Attempting to re-film during quarantine

We still have not received any information about the postponement or cancellation of the Cambridge exam. As I mentioned in the previous blog my group has been trying to make plans to re-film our movie. Originally we had planned for Wednesday however this date was cancelled. My fear during this quarantine is that the government will restrict any movement outside of our homes unless absolutely necessary. As of now most public areas such as beaches and malls have already shut down. In this circumstance we will not be able to meet to re-film. To me, this is not an option. Our film is not anywhere close to where I would like it to be when we submit it to Cambridge. I have completed my list of scenes to re-film along with reasons why. That way if we are able to meet we will spend the least amount of time with each other to prevent the spread of the virus.
   As of now we have planned to meet this Sunday. As I have continued to say this is an extremely unique situation that I have never been in before. This being said our plans are subject to change if I receive more information. One of my group mates went traveling during the break which means he could be exposed to the corona virus. This is very serious and should not be taken lightly. Therefore, I am still unsure if I would like to meet with them to re-film. However, it needs to get done and because all of my extracurriculars have been cancelled now if the most available I’ll ever be. We plan to re-film some of the scenes that we filmed previously and alter the ending of our movie a bit. The reason we are re-filming is because the sound quality in some of the shots are really bad. We filmed on a windy day and the wind would affect the sound quality. Additionally, we noticed some small mistakes in the direction of the film.

COVID-19

This week the American president Donald Trump announced a national emergency due to the wide spread of the COVID-19 virus. This decision caused all Broward county schools to close-down to prevent further spread. This instilled a slight panic in me and my classmates. We had lots of questions regarding our academic work as well as all of our standardized testing dates. This is a unique situation all around the world so as of now a lot of us do not know what we will be doing during this break. Not only does this impact my academic life but my extracurriculars as well. Since our city government has suspended all large organized gatherings all of my swim practices have been cancelled. This is a big deal to me because I have been practicing almost everyday since I learned how to swim. This unique circumstance has put me in a position where I have to deal with extra time and the mental side affects. In this blog I will discuss what I am doing to maintain a routine to keep myself from becoming unproductive.
My coach has provided us with a variety of at home workouts we can do to stay in shape. In addition, as of now we have not heard about any extension or cancellation of the AICE Media Studies exam, so I will continue to work as planned. My group mates and I are currently discussing a time that we will be able to meet to re-film. This is a bit difficult because of the uncertainty of the situation. Some of them had planned to travel during the break, however we are now unsure if that would be a safe idea. Airports are a place where lots of people from all over come together and they could possibly be a host to the corona virus. To prepare to re-film I have composed a list of all the scenes we need to re-film and what the issues with those scenes were. This will help conserve time and make our time filming the most efficient. This helps me to organize my ideas and gives me a task to complete during the quarantine. Finally, I will be re-drawing our storyboard according to the adjustments we have made to our film.

Editing First time around

For our final task we were given a peer review date. By this date we would have to have our final task done for the most part. So we filmed our movie to the best of our abilities in the time frame. However, we did not finish filming until the last weekend before our peer review date. Due to this the editing was a bit rushed. Our group decided since Amelia’s phone contained all of the footage it would be best for her to do the editing with our help. Furthermore, she had the best creative vision for our movie. We used iMovie to edit our movie because none of us had an editing software installed. While we did have access to the school computers that had pinnacle studios uploaded we did not finish filming until last minute and we were still a bit unfamiliar with the way pinnacle studios worked. The night that Amelia was editing I called her and we discussed what footage we wanted to use and how we wanted to edit it together.
During this phone call we went back and forth on the font of the titles. This was a difficult decision because it was a major part of our movie. Eventually we came to an agreement however majority of our time was spent on this. I looked back into my title research to help aid me in this decision. I also used my title research to come up with the title we would be using in our own film. Such as the order of the titles and the timing. We also needed to add sound effects in the beginning of our film. What both Amelia and I thought would be an easy task turned out to be more difficult than we thought. We were unable to find and authentic birthing sound effects. Looking back in this it is probably an unusual sound effect to use, however, it was very inconvenient for us during this time crunch.

Peer review

Today we completed a peer review for our final task. The goal of the peer review is to provide and receive feedback on our final task. We were given this checklist to fill out and organize our thoughts. My favorite part about the movie I watched was the variety of shots and camera angles. I especially enjoyed the POV shot when the character was finding the Ouija board. The effect of the variety of shots gives the audience a better spatial awareness of the movie. This is especially beneficial in thriller movies because it helps the viewer asses the emotions of the characters. Another benefit of using a variety of shots is it keeps the viewers entertained. For example, using the same shot throughout the movie gets boring and does not show the entirety of the scene. The movie I watched did a very good job at providing a variety of shots.
Something I would recommend to the creator of this movie is to add more suspense to the movie. While it is clear throughout the character Sam does not want to play Ouija there is no real feeling of suspense. One way I might suggest they add this is by adding suspenseful music. Music is a great way at giving the audience the desired emotion. Another way they can add more suspense is by drawing out the scene. For example, the possessing scene is very short. The possessing happened very early into the scene without giving the audience much time to process the possible bad outcome and feel the suspense. Finally, another way they can add suspense is to dim the lighting in the scenes leading up to them playing. Throughout the entire film up until the Ouija scene there is very bright lighting. I believe that by dimming the lighting it gives for-shadowing and helps the audience feel suspense.

Filming: Re-film and Re-plan

Yesterday we decided to re-film our opening scene. We originally chose to do this because we wanted to switch over from using a phone to using the school camera. We checked one out and once we were ready to film we realized that we did not have an SD card to film with. This was my fault because I insisted that we did not need to check out an SD card because I had my own to use. The benefit of using your own SD card is that other groups do not have access to your footage. This being said when it came time to film I forgot to bring the SD card meaning that we would not be able to film. While my group mates were pretty upset I did not find it that big of a deal because for this occasion Amelia was available to film and she had an iPhone with the highest quality. If anything I thought it would be easier to film with the phone for the same reasons I mentioned in my previous blog. It gives us more freedom with the footage and does not limit us to only editing in class. After we sorted out the SD card issue I brought the group together to discuss out filming plan. While we did have our storyboards I felt that our idea did not completely fit within our genre and we needed to add more suspense. My group felt the same way so we brainstormed ideas that we could use to keep the majority of the opening the same but still add a factor of suspense. This was a bit difficult considering the group was already on edge because of the SD card situation. Many times I would have to bring the group back to focus on the task at hand. After multiple ideas being thrown around we decided it would be easiest to change just the ending and keep the mother alive. Once we finally finished discussing out film plan we got to the actual filming part. However, discussing the filming plan took up almost all of our time leaving us with a small window to actually film. In this small window we re-filmed the opening scene and began to film the second scene. Although Amelia was there I continued to take on the role of the director. I would give our actors direction on the new script because we changed some of the dialogue and action. Additionally, I was in charge of the shots we used and the order in which we filmed.

Filming: Opening scene

This weekend we filmed at Gavin’s house. However, like I stated in the previous blog we did not have enough actors. This was a frustrating experience for me because I know that I reminded them that we didn’t have any actors and they didn’t seem to understand the severity of this problem.  We did not get to film as much as I had hoped due to this so we are currently discussing another time that we would be able to film and who we would be able to use as actors.We were left scrambling to think of actors we could use. Eventually I came up with the idea of using one of my friends from school who I know lives very close to Gavin. I texted him and he said he was able to act in our movie. With the actors we had, we filmed the opening scene of our movie. Amelia, our director was not available to film so I took on her role as director. Amelia’s absence affected the filming process negatively, however while she wasn’t physically there we were still able to contact her. My role as “director” was to make sure we were filming according to our storyboard. I also told our actors if they needed to change their demeanor or add more emotion. In addition, I let our camera person know if they needed to alter the angle they were filming the actors.

Filming blog : Preparation

Our group planned on filming this weekend for our final task. We will be going to Gavin’s house to film. To make for an efficient filming process I will have to do all my preparations before hand. This includes props, actors and camera equipment. For props we need to have “adoption papers” I will create this by using an envelope and printing the characters name on it. We will also need to set up the living room for the scene where the old lady and the teen talk. For our camera equipment we will be using someone’s phone to film. We thought this was the best idea because using the school cameras has potential risk. The camera has a limited battery and I do not want to risk the camera dying in the middle of us filming. Additionally, we will be using a tripod to help prevent shaky footage. Also, if there is a circumstance where we need to re-film and the camera is not available the footage will not match to the new footage we filmed. We finished the storyboard but we haven’t completely decided which camera angles we want to use so before this weekend I will meet with my group and we will discuss which camera angles we want to use for our opening. Tomorrow we plan to film majority of our movie starting with the establishing shot outside of the house. The only scene i do not believe we will be able to get done is the cemetery scene. We do not have a way of driving to the cemetery so we will have to schedule another time to film. We also have not confirmed our ability to film in the cemetery. I have discussed this with my group and we plan to reach out once we confirm a scheduled day to film. One issue that we have is we have not fully confirmed with the actors that they will be able to film. This is a major problem because without actors we cannot film at all. I have been contacting them and if we need to we can reschedule our filming date.
Attached you will find my attempts to contact the actors.