My CCR Video

CCR Script

Hi, my name is Katelyn wagner, and you’re about to watch my CCR for the title sequence of our thriller film “Lucid Elucidations.” I took on the role of Cinematographer my group, which consisted of my group members Bianca Raby (production designer), Pierce Thomas (diretor) and Ben Isaacs (editor). During the production phase of our project, we mainly followed typical thriller genre conventions due to the fact that we wanted to make our film as creepy as possible without stretching too far from the basics of thriller. For our setting, we filmed in a mock hospital on our school camps. Hospitals have been successful settings for thriller movies in the past, such as the critically acclaimed 2017 thriller film “Get Out” which contained a hospital scene towards the end of the movie. Hospitals, which are directly associated with death and despair, gave our film the instant spooky vibe we were aiming for. When filming, I found it best to obtain a lot of shots from behind our actor, Robert. Doing so makes the audience feel as if someone is watching and following him as the title sequence goes on, which is later proven to be true towards the end of the title sequence when we can see an on-screen antagonist/shadow figure attack Robert. Another common camera shot often used in thriller films are over the shoulder shots, which I filmed numerous times during production. Over the shoulder shots are very effective for building tension and fear, because they put the audience directly in the action of the characters on screen. It makes them feel as if they are experiencing the same fearful events our character is, which is the feeling I want the audience to be exposed to when watching my film. During the editing stage, we added on a blue filter to our clips, due to the fact that the lighting at school had previously been too warm to give off the suspenseful and eerie vibe that we were aiming for. The blue tone reduces the happiness of the scene and makes the character much more vulnerable to scary events, such as the attack from the shadow figure. The pacing and rhythm of our film remained roughly the same throughout the title sequence. In the beginning and middle, it felt slow and steady so as to tell the audience our character is exploring his surroundings and getting used to them. Towards the end, however, the pacing suddenly speeds up once Robert is attacked by the shadow figure. After he dropped his computer, Ben used a flicker effect to dramatize the events happening on screen. This allowed the speed of events to feel faster, which is how we wanted to convey to the audience that our character was suddenly in a state of panic. This, simultaneously, evokes panic in the viewers as well. We also used a combination of musical stings during climatic parts of the title sequence, including when the dummy was reveled behind the curtain, and after the attack of the shadow figure. Musical stings are especially important in thriller films because they dramatise important moments in the film, making the scary parts louder and more aggressive for viewers, thus creating more fear. In terms of social group and representation, our film challenged typical modes of representation in thriller films. Our actor, who is a male, was portrayed as the victim, while a mysterious female shadow figure was the aggressor and antagonist. This completely switches up typical representations of gender, as females are almost always portrayed as easy targets and victims in thriller, while men are the stronger antagonists, including examples of movies such as The Boy (2016) and Split (2016). Along with that, Robert, who is African-American, was casted as the lead role in our thriller film. This is a very uncommon thing to be seen in the thriller genre, as white males or females typically take the lead in thriller, but we chose to challenge that normality.









Our film will be a low-budget indie film produced by the independent production company BlumHouse productions. BlumHouse specializes in making thriller films on low budgets, such as Truth or Dare, which was released in 2018 with a low budget of 3.5 million. This will work in our favor as we are high school students and won’t be able to accumulate a high budget for the film. As with most indie films, Lucid Elucidations will first be released at film festivals such as Sundance to gain an audience and promote its popularity. If things go well at the film festival, we hope that it will gain enough attention to be picked up for a wide theatrical release, which could help us make a large profit if the customers like our product. We could create our own teaser trailers before theatrical release, considering we might not have enough money to pay another company to do it for us. By uploading these trailers onto popular social media sites such as Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, we will be able to reach out to our target audience. This group consists of young women aged 18-24 years old, because 57% of young females prefer to watch thriller movies versus the lower 43% of young males who do. This younger audience will be easy to reach out to on social media platforms. Along with that, a younger audience is more likely than older generations to enjoy watching a film that consists of twists and suspense, making it easy for our target audience to want to watch our film.









Before starting this project, the closest thing to a camera that I had ever truly used was the one built into my iPhone. I had owned a Canon Rebel T3i for a few years prior to the creation of this film, but I had never actually taken a picture on it, much less understand how to work it in general. After deciding I wanted to be cinematographer, I had dedicated time into learning how to film on my Canon through sources such as YouTube and Google. Now that post production is over, I can proudly say I learned how to use many of the functions on the Canon. I started with the basics of learning how to actually record a video, and advanced all the way to controlling exposure and aperture manually and even learning how to record a rack focus. I also learned a lot about the importance of limiting the amount of times a video file is transferred, due to the risk of its resolution or quality being substantially lowered. This is why we mainly kept all 132 video clips saved in folders on my computer, and would transfer most files via flash drive, to help maintain video quality. Before starting this project, I would watch movies in theatres without having any idea of how much work went into the movie making process. Though I don’t want to call any stage of the film-making process “easy”, I will say I found pre-production to be the least difficult. The production stage required lots of dedication to acquire all of the shots necessary and making sure we obtained things such as continuity since we had to shoot over multiple days.I learned that the production stage is much more difficult than it seems, because factors such as creating the right lighting and filming on multiple cameras at once to get various angles is a hard task to achieve. These were many important elements to the production stage that I never knew existed before I began this project. Along with that, I had never realized how vital post production, or editing, was. Without editing, we would have never been able to arrange the shots in the correct order, add color corrections or even add our music, to name a few. Editing is the stage in the process where emotions are created for the audience to experience, which is something that the pre-production & production stages cannot achieve alone. Editing also proved to be the most time-consuming stage, which came to a surprise as it does not seem that difficult from an outside viewpoint. However, editing is the stage that takes every piece of the film and makes it one solid masterpiece, which I learned during the process of this project, so it makes sense as to why it takes so long. Working throughout this entire process has made me a better filmmaker in many ways. First, I was able to spend a large mass of time learning how to operate cameras and how to control lighting since we split up roles and I requested cinematographer. Along with that, being in a group has taught me vital skills such as communication and teamwork along with learning how to compromise in tough situations. This closely simulates what it’s like to be a real filmmaker when working closely with a large team to create a movie, and practicing these important skills has allowed me to leave this class a better filmmaker than when I started.






Considering our production designer Bianca does not have an iPhone like the rest of us, we couldn’t use an iMessage group chat as our main form of communication. We did, however, use the popular social media site “Snapchat” to form a group chat that won’t be affected by the type of phones used. This way, all four of us could text, share photos and videos, and communicate important ideas to each other at any time. During production, we used my Canon Rebel T3i to film complicated shots such as a rack focus. However, I was quick to put down the Canon and use the camera on my iPhone X instead. I found that the Canon was extremely inconvienent, due to its heavy weight making it hard to hold the camera steady. Along with that, I learned that the camera quality on my Canon lowers substantially when the lighting becomes darker, making the videos appear grainy. Personally, I found my iPhone to be a much more effective way to film, because it was lightweight, it made recording shots easy due to its small size, and the video quality on my phone was just as good, if not better, than the Canon. On top of that, when recording on my phone, the videos were instantly saved to my camera roll and could be transferred easily between my iPhone and Macbook due to Apple products being extremely compatible with one another. Obtaining shots off of the Canon was more complicated because I had to extract them off of it’s SD card. All in all, I learned that using my iPhone X to film, along with using Robert’s iPhone 8 at times as well, proved to be much more convenient than the Canon. For creating my CCR, I decided to use iMovie, which took me a few hours to understand as I have never touched it before. After googling many questions, I eventually discovered that the software is rather user friendly, and made creating my CCR much less intimidating as I can find most of the answers to my questions on the Apple website. When editing our title sequence, our editor Ben used a software called Sony Vegas Pro 13. This was far more complex than iMovie, though it does have a much wider range of capabilities. I found it was too complicated for me to try and use since this is my first time at editing, so I just stuck with iMovie. The internet itself proved to be a huge help in the creation of my project as everything was stored and created digitally. I used YouTube and Google vastly to research other thriller title sequences in order to gain ideas for what cinematography should be used in my title sequence, and to get an over-all feel for the visual aspects and genre conventions that we should have hit during production. All in all, this has been an amazing learning experience that has taught me what it takes to be a filmmaker, and I hope you enjoyed watching my CCR. Thank you!

Post Production: The Gratitude

Now that we are in post-production, I figure it is time to say my thanks to my cast and crew for giving me this amazing learning experience. As cinematographer, working with my group has been nothing but smiles as I was able to not only learn a massive amount on what it means to be in charge of the lights and cameras, but I was able to do so under the extremely creative influence of my friends whom I made this title sequence with. Working with a greatly inspirational director, Pierce, an astonishingly talented editor, Ben, a beautifully creative production designer, Bianca, and a wonderfully dedicated actor, Robert, has taught me so much more than simply cinematography. I have walked out of this project knowing what it takes to be all 5 roles, and I have learned different skills that each person has picked up along the way. I also have a new found respect for those in Hollywood, because participating in a 2-day long production schedule was super stressful. Trying to imagine months at a time with hundreds of people and big money on the line is even scarier! But I can truthfully say that I have ended this project with a newfound knowledge on what it takes to make a movie, and I have picked up many skills along the way. Here's to AICE Media Studies!

From left to right: Ben (Editor), Robert (Actor), Me (Cinematographer), Pierce (Director), and Bianca (Production Designer)

What I Would Change If I Did It Again

My beloved teacher Mr. Engle had kindly warned us at the beginning of the school year that AICE Media Studies would be a slight challenge for us because of the work load. "This class is fun! .... Until 3rd quarter. Then it gets tough" ~ Engle 2018/2019 school year. I did not believe him at first, because all my teachers claim their classes are hard to their own extent. But Mr. Engle wasn't kidding this time! Though I would like to point out, I don't find this class to be difficult academically. Rather, it is a very demanding class. It requires a lot more time and attention than what I am used to. And I mean a lot more. HOWEVER! This class has taught me a lot as well, and I genuinely have enjoyed the entire process of creating a title sequence. It has been an exciting, long and rewarding journey.

Now that my sob story is over, I would like to take time to reflect upon what I would change if I did this whole process over again.

1) Understand that the Canon camera does not have to be used for everything

During our first round of production at Super 8, we had shot on the 2 Canons all night long. And, personally, I found that my iPhone was taking better footage than those cameras combined. I feel like as a group we had subconsciously agreed that because we were doing the closet thing to a "professional production" that we had done in our whole lives, we felt the need to use "professional equipment", even if it wasn't the best idea. If I could go back, I would honestly set the Canons on the shelf until we needed a rack focus, and just use the glorious iPhones. The Canons were bulky, heavy and sometimes straight up gave us grainy quality.

2) Understand that production does not have to be squeezed into one day

Again, this was another mistake we made during our first found of production at Super 8. We spent all day trying to cram all of our ideas into a few hours before it got too late. Even during our re-production in the health science room at our school, we became extremely anxious as a group when it got late on our first day of shooting and we weren't done. In reality, we just needed to step back and say "it's okay to take another day!" Similar to how writing a whole essay in one day can be a mistake, the same goes for shooting if not played out correctly. It's okay to take more than one day to film.

3) Tighten up on loose communication 

I had an AMAZING group, don't get me wrong. But, as with any important human interaction, there always seems to be some form of communication issues present. There were numerous times in the beginning of the title-sequence making process where none of us were on the same page. At times, there was confusion over what the plot of the movie was, there was a lack of communication over the shots that needed to be filmed, and there were misunderstandings over props, to name a few. All in all, we were able to communicate quite efficiently towards the end of the project and especially towards the editing stage, which is the most important. But over-all, better communication techniques would have essentially made the whole process smoother as a whole. "Perfect" communication can never be reached, considering we're only human, but we did try our absolute best. Never the less, I love my group so much and we came together to film a brilliant project. 

Editing: The Font & Other Meanings

As noted in a much earlier blog post, font is an extremely important factor in filmmaking (You know, I find myself saying that about a LOT of steps in the filmmaking process... maybe everything in film is equally important *mind blown*) Anyways, thriller films typically have slasher type-fonts or other aggressive/spooky visual aspects. Along with that, they are commonly found written in red ink, as it is a color directly associated with fear

In our title sequence, we challenged typical thriller and horror conventions in multiple ways but one way is specifically the font. Our choice of font during editing does not directly follow along in the footsteps of other thriller movies, because it doesn't exactly feel scary upon first glance. It does, however, match perfectly with the film because it feels abnormal (which, is a big factor of our brand. Abnormality is cool, kids.) Instead of scarier fonts such as Nightmare 5 that was used in the movie "IT", we used and

added the font VCR OSD Mono. (Right ⇢)

We used VCR OSD Mono when giving our credits throughout the title sequence, but when the title card is flashed at the end, we used a separate font, called Dvorak. Dvorak, along with VCR, both feel less threatening and intimidating when looking at them head on. But when being incorporated in our film, they make the audience feel a mythical sense of the unknown... exactly what Lucid Elucidations promotes. (Left ⇠)

The following show examples of how we used the VCR font for our credits, and the Dvorak font for our title card

Another huge way in which we challenged thriller conventions is by having an African American male as the lead character, and by having a mysterious female figure as the attacker and/or aggressor. Usually, in the cinematic universe as a whole, males are portrayed as the stronger beings, and females are the targets for harm and weakness. Yet in our film, these roles have been completely switched. Now, the female is the attacker, and the male a victim. Along with that, Robert is an African American, who are even rarer beings to find as lead roles but, more specifically, are rare to find as leads in thriller films. By using him as our lead role we have further challenged typical thriller genre conventions.

An Editing Miracle: The Long Lost Shot

So, a little update.

We have made pretty good progress in the editing phase, and we had every shot in the order we liked, but there was just one spot none of us could get past.

During the film, there are spooky shadows that pop up everywhere, making it obvious to the audience that Lionel is being followed by someone... or something. Anyways, once Lionel walks into the second hospital room, he bends down to pick up a mysterious open laptop on the ground. Then, he turns and looks at the curtain across from him, as if he felt like something was possibly watching him. The problem here is that, out of all the shadows we had incorporated into the title sequence, we didn't use any shots that told the audience a shadow was watching him in that specific moment. This threw off a few seconds on the scene, because, if we never used dramatic irony in that moment (the audience knowing a shadow is watching him, but Lionel being un-aware), then it may seem odd for Lionel to look at the curtain for no apparent reason. Here is the shot, for reference.

Notice how he looks at the curtain as if something was there? Well, in the title sequence, we never placed an earlier shot showing something actually there. It makes no sense that Robert would turn his head like that if we never suggested to the audience that something was watching him.

But then Pierce spoke up.

He INSISTED that there was a shot he filmed of me (I was the person forming the shadows) behind the curtain as Robert explored the second room. We searched and searched and searched, but never found this mysterious shot. Eventually I handed him my computer with my 2 folders full of shots and said "have at it!" After some time passed, wouldn't you know it, he found it! Here is the long lost shot.

Notice how this shot actually uses dramatic irony by showing the audience someone is most certainly watching Lionel, while Lionel is simultaneously oblivious. This shot also explains the first shot I demonstrated at the start of this post. It gives context as to WHY Lionel is looking back at the curtain, telling the audience that Lionel either feels like someone is watching him, or he thought he saw a shadow, but the camera shows us no one is there. This also helps to increase the trill level amongst viewers, because the audience now knows that whoever that was, is no longer behind the curtain. So where did they go? *dun dun dunnnnn*

This shot was exactly the one we needed to fill in the void in our video, and thankfully it was simple for Ben to edit this clip in . Thanks, Pierce, for unearthing it under our hundreds of clips! Go team! 

May the editing process continue.

Off to Editing

It is official. We have filmed all of our desired shots, we have successfully transferred every clip onto Ben's computer along with them being saved on mine as well, and we are in the midst of editing. What a lovely journey it has been! (No, that is not sarcasm.)

Our editor, Ben, has a software called Sony Vegas Pro 13 which he will be using to edit our final video. Let me tell you, this is one powerful editing tool! After some research I found that, according to Online Sciences, Sony Vegas Pro is one of the biggest names in professional video editing software. It comes equipped with highly useful tools such as chroma key , white balance , image stabilization , stereoscopic 3D editing , multi-cam editing and masking, just to name a few! After numerous group meetings, I have witnessed Ben navigate this complex editing system like a champion, and it is a very capable and useful software to help make our video the best it can be. 

Here is a screenshot of our films progress on Sony Vegas Pro

How Will We Edit Our Video?

The first thing we knew we had to do was add on a blue filter to the entire title sequence. During production, our lights were very warm. This did make it easier to get crisp images on our cameras, but it definitely contrasted with the dark, spooky feel we wanted the audience to get out of our title sequence. But thankfully, the power of editing helped save the day once again! With Pierce, Bianca, Ben and I all sharing ideas, Ben was able to place the perfect filter on our video that made the mood feel scarier and more suspenseful. Go team!

We will also be adding in non-diegetic sound during our post production . As mentioned in a previous post, we have explored different music that we would like to use in our film, and that will be edited in soon. After all, sound is what makes or breaks a film! According to Neil Lerner, Associate Professor of Music, "Horror film's repetitious drones, clashing dissonances, and stingers (those assaultive blasts that coincide with shock or revelation) affect us at a primal level, perhaps instinctually taking us back to a much earlier time when the ability to perceive a variety of sounds alerted us (as a species) to approaching predators or other threats." Editing is the stage that makes adding these incredibly important sounds possible. 

According to Cambridge, we can use pre-existing music in our film as long as we credit the creator. We will most certainly do such.

We have also had to experiment with the pacing and rhythm many times. There have been numerous shots which felt perfect during production, but after production, we would line all of the shots up and watch them play out, then suddenly one of us will say "Did you see that tracking shot? That felt way too fast for the film", and all four of us will instantly agree that the pacing did not match. However, that's something we have been able to attack during editing. Ben understands how to work Sony Vegas Pro, and has been able to put shots in varying levels of "slow motion", to make the pacing correct. We have also felt the need to speed up certain shots, which can also be successfully achieved by the grand power of editing. 

A huge shout out goes to you, Ben! I'm learning about the process of editing and everything it entails, but you're the only one who fully understands Sony Vegas! Thank you for being so talented with editing! 

Sources: 

https://www.davidson.edu/academics/film-and-media-studies/music-in-the-horror-film

https://www.online-sciences.com/computer/sony-vegas-pro-12-review-uses-features-advantages-and-disadvantages/

My Influences During Production

While this is most certainly an original production, we did have a few outside influences that helped us increase the thrill factor in our title sequence

First and foremost, we were influenced by the widely known psychological horror movie The Shining (1980). While it is approved of by many for it's unique story line and horror elements, there was one scene in particular that never ceased to spook me when watching. Please see the video below to watch the scene.

This scene performs excellent within the movie as it truly makes the hair on the back of peoples' neck spike. The repetition of the same sentence over and over pushes us into our natural born fear of the unknown and of the abnormal. It makes us ask things such as:

 "What could possibly possess someone to spend countless days repeatedly typing up the same mind numbing sentence?" 

"What horrific things are going through Johnny's head as he writes this?" 

"How much psychological damage has Johnny been through... and is he becoming dangerous?"

The masterminds behind this movie knew just how spooky that would be for the eyes of the audience. It really gives a sense of asylum-level mental destruction and shows us just how crazy Johnny has become. Thus, we feel a sense of impending danger and destruction approaching. Within our own title sequence, we recorded a shot similar to that found in The Shining, in which we showed the repetition of a sentence that makes the audience wonder what it means. See the video below to watch what we recorded.

Along with The Shining, another influence was from the iconic 2016 thriller movie The Boy. The entire movie revolves around an eerie doll that a babysitter was hired to watch over, but as the movie goes on, abnormal events lead us to believe the doll is nothing short of alive. The photo to the right shows what the doll looked like.

In my title sequence, I thought the incorporation of a doll would help spike the spooky factor. They are always successful beings in Hollywood for the horror genre due to the fact that, once again, they directly attack the natural human fear of the unknown and of the abnormal. Dolls are also a massive fear in American culture, so attacking peoples' fears in our title sequence is another way to make our thriller more thriller-like. The following is a test shot we had recorded showing our dummy or "doll"

Cinematographer and Director V.S. Technology

As you all probably know by now, my bud Pierce is the director and I am the cinematographer. Together, on the last day of school before spring break, we were tasked with a daunting, formidable request by our editor Ben:

"Can you put all the media clips on a flash-drive?"

PRETTY TOUGH REQUEST, RIGHT?

WRONG!!!

It shouldn't have been that hard, really! But it WAS. After all, hindsight is 20/20, and looking back on it I am ashamed at how long it took us to achieve this. Here is our story:

After I had airdropped all videos filmed on my phone to my MacBook, we placed them all in a folder and saved that file to my desktop. We then took the SD card out of my Canon camera, imported them on my Mac, and placed all of those clips in a second folder which also got saved to my desktop. So at this point we had two folders, taking up almost 3 total gigabytes of space. All we had to do was simply drag the folders onto the flash-drive and bam! We would have been done and ready to proceed.

There was just one tinyyyy issue we kept bumping into every time we'd try to drag a file.

The same aggressive message kept popping up on my computer screen.

"There is not enough disk space to complete this action."

I kid you not, Pierce and I went crazy. We were so confused! How could my hard drive not have enough space? "I have 173 GB of space left on this Mac!" I kept screaming. How could my computer possibly be out of space? Keep in mind that Pierce and I were skipping lunch to do this. Instead of the cafeteria, we were sitting in Mr. Engles Pre-Aice English class listening to them talk about MacBeth. It is no joke when I say Pierce and I spent the ENTIRE class period googling questions online such as "How to find hard drive space on Mac" and "what does it mean when you don't have enough disk space." We ended up deleting my trash which hadn't been emptied in months, deleting stuff from my desktop and even throwing away files that have been on my computer since 9th grade. Still, it kept telling us we didn't have enough disk space to transfer the video clips! Eventually we waited for Mr. Engle to get done teaching so we could present him with our massive issue, since we couldn't fix it alone. I'll never forget his response.

"Uhhh... it means your flash drive is too full. Delete some stuff on there."

THE LOOK PIERCE AND I SHARED WAS ONE OF TRUE SHAME. How did we not figure that out?! The whole time we thought it was saying the hard drive on my Mac was too full, but really it was saying the flash drive was too full. We ended up using a different flash drive I unearthed from my backpack because Pierce's flash drive didn't have 3 gigs free. After that, it was smooth sailing. But let me tell you, it really took us forever! Thank you Mr. Engle for saving the day again!

*** For anyone still wondering, yes, we did manage to get all of the clips onto a single flash drive. LOL!***

Things I Learned About Using Production Technologies

While I would not straight up say that understanding the technology was hard, I did encounter difficulties here and there. First and foremost, the Canon camera proved to be rather complicated at times. My biggest issue was it's weight inconvenience. The camera was just heavy enough to where it slowly began to make your arms ache after holding it for 20 minutes. Because of this, it made a quick and speedy filming process difficult at times. This was definitely not okay! Along with the weight problem, the Canon was also recorded in very poor quality when the light was dim. The images appeared grainy and un-professional! In order to solve these issue, my group and I learned that using an iPhone was the best bet most of the time. Whenever the lighting was low-key, it meant an iPhone needed to be used. iPhone cameras have been adapted and built over the years in order to capture a crisp imagine in low lighting - something Canon cameras are not meant to do. The Canon was reserved for special shots that our iPhones' could not achieve such as a rack focus and that was it!

Another vital thing I learned is that technology does not have an endless battery supply! Our Canon's died on us countless times during production, and all of us walked off of set with almost completely drained iPhone batteries every day! A huge lesson learned from this is that bringing a changer for all of your devices - even if you don't think you'll use be using it that much - is vital. You never know when you may need something with a battery, and you definitely never know when it will die! Chargers are important!

Alas, we come to the lights. While the industrial lights were EXTREMELY necessary for the outcome of our film, I had made the same mistake time and time again : touching the super hot bulb. I never did burn myself, but on numerous occasions I would yell "ouch!" *dramatically shakes hand out of dramatized pain* after touching the bulb by mistake. Those industrial lights pack some serious heat, and should really be handled with caution. Another thing I learned from these lights is that they have a built in safety feature where they automatically turn off if they get too hot. Many times during production, we would keep the lights on for an extended period of time, and they would shut off. We would either have to wait for that light to cool, or switch that over-heated light out for the second one, and wait for the cycle to repeat. Only using the lights when necessary - kind of like only turning on the tap when you're using the water - was a good lesson I learned in order to minimize the heat created by the lights.

What Technology Did I Use?

Filming title sequences no activity for the stone age! It requires a lot more technology than one may think. Now, considering that we are only in high school and do not have a Hollywood budget, our title sequences didn't require green screens and CGI. But, we still did have our fair usage of technology! 

1) Canon Rebel T3i and T4i

I own my own Canon Rebel T3i, and Mr. Engle owns a Canon Rebel T4i which he allows his students to borrow. During our first round of production at Super 8, we had used both Canons. However, during our true production at our school's hospital simulation, we only used my Canon Rebel T3i. This was especially useful for adjusting the lighting and for doing a rack focus.

2) iPhone X and iPhone 8 

I own an iPhone X, which is what we did the majority of our filming on, considering it has the best camera. Along with that, we shot on Roberts iPhone 8 when filming on multiple cameras at once. Both of these proved useful when the Canon got too heavy for our arms to hold steady. The iPhones were much lighter, which made our shots less shaky, and they made it easier to get abnormal shots (high angle, rack focus, etc.) 

3) Industrial Lights

Pierce owned two industrial lights, which we used to create a human shadow behind the curtains. This took a few "trial and error" events in order to find out exactly how high/low and how close/far away to hold the light from the curtain in order to achieve the perfect shadow. Eventually, we got the hang of it.

*Along with the lights, we also briefly used an old laptop as technology, in which we had a word document typed up (similar to the papers typed up in 'The Shining'), and we used this in one of our shots.*

What Sources Did I Consult?

For anyone who knows me, I am not a technology junkie. So, when the time came that I had to understand how to use my Canon camera (which I had LITERALLY never used before this project), it was rather intimidating considering how many buttons and options there were! When I met up with Pierce before our first day of production, he too had a Canon camera which was being loaned to him by Mr. Engle. They were almost exactly alike, and we both had a lot to learn before shooting. So what did we do? We consulted YouTube!!

The above video is one that we had watched in order to understand aperture, shutter speed, etc. It was very useful because originally I had no idea what any buttons did, so afterwards I was more familiar with the cameras functions.

The above video was recommended to me by Pierce. It was extremely useful as it showed us how to use movie mode on the camera (which, is the mode in which you record videos on.) After watching these videos, Pierce and I had experimented with the cameras, taking random videos of anything in site in order to understand the process of filming on them. Eventually, we had it down pat, and even figured out how to do a rack focus all on our own!

One thing that we did do, however, is mainly record on my iPhone X. It is simply much lighter to hold, easier to keep steady, much more convenient for recording abnormal shots, and the quality was much sharper in low lighting. However, we did find it useful to understand how to work the Canon, considering it's the only camera that can do rack focuses between our iPhones and Canons. All in all it was a very good learning experience, and I now know how to use a Canon Rebel T3i

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf6eVGGOvCA&t=3s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAt4315-uH4&t=458s

Funny Bloopers

So, during production our second day, we had a BRILLIANT idea: what if we made the mysterious female figure follow Lionel, but make it appear as if she was floating off the ground? Now I know that might sound slightly confusing, so here it is in more detail. Picture a paranormal-being walking, but eventually their feet begin to drag on the floor, then they start to levitate above the ground every so slightly, not touching the ground but still moving forward. As a closer visual representation for what we were trying to achieve, watch the following clip from the 2002 thriller movie "The Eye" from around 2:20 to 3:20.

Now that you have a better idea of what we were trying to achieve, take into account the fact that we have no special affects or CGI, no expensive machinery, and not a Hollywood budget! So, we pondered for a second on how we were going to get my feet to "levitate" with just our high-school resources. Initially, Pierce and Robert suggested me just lifting myself up... but there was just one issue. With that idea, I wouldn't be able to physically continue moving towards the camera. With my feet suspended off the ground and my arms holding me up, I'd be stuck in the same position. So after grinding some gears, we had Robert sit on a rolly chair, and Pierce laid on his back on the hospital bed directly across from the chair. Robert stuck out his legs, and Pierce held them up with his arms. I sat on Roberts legs, with my feet hanging below, and Robert would push off the wall in his rolly chair with his arms after the camera started rolling (thank you to our editor, Ben, who had to film this part!). Pierce, also, would scoot his torso at the same time Robert pushed the chair, so they would both move me at the same time. This way, all I had to do was slightly lift my legs, while the rolly chair would move me in a forward direction towards the camera. It was a fool proof plan! Below is a picture that slightly captures the crazy set up we had.

But getting my feet to cooperate was harder than expected. Not only that, but getting the whole "rolling process" to work correctly was tough, too. So now I shall present to you, some of our bloopers for this shot. (Please excuse my feet... they look demonic. But that fits the role, right?) Also, the audio in these clips are very important, as you can hear our struggles more than see them! So please listen!

First, obviously there is an issue because we can see the rolly chair in the background... lol! But, the squeaking of my feet rubbing against the tile was just too funny in this serious moment. It had all of us laughing. Enjoy

Second, we can hear Pierce in the background say "...I'm not movin' " followed by Robert saying "That's about it, boys!" as he struggled to scoot the chair. They were both trying so hard to push the rolly chair across the tile, but physics was just not working with us in that moment. It made me laugh when re-watching

Third, I present to you another issue we faced: Roberts legs kept slipping and falling in the middle of the shot. Above, you can hear him say "I'm falling out of this chair!"

I hope these bloopers could bring you as much joy as they did for me

Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb6pLDpbGw8

Production Day #2

After spending around 3 hours after school yesterday with the rest of my cast/crew ( plus Mr. Engle), we did not finish production. So, we requested just one more day, and thankfully Mr. Engle agreed to stay after with us once again! So today was our second and final day of the production stage. Today, we recorded the rest of the title sequence, which includes Lionel (Robert) traveling into the other hospital rooms, him interacting with the mysterious figure following him, and we also ended up re-shooting some clips from the dummy encounter on day 1 to make it feel less cheesy.


One huge thing we experiment with today was the creation of the human shadow behind the curtain that creeps up behind Lionel and ends up attacking him. The first step was experimenting with the lighting. We had Ben, our editor, hold the industrial lights close behind the curtain, that way the light was strong enough to form a shadow if someone was standing between the curtain and light source. Pierce, our director, stood on the opposite side of the curtain and informed us how the shadow was looking and suggested changes to Ben as to how high he should hold the light, its distance from the curtain, etc. As the only other female on set at the time, I was once again acting in the film as the mysterious female figure, though this time you couldn't see my face. Instead, it was my shadow we used. I stood in between the curtain and the light, while we recorded a few test shots to see how our idea looked on camera. Below are a few of our experimentations:

Seen above is me wrapping my arms around Robert quickly, catching his character off guard and evoking fear 

As a second idea, we also filmed some experimental shots of Roberts character being attacked slowly (seen above) though it was decided after that a faster attack is much more visually appealing

All in all, our production phase was very successful. Though we did have a minor setback earlier due to the fact that we reshot everything, our final product after today will definitely be spooky. And, it should be noted that our first attempt at filming at the Super 8 motel for our original rough cut was not a big waste of time! A HUGE thing we learned was that filming on one camera is simply foolish! At Super 8, we were only filming on one camera - even if it was possible to be shooting on 2 or 3 cameras at once - which prevented us from getting multiple angles of the same shot while simultaneously saving time. Pierce and I discussed this afterwards, noting that we both had access to Cannon cameras, I had an iPhone X, and Pierce, Robert and Ben all owned iPhones with good cameras as well. Considering there are 4 of us in the crew, there was no reason why we shouldn't have be filming on more than one camera! We reflected on mistakes such as this, and made sure to use it as a learning experience that way our second round of production was much smoother and efficient. When filming at school, we shot on at least 2 cameras every chance we got.

Production Day #1

Today marks the first day of our official production. Pierce, Ben, Bianca, Robert, Mr. Engle and I all stayed after school from 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM. Immediately, we got to work on setting up the scene. We placed prop pill bottles on the nightstand, we removed the batteries from the clocks so time wasn't a continuity issue, and we undressed the dummies' and used their hospital gowns as Roberts costume. Today, we mainly filmed the very beginning of the title sequence. It included the events of Robert waking up, him getting out of bed after which he explores his hospital surroundings, and him discovering a dummy in a wheelchair waiting outside of his hospital room. (Creepy, right?)

Below is a picture of the dummy we used in our filming

In the beginning of production today, we knew we had wanted to produce a mysterious shadow figure behind the curtain where Lionel (Robert) stood, in order to make the audience suspicious as to what is happening and why scary shadows are behind our protagonist in the unexplored neighboring room. As a reference to what I'm talking about, here is one of the shots recorded showing Lionel walking past the shadow and questioning its presence (above)

                                          

You may be wondering how we achieved the human figure behind the curtain. Well, rather than forcing a member of our crew to sit there motionless while I filmed their shadow, we found it better to use our resources, and prop up a dummy on the other side. Here's a picture of what the dummy looked like from the other side. We had to scout out numerous pillows from around the mock hospital to use as support for holding up the dummy in the position we wanted (which proved slightly difficult, as the dummy was rather heavy and hard to move!)

In order to achieve the shadow itself, we had Bianca (production designer) hold up industrial lights that Pierce (director) owned, while Pierce and I would record and examine shots on the opposite side of the curtain and decide where the light should be held, how close she should stand to the curtain, and make configurations to the position of the dummy until the shadow was camera ready.

How Will My Film Look/Feel/Sound?

In order to make our film fit into the genre thriller, we have to make it look, feel and sound like one. In order to do so, one aspect of mise-en-scene we are planning to emphasize is it's strong setting. There is no question as to where our film is placed: a hospital. Hospitals are perfect for giving that extra spooky vibe we are looking for, do to the fact that hospitals are associated with death and pain. As an example, watch the following clip from Macbeth (2010) in which the setting is in a hospital.

Could you imagine if the previous film had been shot in another setting, such as a library? A bedroom? A movie theatre? It simply would not have the same effect on the audience. The setting is vital, and we plan to make the film feel eerie and spooky, with the setting carrying a large weight. Along with that, notice how the scene was covered in a blue-ish filter, making the lighting appear low-key and scarier. In post production, we will most likely add on a similar filter, making the film feel even more spooky and tension fueled. 

Sound is also vitally important. During production, we do not plan on recording any sounds, but instead we will input all sound during post. We have discussed placing non-diegetic music in the background covering the duration of the title sequence. The following are what we have discussed as possibilities (my personal favorite is Deranged by Dark Piano)

Along with adding the previous music, we will be adding diegetic sounds in post as well, including footsteps, curtains opening, wheelchairs crashing, etc. Our director, Pierce, plans on downloading sound editing software, that way he can record our diegetic sounds at his house, edit them, and then send the results to our film editor Ben so they can make it in our film. By amplifying these noises and adding the non-diegetic background music, we will be able to make our film look, sound and feel like a thriller.

ATTENTION!!!!! VITAL INFORMATION!!!!!! PLEASE READ!!!!

ATTENTION ALL READERS 

THERE HAS BEEN A CHANGE OF EVENTS WHICH REQUIRES AN IMMEDIATE READ

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WE HAVE DECIDED TO CHANGE OUR TITLE SEQUENCE.

But don't freak out! It is not as dramatic as it sounds. As previously noted in my blog, our first round of production was conducted on March 2nd, 2019. After a long days work, our editor Ben Issacs successfully put together our rough cut. However, as a group we were able to come to the consensus that we did not like the message it sent to the audience. It wasn't exactly what we wanted to portray to viewers and certainly wasn't what we wanted to submit to Cambridge. Even editing couldn't turn our rough cut into what we really wanted to create. So we will be re-shooting (yes, for real, but it's part of the grind) and we will be changing a few factors from our original rough cut. The reason we are doing this is to create a piece of art that better portrays what we all have in our imagination. We want to create and share something that better evokes eeriness in our audiences bones. By re-shooting, we will be able to film something that gives that extra boost of curiosity and fear that our original just did not create. Is is for those reasons we are choosing to do this. And it will be worth it. 

WHAT ARE WE CHANGING FROM OUR ORIGINAL ROUGH CUT?

1) THE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS - In our original rough cut & script, our character Lionel woke up in a normal bed, after which he walked into the bathroom in order to discover where the dripping noise was coming from. In this new version, however, Lionel is to wake up in a hospital bed, immediately see that the dripping is coming from the sink next to him, and then he ventures through out the hospital, never going into a bathroom. 

2) THE COSTUMING - As most likely suspected, since Lionel is no longer waking up in a house/motel setting, he will no longer be in average clothing. Instead, he is now going to be dressed in a hospital gown.

3) IM NO LONGER PHYSICALLY SEEN ON CAMERA - In our original rough cut, I was acting on camera. Essentially, I was the mysterious female figure in the red dress who appeared behind Robert while he was sitting on his bed, and I was also the female laying in bed beside him. Both times, my hair was blocking the view of my face, but my whole body was physically seen on camera. That is no longer happening. Instead, you will see my feet, shadow, etc. But the red dress has been completely eliminated. We found it was unnecessary at this point, and that my shadows would work better.

4) THE SETTING - We did not like the bedroom/bathroom setting we used originally. First and foremost, it was simply inconvenient. The space was small, crammed, hard to get good cinematography out of, and wasn't the atmosphere we felt correctly evoked the eeriness we wanted. 

   

The photo to the left shows me (cinematographer) trying to get a high angle shot from a difficult location, and also shows a glimpse of the setting which we felt was not correct for the mood we were aiming for

However, in better news, our production designer Bianca Raby has already scouted out a new location for us to shoot in. And get this... it's a simulation hospital located in our school! (Insert scared emoji here). You can't tell me a hospital isn't a spooky place for a thriller film to be shot. Due to the the looming sense of death, toxic medications, psychiatric wards, needles, blood... [well, you get the point], a hospital was a WONDERFUL place to re-shoot. Below are some photos of our new setting

WHAT ARE WE KEEPING THE SAME FROM OUR ORIGINAL ROUGH CUT?

1) THE ACTOR - We definitely are not getting rid of our actor Robert (aka the character Lionel). He is great with appearing emotionless, which is an aspect we want to keep the same, Our character is supposed to be burdened by the past and by his secrets, which explain why Lionel appears so stone cold.

2) THE BRAND OF WATER - For our film, one of the brands we had created for ourself was water, because of how innocent and calm yet destructive and unforgiving it can be. It is quite the paradox and goes along with the mysteries a thriller film carries on its back. We are still keeping the mysterious dripping of the water, therefore our brand is remaining the same. 

3) THE PARANORMAL FACTORS/ABNORMALITIES - In the original rough cut, the female figure in the red dress was not actually there. She was a phantom, a paranormal factor, haunting Lionels mind. In our new rough cut, the female figure is gone, technically. However, there are shadows moving behind curtains that don't belong to humans, levitating/hanging feet moving along the tile following Lionel, and more. There is still that eerie abnormal factor which is something I truly wanted to incorporate more than anything.

4) THE GENRE - Obviously, we cannot change the genre at this point.But it is something we are keeping the same. We will still have an eerie mood, specific cinematography that is often used in thrillers (close-ups, low/high angles, etc.) and a spooky setting. The result will still fall exactly where expected. 

5) THE OVER-ALL MESSAGE - The theme is remaining the same. In both versions, Lionel is to wake up in his bed, with the memory of his dead girlfriend looming in the back of his head, as abnormal situations occur all around him. This creates an eerie and unsettling feeling which makes the audience want to watch more, as they are asking "why is this happening?" 

Due to our gracious and extremely amazing AICE Media Studies teacher Mr. Engle, he has already talked to both the health science teacher and the principal and has granted us access to staying after school Tuesday, March 12th and Wednesday, March 13th to film, and he has agreed to be our proctoring adult. We love you Mr. Engle!!! Let the filming begin!!

Rough Cut Refelction

As a classroom activity, Mr. Engle has us do a self reflection on our rough cut, and also had us do a peer evaluation of our rough cut. Below is my self reflection, followed by the peer evaluation ⤋⤋

Self-Reflection:

Continuity

Our video has decent continuity over all, however I did notice that there was a random, unnecessary jump-cut of our actor going from the bedroom to the bathroom without any context. This can be confusing to the audience when watching and definitely will be fixed later on during re-shooting.

Film Opening

Our video is not quite readable as a film opening... yet. This is because, for one, we have not cut our clips in the right places yet. We simply placed our lengthy clips into the rough cut without cutting them down to the necessary length yet, so it appears to be very drawn out. Also, it is supposed to be a title sequence. But we have no titles. Once we get our title card and credits placed in, it will become more readable as a film opening. Also, our sound has not been correctly placed in yet, so the video appears slightly quiet and the sound seems asynchronous at times.

Genre 

It is fairly obvious that our video falls within the thriller genre. We demonstrated many thriller genre conventions in our opening, such as low key lighting, a sense of isolation, and creepy beings such as the female figure who appears behind Lionel, giving an eerie vibe.

Peer Evaluation: 

Partner suggestions (below are the questions I asked my peers, and their responses).

Whats the setting (time and place?): A motel, late at night, coming back from work, sketched out by the creepy room.

Who are the characters?: Robert, protagonist, then the creepy female character in the background.

What is movie going to be about? How can you tell?: Thinks the female character is supposed to be demonic or possessed based on how she is portrayed/hair on the face.

To what extent is it readable as a film opening?: Very readable already, when adding titles it will be even more obvious as a film opening.

To what extent is it readable as a thriller film?: Yes very obvious that it's a thriller.

How might the clarity of meaning in the video be improved?: Cut down the length of the shots a lot, but the shots used were very creative.

Seen below is my rough cut. My very ROUGH cut.

Our Actor!

     All great films need great actors to really make the film POP. That's why my group and I decided to use Robert Thomas (the older brother to our group member Pierce Thomas) as our actor. Robert was perfect for the role as he doesn't convey much emotion in his face. Now, I know that sounds strange. You might be wondering why a lack of emotion would be a good trait for our actors to have. So I shall explain. Our character, Lionel, is someone who is trapped within his own mind by haunting memories and experiences. He has become cold to the world and to emotions after death took away someone very close to him. When searching for actors, we wanted someone who could portray this mindset of numbness without over or under-doing it. Robert was the perfect fit. As cinematographer, it was a surprise to me when I was asked by my group to play the mystical figure of the woman who's loss Lionel mourns throughout the title sequence. I was aware that someone would be playing the "female in the red dress", but I wasn't sure who. Oddly enough, it ended up being me! So I will be acting in our film as well.  Pictured to the right is Robert and I. 

Scheduling/Preparing 

Many considerations came to mind for scheduling and preparing our actor for production which took take place on Saturday, March 2nd. The most important factor was making sure everyone was available. We have a director, a production designer, and editor, a cinematographer, and now an actor who all have unique schedules! But we couldn't accomplish anything without an actor present on screen for actual production. We we had to make sure to work production around our actors schedule. Thankfully, he had a free day on Saturday... which was great, because we spent 9 hours during production that day! Preparation for our actor was also important. In order to make sure Robert was ready for the big day, he needed to be familiar with what we expected from the title sequence. Our director made sure Robert was familiarized with the script and with the general idea behind the story so he knew how to conduct himself prior to the rolling of the cameras. This helped make sure his performance was 10/10.

Sources: https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/how-to-plan-an-effective-shooting-schedule/

Our Experience at Super 8 Motel

Today marked our first day of production! Located at Super 8 Motel in Tampa, we spent a very long, tiring, and exciting day filming for our rough cut. While I enjoyed the entire experience and was very glad I got to make a title sequence with my amazing group, there are some factors from today that just cannot go un-said. The first thing that I would like to point out is the VERY deceptive nature of the motel's webpage.

Online, Super 8 made their cheap $80 room look cute and cozy. It seemed like a nice place to film, while simultaneously not grossing us out. We thought we got super lucky, because what're the odds you get such a good room at such a low price?! 

Pictured here are some photos from their website of our requested room.

But let me be the first to tell you, this was NOT the case. After Pierce, Robert and I were shocked at the outcome, I decided to take out a camera and record a mini handheld documentary of where we were about to film. The living room was missing furniture, the door to the bedroom was gone, and the dishwasher had disappeared from what appeared to be a long time ago. Please enjoy the video I filmed seen below.

It was rater ironic how our production designer Bianca had found a nasty review of the motel online from an angry customer who claimed the motel was so un-kept that the sheets were always stained and their was always pet hair on the beds. Well, after examining the bed, that was exactly my statement as well! 

But besides the let down on the physical appearance of the motel, we did experiment with some abnormal shots during our time here. My personal favorite was our "under water" shot idea. We didn't have  a water proof case, but we did want to attempt to get a video of Robert from below the water, so I brought along my trusty zip-lock bag and hoped for the best. Here is an example of one of my test shots before we got Robert in the scene. Though the shots did get more clear as we practiced more with that unique shot, we decided against using it in our rough cut, because it felt too out of place. Nevertheless, it was fun to film!

One of my favorite parts of today was experimenting with lighting. As cinematographer, it was definitely an important skill to learn and a massive part of my role. As a group, we were all able to test out the industrial lights, lamps and iPhone flashlights that we had on set. We would test out how our actor looked on camera with these lights up close or far away, and even experimented with using multiple lights at once. A big factor that I enjoyed was discovering hands-on how the angle in which you hold a light can cast spooky shadows on your subjects face, making the thriller factors even stronger. All in all, today was a very interesting, exciting, and tiring day, but I can gladly say we completed our rough cut. 

Bianca and I holding 3 iPhone flashlights at different angles as Pierce tests the camera to see what shadows look the best on film