what I have to do for the CCR. I am very confused about the whole concept of the CCR and what I have to do. I am also confused about how I have to make the CCR. I am thinking that I will make a screencast or voiceover with a prezi or powerpoint where I discuss the decisions we made about our film. I am going to talk with my classmates and ask how they plan on creating their CCR. This is going to be a very hectic week. I have multiple tests and quizzes and I wish we had more time to complete this project, especially the individual portions such as the CCR and reflection posts.

Spring break editing

Thankfully, after a long and hard 3rd quarter, spring break is finally here!!! Although spring break technically started a couple days ago, I leave for vacation early tomorrow morning. Lauren has already left for her vacation, and Callie leaves Wednesday. I am very very excited to go on vacation, however, this week will not be very productive for our project. I will be on out of the country and will not come back until late Sunday night. I won't have any service for the 5 days so I will be unable to work on the project. This is a very major roadblock to our film because Lauren has been away for days and has been enjoying her vacation so she not been communicating with Callie and I about the project. She comes back from her vacation around the same time that Callie and I both leave for our vacations so we won't have any time to communicate with Lauren about what is left to do for the project. Thankfully, most of the project is already edited, and we are very ahead of our other classmates. We were able to stay on track with our original schedule, which allows us to enjoy our spring break and not have to worry about falling behind with the project.

After a long discussion through text messages, our group has decided to take our classmates' advice and go against our original outline for our film. We are going to shuffle the two original parts of the film and intertwine the two scenes to make it look more like a film opening than a trailer. The editing process has been difficult so far because we organized all of the scenes on Callie's laptop according to the original outline, so now we have to dig for the scenes and be creative on how we want to shuffle the scenes. We think the best method is trial and error and playing it by ear, rather than rewrite a new outline. We are going to see which order of the clips flows the best and the continue from there. Our goal is to not have to refilm any of the scenes because we have already returned the rented equipment and are unsure if we can get the same camera, and different cameras may lead to inconsistencies within our film. We have edited a good portion of our film using this technique of trial and error, so we are ahead of most of our classmates, which is very relieving because Callie and I will be unable to work on the project for the remainder of spring break, and Lauren is unable to get the footage and editing software off of Callie's computer.

Peer Review pt 2

Hi blog!! This is the last class meeting before spring break, where Lauren, Callie and I will all be away on vacation and unable to really focus on our film. Today in class we had another peer review session, and since the last session was very useful, I was excited to get some input from our classmates after we had already filmed our scenes. Lauren wasn't in class today, but Callie and I tried to reach out to as many of our classmates as we could to get some great feedback.

First, we watched some footage from some of our classmates' films and looked at their blogs to see their progress, and it was very reassuring to know that we were right on track with many of the other groups in our class. We then shared our own ideas with our classmates. We went through our blog posts and showed them our progress, and then showed some raw footage that we filmed. Since the footage was unedited, we had to explain the storyline in depth to our classmates. We were told by one of our classmates that the scenes we shot were good; however, our storyline for our film opening had too much action in it and seemed more like a trailer than a film opening. He suggested maybe shuffling the scenes from part one and part two to make it look more like an opening. Callie thinks this is a good idea, but I still like the original storyline, and maybe instead just having the title sequence play through the second part to make it seem more like an opening, rather than a trailer. We both decided that we would have to talk to Lauren about what she thought, as well. When we get back from spring break we are all going to have a group talk about how we think we should edit the film.

Reviewing scenes in class

Today in class we reviewed the scenes that we filmed from day 2 and day 3. All of the scenes looked really good and really captured our vision for the film opening! I’m really happy with the way they all cane out and we had surplus shots, so we are able to pick the best ones when we start to edit. Speaking of editing, we have researched a bunch of different editing softwares and we were between using iMovie and Wondershare filmora9. There were pros and cons to both softwares. Imovie was free to use, however we found it to be very limiting in the techniques we were hoping to use. Wondershare filmora9 was more advanced and allowed us more freedom with editing, however it was not free to use. In the end we decided to go with the latter and split the cost of the editing software. We can’t wait to start editing and see our film come to life!!

Filming day 3

Hi blog! Today for the final day of filming, Lauren, Callie, and I all met at Callie's house to create and film scenes with the shrine. I went to the local Walgreens and picked up about 20 pictures that we took of Christain. Some of the pictures we took while filming, others we took of him around our school throughout the week, and others we screenshotted from him Instagram. I also bought heart-shaped sticky notes and a red sharpie so we could write little notes around the pictures of the shrine, such as his daily schedule, or little love notes. It took us about an hour to cut the pictures, tape them up, and write the little notes. After we finished making the shrine, we filmed close-ups of it, as well as Lauren with the shrine. Overall, I am really happy with the way it turned out and can't wait to see the footage of it and start editing!

The finished shrine of Christian

Filming day 2

Last Friday, after school, our group met to film parts of the second half of our project. Lauren, Callie, Christain, and I met at Callie's house to film some of the scenes. We shot 3 major scenes. First, we shot some scenes at the clubhouse. We wanted to film Christain playing basketball, however, it looked strange in the shots that we had to have him playing alone, so we recruited Callie's younger brother, Cole, to play basketball with Christain in the scene. We showed Lauren taking pictures of Christain and Cole from behind a tree close to the basketball court. We made sure to get many diverse shots, such as close-ups, long shots, mid shots, high angle shots, and low angle shots. We did not want to have to worry later that we did not have the right shots and have to refilm the scenes. Next, we went to the game room to film some scenes of Christain playing pool. There was a door to the game room that Lauren was able to take pictures of him from. Although this did not exactly fit the vision we had for the scene, we are hoping that we can edit it to make it seem smoother. Lastly, we filmed outside Callie's house, where we had scenes of Christain skateboarding by Callie's house, and showed scenes from the window where Lauren was taking pictures. Stay tuned for day 3 of filming!

Filming day 1

Hi, blog! Yesterday was a very big day for our project. Right after school, Callie picked up equipment from BECON TV to rent for the duration of filming. We have rented out equipment from them before and it made our films look very professional. Callie picked up a lighting set for the forest scene and a professional video camera. The last time we rented equipment they sent us a different video camera, so we are going to have to play around with this one to figure out how to use it. Later that night, Sebastian texted us saying that he was available to film, so we immediately began to gather materials. We already had most of the materials for day 1 of filming at home, the only thing left that we needed to acquire was a plain white dress. The main issue was that we were going to get the dress very dirty and cut it up in some parts to look distressed, so we needed to find an inexpensive white dress. I thought the best solution was to go to our local craft store and buy an extra large white T-shirt, as opposed to a real dress. Since Lauren is short, the XL T-shirt will have the same effect as a white dress. With her makeup and the XL T-shirt, she really captured the effect we were going for of a deranged teenage psycho killer.

It was great that we were able to stay exactly on time with our schedule; however, my fever had not yet gone away. I had hoped that I would be able to attend all 3 days of filming, but I knew it would be more beneficial for the whole group to start filming rather than postponing to a later date. I was having a lot of FOMO (fear of missing out) and I was texting Lauren and Callie throughout the entire filming process, so I was still able to share some of my opinions. Today I was finally starting to feel a little bit better, so I met up with my group after school and they shared the footage with me. We were all very nervous that the shots filmed in the forest at night would be too dark, but with the lighting that we rented, there was still the dimness that we were hoping to achieve, but enough light to see Lauren burying the body. There was a large variety of angles that showed diversity among the clips. We organized all of the clips on Callie's computer so that when it comes time to edit, we will be able to find the clips more easily. We are aiming to film more this weekend, and since I am feeling a little bit better, I am hoping I will be able to come to assist Callie with the filming.  Meanwhile, I am so happy with the way the first day of filming turned out! Lauren and Callie made a vlog for the first day of filming, so I was still able to have a recap of the first day of filming.

Materials

Hi, blog! We decided to split the filming process into 3 days. The first day would include the entire first part of the film, the forest scene, and we would film at Regional Park. The second day would be the scenes with Lauren stalking Christian, both at Callie's house and her neighborhood clubhouse. On the third day, we would film all the scenes including the shrine that we are going to build in Callie's house. This schedule would work best for us because Sebastian and Christian can each only film one day, so this would only require them to each come one day. We have not decided the exact days we are going to film, but we are going to work mostly off of Sebastian and Christian's schedules and adjust our own personal schedules accordingly. As I mentioned in the last post, I am not feeling well and have been out of school sick, so I am hoping that my fever will go down and I can come to film when Sebastian or Christian give us the dates and times that work for them.

Our next step in preparing for our days of filming was to make a list of all the materials we needed to gather. Callie has volunteered to pick up equipment that we can rent out to make our project more professional. The other materials we decided we need are...

Day 1:
-shovel
-dirt from home depot
-missing poster
-white dress
-mascara
-red lipstick

Day 2:
-photo camera
-skateboard
-basketball
-pool stick

Day 3:
-red sharpie
-heart sticky notes
-photos of Christian

Shot Lists

Since we have sorted out details of filming locations and casting, our next step was to create a concrete list of the exact shots we would need to film, and split it into 3 days of filming. With the end of our school's 3rd quarter approaching, Callie, Lauren, and I have all been very busy with our school and personal lives. I also haven't been feeling well this past couple of days and have been in and out of school with a fever. I hope that I can get better before we start filming since we are only going to be able to find a few days to film that will work for our (as well as Christain and Sebastian's) busy schedules. We think that making a shot list will be very beneficial for planning out our days of filming because we do not want the limited filming time that we have available to go to waste. Also, we are planning on renting out equipment from BECON TV and so we will need to adjust our filming schedule around when the equipment is available to rent. Although the shot list is just an outline and is subject to change while we are actually filming, we are hoping not to stray too far from it. 

Part one:

-Establishing shot of the forest

--Sound of running

-Close up of feet running

--Sound of heart pounding

-Close up of digging

-Dirt pile in forest

-Close up of face

--Sound of heavy breathing

-Christian completely buried

-Lauren standing over the body

-Close up of Lauren with the missing poster

--Voiceover: "It shouldn't have ended this way"

-Lauren ripping the poster

Part two:

-Establishing shot of house (??)

--Upbeat music

-Alarm on phone for specific time

-Close up of Lauren grabbing the camera

-Taking pictures from the bedroom window of Christain skateboarding outside the house 

-Taping picture on the wall near other picture

-Pans to another picture on the wall of him playing basketball/pool

-Graphic match to Christain playing basketball/pool

-Close up of Lauren behind a tree taking pictures of him

-Close up of other pictures of the shrine and Lauren drawing hearts on the pictures and crossing out other girls' faces in the pictures

-zoom out to reveal full shrine

Important Decisions (switching locations, casting, etc)

 

Christian Aniello
as Christain

Lauren Nau
as Lauren

Sebastian Calderon
as dead Christian

Hi blog!! We have (finally!!) cast the roles of the girl and boy in our film!! We have been reaching out to many different people who would fit the roles of the girl and boy trying to see who would be willing to participate in our film. Many of our friends and classmates were very busy and did not know if they could spend a few days filming. We decided that it would be best for Lauren to play the girl in our film since that was the main role and she already knew the basis of the film. For the boy part, we picked our friend Christian. The main issue was that Christain could not film multiple days, so we decided to get creative. We had our other friend, Sebastian, play the part of Christain in the first half (where he was dead) because his face would not be shown in the shots. We decided that if we used unique camera shots, angles, and composition, the audience will never know that we used a body double for the dead Christain (our very own behind-the-scenes Hollywood secret!)

Since my last post, we were discussing with a friend about our project and they gave us a great suggestion of a fourth park that we should consider--regional park. It is a closer distance, open 24 hours a day, and has a great forest-like effect. Also, the park is busy during the day but nearly empty at night. We think that this location is most ideal for filming our forest scene and really checks off every item on our list. We have also decided that we are going to use Callie's house and her neighborhood clubhouse to film the second half of the film opening. We are going to use her room because it has a large open wall where we can build the shrine, and a window so it can show Christain skateboarding by, and Lauren taking pictures of him from her window. At the neighborhood clubhouse, there is a basketball court surrounded by lots of trees. We are hoping to film Lauren stalking Christain playing basketball behind a tree, taking photos of him. Also, there is a video game/pool room with an outside connection, so we are going to try to incorporate that room into the film, as well.


Now that we have our cast and final locations for our film, we are really starting to see our story come to life!! I can't wait to start filming and see it all come together!!

Finding a location--forest scene

Today Callie, Lauren, and I went on a hunt to find a place to film for our forest scene. We decided to check out three nearby locations: Vista View Park, Everglades Holiday Park, and Markham Park. Each location had some pros and cons to it.

For our scene, the most ideal situation would be a park that was large, open, and woodsy with lots of trees but had a secluded section where we could film without being disturbed or worrying about other people getting in the background of our shot. Also, we would ideally be filming at night so we would need a park that is open late, or we will have to try to figure out editing techniques to make the scene darker. First, we evaluated Vista View Park. The park is a big hill, which did not completely fit the vision we had for the forest scene. The park was very busy and there weren't many areas that were secluded enough for us to film. Also, the park closes at 7:30 pm every night. We could not find any pros for this location and immediately eliminated it from our list of considerations. Next, we went to Markah Park. This park also closes at 7:30 pm every night, but it gave the right effect we were hoping to achieve. The park is very large and there are numerous trails into the forest area that we could use for filming. The last place we considered was Everglades Holiday Park. This park officially closes at 5 pm; however, there are surrounding grassy areas that we could use to film, but similar to vista view park, it didn't quite fit the image we wanted for our scene. In the end, we have chosen to go with Markham Park because it captures the essence of a secluded forest. I attached an image below of one of Markham Park's trails that we can use to film our scene in. We will have to be creative with the lighting and editing techniques to make the forest appear to be darker, but we think that this option is truly the best and will make our scene great!!

Peer Review

Today in class, we were having a peer review day. I was excited to hear what other people in my class thought of our ideas, but I was a little worried because we could not work on finishing our storyboard and that we would fall behind schedule. I was also very nervous my classmates would find flaws that would highly set us back and make us reevaluate our plot. Callie, Lauren, and I were divided into different groups so we could all share our plots with our classmates. I was with 3 other classmates. It was very interesting to hear all of their film opening ideas, and I felt relieved after they all said that they really liked our film opening idea. It was also very helpful to hear their feedback on how we should improve our plot.

One of my classmates shared that they think it would be beneficial to have many short, rapid scenes in the first part to convey the essence of the character. I completely agree with this piece of feedback and think it will be good to incorporate into the scene. Another idea I got from another classmate in the group was to really emphasize a deteriorating mental state of the character in the first part, to show that she has an evil, psychotic side to her. He also suggested adding subtle clues to her craziness within the second part, such as having a picture of the boy hanging up in her room. The last member in our peer review group considered our current storyboard and thought that we should maybe switch the order of the parts of the scene, and show the body being buried (box 4 of the storyboard) before the girl is frantically running through the woods (box 3 of the storyboard) to add suspense to the situation.

Lastly, once we all shared the plots of our films and gave feedback, we looked at each other's blog posts and made sure that everything was organized, user-friendly, and easy to follow. Although we weren't able to stay on schedule and finish the storyboard in class, this activity was very helpful and we received great feedback that can help us with our film opening.

Storyboard

Hi blog! Yesterday, after our team finalized the plot, we were able to begin the storyboard. Once we created a structure and finalized our plot, it was fairly easy to separate the scene into parts that we created in the storyboard. It was also very helpful to visualize the different shots of the storyboard. I included the paper version of the storyboard below (and please forgive me for the drawings as I am not the best artist) which includes descriptions for each part of the scene, as well as the images. 

Descriptions of each box: 

-The first box shows an establishing shot of the forest. The scene will have dark lighting and will take place at night or at dawn to capture this effect. 

-The second box a close up of the girl dragging a lifeless body through the forest, but will only show the feet of the victim and the hands of the girl. No faces will be shown yet.

-The third box shows the frantic nature of the situation. Multiple clips with quick cuts will show the girl running through the forest. There will be sounds of leaves crunching and heavy breathing.

-The fourth box shows the body being buried in the forest. We will most likely alternate between high and low angles to get both a point of view and aerial shots.

-The fifth box shows a close up of the girl and shows her messy hair and makeup. She will look scared and tired and represent a psychotic emotion.

-The last box will show a missing poster of a teenage boy, and the audience will be able to infer that the boy in the missing poster is who was killed. This is when the scene will cut to the flashback (and part 2 of our scene) that sets up the rest of the film. 

Finalizing our plot

Hi blog! After a long time of not being able to meet in person, our team finally had another team meeting in class today where we were able to finalize details about the plot of our film. We wanted to jump right into the storyboard and draw out our thoughts for the film, but we thought it would be beneficial to plan out a skeleton structure for the different types of scenes we wanted to incorporate into our film opening. We divided our film into two halves: the first half would be the present day, and the second half would be a flashback. The first half would show the outcome of the film, and the second half would effectively set up the rest of the film (all within a flashback).

Part one:
This scene would take place in a forest. There would be all diegetic sounds, including rustling trees, and heavy breathing. A young girl would be shown dragging a body through the woods and running frantically. She would be looking very distressed and have makeup running, dirty clothes, and terrified emotions. She would bury the body in the forest and run away. Finally, there would be a close up of a missing poster of a teenage boy (the boy who she previously killed and buried). There would be no dialogue, but towards the end of the clip, a voiceover of the girl would say something along the lines of "So how did we end up here..."

Part two:
This section would be a complete contrast from the present day situation. There will be upbeat music, bright clothing, and a happy atmosphere. The title sequence will be shown throughout this section, including the important actors, directors, etc. The scene will begin with a graphic match of the picture in the missing poster to the same picture in the girl's room (possibly him calling her on her phone and the picture coming up on her screen). This scene will include dialogue of the girl talking to a friend (or maybe her mother??) about how she is excited to be meeting up with a boy who she had a crush on for a long time, aka the boy who she later kills. The scene will most likely end with her about to leave to meet up with the boy.

Staying consistent with the schedule I created for our team in the previous post, next class we will create the storyboards for each part of the film opening. It is still quite difficult for us to visualize our scenes coming together, so creating the storyboard will help us see our ideas come to life prior to filming. Stay tuned!!

Filming schedule

Hi blog! Since we have not had a team meeting in a couple of days, I thought it would be beneficial to create a schedule for filming to help us organize our time better. The schedule includes each day that we are in our class and what we will be doing with our time in class. Since all of our filming has to be done in locations outside of school, we cannot rely on class time to film and must instead utilize our class time to develop other parts of the project. The most efficient use of our time in our class prior to filming is to plan out the days of filming so that we don't waste our time during the filming days trying to figure out what to do since we have very limited days that we can actually film and the time is very valuable. This schedule is very tentative and will most likely change as we go through the month. We all have very busy schedules and we will most likely have to alter this calendar to accommodate them. Nevertheless, it is still very valuable to have because it will act as a guide and help us stay on track as we work through the project.

Bumps in the road!

Today my group experienced a major bump in the road. I had an important doctor's appointment and could not attend class. My other group members also were unable to attend class for personal reasons. We felt that we were running behind, but thankfully we are all good friends aside from class and were able to communicate ideas through the phone. We decided that we really liked the idea of building suspense in our film and we are almost certain we are going to stick with the idea discussed in the previous post, where a noticeable dirty girl is running away from burying a body in the forest/woodsy location. Through group messaging, our team discussed some key mise-en-scene features we wanted to include in our scene.

We decided that the scene will include some sort of flashback to provide context as to what led to this drastic event of a teenage girl burying a body. I suggested that maybe we show her getting ready for a date with a boy and have a voiceover question "so how did we end up here?" This will create an element of suspense because even though the audience knows something will go terribly wrong, they will be eager to know what led to the morbidity of her committing murder.

We want there to be a large contrast from the girl and her surroundings. We want to film the scene at night and have very dark lighting and shadows in a forest-like setting. To create a contrast, we want the girl to be wearing a white dress covered in dirt stains. Since white is a color typically associated with innocence, this will represent how this event has "stained her innocence" and will show aspects of irony. This message will also be conveyed through her heavy makeup that will be ruined, such as heavy mascara that is running down her face, and bright red lipstick that will be smeared all over her face. I included images below that show the image we are striving for in our scene.