AICE Media Studies

 This is my Creative Critical Reflection;

  This is our final project! This film was an incredible experience to create, I'm very happy with how it turned out. 

 Everything is just about done! We have re filmed everything we needed to. Fixed the lighting in some scenes. Created a great title sequence, and we are almost done! Putting it all together with the new changes was very fin. Dara used the computer she was using to edit, and connected it to Parkers TV. That way we could all watch her add the clips and all give our input. It was actually really fun. We didn't change much, just added a few ideas here and there. We changed a little bit of the titles scene. Switching around some of the words timing. We had also forgotten to capitalize a few letters where they needed to be. Good thing we caught that. We also had forgotten to add our establishing shot. We kept watching the outside clips, and couldn't tell what was off about them. We knew something was a little weird. Once she put all of the clips together we all watched it on the couch. It was so  fun. We were all really proud, watching something we worked really hard to make, especi...

 Today we spent our time making changes to our film. We based these changes off of our previous film review. Coach Jamie had pointed out important things for us to improve on. The main thing she had mentioned was that a few of our scenes were too dark. Lighting wise that is. Upon filming this originally, we thought we were being clever with the dark lighting. This was not the case. We ended up going a little overboard and it turned out to be too dark for viewers. After Coach Jamie pointed it out, we realized she was very right. So, we re-filmed all of the inside scenes with much better lighting. We filmed the scenes with two actors at Dara's house. This took a little while because we were laughing a lot, it's hard to be serious when your friends aren't exactly actors. We eventually became more serious though, and got the clips we needed. After that we had to re film the scene of Parker cleaning up fake blood from the floor. The only problem was, we had run out of dish soap!...

 Today we filmed, edited and finished our title sequence. This was a lot harder than I had expected it to be. It was one of the last things we had to do. We had pretty much everything else done. All we really had left was to fix a few things from our clips. About halfway into filming, we realized that the title sequence had to be shorter than we had previously thought. This was a minor setback. We had a lot of fun putting everything together though. W experimented with different fonts, and different timings for the titles to pop up. We also had a few editing changes throughout the process. Mostly, we got creative with how and when the titles would appear on screen. At first we tried making the titles sort of fade into place, but we didn't like how that looked. After that we tried to add some variety, and we liked it a lot more. Some of our titles spin or just pop onto the screen. My personal favorites were the ones that flew in. These were all vey fun to experiment with and put tog...

     Today we sent our movie to our soccer coach. Violet, Parker and I are all on the same team, so we thought Coach Jamie would be a good person to send it too. The movie isn't completely done yet, but we thought it would be good to get a second opinion now, so we can fix anything we need to before moving on. We picked Coach Jamie because we trust her. She is very honest, and she knows how important this project is. If she sees anything wrong with it, she would let us know. Once we sent it to her and she watched it, she responded saying she was really impressed. This was something we were all very happy to hear.      She did offer us some suggestions though. Although she said our work was very good so far, she gave us a few tips as a viewer. She said that the lighting in the beginning of the video was a little weird. Maybe even too dark. We were surprised at this, because we had thought the lighting was fine. We had dimmed the lights to make the scene...

 Today, Violet Parker and I filmed. Dara is unfortunately out of town. So since she is one of our main actors, we filmed the remainder of the scenes we needed that she was not in. This scene was the scene where Parker is seen cleaning blood off of the floor. This scene is really important to get right because it is the scene where our viewers realize Parkers sinister acts as a town killer. We face-timed Dara so she could help us film the scene from afar. The first thing we needed to do was make the blood. Violet and I found a recipe for it online. We sent it to Parker so she could start making it. It consisted of dish soap and food coloring. We were a little skeptical at first, but after Parker made it we were happy to see it looked pretty good! After that we were ready to film. We really wanted to get this in one take. That way we wouldn't have to keep making and cleaning up blood. We practiced a few times with no blood to make sure it would be perfect. Violet and I were working o...

 Over the course of the past few days I have been helping Parker edit. She is really good with iMovie, so she definitely took the reins over these past few days. When we sat filmed on the 17th, it went really well. Because we had to re film all of the parts with Violet in them, we had new footage to comb through. We looked through the many clips and found the best of each one. After that Parker loaded them all into iMovie and began the tedious editing. Since the volume and shot of almost every clip were good and clear, there wasn't a whole lot to do. The main thing she ended up doing was cutting the few seconds off the end and beginning of each clip. This would make the whole thing flow a lot smoother. It just took a very long time. Even though the job itself is simple, it was easy to mess up the small things. Sometimes Parker would cut the audio too short. Then when I watched it I'd have to tell her so she could go back and fix it. Because iMovie has an undo button, fixing the...

 Today, was a huge day development wise. We realized that we hadn't finished filming enough scenes with Violet, before she left for break, so she cannot be one of our main actresses anymore. We had to scrap almost every clip we had and re start with Parker as our new main actress. So today, we went downtown again to re film the outside parts of our movie. We had some practice with where we filmed last time. So, that made it way easier to figure out where we needed to go. After finding a good spot to film, we re-filmed our establishing shot first. This was an easy one. After that, Parker had to go over her lines before we started filming the walking scene. The characters whole conversation has a total of two different angles. These angles and camera movements change a few times throughout the scenes. So, after Parker learned the lines, we were ready to begin. I filmed a total of four shots while they walked. One from the front, a tracking shot, another from the front, and finally th...

 This blog is a boring one. We were supposed to film last Saturday as a group. However, on Friday night I realized that I couldn't. I informed my group members and we made the decision for them to continue the plan as we had hoped, just with a few changes. Since, I wouldn't be able to help with filming that day, I would contribute more when combing through the footage and with editing. However on Saturday morning, a few different events occurred. First of all, it seemed like half of the population decided to be in Florida, and then Dara and Violet couldn't make it to film, so we decided to reschedule. This proved to be pretty tough, because we all have different obligations going on at different times. Parker, Violet and I have soccer practice and games to plan around. Dara has many club meetings that we cant interfere with either. To make matters worse, Violet is going to be gone for the entire duration of spring break. We knew we had to create a revised outline. So after ...

 Today, our group split up a little. Violet and I decided to research music. Parker and Dara decided to work more with props. Violet and my research today was so important. I hadn't realized how difficult it might be to find the right music and artists for our film. We tried looking together at first, but then we realized it would be easier to find thing on our own. We would then show each other the songs we found, and learn more about what we wanted. Throughout the duration of our film, we believe there will be two main types of music. We will need a duller, more background kind of music. As well as more sinister/suspenseful music for when the scene needs. The use of music in our film will greatly aid how the audience receives the message we are trying to portray. So we took finding the music pretty seriously. Violet st out to find background music, and I, scary music. It was hard to find as first, because we couldn't exactly just look up "scary music" or "backg...

We have not accomplished much filming so far. My group-mates and I all met up this past weekend to begin. Since half of our scenes take place in a city, we decided to film downtown. It has the most buildings and is usually a little busy, so it was a perfect spot. We all met up at Dara's house because she lives very close to where we needed to be. Our goal was to film the scenes where our two main characters are talking at their table and the other scene where they are walking away. It was a really windy day so our actresses did have to talk louder than we hd anticipated. This took a few takes so it took a little longer than we had expected. We also hadn't really planned for quite how many people would be downtown on a weekend. Because it is spring break for so many colleges, there were practically twice as many people as usual. This made tracking shots really difficult. We couldn't walk in a straight path to film. We had to switch locations multiple times. That part was ver...

  Slide 1:  In this scene Naomi is going to be scrubbing off the blood from the floor and her hands, a over the shoulder shot will be used during this. The "Berry Studios" title will be displayed during this scene. Slide 2:  Naomi is going to be putting back knives and the title "Four Girls Pictures" will be displayed. Naomi will walk off screen. Slide 3:  Naomi sits down on a couch, and then from a point of view shot, she opens up Instagram. The title of the actors will play on screen. Slide 4:  Naomi will begin to scroll through her following list on Instagram and during this the title "Unfriended" will play on screen.  Slide 5:  Naomi smiles to herself, we see this through a close up, and she clicks on a girls profile from her following list. The title "Music by" will play during this scene. Slide 6:  We see through an over the shoulder shot that Naomi DM's the girl and asks her if she would like to hang out. The title "Edited by Sien...

Location  Because our scenes take place in different settings, we have two main filming locations. Our first one will be Dara's house. We will film the first and last few scenes in this setting, varying between different rooms and areas of her home. The second location will be a downtown area of the city we live in. This will be for the scenes that take place in around the middle of our script. Where our two main characters meet up. This location is flexible and will allow us to achieve multiple angles and shots. Participants The only participants of this production will consist of our current group members. Dara Sedaka, Parker Merrick, Violet Roberts and Siena Pancera. We will all take part in different jobs to get it all done. Health We are taking different precautions to ensure everyones safety throughout filming. We all are taking covid tests prior to filming. As well as having adult supervision when handling the knives, and when going downtown. This way we will establish a saf...

  The movie title we have picked is "Unfriended" The title will be in a bold, spooky looking font and will appear on the screen for 3-4 seconds and it will fade out. This title will take up most of the width on the screen, to ensure that the audience will see it. The color we chose was black because it stands out the most. The other titles will be in a different font from the film title, to make the film title stand out more. The other titles will be a normal everyday like font. They will also be black and will appear on screen for 2-3 seconds depending on the title. Every title, not including the film title, will appear in the bottom right corner of the screen. It will only take up a small portion of the screen, so that it won't distract the audience from the scene, but it will also be big enough to be read. The titles will fade out after their 2-3 seconds on screen. The name of the studio is "Berry Studios" and the production company is going to be "Four ...

UNFRIENDED ... (title sequence) (Scene 1) Girl scrubbing blood off floor and hands  (studio name BERRY STUDIOS …) (scene 2) putting knives back. (production company FOUR GIRLS PICTURES …) (scene 3) Girl opens instagram (actors and crew VIOLET ROBERTS AND DARA SEDAKA …) (scene 4)  scrolls through her following. (Film Title… UNFRIENDED ) (Scene 5)  Clicks on one and examines her posts  (Music by …) (Scene 6) then messages her asking to hang out. (edited by… SIENA PANCERA ) (Scene 7) Other girl replies “sure!” (Produced by… PARKER MERRICK ) (Scene 8) Shows the girls face (Story by… Dara Sedaka and Violet roberts ) Establishing shot of city (scene 9) (written by… DARA SEDAKA ) (scene 10) Two girls sitting at table (Directed by… SIENA MERRICK ) (End of Title Sequence) (Scene 11) Skylar : Thank you so much, I had so much fun! Naomi : Of course, it was great catching up. (scene 12) Walking on street Skylar :You know, I feel bad that we never really spoke in high school. N...

   We are researching  the movie  Here Before  (2021) using the website  www.artofthetitle.com How Many Titles are displayed during the opening sequences to the film? Which Ones? There are 19 titles shown in this sequence. They include the originality, the production company, the main actors' names, the producers' names,  the executive producers' names, the creator, the writer, the author's name who's book it was based off of, the director's name, and the title.  What connotations do the images carry? The images give the feeling of mystery, a sort of haunting sense is being created. The combination of the stark text over dark images and odd angles creates the feel intended for thrillers.  How is genre reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outset? You can tell what genre this movie is from this title sequence due to the tone and mood it creates around it. The images and bland yet almost eerie scenic design contribute to the ...

  We are researching the movie  Antebellum (2020)  using the website https://www.artofthetitle.com/titles/   How Many Titles are displayed during the opening sequences to the film? Which Ones? There are 27 titles . The production company names, main actors names, producer and executive producers names, music supervisor, music writer, costume artist, film editor, production designer, director of photography, writers and directors.  What connotations do the images carry? The images in the background of the title sequence carry suspenseful connotations. We can hear nothing from the video we see, as there is classical music playing over everything. It shows that the movie takes place far back in time, giving negative connotations with the way many people were treated. How is genre reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outset? The genre is reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outset by outlining a specif...

  We are researching  the movie  She Dies Tomorrow  (2020) using the website  www.artofthetitle.com How Many Titles are displayed during the opening sequences to the film? Which Ones There are 25 titles shown in this sequence. These  include, the title, the writer and director, main actors names, producers, co-producer, photographers, editors, production designers, music artists, production manager, first and second assistant directors, art director, camera operators, design team roles, hair and makeup, sound editors, title designer, songs, and special thanks.  What connotations do the images carry? The images carry almost no connotation, against a black screen they are bold and in stark font. They show mystery by not revealing much. How is genre reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outset? Genre is reinforced through symbolic and technical codes in one main way, through mystery. It reveals little to nothing abou...

We researched the movie  The Invisible Man  (2020) using the website  www.artofthetitle.com   How Many Titles are displayed during the opening sequences to the film? Which Ones? There are 5 titles displayed in the opening sequence and they were all of the production companies. What connotations do the images carry? There are negative and scary connotations in this opening sequence. The first part is in a strangely lit room with a creepy looking girl, and the second part is from the ocean. It is dark and there is water splashing on rocks. This creates the suspenseful feeling. How is genre reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outset? The genre is reinforced through the eerie lighting, spooky character and the lack of sounds, all you can hear is the splashing of the waves. There is also a flickering lightbulb, which is often a symbol in thriller movies. What conventions are used to ensure the film appeals to its target audience  The lightin...