Editing blog: Putting everything together

    In this blog, I am going to tell you how I started editing my final AICE Media Studies project. Since the end of the year is creeping up on us the stakes of passing this class are getting higher. Yesterday the 26th, we started editing our final project: Seized. Since we got everything filmed last week we were completely set to edit our film. However, we had to finish editing sooner than we expected. At first, we thought we had about two-three more weeks to complete our project, but we actually have about a week left to. The reason why we have such little time to complete our project is because of an assignment that we have due next week; the Peer review. The Peer Review is other groups grading and giving feedback on another group's project. To be able to review and get reviewed we need to turn something in. Without turning something in for someone to peer review, we could have our grade drop greatly. With that being said, we needed to get a lot done with editing yesterday.
     When we started editing we had to do a lot. I had to pick all the scenes with Paige to put in the film and Zeke and Roscoe had to arrange them in order. This was time-consuming because we had over 50 different shots in total and we had to skim through each one to see what was right. In the middle of this, we had a problem, at first, we thought we had too little shots because the filming process was very short. However, in the end, we had too many shots. We had about 3 minutes, which was over time we should've had. We ended up cutting a lot of scenes to get in our time frame. After that Paige and I helped Roscoe and Zeke arrange the scenes and we finally finished editing. Although we finished everything, we didn't think that our project currently matches our potential, so this upcoming weekend we plan to reshoot some shots to finish this film perfectly. 

Filming blog: Starting to Film

           In this blog, I am going to tell you how my first day of filming went. We filmed on Saturday the 22nd. Like I said in the last blog, we filmed at Paige's house. Right when I got to Paige's we started filming. The first thing we did was filming Zeke walking to the end of the street. At first I was the person who held the storyboard and told everyone what to do. But later on, I was the person who was filming. I acted as the "director" of the movie because I was helping everyone to film the movie. Time to time while filming the walking scenes we had to re-shoot some scenes because some times we messed up. After we finished up the walking scenes, It was my turn to be in the scenes.
           When I finished filming the last scene without me in it, we went and got Zeke's dad who was waiting with the truck. The first scene we filmed with the truck was with his dad driving behind the wheel and I had to film his arms on the steering wheel. Then we did some tracking shots, handheld shots, and pans. After that we had to film the kidnapping scene. I gave Paige the camera, we got the bat and Roscoe and I got in the car. We had to redo the kidnapping scene only once, which was really good for us because we had more time to film the interrogation scene. All I did was fake hit Zeke with the prop bat and threw him in back of the truck. After that we were done filming with the truck and we did the interrogation scene. At first, the room we were in was very bright and we needed a dark room, so we hung up curtains over the window and that problem was solved. However we re shot this scene many times. Me and Roscoe did not know how to tie a rope so we kept on having to redo the scene because we kept messing up. Eventually we tied Zeke up and we finished filming the interrogation scene and we finished for the day.

Filming blog: Why we didn't film

   In this blog, I am going to explain why I wasn't able to film. In the past week, I was in Boston, Massachusets with one of my media studies partners, Zeke. I was there because I had a very important debate tournament. The debate tournament was at Havard University and it was on a universal basic income. I stayed in Boston from 2/13 - 2/18 so there was no way I could film that weekend. I did have the storyboard blog due on the 13th, and I ended up finishing it when I was in the hotel. It was pretty much a rough draft of how our film will end up when we finishing filming and editing. It included all the camera angles, titles, and scenes. When I got back, our group decided that we will start filming this weekend.
    The reason why our group is going to start filming now is that we have so much more to do. We also want to finish filming early so we can perfect our film. It's also best for me too because I know the most about editing so filming early can allow me to have more time to improve the quality of our movie. Another thing that I think will help his movie become perfect is the parents. They have many resources that will help with lighting and they will be providing us with the vehicles. Without them, we wouldn't be able to even make this movie. I am very thankful for them. We will also still be filming at Paige's because we all feel like its the safest thing for us. I also like filming there because her house is close to mine and that's very convenient for me and my parents. I also feel like the filming process will be easy because we have all the equipment we need. We got a tripod, a camera, and multiple people who are willing to help film for us.

 Me and Zeke in Boston

Planning blog: Storyboard

Moving forward to this step in our experience of making a film, it was time for us as a group to come together and really visualize the entirety of it and everything that will be included. This story board that we've made has come together with all of us putting in work. We all had the same vision at the beginning when deciding on this topic, but now that we needed to think of the extremes and every detail put into it, it was much harder for us to agree. After many disagreements, we finally made a story board that we can all agree is perfect and high grade work. In this story board, we've drawn the exact layout of the film and how it's going to go down in terms of looks. The descriptions under each picture tell us the more extreme details including whats going on in the scene, camera angles, camera movements, and what titles will go where. The drawing and descriptions were not perfect, but they're more than enough to give us a sort of guideline when we actually start to film. We plan to follow the storyboard exactly as written but if it doesn't turn out that way, we will make a few adjustments. Being that this is only the blueprint of the film, it's okay for us to stray away a little if we have to or if we have a better idea. We are now just a few days away from picking up a camera and starting our first scenes to this project.

Planning blog: Titles design

Today, our group finished working on how the titles will be. We decided again to use google slides to create our presentation. It has benefited us in many ways because of its various capabilities. We decided on our titles by watching many titles on artofthetitle.com and seeing how they work. This helped a lot because it gave us a rough draft of how ours is supposed to look. While working on how the titles would look we came across a problem. The problem was whether we should just randomly put the titles on the screen or let them fade on when something happens. Paige and Roscoe thought the random idea was better because it would be easier to do, but Zeke and I thought that the other way was more visually appealing and fit the genre more. Eventually, we decided on putting the titles on the screen as something happens because it would fit the thriller theme we were looking for more. Besides that, we feel like the titles will come out great and we are glad we came to an agreement.

Planning blog: Location, Participants, Health and Schedule

Today, our group completed our schedule and decided on our locations, participants and health and safety plan. We used a google slides presentation because we believe it is the best way to put all of these important things together. Google slides are a good way to put together many different elements of our film and to add photos. We decided on our locations based on proximity and environment. There was an issue amongst our group about where to film. The issue arose because the group was divided as to whether a more populated area was better or worse. In the end, our group came to the conclusion that a less populated area was better and if necessary we will get extras. We had no disagreements about the participants because we have enough with just us and can use any more volunteers that wish to participate. Our safety and health plan was also easy to create because we all agree that safety is our top priority. Overall we have completed our schedule and decided on other important details to make our film the best possible.

Planning Blog: Shooting Script

Today we finally got to write our shooting script, which is one of the most important parts of the planning stage.  We finally got to flesh out our ideas for our movie and really figure out what's going to happen in each scene.  Even though we were excited on the idea side, it was hard to fit every single idea in and what direction should we take some scenes in. We all had some different takes on what the story should be and how it was presented. Some of us wanted an interrogation scene, which is at the end of the shooting script to be at the beginning, while others didn't want that at all. As a group we decided on our final shooting script, not as one of our group members' ideas, we decided to make a compromise between all of us. We think that all of the ideas that we implemented work smoothly and that balance each other out. The plot that we created, is very interesting to all of us and is pretty good. We have a lot of intriguing details that we would like to add to this shooting script but were on a time limit. All in all, we all think that we made a good shooting script.

Planning blog: Sound Scripts

In this blog, we'll be going over what we will actually say as actors in this film. There won't be a lot of dialogue because the only time the main character reacts with people is when he is hit upside his head and thrown into the back of the car. There will be however some dialogue between the antagonists of the film before they plan to execute their task of taking the boy. We plan on having these kidnappers communicate through phone calls to their colleagues before the next scene takes place. Also in the vehicle, we are using there will be some short speaking here and there. In this blog, we will be including the short google slide show of what exactly will be said. In each slide, we have a new time someone speaks either the main character or the kidnappers. The speech will be short and not have much elaboration at all. It will also be specified whether the conversation is in person or through a cell phone. When we start to film, we plan on following this script to the exact so the last-minute changes aren't something we need to necessarily worry about. If forever reason we are forced to make a slight change to the dialogue, we will do so. This dialogue should be one of the last pieces towards starting the filming of this clip.