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Blog Post #54- Transfigure Teaser Trailer

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Blog Post #54- Transfigure Teaser Trailer

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https://youtube.com/@A.S.KStudios-ec3ki?si=BaV5k-8gloeaPf0m

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Blog Post #51- Critical Reflection Essay

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Blog Post #51- Critical Reflection Essay

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Blog Post  #50 - Changes for Final Trailers

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Blog Post  #50 - Changes for Final Trailers

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In this post, I will list some of the changes we have made from our second draft to our final. Alex, Sebi, and I put together a list of bullets that explicitly outline changes in both trailers.

Transfigure Official Trailer (Older Audience) Changes From Rough Cut to Final Cut:

Over a dozen of sound fixes and cleared up white noise

Quality slightly upscaled

Timeline change

Removal and addition of multiple L and J cuts

Two mixed soundtracks

Changed fonts

Changed captions

Changed color grading

Addition of multiple clips

Addition of audios

Addition of voiceovers

Removal of voiceovers

Removal of clips

Addition of on screen ratings

Additional dialogue

Shortened trailer

Removed multiple sound effects

Minor fixes and changes

Transfigure Official Trailer (Older Audience) Changes From Final Cut to Revised Final Cut:

Addition of Brenda Crawford's missing persons poster

On screen ratings polished and fixed

Captions and fonts changed

Addition of caption animations

Addition of poster font title card

Removal of final sequence

Shortened trailer

Addition of credits and studio logo

Transfigure Teaser Trailer (younger audience) changes from Rough Cut to Final Cut :

Changed color grading

Matched filter with the official trailer

Font changes and animations

Cleared up white noise

Audio fixes

Kept "Trailer Starts Now" sequence

addition of voiceover audio isolation

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Blog Post #49- Second Teaser Trailer and Analysis 

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Blog Post #49- Second Teaser Trailer and Analysis 

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After our second cut of our teaser, we are officially declaring it as the final. There were not many things that we wanted to change in this teaser, as we didn't want to give too much away. What we did was change the font on the title cards to make it more clear, and we added some new filters to the teaser to give it a look that we were more satisfied with.

After multiple thoughts, I understand the Teaser is not perfect, but with technical difficulties with our main trailer, more of our attention was brought to that, so there ended up being less attention brought to our teaser.

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Blog Post #48 - Second Cut of Main Trailer and Analysis 

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Blog Post #48 - Second Cut of Main Trailer and Analysis 

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After creating our second cut of our Transfigure trailer, we are all feeling very proud and accomplished. As a group, we are all feeling like we are so close to the finish line, and we almost have the product that we have all desired since the beginning of the year.

This time, we totally scrapped the beginning part of Max Crawford and the detective that previously looked like a short film. We kept some clips from that opening but did not keep them in order like a short film.

I really like that we all agreed on the new addition of the piano no copyright music (I'm not sure on the exact title but I know Sebi has it).

There are lots of pros to this cut, but also some minuscule details that we have to fix. For example, Sebi added some fake ratings and quotes into our trailer that aligns with previous observations through research, but they look a bit corny. After watching this cut over a couple times, we decided it was essential to also add some new title cards and end the trailer with our production logo for our final cut.

I also made it clear to my team that we should add a quick missing poster of Brenda Crawford. This has been something that I wanted to include since the very first cut, and after showing some friends what we have, they agreed that it would be way less confusing if the missing poster was included. What was happening is that some friends thought Tammy was the one missing after watching the trailer, so we think its better to keep enforcing this clarity.

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Blog Post #47 - Second Trailer Film Reshoots 

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Blog Post #47 - Second Trailer Film Reshoots 

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We have finally re-shot our detective scenario as of right now. Once again, we had to improvise our shooting sites. We had intended to visit Mel's Diner early in the day, but Rudy was preventing us from doing so. Sebi didn't have a car for his own personal reasons, so Rudy escorted the entire group. Unfortunately, I was unable to make the trip myself due to unforeseen circumstances, but the whole time the group was there, I made sure to be on the phone with Sebi and stay involved. They talked about last-minute location adjustments for a while before deciding to head to Steak & Shake. They all bought meals when they first went into the diner to fuel up for the shooting.

Sebi mentioned that a few of issues arose during the camera and microphone setup. There were a lot of people eating, chatting, and moving around in the beginning. Sebi found it really annoying to film scenes when distractions would destroy them. And lastly, Sebi explained to me that their microphones were picking up music coming from the speakers. The management of the restaurant denied having any control over the music playing around the dining when the group requested if they could at least turn it down. As a result, they had to eliminate a lot of the diner sequences. As a group, we ultimately decided to have our conversation scenes in Rudy's car in order to block out any outside sounds.

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Blog Post #46 Creation of YouTube Channel 

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Blog Post #46 Creation of YouTube Channel 

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Today, our group decided to make a YouTube channel to promote our film. This YouTube channel will help us reach an international audience, but also an audience in the U.S. YouTube has been proven to be a great way to reach many different types of people and to help bring attention to small production studios.

Alex worked on the background of our YouTube page design. We will also incorporate this work by Alex into our Instagram page, so we are very thankful for him to share his talents with us.

On our YouTube page, we will be posting both final trailers and hope that these trailers can make their ways to our target audience.

Although we already have an Instagram page, having a YouTube page will be a good complement, because it may draw folks with a greater attention span, compared to Instagram users who are used to watching short reels.

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Front of sketch with QR code on the back

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After some talk with Alex and Sebi, we pondered with the idea that that we might be interested in hosting a Q&A for our interactive element. We want to host this event to promote the movie, but also allow our guests to have a hands on experience talking to the actors and our crew behind the scenes. Our guests are free to ask us questions about the film, it's production, and the premise of the story. We talked about dates to plan this event. We really want all our actors to be there, but so far we have came across conflicting schedules across conflicting schedules.

As this idea seemed to be less and less accomplishable considering the amount of time we had to submit our blog posts, unfortunately, we had to turn to a much simpler route. Our group decided to put QR codes on the back of sketches of the abductor. This way, when participates inspected the sketch, they bumped into the QR code in which they could easily access our Instagram platform.

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Blog Post # 44- International Connections

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Blog Post # 44- International Connections

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During our process of creating our products, we have mainly attempted to reach international audiences through the use of our social media pages. Social media is always continuing to grow and is home to many users all around the world.

While doing some research on the percentage of people who watch horror films from different parts of the world, I can say that outside of the U.S, two countries we could focus on are Mexico and in Spain.

After putting two and two together, I decided that it would be a good idea to make an Instagram caption in English, but then follow it up with a caption below translated in Spanish, so that Spanish views could be included as well.

Initially, I wanted to make a Spanish trailer or video post just as another element to these social media pages, but unfortunately, we were unable to make these Spanish versions in a timely manner.

I know that our main genre is not completely horror, but this research provides a good suggestion based on part of our genre.

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When making our Instagram account, two of the main accounts that we based ours off of was the Nun and Dark. I studied the Nun's social media page and tried to format our bio similar to theirs, and I also added teasers that were similar in the way they did them.

As we were looking at Dark’s social media page earlier in the year, we all agreed that we like how dark made a chart of pictures all connecting through multiple posts. When we were making the image that we split up into 3 posts for our social media page, we were confused at first. We were going to post our movie trailer, but unfortunately with the size and ratios of the posts it didn't work.

Coming across this barrier, Alex volunteered to make a new poster/ banner we could include in our Instagram page, and would also be able to be used on a YouTube channel.

In addition to this, we also added a highlight of behind the scenes. Both Dark and the Nuns social media pages uses the highlights in some sort, so this highlight gives viewers an interesting look, but also helps to make our page more professional.

In the image attached to this post, I highlighted our social media page in red, and the other two pages are un highlighted. This image provides a good example on some of the things I talked about basing the account off of.

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Blog Post #42- Edit for Social Media Page

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Blog Post #42- Edit for Social Media Page

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Today, I took some time to make an edit for our Instagram page. I mainly used our shots of Andrew, but added a shot of the abductor rushing the camera. I added and Openheimer effect from capcut on the abductor video, and it really contributes to a cinematic look. This cinematic look complements the great lighting that we used on the shot of Andrew.

Sebi had a great idea and suggested that I zoom in on the video and create the blur on the top and bottom, so it fills out the whole screen on Instagram reels while viewing.

I decided to add a cannon sound effect at the end to help blend the original sound on the video with a nice place to stop. Creating this teaser was a challenge as I could only use screen recordings from Sebi’s original edit, as it would be too much to send all the clips over.

I kept a similar theme of the font for the title of “Transfigure” at the end and made “March 13, 2025” in like a little kids hand writing because I thought it was cool, but it also aligned well with my previous research.

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Blog Post #41 Alex's Poster (Our Final copy)

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Blog Post #41 Alex's Poster (Our Final copy)

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In my opinion, Alex did a great job with the design of his poster. Comparing it to mine, I can clearly say that it is so much better. We loved that Alex has great experience with editing software and was able to slowly fade the white letters of "transfigure" into darker letters. This effect totally alludes to the premise of our story, but also adds a very attractive element. Alex did a similar job to me with the credits but did a great job at adding the film rating, our company logo, and Instagram handle to the bottom of the poster. These antics contribute to the professionalism and help guide the viewer.

One difference between my poster and Alex's is that Alex only used 3 names at the top while I used 4. When I made my poster, I put Andrew's name on there because I thought he deserved it with the great work that he has done for us, but realistically, if this were an actually movie, he wouldn't get much screen time so it would make too much sense to include him.

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Alex and I both agreed to make drafts for our posters and this is what I created as a rough vision. I went on canva and took a copy of a free format that they provided and then I followed up by adding our own information, including tagline, actors and more.

In the top of my poster, I added a gradient blur, so that you can see our actors names much clearer. I tried to keep a clean and modern look that truly highlighted the quality of this picture. I believe that the word document that this picture is attached to is messing up the clarity of this picture because it is really good quality when we look at it on other forms of software and technology.

We used Sebi's fancy camera that he used for YouTube and I wanted to highlight that.

As a group, I think we all liked the idea of my format, but we knew it could be much better. I am willing to try and revise this, but before I look at it form a different perspective, we want to see how Alex's turns out.

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Recently, Alex and I both decided to make some posters, and wanted to compare with each other and see who had a better poster. Alex is very talented and has a prowess for art. Alex decided to use advance software for his draft of his poster, while I decided to use Canva. Canva is a website that recommends good format and ideas for the poster and it was super awesome to get support with using the site from my fellow classmate Noah.

As we were making our poster, we decided we wanted the letters for the word "transfigure" to start of white and slowly turn black. We used a picture of Tammy with the Abductor in the background grabbing her shoulder. This picture was taken on one of Sebi's nice cameras, so the quality of the actual image is insane.

Alex did a nice job incorporating different gradients and textures to our poster, as well as adding our logos and release date to the bottom.

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Blog Post #38-  Creation of Social Media Page and Handling Equipment 

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Blog Post #38-  Creation of Social Media Page and Handling Equipment 

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This past night, I took some time and created a social media page. This is something that I wanted to do for a while, but I have been enduring technical difficulties setting it up. For the email, we used the same one we created as a group. The email is called alexkevinsebi@gmail.com and we initially made it for our account to make our scripts, but we will use it with all subjects related to this course. I struck technical difficulties, because when I would make the account, I would need to confirm the gmail adrees is valid. In response to this, I called Sebi and he was able to confirm it for me. I made the name for the Instagram account "transfiguremovie". I made this the name because it thoroughly aligns with some of my research.

Explain Research through social media :

As of right now, nothing is official. I made this all rough at the moment. Currently, we are experiencing technical difficulties on uploading some of the photos that are intended on our poster. We used a professional camera, but we need to get an SD card reader, but that should be settled by tonight.

Fortunately, we already have three cameras—two of which are capable of recording 4K footage. Sebi gave me access to a Sony a6400, a Sony a7iii, and a Canon EOS 60d. The Sony a6400 is a little, all-around camera, the Canon takes amazing pictures, and the Sony a7iii is fantastic for recording 4K films. The Sony a7iii was mostly utilized for filming the trailers, while the Canon was employed to take the images for our posters.

Sebi then gave me access to microphones as well. He was originally going to use my Comica WM300-tx Lavalier Microphones, but there appeared to be a receiver issue. A strong static noise would always be audible in the background whenever voice audio was recorded. As a result of this issue, we were forced to use the Comica Boom XD Lavalier Microphones, which were sufficient and portable devices for recording audio. Although there was a missing transmitter when we first started utilizing the microphones, it wasn't a big deal because we only required one microphone to shoot.

All things considered, we were quite lucky to already have all the equipment we needed. Apart from the issues with the microphone, we didn't really run into any other technical difficulties while filming on both days. We are happy with the way things worked out, and the photo shoot was a lot of fun.

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Blog Post 37- Complications with Social Media Post

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Blog Post 37- Complications with Social Media Post

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Recently, I reached out to Andrew in hopes that he could help me out with an Instagram post. I really wanted Andrew to film a reflection video based off the experience of playing the role of the therapist and how the whole journey went.

The idea was for Andrew to dress up nicely and set up a camera of himself and answer a select set of questions that I have previously assigned for him to answer. I would later edit the post and post it on the Instagram account d for more content.

At first, Andrew was on board and agreed to participate with the fav or that I asked of him. But then, as time went on, I never got anything sent to me from Andrew. Andrew apologized to me and said that he was very busy and eventually I told him that he didn't need to make this video for me because in reality, it's not his obligation and I also do not want to stress the poor guy out.

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After the creation of our teaser trailer, we are very proud of how it came out. We kept the teaser trailer very short and simple, but still managed to incorporate some great action bits. We did not want force any scenes that include the detective and Max Crawford as we feel that the teaser is something that intrigues you to watch the main trailer which then gives more information to the audience.

We really thought that Alessa did a great job at acting and that she really used great intonation as she voiced our voiceovers.

While we met with each other, we talked about plans for the next cut and all agreed that there aren't major things that we want to change, but we would like to try and make the font better and tiuch up on the filters.

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Transfigure Teaser Trailer (Younger Audience) Rough Cut

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Blog Post #35- First Main Trailer Rough Cut 

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Blog Post #35- First Main Trailer Rough Cut 

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Our first rough cut is finally done and things are getting exciting! Initially, we are very happy with this first cut because we weren't expecting a first take to be perfect, so I think that we are very open minded and comfortable in the spot we are in.

As a team, we went over as a group and named some of the things we really liked about the trailer, and what we didn't. The group consensus is that we really like the therapist shots with Andrew, as they look very professional. We also agreed that there is some very good B- roll in this movie. .

The shot of our detective holding a sketch of the abductor is also also a favorite for a lot of us.

As we were watching, I made a bullet list of some of my opinions and divided them into good and bad.

Good :

Andrew's therapist shots

B-roll

Quality of the videos

Voiceovers

L and J cuts

For the things that I think we can improve on, I can say that we all agreed that the beginning of the trailer looked like a short film and not a movie. To split up this hesitant opening, we will have to reshoot Max Crawford and the detective at some type of Diner. Next, we did not have any logo in the trailer, and our title cards looked "corny". I also Thought that we should have had some type of representation of Brenda Crawford in the film, but we were unable to bring her on scene during the time of the film.

Bad :

Title Cards

Looked like Short Film

No Logo

No Brenda

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Transfigure Main Trailer (older target audience) Rough Cut

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Today was film day! I have been preparing for this day for a while! The night before today, I sent my buddy Zach a text to help us film. Unfortunately, we had no openings for Zach that day, but he helped out a lot with good vibes, advice, and lighting. On my way to Sebi's house, I picked up Andrew. Andrew served as our therapist and did a great job. At first, I was hesitant to pick him up, it was going to be a journey, but I think it was one of the best things I have ever done. Andrew was professional, and he dressed up exactly how we wanted him to. Andrew cooperated and said his lines just in the right way we wanted him to. When I arrived at Sebi's house, he was very welcoming. Sebi had a huge golden retriever that provided great mental support. Sebi had a great setup for the therapists scene. We took our time with this scene, as we thought it was an essential piece to the trailer. We treated our cast and team to some Dominos pizza. After today, we still had more to film, built we made good progress. Unfortunately, Rohan's little sister Sumba was unavailable to film, so we are going to have to improvise. We figure that we are going to scrap that opening scene because it is too slow and looks like the start of a short film, and now, we are going to add a short of the missing poster and just quicker shots overall.

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*not Andrew, just a picture of a therapist. 

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Today, we talked about who was going to play the role of our therapist. Ideally, we were looking for an adult women who could fit our original vision for this role, but it was very hard to recruit our actor. Sebi’s mom does not speak good English and Alex’s mom also was not able to fit the role well. My mom passed away when I was 9 years old, so that was not an option either.

We had a plan to recruit this kid named Andrew as the abductor, as he really wanted to be in this film, but we agreed that Andrew would be solid in the role of a therapist.

Andrew has a very soft voice and is willing to put forward his best effort to this role, so we are excited for him to try out this position.

If Andrew does not do well this first cut, we may need to switch actors, but we have full confidence in him.

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Sebi's brother Nico, who will play the detective role.

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Today, Alex, Sebi, our instructor, and I held a discussion today. We talked about the possibility and probability of the cop role. Together, we all came to a consensus that it would be really hard to simulate a realistic cop position, so we made an executive decision to switch the cop role to a detective.

I initially mentioned that my cousin could possibly play this role, but Sebi pitched his older brother. Sebi’s older brother already has great outfits that would fit the role of the detective. His outfits are dark and professional, with a big coat and some suits.

Sebi said that his older brother was really interested in our project and was happy to help us out.

Apparently, Nico, Sebi’s brother, is a very good actor. Nico looks exactly like someone we would want to cast for this role, so we are happy to have him along.

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Blog Post #31- Discussion Before Production

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Blog Post #31- Discussion Before Production

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Today, Sebi, Alex, and I had sat down and had a deep discussion about our final plans before we start shooting. As a team, we all agreed that we can shoot all day on Friday. I took out a sheet of paper and we started writing everything we needed for Friday. We started off talking about our filming locations. Most of the shooting will happen at Sebi's house, our adjacent to it. Then, we started listing each actor and who will be playing them. For Tammy, she will be played by Alissa ( who I mentioned in other blog posts). Narrowing down our actor for the abductor was an interesting decision.

We pondered on the fact of having Alissa play the role of the abductor, but we think that it would be too obvious it would be her wearing the suit. Since the outline of the abductor is really just Tammy's trauma following her, we believed it wasn't essential that it was Alessa in the costume, but to have a tall, slender outline. Sebi's friend, Andrew, has been very vocal to us that he has wanted to be in this film from the start. Andrew would be a great actor to play the abductor. Andrew is very tall and skinny, so he would fit the exact criteria that we are looking for. For the actor of the Cop, I figured that my cousin may be a good fit for the job. He is around 26 years old and could fit the part, but the only downside to him playing the role is that a realistic Cop costume may be too expensive or will be hard to find. With this being said, if we experience any issues with this, we could easily change the role to something like a detective.

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Recently, I have decided that we need to make a logo for our production company. We came up with the name "A.S.K Productions" because each letter represents our initials for our first name. I chose a slogan that said, " shining a light through cinematic magic", because I feel like it kind of represents who we are as a production company. This name was meticulously crafted to show our audience that we are committed to raising attention to important social issues through the lens of our camera. The background is shaped as a globe, but it is made of film. This globe goes to show that we pride our selves to be a diverse and inclusive production company.

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Blog Post 29- 2/11/24- Schedule and Availability

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Blog Post 29- 2/11/24- Schedule and Availability

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Today, we made great progress in figuring out a schedule to film. I made it clear that I have work each Saturday, so I will be unavailable on those days. Alex is a pretty free guy, so we can rely on him anytime we need him. Sebi has a little more going on than Alex, but since he doesn't have a job, it will be easy to get him when we need him. We still need to decide on exact dates, but we can not go fully through with the dates until I get confirmation on my availability. I am likely not going to be around for the 25th,26th,and 27th of February, but I'm not going to count those out for right now because I may be available later in the day.

For our actors, we will offer small incentives like meals, transportation, or compensation for their time. Going into this schedule, it is paramount that we remain flexible, and have backup plans in case of unforeseen circumstances like scheduling conflicts or weather issues.

When it's all set in stone, we will utilize tools like Doodle, WhenAvailable, or Calendly. These platforms allow individuals to share their availability and vote on suitable dates/times, streamlining the process.

In the meantime, we are just waiting on word from Alessa, playing the role of Tammy, because it is crucial we work around her, and additionally, she will be obtaining the availability for the rest of the cast she brings for our trailer.

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Yesterday was a big win for our trailer project! After school let out, Sebi FaceTimed Alessa Vazquez to pitch her for the role of Tammy. Sebi's last script presentation flopped with a girl named Jillian, so this time he did things differently.

Instead of throwing two trailer scripts at her, he started with our main script rough draft. It tells Tammy's full, traumatic story, which might have seemed overwhelming at first, but it helped Alessa truly grasp the character. Plus, he knew Alessa was more drawn to deeper, darker roles than musicals and comedies, unlike Jillian, who I considered earlier. So, she seemed like a perfect fit for Tammy's intensity.

After reading the script, we went over it together. Alessa mostly understood it, but got stuck on the significance of Tammy's black eye. Once we explained how it metaphorically shows Tammy morphing into her own abuser, the lightbulb went off for her! She was hooked, excited to tackle such a complex character.

Alessa then committed to working on Tammy's lines and embodying the character fully. But what truly blew me away was her dedication beyond acting. This hard-working friend insisted on helping us find the rest of the cast! Now, she's part of our actor search squad.

From her unwavering support to her exceptional acting skills and passion for Tammy's role, Alessa brings so much to the table. She radiates a positive, motivating energy that will be crucial for keeping the cast and crew hyped on recording days.

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Blog Post 27- 2/4/24- Casting and Actors

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Blog Post 27- 2/4/24- Casting and Actors

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Finding the right actress for Tammy has been a journey! At first, Sebi was overzealous about this girl named Jillian. She's this talented theater girl from Gulf Coast, and he figured she'd be perfect for the lead in our female-focused trailer. Plus, she does acting professionally, which seemed ideal.

But when Sebi actually pitched her the script...yikes. The dark, traumatic nature of Tammy's story totally overwhelmed her. It turned out Jillian's more used to upbeat musical roles, and this was way outside her comfort zone. Sebi then realized she wasn't the Tammy he envisioned.

So, back to the drawing board! We started scouting theater students, knowing they'd have some acting chops. And that's when Sebi pitched the idea of a girl named Alessa. This girl just radiated the right energy - smart, talented, and experienced. Plus, she wasn't afraid of a challenge.

When Sebi offered her the role, her eyes lit up! We're already scheduling shoots and locations. With Alessa on board, I know we've got the perfect Tammy. This project just got a whole lot more exciting

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Blog Post 26- 1/22/24- Trailer 2 Script Analysis and Revision 

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Blog Post 26- 1/22/24- Trailer 2 Script Analysis and Revision 

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After Sebi, Alex, and I were done analyzing our notes and feedback from our instructor ,Ms. Marquis, we began doing revisions. As a group we needed to take another look the Run Rabbit Run trailer, so we can study it closer to further follow its structure. Ms. Marquis advised us to cut out the two last pages of the script. She believed that those final pages revealed too much of the story. Those pages contained a lot of match cuts that revealed parallels between Tammy and the Abductor. Those match cuts show that she is the abductor, so our instructor said not to make obvious. Ms. Marquis told us to show the abductor less to make the very few shots that it is in very powerful and frightening. Ms. Marquis also emphasized that we put a great emphasis on Tammy Crawford, our lead actor.

Furthermore, Ms. Marquis also advised us to switch around some scenes. Originally, Sebi made the scene where Tammy and the Abductor were sitting together on the swing sets near the end to not contradict the fact that Tammy and the Abductor would befriend each other near the end. Instead of match cutting the Abductor chasing Tammy to Tammy chasing herself, Sebi changed it to match cut Max Crawford chasing his daughter Tammy. This was incorporated near the end to leave the viewer believing that Max is the Abductor.

Ultimately, This newly revised script is definitely an upgrade than the script we had before. Initially this trailer was supposed to target an older female audience. Now, this newly constructed trailer will target 16+ years of age females. This trailer covers the emotional toll parental abuse could have on a child. Tammy is a young female that is constantly abused by her father. When her sister Brenda disappeared, Tammy's abuse was pushed to the max. Max Crawford blamed Tammy for letting Brenda disappear. After constant abuse for years Tammy ended up acquiring some psychotic abilities and ended up killing her sister Brenda the night of her disappearance. Tammy for then began to see a black figure that would follow her around and torment her. She blames the Abductor for the disappearance of Brenda. She then kills her father at the end to get rid of this personified trauma that Max inflicted on her. In our trailer, We make it seem like Tammy is the complete victim, when in reality she's the killer.

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Blog Post 25- 1/23/24- Trailer 2 script construction.

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Blog Post 25- 1/23/24- Trailer 2 script construction.

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While I was working mainly on our horror script construction, Sebi focused intensely on our other trailer script. In this script, we are mainly targeting females 16 and older. This genre he conveyed is psychological horror that focuses mainly on our female lead actor. I chose to emphasize the horror aspect more, and Sebi choose to emphasize our lead actor more.

Sebi, Alex, and I based this script for our trailer off the trailer Run Rabbit Run. We liked this one. as it is similar to the storyline he wrote where it shows trauma and a little girl. In this film, the sisters had gotten into another of their many fights, which ended with Sarah hitting Alice over the head with a rabbit trap, causing her to bleed. Scared and panicked, Sarah pushed Alice to her death off a cliff and never told anyone. I can acknowledge that our story lines aren't the most similar, but the structure of this script was something we wanted to replicate.

The trailer that Sebi primarily worked on contains various engaging and interesting elements. Since the genre focus is psychological horror, he had to make his somewhat confusing and mind-bending. Using match cuts will show parallels used in the film creating unsettling answers that the audience with no knowledge of what they are seeing would be interested in. Our audience wouldn’t know who the Abductor is because of the various contradictions to the mystery. At first audiences would believe it is a paranormal spirit tormenting a young girl who just lost her sister, then audiences would believe her father is somehow connected to the abductor, and finally audiences would see the dark side of the protagonist. The audience will question who the Abductor is, leaving them to want to find out by watching the movie.

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Blog Post 24- 1/22/24- Trailer 1 Script Analysis and Revision 

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Blog Post 24- 1/22/24- Trailer 1 Script Analysis and Revision 

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After our group discussed with our instructor about this initial horror trailer, we figured we need to improve it and focus on some other aspects. For this revision, I focused on emphasizing the father's abuse, and the abductor more. I wanted to take out the scene with the therapist because it was too similar to Sebi's script. I wanted to include dialogue between the Tammy and her father to directly convey this sense of un- comfort between the two and to emphasize this abuse. I think it is vital to keep the shots of Tammy's drawings in the trailer. This shows that Tammy may be drawing it for friends as reference through first glance, but in reality, she is losing her mind.

While making this revision, I moved around the order of lots of the scenes and shots. I started off with an establishing shot of the Crawford's home and an opening scene that was similar to my last script, but this time I segued into the missing shot and police scene. With introducing these in this sequence and making all this happen at a fast pace really helps to entice the target audience of male 15-25.

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Blog Post 23- 1/22/24- Trailer 1 Script Analysis and Revision 

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Blog Post 23- 1/22/24- Trailer 1 Script Analysis and Revision 

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This is my planning sheet I made to help me guide myself into making my revisions. I outlined my ideas on a piece of paper to help me figure out what I wanted to do. As I was doing normal everyday task, I would just think of new ideas for this revision and just wrote them down.

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Horror Transfigure Trailer Revision by Kevin McCarthy

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Blog Post 22- 1/22/24- Trailer 1 script construction 

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Blog Post 22- 1/22/24- Trailer 1 script construction 

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To help us complete the finished trailers, my group and I split up our original big script into two smaller trailer scripts. I decided to apply more of my attention into our script that targets more of a horror genre, while Sebi decided to work more on the script that appeals to our female audience. For the script I worked on the most, the genre conveyed is horror. The target audience consists of males that are aged 15-25.

Before I constructed this horror script, I did some extensive research to help influence what decisions I made. I personally used the When Evil Lurks trailer format to construct my script.  I like how this trailer was very conventional, containing jump scares and leading to no definite answers. The trailer also included lots of very conventional quick cuts to help create suspense, and to intrigue the viewer.  In the When Evil Lurks trailer we never end up seeing what the actual spirit looks like, tension is risen throughout the trailer with characters mentioning it and interacting with it without the audience seeing it. In my trailer I have a slower opening scene like in the example trailer. The When Evil Lurks trailer centers around an idea and the storyline of the plot for the whole duration but never gets to the point, leaving audiences wondering what is going to happen. I initially was confused with this trailer, but when I read more about the movie and viewed it again, it all made sense. I tried to lay out my trailer in a way that it made sense if you knew the story, and still had a storyline that didn’t give the whole thing away. Overall, I thought this trailer gave me a great impression and tactics to make a horror trailer.

Another trailer that heavily influenced the creation for my trailer script was Imaginary (2024). This movie centralizes over the fact that when and woman named Jessica moves back into her childhood home with her family, her youngest stepdaughter Alice  develops an eerie attachment to a stuffed bear named Chauncey she finds in the basement. Alice starts playing games with Chauncey that begin playful and become increasingly sinister. While this central gist of the movie is not similar to ours, there were many features that I like from in that I was happy to incorporate into my trailer script. For example, this trailer showcases Alice’s sinister drawings, and I kind of did something similar showing Tammy’s eerie sketches of the abductor. This trailer also showcases Alice being questioned on camera about losing her mind and I incorporated a similar concept with Tammy getting interrogated by her therapist.

While writing the horror script, I wanted to adhere to general conventions. In the trailer I wrote, I made sure to include a conversation with the therapist to create an un easy tension and made sure there was some type of storyline to our trailer, and to inform our audience of an on going quandary in the film. I used the shot of the missing poster as a way to tell the audience Brenda is missing rather than to have a character directly say it. In media, it is paramount that whenever you can visibly show the audience something rather than physically say it, it is generally preferred. I used title cards, along with a voiceover to help create suspense, and to further help the audience with a storyline. I meticulously selected only dialogue that I felt was crucial to the structure of our story. I also used lots of quick cuts and included the scene where Brenda snoops off the further adhere to conventions and help convey to our target audience.

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Horror Transfigure Trailer by Kevin McCarthy

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Blog Post 21- Script I Wrote for Horror Genre

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Blog Post 21- Script I Wrote for Horror Genre

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This is a PDF of the script I wrote, directed to a horror audience. I conducted a lot of research before writing this horror screenplay in order to inform my choices. For my part, I built my script using the When Evil Lurks trailer format.

I intended to follow standard conventions when crafting the horror script. In order to build tension, ensure that our trailer had a plot, and alert viewers to a recurring dilemma in the movie, I made sure to include a dialogue between the therapist and Tammy in the script. Rather than have a character say it out loud, I told the viewers Brenda is missing by using the shot of the missing poster. In the media, it is crucial to remember that it is usually preferred to physically show the audience something rather than just tell them. I added a narration and title cards to assist build suspense and to further aid the audience with the storyline.

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Recently, my group and I held a conversation, and met about possible locations to film. We all were considering throwing out the idea of having the Crawford's house two stories because we live in Florida, a place where two story homes are not as common as they are up north. I pitched the idea of filming the Crawford's house at my friend Harrison's home. He has a two story home with great areas in his house that would fit our visions nicely.

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Blog Post 19- Discussion with Peers and New Scripts

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Blog Post 19- Discussion with Peers and New Scripts

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Alex, Sebi and I have all come together to try and plan our 2 individual specific genre trailers. We came to a conclusion that Sebi would tackle the script that focuses more on our main character "Tammy", with here phycological quandaries, and that I would try and make a trailer script more focused on the horror elements and side to the story.

Alex's role will kind of be the middle man. Alex with serve as a voice of advise and supervision, who could help give us each input along the way. Alex is very bright and often has great feedback for us.

Going into this trailer, I intend on watching many conventional horror trailers, to try and give me a good rough idea of the product I'm working to achieve.

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Recently, my group discussed what are plan is for our budget. We all agreed that we didn't want to go overboard in spending, but we want to spend enough money to be able to contribute to a good, final, product.

As I talked with Alex and Sebi, we came up with a consensus that we do not want to spend over $300 in total. This money will be used for props, accommodations and food for actors.

Initially for our set, we talked about booking and Air BNB. Booking an Air BNB would allow us to have a nice 2 story how that could fit our needs and Sebi, our director, could select a home that explicitly adheres to his visions.

After a further break down with my peers, we all decided that it would be best to not partake in a Air BNB and that we should try and find a friends house to use. Avoiding an Air BNB fee would supply us with much more money for food and props.

As of right now, we do not have a confirmed house to film as the Crawfords, but in a worse case scenario, we will change our script and film at Sebi's house. Sebi only has a 1 story house, but if we change our script, we'll be fine.

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#16 Blog Post- December 12- Clothing and Color coordination,. 

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#16 Blog Post- December 12- Clothing and Color coordination,. 

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Today, I gathered with Alex and Sebastian about our possible options for our use of color and what clothes our characters wear. As we talked together, we agreed that Goodwill would be a great option to purchase some clothes from for our trailer that matches our interests. We would like to go a more grim route with a grey color pallet, and emphasizing other colors in needed key moments.

For our trailer, we are willing to have a decent sized budget, in order to get all the supplies and props we need, as well as food for everyone involved in the process. With that being said, we would like to save all the money we can and avoid unnecessary expenses. That is why we would like the use a cheaper store as a resource.

I will make a blog post later once we have our cast all put together, so we can go further in depth on this coordination.

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This picture shows "Breaking Bad" characters appearing in a Super Bowl commercial, connecting my two essays.

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#15 Blog Post- December 7- Postmodernism Essays

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#15 Blog Post- December 7- Postmodernism Essays

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Recently, our instructor, Ms. Marquis gave us an assignment to select a whole film or an episode of a tv show, and evaluate it in terms of its formal postmodern features. From the given list to choose from I immediately knew I had to write about my favorite TV show "Breaking Bad". In my essay, I tried to highlight several clear postmodern features including the end of progress and modernist ideals, the death of history, death of meaning (with hyperreality), the collapse of cultural and personal boundaries, the death of identity, and the "screw it attitude. Initially, I dreaded to write a big essay, but when I started working, the assignment flew by. I selected the episode "Ozymandias" (the episode Hank dies), since it was my favorite episode of all time, but also coheres to the postmodern features I was looking for. When I watched the episode again, I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent on it. I learned that postmodernism is interesting, and when my teacher told me to have fun with the assignment, she really meant it.

Next, it was time to write my second postmodern essay. Originally, I watched an episode of "Family Guy", and started writing about it, but I soon realized I couldn't do another TV show. After talking with my peers, I heard that most of them were all going to write about videogames, so it was time for me to figure out which videogame I would select. My initial thought was to choose fortnite as the game I would write about, but I concluded that it did not show as much postmodernism as I wanted to. It was hard to choice my game as I am not an active gamer, but then something clicked. I noticed one of my favorite games to play explicitly demonstrates apparent postmodern features; The game was Madden. It was easy to start, since I already had my first essay complete as a guideline I could look back on.

Overall, I thought this was a very helpful assignment. I learned so much from my research during this essay, while having lots of fun on the way.

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 #14 Blog Post- December 1 - Master timeline

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 #14 Blog Post- December 1 - Master timeline

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As we get closer to holiday break, our instructor has put together a master timeline together, to help us stay on task. I have officially been named the Cinematographer and will additionally be in charge of Production/Art Design and Execution. With this being said, I will be the person who works with the director to make sure that the sets, locations, furniture etc are to Sebi's (the director’s) specifications. I will also be in charge of determining color schemes and visual direction, in tandem with the director. In addition to that role, with the cinematography I will be responsible for executing the directors’ vision, working off a shot list or storyboard, framing and composing shots and camera movement, and making sure scenes are lit according to specifications.

I am excited, and eager to be working in these roles with my team. I think that I have a great prowess in seeing visions others may be obfuscated of. I believe my creativity will flourish under this role. I also think I best suit my roles in my team. Since I am the only one in the group with a car that can drive, I will be able to scout out locations to Sebi's specifics that Sebi and Alex may be unavailable to find.

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#13 Blog Post- November 30- Preparations and equipment. 

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#13 Blog Post- November 30- Preparations and equipment. 

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As we get closer to filming our trailers, Sebi, Alex, and I came together and talked about our plans and preparations. Sebi offered for us to use his cameras. Sebi owns professional cameras that were used to make YouTube videos, and he is kindly willing to contribute them to the production of our film.

In addition to his, we also talked about all meeting up together during winter break, so we can try and find some scouting locations. While we are together during break, we will also be figuring out our selection of actors in more depth. Sebi claims that he has some ideas on who to cast, but we will make sure to get on the same page, and hold some auditions.

Having enthusiastic, skilled, and hard working cast is paramount to the final product of the trailer. I am not saying we need Hollywood level talent, but it will be imperative to have half-decent actors.

To help ensure our actors are giving us their full efforts, in our discussion we talked about possible food choices we will be providing. We were thinking something like chick-fila, but we will ultimately come to a decision based on our casts' consensus and likings.

We finished off our conversation talking about availability for filming. We will be printing out a calendar for each member of the team (including cast and producers) and will have them highlight the days that they are free. Once we have these highlighted days, we hope to piece them all together and create a schedule where everyone can be on the same page.

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#12 Blog Post- November 29th- Group Script Discussion

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#12 Blog Post- November 29th- Group Script Discussion

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This Wednesday, we were told by our instructor, Ms. Marquis, that we were going to meet up all together and make sure that we are on the same page on how our script is going.

After careful consideration, my group and I decided to change a whole premise of our story. We originally wanted to include the element of time travel, but decided it would become too intricate for us to pull off. With time travel removed, we decided to base the story off more trauma.

Preparing for this date, I pitched to Sebi that we change our main to characters to females. What originally was Max and Thomas is now turning to two sisters who we are yet to decide the names of. I felt this change was necessary as it challenges ordinary convention and trends, but also shines a light to this female role that is often underrepresented.

The script idea we liked the most was when a character that is mentally ill, suffers from trauma by an abusive father.

One night, a young girl is ignored by her older sister's friends, sent away, and goes missing. The girl hears her noise and investigates for herself, but the sound comes from a mirror on the second floor, and as she stares into the mirror, the lights begin to flicker and a dark figure appears in the corner of the room. The music, sound effects, and flashing increase as the figure approaches. The screen will go black. A week and a half later, police notified the missing girl's father that the search had been discontinued. Her father (Michael Stiller) is furious and starts fighting the police to expand the search, but that doesn't happen. Brenda Stiller (the main character) is the girl who lives in the house where the disappearance happened, and whose younger sister disappeared.

Brenda Stiller is blamed for the disappearance of Macy Stiller (Little Missing Sister), which becomes clear when her dark figure is revealed to be haunting her. It appears on street corners, street lights, and behind her house. Her entire friend group thinks she's crazy. Brenda becomes estranged from her friends and her hygiene begins to deteriorate. Her one sequence in the trailer shows her morning routine: When Brenda gets out of bed, her room is messier than usual, she goes into the bathroom, she turns on the light and looks in the mirror I look at myself. She continued to watch as her blackened hand slowly reached over her shoulder (she seems immune to these encounters, as she is already traumatized).

As Brenda looks into the camera, she begins to take a shower and a black hand reaches for her shoulder again. She sits at the empty family table for breakfast. She then brushes her teeth and the kidnapper is standing in the mirror directly behind her left shoulder, causing Brenda to turn around in surprise (jump scare). She begins collecting materials such as carpets, blankets, and plastic bags. As soon as she enters the living room, she casts a deadly look in the direction of the camera. Brenda begins to remember when her kidnapper reached out and touched her shoulder during her morning routine. He begins to connect the dots in her mind, realizing with a deadly glance that her dark figure is an interpretation of her traumatized, abusive father. The way that person grabs his shoulder, her father grabs her shoulder to turn her around and yell at her. The dining room table was empty - her father was sitting at the dining room table, hitting and screaming. The character is showering with her – her father is probably showering with her too.

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#11 Blog Post- Story Ideas- November 6- Minatory Mirror

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#11 Blog Post- Story Ideas- November 6- Minatory Mirror

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As we attack our complete story, I decided to come up with a new idea for a trailer. I decided to try and write a story to give us more options, and not just rely on one idea. Originally, Sebi was going to write our script, since he had a clear vision in what he wanted our film to look like. After further evaluation, his idea looks like it's on track to be a ripoff of dark, so Alex and I would like to go a different way. My story went something like this :

There is a main character named Sarah. Sarah is an ordinary high school girl, but she has always had one fear... mirrors. Sarah always feels like mirrors are watching her, but she can not explain why. One day, Sarah’s grandmother passes down an old mirror. The mirror is beautiful, but Sarah obtains a gut feeling that there's something wrong with it.

At first, Sarah was uneasy about the idea of hanging the mirror up, simply because she is afraid of them. Eventually, Sarah hangs the mirror in her bedroom because her  grandmother told her too. At first, every think seems normal, But soon, she starts to have strange experiences. She sees shadows and movements move out of the corner of her eye. She also hears whispers that come from the mirror.

Sarah becomes increasingly paranoid and isolated. She starts to avoid her friend and family, and she spends more and more time alone in her room, staring at the mirror. The mirror keeps Sarah up at night. Sarah’s hygiene begins to decline as she can only focus on he fears from the mirror.

One night, Sarah is sitting in front of the mirror when she sees a reflection of herself that she doesn't recognize. The reflection is older and more sinister, and it seems to be taunting her.

Sarah is terrified, and she tries to smash the mirror. But the mirror is indestructible. Everything she does to the mirror has no effect.

Sarah realizes that she is trapped in a cycle of fear and paranoia. She knows that she has to do something to break the cycle, but she doesn't know what. Sarah needs to make sure that nobody experiences the terrors from this mirror again.

Sarah decides to confront her fears and learn more about the mirror. She starts to research its history, and she discovers that the mirror is cursed. After consulting with her grandmother, he grandmother picked up the mirror at a yard sale 50 years ago. The Grandmother had no space for it, but thought it was beautiful, so she bought it and stored it in the attic. Legend has it that the mirror reflects the darkest fears of the person who looks into it. Sarah will later get in contact with the members of the past family who held the garage sale to discuss the history of this mirror (who are still alive).

Sarah also discovers that the mirror has a long history of driving people to madness. She finds out the history of the previous owners and finds out that the former owners son killed himself after he couldn’t handle the hauntings of the mirror.  She knows that she has to get rid of the mirror.

Sarah tries to give the mirror away, but no one will take it. She tries to destroy it, but it's indestructible.

Sarah is starting to lose hope. She feels like she's going crazy.

One night, Sarah is having a particularly bad episode. She's sitting in front of the mirror, and she's seeing all of her worst fears reflected back at her.

Sarah can't take it anymore. She grabs the mirror and runs outside. She finds a nearby cliff, (maybe the beach or somewhere else since it is Florida) and she throws the mirror over the edge. Sarah watches as the mirror falls to the ground and shatters. She feels a wave of relief wash over her. Sarah walks away from the cliff, and she takes a deep breath. She looks up at the stars, and she feels a sense of peace that she hasn't felt in a long time. Sarah knows that she will never forget her experience with the mirror, but she is also determined to move on. She is ready to start a new chapter in her life.

I believe this story falls under or research of a psychological thriller. I think we accomplish this as we will explore the themes of fear, paranoia, and the power of the mind. The film also examines the nature of evil and the possibility of redemption. This film also dives into psychological challenges and introduces cat and mouse games.

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#10 Blog Post -  Quarter 1 Evaluation and Plans to Ramp up Production For Quarter 2

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#10 Blog Post -  Quarter 1 Evaluation and Plans to Ramp up Production For Quarter 2

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Throughout quarter 1 , a big focus of mine was to make a good connection with the peers in my group for my film. Starting at the beginning of the year, I really didn't know Sebi all that well. I have recognized him, but never really got to know him personally. As for Alex, I knew him decently from our Aice media class last year, but only talked to him briefly, due to the fact that I never had the opportunity to work on many class assignments with him. Considering that I'll be spending majority with the year with these two, and will be working on some very paramount projects, I really wanted to get to know more about them. I think I was successful with this focus because I find myself getting into very deep conversations with the two. Whether it is related to the classwork my teacher Ms. Marquis assigns, or just random topics in general from shoes, clothes, to personal issues. Going into quarter 2, I feel very satisfied with the relationships we have created with each other, and I wouldn't want to take on this task with anyone else.

So far, we have done research on our genre, the representation of our film, and a potential target audience of a supernatural thriller. Looking into quarter 2, our plan is to develop a good story with characters, plot, actors, and shot locations. I think that we have come up with a group consensus to aim for at least one trailer this quarter, and possibly be working on trailer number 2 by the end of quarter 2. Once we get back from this 3 day weekend, we should discuss how we are to go about the first steps. In my opinion, I think quarter 2 should excite us, as I feel we are getting closer to expressing more of our creativity.

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#9 Blog Post- Marketing and Trailer Inspirations. October 10, 2023

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#9 Blog Post- Marketing and Trailer Inspirations. October 10, 2023

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In this PowerPoint, my group and I break down our 3 films we were inspired by, and touch on a little bit of our target audience and ways to market.

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# 8 Blog Post : Titles and Credits "The Ritual" September 22,2023

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# 8 Blog Post : Titles and Credits "The Ritual" September 22,2023

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Through my analysis of " The Ritual" I noticed the very little use of titles and credits. In the whole 2 minute and 34 second trailer, there were a total of 4 titles. The first one happened to be the iconic red Netflix logo that appeared on grey screen that faded away rather fast. The next title read " a Netflix film" which was in basic  white letters, which faded as the flashlight came in. The third title was also basic white lettering that appeared over black titled "your darkest dreams". After this title appeared, it was followed by quick cuts, flashing lights, and screams of terror. The last title was when the name of the movie, "The Ritual", faded in,  and was directly followed by an "only on Netflix " label along with the release date. I think the idea of the little use of titles was to create more suspense, and focus more on the intensity of the plot, rather than overboard you with titles that break up what message they want to convey.

In my trailer, I would be very open on the idea of limiting or titles. With this, I think we could focus more on giving the viewer an explicit demonstration of our story without getting lost, and potentially confusing our audience. As far as the font and colors go, I think we should stick to a basic and more neutral color, like the white font used in this trailer, "The Ritual". This discrete choice of font and color really appealed to me because it was obviously noticeable, but was not too distracting.

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The Ritual | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix

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Blog Post #7- 3 films we have chosen and analysis

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Blog Post #7- 3 films we have chosen and analysis

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In this PowerPoint, the films we have chosen are :

The Ritual

Interstellar

Nun 2

This PowerPoint consists of 3 detailed analysis and why we have chosen these films to study.

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#6 Blog Post : Licensing and Management September 15 2023

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#6 Blog Post : Licensing and Management September 15 2023

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Today in class, our teacher Ms. Marquis showed us a cool magazine she received in the mail from a media information company she subscribes to. The cover was a dark- black and white theme with Jimi Hendrix on the front. In big white text it read Jimi Hendrix and right underneath in big font it stated "Licensing Opportunities". This magazine left me to ponder about these licensing agreements, how they get done, how much they cost, and how available they are for smaller films.

Through my prior knowledge and my researching (via Wikipedia, NYTlicesing.com, and Social Blue Book), I have concluded that Music licensing companies specialize in obtaining licenses for music on behalf of their clients. They have relationships with a wide range of copyright holders, and they can often negotiate more favorable terms than companies could negotiate on their own. These Companies make it much easier on the artist as but it can also be the most time-consuming and expensive to try and license on your own.

How Much will a song cost to use?
According to legismusic.com, "If it is a song by a small independent artist, the cost of a license could be between $50 and $150. However, if you're looking to license famous songs by top artists, the price can skyrocket to several thousand dollars without any problem". They also mention, "There are also cases in which there is a charge per second for the use of the song...if the song costs $500/second and you use 10 seconds for your advertising wedge, you will have to pay $5,000".

In conclusion, these very popular songs are extremely pricey and typically used in larger scale films. Big artists will typically use licensing companies for convenience, as they help save time and money.

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#5 Blog Post : What makes a great trailer September 11 2023

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#5 Blog Post : What makes a great trailer September 11 2023

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A great movie trailer possesses the power to generate anticipation, curiosity, and excitement, ultimately drawing viewers into the cinematic world. A trailer is one of the main ways to get your audience interested in your film and to potentially view the final film. For these reasons, it is paramount that a trailer is neatly and precisely executed. With this being said, it is important to know what makes a great trailer because of how imperative it is in contrast to your film.

For one, great trailers involve storytelling. Effective storytelling within a trailer involves selecting pivotal moments that capture the film's emotional depth and thematic richness while maintaining a sense of mystery. The trailer should convey just enough to ignite curiosity without revealing too much, leaving room for the audience to desire and want to seek more more. The trailer should also effectively convey the film's genre and central themes. This alignment helps attract viewers who are specifically drawn to that genre or thematic content.

Next, teasers and hints at the plot's central conflicts should be strategically placed to keep the audience intrigued. It is important to keep in mind too much information can lead to spoilers.

After some research, I have concluded that The Dark Knight (2008) has a great trailer aligning with the points I have mentioned. This trailer does an excellent job of establishing the film's tone and genre, while also giving viewers a good sense of the story and characters. The trailer is also visually stunning and suspenseful, leaving viewers wanting more.

In conclusion, the trailers are very important and contribute to the process of a film, so it is important to understand what makes a great trailer.

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The Dark Knight (2008) Official Trailer #1 - Christopher Nolan Movie HD

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Blog Post #4  Sound  Analysis Continuation September 11 2023

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Blog Post #4  Sound  Analysis Continuation September 11 2023

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Recently, my group talked over what types of music we would like to use for our soundtrack. We talked about potentially using my old friend Matthew Fleetham's music. My teacher Ms. Marquis suggested that it did not fit our genre, but I think it could possibly work as an option, as long as it is extracted is miniscule parts of the trailer. Originally, I did plan that if we used Fleetham's song it would be as an extract, but I was not specific enough and should have elaborated more in my last blog post.

Recently, I mentioned my groupmate Sebi took his time and made a great audio that could really fit our trailer. I have learned that he made this by taking clips of the internet and mixing them together. Alex also told me, "This sound makes me feel makes me feel in another world of uncertain myscief with intense unforeseen events'''. This sound gives a feeling into deep atmospheric and emotional work. Everything about this sound is perfect besides the fact that it is not original work. Our teacher Ms. Marquis said that, "I would caution you, though. ANY music you use you have to have permission to use, and you may need to do some research into REMIXES."

In regards to sound, I have studied the soundtrack of Oppenheimer to potentially help us figure out how to make a similar track.

According to my research in Oppenheimer ( via wikipedia)  :

"The violin was chosen as the main instrument because it is a versatile instrument that can be used to create a variety of sounds. It can be used to create a sense of beauty, sadness, anger, or fear".

"The score uses a variety of musical techniques to create a sense of tension and suspense. These techniques include silence, dissonance, and rhythmic irregularity."

"The score is also notable for its use of silence. The silence is often used to create a sense of unease and anticipation, or to highlight the importance of a particular moment."

"The score is a powerful and moving work that is sure to stay with audiences long after they have seen the film".

This information gives us more material to ponder on. Now we know some of the instruments and ways that we can achieve the type of sound we want. In addition to this, we may have to find an artist on fiverr ( a site that you can pay people to do stuff for you) who can create this type of sound we want, find friends from the school band that may be able to help us our, or somehow reach out to someone that already created this time up music and see if we can make it.

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Blog Post #3 Sound Analysis September 8 2023

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Blog Post #3 Sound Analysis September 8 2023

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Now dating back to last year, I was put in a group with this nice kid named Mathew Fleetham for my Aice media Final project. Matthew happens to create music on his piano. As it turns out, we need to make our own music, or get permission from a creator to use it in our trailers. So, I reached out to my  old friend Matthew about potentially using his song "I Don't Want to Go" for our trailer. Matthew then responded saying I totally have permission to use his music. Now this is not a definite selection, but it seems like a great option to have. His song demonstrates a tone of sorrow with a sense of grief. This grief influences the viewer to feel uncomfortable and uneasy.

Another sound idea was proposed by my group member Sebi. Sebi went online and collected some sounds which come together very similar to the Oppenheimer soundtrack. We really like this, but the problem is that we can't use it because the sound is copyrighted. The Oppenheimer soundtrack appeals to us because it is very mysterious with intense and sudden high pitched noises which give the listener almost like a nervous feel in their stomach.

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Recently, My Group (Alex and Sebi) discussed and idea for a new type of genre for our film. We were uncertain and not too passionate about our previous decision to make a psychopathic thriller. That decision was rushed and we should have waited a little longer to truly find out what genre really inspired us.

My peer Sebi suggested we go into more of a paradox- thriller theme. Sebi was inspired by watching the TV show Dexter and after he shared this with us we were all moved by it. We want this trailer to now consist of physical emotion, pain, regret, consequences, and abuse. We would like to follow conventions of dark color and gritty vibes. We decided to do this as gritty films tend to appeal to more emotions and demonstrate more advanced cinematic effects that we could successfully pull off, rather than happy/brighter-themed films.

For the effects, we have really been delving into the movie Oppenheimer (2023). We loved how he achieved intense and in-depth effects of particles colliding with fire to show a realistic meaning rather than the use of CGI. We want to leave this viewer pondering what they just watched. We are also in the process of creating a soundtrack for this trailer. We want this sound to be mysterious, unique, intense, and creepy.

This trailer will reflect trauma, missing kids, and parental abuse. We also spoke about locations. Alex and I mentioned that we could possibly use the nearby Everglades for a wild and desolate setting. We also talked about potentially finding a cave in the forest similar to an inspiration from a German Netflix show that Sebi watched in 2020.

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First Blog of the New School Year! August 21 2023

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First Blog of the New School Year! August 21 2023

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Planning a film with my peers Alex and Sebi is such an exciting and intriguing process! We started by discussing our vision for the film and also what kind of genre's, thoughts, themes, and messages we want to get across and also find our target audience. We reflect and provide each other with  ideas and share our thoughts on the characters, story, and overall concept. Once we have decided that we want to take on a thriller, we divide tasks and responsibilities based on our strengths and interests. Sebi decides on  writing the script, while Alex and I work on scouting locations, editing, cast and camera work. We came together continuously in the media center to share our progress and provide feedback on each other's opinions and ideas.  As we are making a thriller, we have to come up with 5 movies in that genre to research from the last 5 years. I came up with the following :
Joker (2019)
Mystery Alley (2021)
Parasite (2019)
The Stranger (2022)
Intrusion (2021).
I think these movies will help us learn lots about our genres, how to market, edit, and much more.

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Independent Distribution and Marketing Plan -- Clean Kills

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Independent Distribution and Marketing Plan -- Clean Kills

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If I were to distribute my film independently, I would decide to distribute it for an Aggregator to stream. The Aggregator I would chose to help me stream my film would be Netflix. I would chose Netflix as my number one option to be my Aggregator because according to multiple sources, Netflix is ranked as the most popular streaming service right now. A smaller streaming service we would be interested in releasing our movie on is Scream Box. We would choose Scream Box because they are known for streaming horror movies, so I think it would reach the desired target audience.

The title of our film is Clean Kills. I think our title works because the word clean can be used to sum up our main character wants and desires, and the word Kills let's the audience know that they should expect gore and horror. Our title could be improved by including OCD somewhere in the title to let the audience know that is what our main character struggles with, but my group decided to not change the original title.

A tagline for our poster could be "When Clean gets dirty".

The target audience for this genre are horror film fans. The gender and age of our target audience in this genre is around 15-25 male. Their income is under 100k and their education level is high school - college. Their interests  range from a broad spectrum that consists of open mindedness who like to get scared but not physically experience something scary.  These people care about general dilemmas and drama going on in the modern society.  Getting filled in on events and getting information is important to them. Many organizations include this audience on a broad range from even the national park service to the YMCA. They hanging out online mostly on Tiktok and Facebook. They are following accounts from Universal studios to Bill Skarsgård. Online games are they playing consist of Halo, Call of Duty, and Madden. They are hanging out in the park, starbucks, amusement parks, and the beach. They are reading Steven King novels, wearing casual attire, and watching Osark and Breaking Bad on TV. They are buying or renting home in the local area. They shop at Walmart, Target,  and general supermarkets. They eat Mcdonalds and groceries.

For our advertisement we would use many strategies virtual and in person. We would put up posters in the amusement park hoping to reach out to curious people. We would have a billboard on the side of the highway to try to reach many drivers. We would try to collaborate with McDonalds and have them sell food with our movie on the box to reach out to potential viewers. And Finally in person we would sponsor local kids sporting events to reach out to a broad and large audience. Virtually we would collaborate with many apps including Tiktok, Facebook, Instagram, and  Twitter. We would have people sign up for emails to know the latest news update for our film. We would be showed at the movie theaters before other movies to reach out to the audience that like going to the movies. We would put commercials on tv in between breaks, and also create and app where you can buy merchandise before and after the movie premiers. Finally we would put adds on the radio in-between song changes.

We would be able to make our passive audience active by doing merchandise or general giveaways that they can enter by reposting our posts on social media.

We would design our movie's poster to be mostly organized and nice but have a slight letter out of place and have that letter be covered in blood symbolizing our characters hate for when things challenge her OCD. We will design it to be both familiar and fresh in regard to genre by incorporating dark spots and blood on  the poster. Two or three main colors I would use are baby blue, red, and black. The foreground and background would be plain colors and our lead actor in the middle. Iconography that will be used is the bloody letter on our poster. The Type of fonts/typography will consist of bazzoka large font.

Current trends of marketing consist of social media giveaways and trailers. We would incorporate these ideas and make them our own. The movie "It'' had an interesting marketing technique by opening up the home they shot in from the film and made it like a museum and allowing tours to go on inside the home. We could use this on our own opening up the home we shot in for the public to view.

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Through the production progress of making “Clean Kills” (a horror film), I have gained valuable skills and experiences that will undoubtedly help provide me for future projects. One of the most significant things I have learned is how to coordinate better with my peers. Making a film is a collaborative effort, and communication is key to ensuring everyone is on the same page and working towards a common goal. By improving my coordination skills, I have  discovered that my team is more efficient and effective, resulting in a higher quality finished product.Another important skill I have developed is the ability to replan and make higher quality shots and props. As anyone who has worked on a film can attest to, things don't always go according to plan. Learning how to adapt and make changes on the fly is essential to ensuring the final product is the best it can be. By being flexible and open to new ideas,  I have found that my shots and props are of higher quality and more visually impressive than you may have initially imagined.Finally, I have learned how to manage time better. Making a film is a time-consuming process, and it's easy to get tied down in the details and lose sight of the big picture. By developing strong time management skills,  I have  found that you are more productive and efficient, allowing you to get more done in less time.

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A list of any special lighting considerations/equipment that we will be using is : natural sun light, LED house lights, lowkey lighting maybe caused by a flashlight and high key lighting.

A list of any sound considerations/equipment we will be using will include a Microphone, audio recordings for voiceovers/sound effects, Foley artist (myself) conducting additional sound effects as needed like footsteps, screams, and heavy breathing.

A shot list broken down by location and scene includes an establishing shot of a home, close ups on the landscape of the home, wide shots of the garden, and close ups of the flowers. Inside the home will contain establishing shots of the bedroom, and POV shots of our main character. In my shots I will include zooms, pans, track ins, and track outs. I feel tracking shots will pair extremely well with this film because of the occasions of our main character Sarah walking to a body.

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In the first two minutes of "The Rule of Three" short film,  it displays a women who appears to be overflowing with anxiousness and anxiety while obtaining a severe case of OCD. The woman seeks help to a phycologist.

The genre of the film is film is horror/thriller  and the target audience for the film is 15-25 years of age.

The opening credits of this film starts off with a black screen and then shows the company logo in the bottom right corner. This then leads to another dip to black and then the title fades in. The title is in a horror theme font and filled with red color. The company logo was polar white and had a nice curvature to it. The use and utility of the black adds a professional appearing cinematic effect.

The film starts off with a close up of the door lock and the woman's hand (shaking) locking the door. She flicks the lock multiple times demonstrating he OCD. Next, it straight cuts right to a close up of the light switch and the woman flicking it multiple times also demonstrating he OCD. These types of close-up shots continue throughout the first minute explicitly showing the OCD. The second minute of the film shows the woman talking to he psychologist and shows multiple over the shoulder and close ups of both of then.

The sound of the first two minutes of this short film includes the audio of the conversation with the psychologist. When the film is not playing the conversation it is very silent and creates this eerie silence.

After the first two minutes of the film I was intrigued and was eager to see more. I really wanted to see what happens when she wouldn't flick for example the lock multiple times because she says in the conversation with he psychologist that bad things happen when she does not complete these things.

The editing style in this film includes many straight cuts. The editor makes a lot of his shots quick and straight. The editor also includes a j cut and and L cut.

The first two minutes adhered to conventions by using silence to build up suspense. There is also a use of lowkey lighting and low shots to build up the tension. The eerie sound effects also built to these conventions.

The first two minutes did not break the conventions. It was very well done and left me impressed with how the conventions were carried out professionally without noticeable flaws.

The first two minutes spread light on the severity of OCD and how many people suffer from it and create their own paranoia that really has no reason to be created.

I believe this film was put on YouTube as it was a short film with a low budget and YouTube was a nice way to promote it and receive ad revenue. This film was not long enough for a movie theater, so that also factors in to the decision.

Overall, I was very impressed with this short film. This film looked professional, complex, and was nicely executed.

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Horror Short Film "The Rule of Three" | ALTER

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In November and December of 2022 I learned how to work with editing, sound, and screenwriting/screenplay format. We studied film editing concepts and created documents featuring 20 plus kinds of editing techniques. We also watched a documentary on film editing ("The Cutting Edge") and a video on use of color.  In addition, we studied  sound basics and watched a documentary on cinema sound ("Making Waves"). Next, we read the screenplay for "The Incredibles," learned how to format screenplays using special software, and wrote a two minute horror film opening about someone having a nightmare as the basis for our midterm film project.

Our midterm project required a one to two minutes; horror or horror hybrid; an "opening" rather than a finished film product; minimal dialogue (mostly music, sound effects/ambience); no wall-to-wall music; no long takes; start in black with company ident and/or logo and title and (optional) credits before straight cut or dissolve to first image; minimum of three crosscuts between actor and nightmare; edited/shot/uploaded by us; accompanying blog post.

The film must also include one  close up; one dutch angle; one high or low angle; one low key light set up or one silhouette; one pan or tilt or track/push or spinaround; one zoom or dolly zoom;  one subliminal cut or multitake or smash cut; one match cut; one  J cut or L cut; one use of slow or fast motion; one intentional use of color for story/emotion; one instance of intentional use of costume/hair/makeup; one instance of visual complexity in setting choice (color, texture, depth, lines, shapes, etc.); three sound effects; one piece of incidental music or one sound motif repeated three times.  Extra credit to include: quick cuts; montage; wide establishing shot; split screen; POV shot; reflection shot; intentional break of the fourth wall; intentional break of the rule of thirds; rack focus or pull focus shot; intentional use of handheld camera work; use of color filters to create a dream like quality; fisheye lens or fisheye effect; company logo with high quality graphic.

In my film I thought I did a solid job to adhere to horror conventions/codes/audience expectations and engagement. I think the uses of low angles, sound effects, and dim lighting contributed to adhering to the conventions.
In my film I didn't necessarily break horror conventions/codes/audience expectations and engagement. The biggest flaw in my opinion was the CGI bear, but with my current technology available that was the best I could do. An idea I represented was the fear of bears and how scary the outdoors can be to some people at night.

I feel like in my film I was most successful in my transitions. I thought for the most part I did a smooth job in making cuts unnoticeable. I think the least successful part of my film was the CGI bear. I think the bear wasn't bad, but I think I could have done better if I had the correct resources. The hardware and software I used included : Arc Studio (script), Iphone 14 pro (shooting), Imovie, premier pro, and capcut (editing), Youtube audios and film (sound), Youtube greenscren (graphics), Youtube (music) used for the project.  Something I did not know before I started the project is that you can use a greenscreen on Imovie now. I also learned it can take hard work, but it is worth it at the end of the project.

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Recently in class we studied the conventions, cinematic elements and audience expectations to the various genres of : Biopics, Sci-Fi, Sports, Young Adult, Musical, Romance, Comedy, Drama, History, War, Animation, Documentaries, Horror, Thriller, Crime, Mystery, Adventure, and Fantasy. For each genre we watched three movie clips from three different time periods that demonstrated the genre. We also studied some hybrid genres including  Horror Comedy and Historical Fantasy. A hybrid genre consists of 2 or more genres and combines them together.

For our first student film, I would consider the genre to be a thriller. The reason i believe this is because our first film keeps you on the edge of your seat wondering what would happen to the poor girl being stalked/followed. The film was also relatively fast moving contributing to the thriller genre stereotype. For this first film a thought we conformed to the conventions alright, but we obviously could do better with more plot twists and include more low and high angles to develop suspense. For our second student film I would consider the genre to be a thriller as well. This is because it took chaotic unexpected turns (including when the girl drinking water exploded). I think we did a decent job conforming to the conventions on this one. I think our special effects were really good (considering what we had to work with and our experience). I think that the camera work was ok, but could have been better to try and create more suspense with more low and high angles instead of constant long and wide shots. I also think our acting could have been a lot better. In my opinion, this one really was a big hit on the audience expectations because we had many surprises and unexpecting moments.

My favorite genre would have to be Horror. For a future 2 minute film synopsis my film will take place on Halloween. A young man named Gerry Black (20 years old) gets invited to a college Halloween party. Gerry received the invite a couple hours before the party so needs to find a costume quick. Gerry decides to take  a jack o lantern from his front yard and make a pumpkin helmet out of it for a  last second for a costume. The second Gerry puts the helmet on he becomes possessed. The helmet engraves it's self on Gerry's head so he can't take it off, and he ends up going on a killing spree. Three codes/convention/expectations I would be interested in exploring are camera work, stories, and editing.

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In this assignment I was assigned another group's original film and tasked with rewriting and improving the script, and I had to include 10 different kinds of shots and camera movements. The original plot was about a friend getting into an argument and then killing a bunch of people with magical powers. Once the friend killed all those people some man revived all of the killed friends and finished off the original killer. If you think that summary of their story was confusing, you should have seen how difficult their movie was to understand what was going on. My group used many different shots to create a cinematic vibe. Our best shots included our shots of depth, color, and our lowkey lighting to draw attention to certain events.My group changed the other groups up by creating a backstory to explain how this man got magical powers. This man then tests his powers out my making a milk carton come to his hands and by accidentally swatting a fly and the force of the swat ended up killing a girl. When a friend of this man brings up to this guy that there was a murder that man says that he committed it and then kills that friend. A group of bystanders see this killing and come to try and help, but can't do much and end up being killed by the man. An innocent girl see's all the dead bodies and says, ''Oh no, only Jesus can save us'', Jesus then appears and heals all of the fallen men. Jesus the sends  the evil man with magic powers to hell. My role in this fil was director/ actor. I really thought our team did a great job with this one and made a great product.

Overall, I thought our film was really up to that mark and met or satisfactory. I thought our editing was very well put together and was a big improvement from our last film. I thought our sound was a bit of an issue and our acting could definitely be better, but our sound quality was really not in our control and we do not have the luxury to have great actors in our group. In our altered storyline we were trying to explicitly let the viewer know what was going on at all times. By creating a backstory and distinguishing a character like Jesus, it really lets the viewer infer what is going on and follow along with the story better.

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This was our first film, it was a film about a man name Wade following high school girl Gianna around the school. Gianna later see's a friend and start starts talking to her. Gianna's friend notices some man following her and confronts him. The man Wade said he was going to class. later on Gianna goes to the vending machine and while selecting a beverage she get's pulled behind the machine by Wade. Then a whole group of males see wade and gather around him screaming and shoving him.

My role in this short film was Background character 1 and Director. I personally feel like i could have done a lot better directing, picking scenes, choosing different angles, and camera shots, but to be fair to me we were on a very short time crunch (approximately 35 mins). I really admired the energy in our group and how we were able to pull off this movie fast and our ability to improvise and face adversity . I think the sound definitely could improve, as well as our professionalism (camera-woman laughing ). Overall, I think that it was a solid first film and I am looking forward to future assignments like this.