Okay so this is actually the final blog for this project. I have worked really hard and I am sooo excited to reveal my project! I honestly can't believe it's already over, time really flew by. Enjoy!!!
Film Opening: https://youtu.be/f5z_57Y5AlU
Well everyone, I did it, I made it to the end. Just kiddinggg (kinda). For this post, im going to be talking about my personal thoughts on the project, so be prepared cause I have a lot. I am currently writing this blog in Texas, cause it is my spring break, so let's get through this so I can go to bed. ( I had to leave at 3:30 for the airport, I am exhausted).
So in order to get my full opinion on the project, we need to go allll the way back to August of 2024, when I found out this was going to be part of my cambridge exam. I kid you not, it almost made me drop out of the class. I know what you're thinking " Oh she probably doesn't like being on video or working with technology". NOPE, I just despise editing that much that it would make me drop out of a class. Funny enough i'm a dancer, so I love being on camera and being the center of attention, but that's just my personality. However, when I told my parents I was going to drop they weren't very fond of this idea. "This isn't a valid reason to drop a class." LIKE LITERALLY YES IT IS, but whatever, obviously they forced me to stay otherwise this blog would be non-existant.
From September to December I honestly just tried to push the project to the back of my mind in hopes it would just magically disappear. Low and behold that did not happen, but it's okay. In January my instructor annouced we would begin to work on the project and we had eight weeks to complete it. We had the option of working alone or in a group up to four people. Being in Aice Media actually allowed for me to connect to one of my friends from my childhood, and her name is Simona, and we decided we would tackle this project together.
I remember the day when Simona came in to class and practically screamed she had the perfect idea for the project. She expressed how she wanted to do a psychological horror about how a women murders her husband. Now to be honest, I was not completely on board. Personally, I hate horror, I will proudly admit I am a wimp and cannot watch it, so I didn't have a whole lot of background knowledge of the genre. Simona however, knew a lot as she loves horror, so she gave me a basic run down of everything I needed to know, and I did some other research to make myself more knowledgable.
From here on we decided to divide and conquer, I immediately told her how I absoluteley did not want to have a major role in the editing process. I could give my opinions on it, but if I was going to edit I would have to find someone else. She said she could handle it, and since it was her idea she wanted to be the one to put it all together. So we put my skills to work more of in the behind the scenes. All of the mise-en-scene you will see, that was all me. From deciding the characters costume to her hair and makeup, as well as finding locations. Honestly, I really enjoyed it, more than I thought I would. I think if I would've had to work with the technology portions, this would have been a completely different story. This project taught me a lot on how to manage time, and honestly bring out a bit of my creative side.
As for the CCR part, I didn't really care for it. I was very much dreading the editing, but I thought filming them was pretty okay. Like I said, I like being on camera so I found that entertaining. Deciding which two media options I was going to do was pretty easy. Literally the editing was the worst part and I never want to do it again, so I can't complain too much.
Overall, I learned a lot. One, that going into film making as a career is definitely not for me, perhaps something more center spot light, but probably not. Also, how much effort it takes to create a short film, let alone a whole two hour movie. It opened my eyes to how hard these people work and how simple others assume their job is and when in reality it is not. If you fall behind by a week, there can be major complications. HOWEVER, this project I am 99% confident is the reason I had to get blue light glasses cause I started getting headaches for how long I was staring at my laptop, either that or my screen time cause that's uh, concerning. Let alone, I had a fun time and definitely learned stuff, and I am lowkey happy I stayed in the class, even though I complain about it a lot.
I DID IT! I MADE IT THROUGH EDITING! omg the amount of times I literally wanted to chuck my computer across the room. Good news though, my laptop is still intact. I know ive said it a lot, but I hate editing. Literally hate it. Anywayyy, editing my CCR wasn't as bad as I thought, I learned that I talk a lot and really fast, which is definitely I should work on. However, getting the hands on experience with different editing softwares was useful. In the past I have only edited on IMovie, which isnt as proffesional, but it has just enough resources in order to put something together. For my CCR's though I used Davinci Resolve 19. I actually have used this platform in the past, but it was like wayyy back in middle school, and I honestly forgot how. So after re-learning how to use the software, and getting very frustrated, I could finally started editing my CCR's.
Personally, I found editing the podcast to be a lot easier, maybe because I just had to put audio over a logo. Nevertheless, it still got on my nerve having to do it, regardless I made it through it.
For the house tour though, that was a completely different story. Hated doing it, never want to do it agian. Trying to figure out how to put the images over the video got on my last nerve. This annoyed me so much, like its crazy. I looked up sooo many tutorials and I still had issues. Regardless, I did it, and I couldn't be happier that it is over.
Ultimately, incase it wasn't obvious by my tone, im very happy the editing in finished. I learned a lot, and it definitely tested my patience. Overall, I did learn something, and I am very very excited I dont have to do it anymore!!
Heyy yalllll, we are finally in the middle of creating both of my CCR's!! Oh yeaaaaa. So, how I decided to handle this was actually filming allll the footage for both of my CCR's in one day. Not because I procrastinated, literally because I need all the time in the world for editing otherwise it'll drive me crazy. My friend Veronica came over to my house which is where we did all the filming. She is also the co-host in my podcast, so I thought it was just easier to ask if she could film my other one.
CCR#1: So, my first one is a podcast. We literally recorded this in my bed before I had to go to work and we used microphones in order to enhance the sound. Oh my lord, I didn't realize how hard it was to make people in my house quiet, until I listened back to the audio and heard my mom coughing in the background, like the audacity.
CCR#2: Number 2 is my video inspired my Vogue house tours. filming this one, took a whileeeee. I kept messing up my lines and there were multiple times where I hear " Oops, I forgot to press record". However, we did learn throughout how to play with lightening, in order to get it perfect. We found that turning on the flash in darker spots of my house, actually lit me up pretty well, however at moment it was sorta freaky cause my eyes would start glowing red.
Ultimately, I had a really fun time filming with my bestie. We messed around and had fun, so it was really good experience. Now time for editing, yay... ( I'm gonna cry).
Oh my gosh, we are finallyyy on the last question of the CCR. This is very bittersweet, but we made it, and just gotta push through to the end. So question 4 out of 4 asks " How did you integrate technologies, software, hardware, and online, into your project"? Question is 4 is being answered along with question 3, and that CCR is inspired by Vogues house tours. So let's get on with the script!
Script:
Cameraman: Wow Addison, learning about how you improved has been really interesting.
Addison: Well thank you, ive spent a lot of time working hard and learning new things, so hopefully my film reflects that.
Cameraman: I bet it will, one more question before I leave you, what type of tech did you use in your film?
Addison: Well, that question has multiple answers, you see, there isn't just one type of technology there is multiple.
Cameraman: Oh really? what kinds?
Addison: Well first there is Software, that would be the platforms I used for editing and post production. Hardware, which is the physical tools I used for filming. Finally, online, which is the resources, references, and sharing platforms I used.
Cameraman: Oh! I didn't realize there were multiple types of tech.
Addison: Yea, there is, now to answer your question. For software, our editor used Adobe Premiere pro, where she had the resources to enhance the lighting and add special sounds bites in order to keep the tension buling throughout the film. We found sounds on Pixabay, because horror relies heavily on the sound effect. The heels clicking, to the squeeking of the cart, created more of an unsettling tone.
For hardware, we used an Iphone 15 to collect all of our footage. We used the iphones built in stabilization in order to keep the shots smooth. Although it's not a fancy camera, we focused on the composition and movement to enhance the tension within the film.
Finally online, I used platforms such as Youtube in order to do research on psychological horror films. I found out how proffesional film makers use technology in order to increase the tension throughout a film. This is also the platform I plan to post my whole film on. Ultimately, I have used technology in every stage of creating of production. It wasn't about just using the tools, but using them right in order to get my point across to the audience.
Cameraman: Well thank you so much for sharing all of that with me, that was all very interesting.
Addison: You're very welcome, it was a pleasure talking to you.
Cameraman: Thank you for your time, have a good rest of your day.
Addison: Thank you! you too
Door closes...
Ahhhh, CCR #3 is crazyyyy. That means my CCR's are halfway done meaning the project is almost overrrr. I have very mixed emotions about it being over, I'm happy, I'm sad. I don't know, what I do know though is I am ready from break, sooo let's get on with this CCR. So my second CCR is going to answer questions 3 and 4, and I want to do something inspired by Vogues house tour while answering the question. This post however is going to be answering question 3, " How did your production skills develop throughout this project."
Script:
Cameraman: (knocks on front door)
Addison: Um hi, can I help you?
Cameraman: Oh! are you Addison Whitney?
Addison: Uh yea I am, but who are you?
Cameraman: I'm with Rogues House Tours, and viewerd really want to see where you live, could we have a tour?
Addison: Oh! sure, come in.
Cameraman: Ooo very nice house, so I hear you have a new film coming out.
Addison: Thank you! and yes I do have a new film coming out, it's called "Till Death Do Us Part".
Cameraman: That's cool, personally, have you noticed any skill improvement while working on this project compared to others?
Addison: Yes! definitely! This is the first project I have actually developed from scratch. My job as the producer tought me how important it is to keep things organzized and stick to the schedule. From finding locations to film, to deciding which shots to include in which scenes was a difficult task. However I think my favorite part of it all was deciding on the mise-en-scene. We even got to create a fake body. Me and my director wanted to make sure we had every little detail down to a T.
Cameraman: Man that sounds like a lot of work, all I do is hold a camera and talk to people.
Addison: Yea it is, speaking of the camera. I also realized making sure you have enough footage is crucial. Just to make sure you have the perfect clip for the scene. I also got to learn a tiny bit of editing, hearing each little sound from heels clicking to doors slamming. Made me notice how important those tiny details actually are, and how wrong a scene can look if it's missing.
Cameraman: Wow, it seems like you learned a lot all from this one project.
Addison: I definitely did
Cut to next scene...
Hey queenss, so this blog is actually a continuation from one I did last week. Remember how I talked about having to do a CCR for my project? Well, for CCR number one (which is a podcast), I am answering 2 out of the 4 questions. I already wrote the script for my answer to question 1 in the blog last week, sooo if you havent seen it you might wanna do that, orr this might be a little confusing. Anwayyyy question 2 asks " How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?"
Script:
End Commercial Break...
Veronica: So Addison, I have to know more about this project.
Addison: Okay girl, what would you like to know?
Veronica: Well first of all, how is your film engaging, like is it going to make me fall asleep?
Addison: Haha, no girl, it shouldn't wanna make you fall asleep. My film is set at golden hour, in order to create a tense and spooky feeling for the audience. From the very beginning the audience should begin to feel uneasy, as if they suspecting a jump scare. Throughout my film, suspense is the golden ticket to keeping the audience hooked. I want the audience to feel that instant creepy vibes and engage with the mystery that builds throughout. Which is why I decided to film at night, to build up the tension and spook factor.
Veronica: Okay yea, my timbers are shivered. You put a lot of thought into getting the audience to feel spooked.
Addison: Yea, that's kind of the point of a psychological horror, if your not feeling a little bit uneasy or scared, something is wrong.
Veronica: True, okay another question, how are you going to make your film known to people? You're not exactly a professional film maker.
Addison: Wow, rude, but your right I'm not. However, lucky for me social media exist. I am able to put my work on platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo, where people can go and watch on their own free will. For marketing purposes, I can put little bits of the film on platforms like TikTok or Instagram, and this will get people excited for the film. There are also small film festivals which allow smaller creators to share their work. One of them located close to me is called Film Gate Festival Miami. They except films in any genre and welcome anyone. It is a non profit organization for local creators to express their work.
Veronica: Oooo that cool, is there any festivals that are more horror oreinted?
Addison: Yes! there is. Another option that is more specific to horror films is the Crimson Screen Horror Film Fest in south carolina. It is South Carolina's first and largest film festival, and they are always interested in looking for fresh talent. Competitors have the chance to win a " Crimmy" ( which is similar to an oscar) in over twenty different categories.
Veronica: Wow! I had no idea there were festivals specifically for horror. I think I am going to have to book a trip to South Carolina now.
Addison: Well that seems interesting, I say we make it a girls trip.
Veronica: YES! I can bring face mask and pop corn. OO and we can have cute matching outfits while we watch the horror films!
Addison: Okay vero, if thats what you want.
Veronica: It is, and you're coming. Anways, thank yall for listening to us yap, she's Addison.
Addison: And shes Veronica.
Veronica & Addison: And we're the demure duo!!
Music Fade Out...
Heyyy, sooo earlier this week we had our second group meeting in class!! Honestly, it was really nice to hear how far people have come with their projects and to hear other peoples ideas. As well as getting those recommendations on how I can further improve my project. Hearing from our instructor is good, but there is only so much she can do. So being able to get feedback from my peers allows for a different set of eyes and ideas. Anywayyyyy on to the group meeting reflection!
Lucia: Her film is about amber alerts, which I think is super cool. So lucia showed us her editing, which she is very proud of. She showed us multiple clips of her project, and asked on our opinions. On one of the main climax scenes, we mentioned how it was a little too dark, and it was hard to make out the charactes facial expressions. I recommended considering re-shooting, just so she can add some more lighting to it.
Me: I shared to my group how our editing is going and showed them my opening title. They mentioned how my title slide was a built difficult to read and I should tweak it a bit. The recs I got was to consider choosing a different font for the title or making it more bold so it's easier to read.
Sara: Her film is about how a girl comes to the states and has all these good memories and has accomplished a lot, but her life wasn't always like that. Her film is primarily in Spanish, we told her that it was a great idea, but to add English subtitles at the bottom so a wide variety of people could understand. She also shared to us the editing platform she is using, it is called Davinci Resolve. I personally found this helpful since I don't like editing, and she said it was quite simple to figure it out.
Isabella: Her film is about two bestfriends trying to complete a school bucket list. She was showing us her footage and she actually noticed that she wasn't going to have enough footage to reach the time limit, which is obviously an issue. We told her that she would have to add more scenes to her film, and we recommened developing the story more.
Elias: His film is about a 16 year old who falls into trouble. He showed us his editing and mentioned he had an idea but wasn't sure what he was going to do. He wanted to use one song on one scene, and then cut to another scene with a different song. However, the songs had a different tempo and we said it might look off, so we recommended to just choose one song. But if he really wanted to do two, he had to pick two songs with very similar tempos.
Photos ->>
I am the blonde one in the photos, we're just gonna ignore what i'm doing. I hate my side profile and couldn't stop laughing. Also shoutout to the photographer!!
Hey heyyy, welcome to part 2 of the editing process, my least favorite part. Literally hate this so much, screaming and crying!! Anwayyyy, enough blabbering, let's dive into the editing. So, when me and my partner were discussing which type of font we were going to use throughout our film, we decided we needed something that looks off and disturbing. We wanted everything from the camera work, allll the way down to the tiniest of details to be unsettling. So in result, we spent an unhelathy amount of time picking a singular font, seriously it was crazy.
Font
So, when trying to find this messy and off vibe font me and my partner were in deep hunt for, we came across Nanum Brush Script. Let me tell you, this font does exactly what we hoped for. It's messy and jagged, which gives it an unstable appeal. It looks like it was handwritten in a panic and chaos, which plays perfectly into the theme of my film.
Color Choices
The title of our film is going to be " Till Death Do Us Part", honestly we went back and forth between a couple names, but this one just stuck with us the most. So, in the title, we decided to highlight the word Death in red, the reason for this is because the color red resembles fear and danger. Which is why we are highlighting the word Death, we want the audiences eyes to go right to it. We want them to know this is what is important and this is what is coming.
How it Relates
The font feels personal, as if it was created in a panic. The goal isn't for it just to look creepy, we want the audience to feel the unsettling nature before the film even starts. Combined with the red on the word Death, it sets the tone for how the film is going to be. In the end, every little detail matters. Choosing the right colors and the right font can make a title way more uneasy rather than something plain and boring. Which is exactly what I wish to accomplish within my film.
Omggg, I can't believe we are finally almost to the end of the project. Time has literally flown by, and honestly, I'm kind of sad it's almost over, but, it's not over yet. The final step in our projects is creating a Creative Critical Reflection, that's a lot of words though, so for short a CCR. This is when I explain the choices I made, analyze my work, and connect how my film relates to the real world. This whole project wasn't just about making an appealing film, it's about understanding the decisions BEHIND making an appealing film.
Today I am going to be discussing my script for the first question of the CCR "How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues". For answering 2 out of the 4 questions, I want to create something similar to a podcast. My friend Veronica agreed to be in the podcast with me, and we are both really excited to create it.
Script
Veronica: Hey girl!
Addison: Heyy how are you?
Veronica: Im good, so anything exciting happening in your life recently?
Addison: Actually yes! Ive actually been working on a project for my Aice media class.
Veronica: Ooooo tell me more!
Addison: So basically it's about this women Christina, who murders her husband, but we are not sure why.
Veronica: Oh wow! that sounds interesting. But, what makes your film different from other peoples? Why should I watch it?
Addison: Well, our film is a psychological horror, traditionally in horror films like these, they are mainly focused on the murder itself. There is a lot of intense music or intense scares, however my film builds tension more quietly. Instead of just directly showing the murder, I decided to focus more on the calmness afterward. The horror comes from how unsettling Christina and her actions are. This makes the audience feel uneasy, without using huge dramatic action. I also decided to do something differently by making the audience put pieces together. The viewers don't see the crime actually happening, just the aftermath of it. This forces them to engage with the story more, figuring out what happened instead of just being told.
Veronica: Ohh cool, it's like the audience gets to be a detective!!
Addison: Yes! exactly, they have their own little mystery to figure out.
Veronica: Well that's very fun. However, word on the street is your film also talks about deeper problems, can you clarify what this means?
Addison: Of course, so Christina isn't just a villian, but she is struggling with a mental disablility she's not even aware of having. Her wide and drastic changes of emotion, is all cause by a brain tumor she doesn't know she has. This is meant to represent how if serious medical conditions are just misdiagnosed or ignored, it can be detrimental to the patient.
It also plays into how womens feeling and emotions are sometimes not taken into full account. Luke is always there for her, but even he doesn't realize just how much she is struggling. The doctors in her life fail her by not catching the tumor sooner, and by the time they catch it, it is too late and the tumor has consumed her personality. It shows how womens issues are brushed off or ignored and not taken seriously. People make excuses such as mood swings, stress, or being on their period, instead of taking into account something could actually be medically wrong.
Addison: I mean yea, as a women, I think it's important that we share topics like this.
Veronica: Well that is very cool, and good for you!
Addison: Thank you
Veronica: Nowww for our sponser!
COMERCIAL BREAK...
Hiiii, so for this blog I am talking about my least favorite thing on the planet, editing. My hatred for editing is so deep, it's crazy. Personally, I find it an annoying process, and it easily frustrates me. However, in any film or production, editing is a step that can not be avoided.
So, we were in class right, and I have IMovie pulled up infornt of me with a tutorial on how to use it. When I say I wanted to chuck my computer, the people in the tutorial made it look so easy, but whenever I tried to do what they did, it just didn''t work. Thankfully, my partner was aware of my hatred for editing, and decided to save me the trouble, and edit our project. Honestly, she is such a life saver, when I say I hate editing, I hate it.
This is th video I watched to try to help myself:
She also had to watch some tutorials, but she is figuring everything out a lot better than I was. She is using Adobe Premier Pro, and this is what she has done so farrr!
Heyyy, so this post might be a little, uh, interesting to say the least. So, I did a blog a while ago about creating a fake body in a bag. Well, that corresponds to this blog!! Basically, for one of our probs, we needed a fake dead body. So, I did research on how to create a realistic looking one, so that way we can fool the audience into believing it is real.
Soo me and my partner took my research, tried it, and uh failed. We decided what I found was going to be to time consuming, so we came up with our own method. We used blankets, pillows, and rainboots to create our figure. Let me tell you, this thing wass heavyyyy, I kid you not we were struggling to carry it around.
I present to you ( drumroll) Luke!!
Heyyyy, oh my lord, actually being in the filming part of this project is unreal. However, for this post I am going to dive deeper into what audio I am actually going to use for my project. I already did a post last week explaining how audio plays into horror. In this post though, I am going to further explain what sound I actually plan to use.
Car scene
Christina is sitting in her sound doing calculations, however we are not sure why, it is meant to be mysteroius.
Pencil writing- This is fast and messy, her thoughts are rcing through her head.
Welcome to part 2 of the filming process! Part 2 has just about as much chaos as part 1. So, for our second half of filming, we were at a park looking for a secluded area, ( this took us no joke about 20 minutes, all just to find the perfect location). Finallyyy we found a spot where no one was going to bother us, or so we thougt. However, the landscape was soo pretty, the lighting from the sun was just like we envisioned in our heads, it really tied it all together.
Now for the dramaaa, so in our film we have a dead body (obviously it is fake). But the amount of people who just walked bby totally unfazed, was insaneee. There was quite literally a biker who just smiled and waved at us, like he just normally sees people dragging around a body in a bag on a Sunday evening.
In this clip, I was filming my partner get some audio sounds of the bag being dragged, this was minutes before somebody walked by and was like "whatttt".
Once we were back in the secluded area we thought we were in the clear, however, we didn't realize there was a hiking trail a little ways over, so multiple hikers just saw us throwing a body in a ditch. Yea that was hard to explain, to say the least, we got some very concerned looks from some people. Then again, there was also the people that had no reaction to it whatsoever.
This was some behind the scene of our actress throwing our "body" in a ditch. This one scene took us so longg to film, because everytime we looked back at the footage, we could still see the body peaking through.
Overall though, I cannot beliveee we finished our filming. I can't wait to see our final results, and how all the shots come together to form our film. I have learned some pretty valuable lessons from filming in public, such as people really need to start paying more attention to their surroundings. Anywayyy, see yall in the post production process!!
Okay so this is actually the final blog for this project. I have worked really hard and I am sooo excited to reveal my project! I honestly ...
