Just an update

  The last two classes were about camerawork and filming our scenes, which made everything feel more real. On the day we filmed my scenes and I was really nervous. I get stage fright easily so standing in front of the camera with everyone watching was a bit too much at first. I made a mistakes so there were some bloopers well..maybe a lot.. After a while I got more comfortable and I finished my part. My partner in the scene really locked in did a good job, which made it easier for me to relax.

We started filming in the courtyard. Then we went to the lunch restroom for the next scene where I am putting on mascara. It is also the moment my character gets killed. Filming that part was fun even though it was supposed to be scary. It was interesting to see how the camera angles and lighting made the scene feel more dramatic than it was while we were filming.

On the day we filmed the last kill scene. In that scene the killer walks up behind the person and pushes them down the stairs. We did not actually push anyone. We filmed it in a way that makes it look real. In our horror film we do not know who the killer is, until the end. That part felt like the moment everything was building up to.

Now all the scenes are done which feels like an accomplishment. Our editor is working on putting everything and it is exciting to know that the final product is getting closer. Making this film has been stressful, funny, awkward and fun. It is great to see everything come together and work with my team too.

we had a visitor

Today we met Jim, the producer, James Guarasci and it was really cool. He showed us a lot of films made by students from other schools and it was great to see what people our age can do. It was of inspiring to see their work. He also showed us some movie trailers. Explained how they are made. He talked about an app called Black Magic. Said it is very good for filming and editing. I did not know that real filmmakers use many tools until now.

He explained the story arc in a simple way, which really helped me. For our film we need to have three things:

* An intro to set the scene

* A conflict

* A resolution

He said it is like this: normal then something big happens, then a new normal.. That made sense to me. He kept saying that our stories should be about things we know and that our film should say something even if it is small. He also said that it is very important to have an ending and to make the audience feel something. That stuck with me because I never thought about how important it's to make people feel something in a horror film but it makes sense.

Then we talked about writing scripts. Jim said to write with our characters in mind which sounds easy. It is actually hard. Writing is a lot harder than I thought it would be. It is hard to make characters seem real and not silly.

We also learned about camera work like how to frame a shot, where to put the camera and how to move it. It made me realize that the camera tells the story, not the actors. Then we talked about lighting and how it can change the mood of a scene. The way you light a scene can make the audience feel calm or scared. They might not even know why. After that we learned about audio, like dialogue, natural sounds and sound effects. I did not know how important sound is until Jim explained it. Finally we talked about shot sequencing, which is how all the shots fit together to like tell the story.

Today was a day and it made me feel like we are really making a film not just a school project. It is a lot to learn. It is also exciting because now I feel like I understand what it takes to make a scene work. Jim, the producer really knows what he is talking about and I am glad we got to meet him what he said really helped me understand this class a bit more.

AICE Media Studies : planning our shots and storyboard

For our horror intro project my group and I have been trying to figure out how to plan out a story for it. We did not just want to grab a camera and hope for the best with our horror intro project. So we started with storyboards first. At first the storyboards for our film intro felt of silly because they looked like rough little comic panels.. Once we got into making the storyboards for our horror intro project it actually helped us picture what the scenes for our project were supposed to look like.

We learned about camera shots for our horror film intro like using an establishing shot to set the mood. At that point we were mostly planning our horror intro project while other groups were already running around the school acting like directors and filming for their projects.

Eventually we decided to film our intro project around our school, which made everything easier for everyone since we could just come to school and make it. The script for our intro project basically built itself as we filmed . A lot of it was last-minute improv because someone would suddenly have an idea and we’d just roll with it . It made the whole thing feel more natural and honestly kind of exciting for our horror intro project.

We also made a poster for our project, plus a bunch of "missing" posters that we hung all over the school . Seeing the posters for our horror intro project in hallways made me kind of proud like we were actually making something people might stop and stare at for our horror project.

update!

We have officially started filming our horror intro and even though we do not have a ton of progress yet it feels like we are finally getting somewhere. It has been a mix of laughing messing up shots,  trying to look serious for horror scenes and then breaking character two seconds later. It has also been really fun watching our ideas, for our horror intro project slowly turn into something real. I am honestly excited to see how it turns out 

Intro into Aice media studies

Welcome to my first blog post! 

 This is the introduction into my Aice media studies class, to start we dove into the basics of film making.

The four elements of film: 

- camera

- audio

- mise-en-scene 

- editing

The different types of shots: 

- crucial shot            - medium close up           - over the shoulder shot

- master shot            - close up                    - point of view shot

- wide shot               - extreme close up           -  insert shot 

- full shot                 - single shot                     - establishing shot

- medium full shot   - two shot

- medium shot         - 3/4 shot 

next, we got into groups and started planning what we're going to do for our film. we all decided to do a horror film!.