THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

Hello!! I am very proud of myself because one I FINISHED MY FILM OPENING TODAY YAYAYAYYAYA, and two I FILMED MY FIRST CCR TODAY YAYAYAYAYAY.

I filmed the Vouge makeup routine CCR here is my script:

Question 1:

Hello! It’s Julia and I was asked by Vogue to tell you a little bit about my recent project “Foresight” while I show you my makeup routine. Here are some of the products that I am going to use, and I am going to be answering some questions that Vouge sent me. Without further ado let's begin. So the first thing that Vouge wants to know is how does Foresight use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? That is a great question. So Foresight is a Thriller about a guy named Asher who goes on a camping trip with his friends and begins to feel and see weird things. Thrillers according to research done by North Dakota South University (that I referenced when creating my film) “tend to want to be small. It's like putting your hero in a box and squeezing. One of the advantages of this narrowing of focus is that thrillers maximize emotion.” Now I think that this is something that Foresight definitely does. Within the first 30 seconds of the film, Asher (the protagonist) is put in a very uncomfortable situation where he finds a photo of his mom who passed away when he was young. Not only does this maximize emotion but it also represents a social issue which is being motherless while growing up. Foresight also attempts to represent teenagers through costume design, music choice, and casting. One thing I was very keen about when writing Foresight was that I wanted Asher’s friends to fill the void of Asher not having a full family. In other words, I wanted Asher’s friends to be his family, which is something that I see a lot with teenagers, especially those with bad living situations, or problems with their parents or siblings, those kids tend to rely on their friends and their friends rely on them and they form this sense of community which is something I wanted to represent with this project. Another thing that is usually found with thrillers that I wanted to include in mine, was the use of pacing. Most thriller films, start happy or normal and then a few minutes into the film, conflict is introduced. This is something that I wanted to use to tell my story because I thought it would be a good way to balance the representation and introduction of my characters while also sticking to the typical genre conventions of a thriller. So yeah, hopefully, that answered that question for you Vouge and now let's go on to the next one.

Question 2:

Vogue wants to know how Foresight engages with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text. Wow, that is a wonderful question. I love it. So, (re-read question under breath) okay. I think it’s important to mention my project’s target audience first, which is young adults (ages 17-25) both female and male, people who enjoy thrillers, intense movies, friendship, people who don’t mind mature content, and overall people who enjoy anxiety-inducing films. One way that Foresight engages with the audience is having a pretty good balance of boys and girls in the cast. While the main character is a boy, there are three girls and two boys in the friend group which in my opinion balances it out. The ages of the characters are 16-18 years old which means most of the target audience is either that age or just was that age. Having a character be around the same age as you, allows you to understand, relate, and therefore engage with the character more so than if they were let’s say twice your age. This is because you are both likely facing the same social pressures and experiencing similar problems. Moving on, like I said before, Foresight is targeted at people who enjoy thrillers, and by following the genre conventions of a typical thriller, by nature those people are going to be engaged with the film. In other words, using genre conventions is a great way to engage target audiences. As for distribution, I plan on uploading Foresight on YouTube, and possibly other social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok. This is because my target audience is particularly active on these platforms and realistically, I cannot release my opening in theaters. With that being said, I hope you all have a fantastic night, thank you so much Vouge for having me, oh my god I almost forgot, I got carried away blabbing about opening, I almost forgot to show you my makeup, here it is, this is my everyday look, obviously I wouldn’t wear this on my red carpet but again thank you so much Vouge, and have an amazing night, morning, afternoon whatever. Blow kiss.

I was too lazy to write an actual script so I just wrote down what I wanted to say on Google Docs.

Here are some BTS:

The script-writing process took around 2 hours, which is not too bad, and the filming took around 30 minutes. I am going to edit this CCR tonight and hopefully film my second one tomorrow. I will update you when I finish editing!!

Hello, it is currently Saturday morning, I finished editing my CCR YAYAYAYAY. I was a little unsure about the credits and what I needed to do but I am going to ask my teacher just to make sure on Monday. I am going to start writing the script for the last CCR.

Hello! It is Sunday Morning. I finished writing my second CCR's script last night. Here is a picture (sorry for the scribbles):

And I just finished filming. I forgot to take BTS AGAIN! so here are some pictures from filming:

As you can see this is not carpool karaoke. This is because while I was writing my script I decided that I would much rather do a Talk show CCR.  Also, my dad pulled a muscle in his leg and I wasn't going to make him drive me with a hurt leg, and I didn't want to drive while talking because that's dangerous so yeah!! I also liked this idea more anyway so it worked out.

Now the only thing I have left is to edit my CCR and that's it.

Here are some pictures from editing:

AND THAT'S IT!!! MY NEXT BLOG POST WILL PROBABLY BE MY FILM OPENING YAY.

EDITING PT.IDK ANYMORE I JUST WANT TO FINISH

Hello, I've been editing the whole day (not really) I started at like 11, and now it's about to be 3 but still, it's a lot. I've made progress, I've started to color-correct my clips, and I'm close to finishing my first draft!

Today I want to write my script for my CCR and film my first CCR. I know I've been saying that for too long but I need to do it. This is driving me insane I just want to finish. Here are some pics from my editing process:





Right now I am trying to insert my credits and title and see where I am going to put them within my opening. Here are the possible title fonts that I created before:



Here is the one I chose:


I like it a lot. It's what I pictured in my head.


I have plans tonight so I am going to continue editing tomorrow, but I got a lot done today and I am happy. See you soon!

FILMING PT.2

Hello!! So, yesterday I filmed the shots that I was missing which is good. I feel VERY relieved. Unfortunately, I forgot to take some behind-the-scenes pictures, but I got a total of 15 mosquito bites as a result of filming so that's always fun!

One thing that was not fun about yesterday was that I forgot to bring the white glove that I needed for filming, but luckily my dad was able to give it to me when he came to pick me up so I just filmed the shots I needed with the glove at the end. I also decided to change the tracking shot (29th: Tracking shot of him running) to a pan because the tracking shot was very shaky and hard to do because of the uneven terrain inside the forest.

Today I plan on writing the script for my first CCR (the Vouge Makeup one) and hopefully film it, and also edit my opening because, since my dad updated the memory on my computer, Premiere Pro should work a lot smoother now.

UPDATE!

I hate Premiere Pro.

So I'm using CapCut. Before you judge me I tried but it just wasn't working out and I got more done using CapCut for an hour than using Premier Pro for TWO DAYS. So I think it was a good decision. Right now I am about halfway done editing my opening which is a HUGE accomplishment and I am about to go back to my sound project that we did in the second quarter (I think) to find some websites that I can find good sound effects, to incorporate into my opening. I will update when I find a website.

Here are two of the websites

Freesound

Pixabay

I got a lot done today and I am very happy with the way my opening is turning out. I'll update you tomorrow.

EDITING (attempt)

Hey! So I actually lied to you when I said I was going to edit my opening in Capcut, because I started editing in Premier Pro!! It is a pain trying to learn how to use it without any help but I'm getting there.

Why didn't you use CapCut?

Well, turns out my computer only has 4 GB of storage!!

So Capcut was super slow on my laptop, and I didn't want to download all of the clips and send them to my phone so I tried using Adobe. Surprisingly it worked. I thought it was going to be a lot scarier than it actually was, it was more confusing at first but then things started working out. Here are a few pictures of me trying my best to figure things out:

Here is me figuring out how to stabilize my clips because I'm an idiot and didn't use a tripod when I was filming some things!!

I've spent around an hour "editing" and I've been on the first two clips, color-correcting them, stabilizing them, and changing the duration of them. I love life!

Oh also I completely forgot to say my dad bought me something that's supposed to increase my RAM (whatever that means) and it comes later today so hopefully Adobe won't be as glitchy as it is now and my editing will be easier. Here is a picture of the thing my dad bought:

Since Adobe is making me mad and I am getting little to no progress done, I am going to continue editing once my storage thing comes in and Adobe decides to work! At least I got an idea of how to use Premier today and I have all of my clips uploaded to the editor. See you soon!!

AFTERMATH

Hello!! So, I still need to finish filming my opening which I am going to finish on Tuesday afternoon, but I have a few updates. This post will be shorter than usual because I don't have that much I need to say.

Editing Software:

I have decided that I am going to edit the majority of my opening on CapCut because it is one of the few that I am familiar with and comfortable with, and I don't want to try to learn how to use Adobe Premiere Pro in one week. I said "majority" because if there are certain clips that I need to use other editing softwares for like Canva or Adobe, I can ask my friends who know how to use it for help. I will try to start editing before I film the rest of my opening, so all I have to do is add the other clips in.

I will update you tomorrow because that is when I plan to start editing.

CCRs:

I have decided that I want to do a Vouge makeup routine CCR (you'll see) and a carpool karaoke-style interview for my CCRs. I am going to have my mom or dad help me with both so that I have someone interviewing me and yeah, I think its a fun and creative way of reflecting on my project, and it is relatively easy.

Also here is my shot list with the ones that I have completed and the ones I still have to do (highlighted means completed):

1st: Car (ext)

2nd: All Car shots (int)

3rd: Friends getting out of the car (ext)

4th: Friends getting stuff out of the car

5th: Asher getting his stuff

6th: Vision sequence thing

7th: Asher putting picture away

8th: Asher walking to camp

9th: Shot from in the trees of Asher walking to camp

10th: Shot of Asher walking to trees (from inside trees)

11th: Friends setting up

12th: Friends playing (Ruby and Jade, Claire and Asher)

13th: Shot of Claire looking at Asher

14th: Ruby looking at her

15th: Friends sitting around fire pit

16th: Shot of all friends sitting around the fire

17th: Slow zoom into Asher

18th: Friends waking Asher up

19th: Pov of Claire asking

20th: Medium of Asher saying yes

21st: long shot of him walking to forrest

22nd: Shot of friends sitting around fire put when Asher sees there and campsite empty shot (skip)

23rd: Asher in the forest peeing

24th: Whip pan behind him

25th: Glove on floor

26th: Asher walks to glove

27th: Glove again

28th: Shot of Asher hearing screaming

29th: Tracking shot of him running

30th: close up of Asher scared

31st: Asher confused

32nd: insert of cross

33rd: Insert of hut

34th: Insert of white glove

35th: Insert of wooden cross

I will update you tomorrow when I try to start editing!!

FILMING

Hello, I'm back with a lot of updates. So I filmed on Sunday, and it was very chaotic and stressful. Here's why:

Originally I had made a group chat with all the actors I needed in my film, I told them the date I wanted to film a month in advance, and everyone had told me that they were good to film that day. The night before, I text in the chat asking "hey just making sure everyone can go" and the guy who was playing Mark says "hey I work tomorrow I can't" and I FREAKED OUT. I asked everyone a million times and everyone said it was okay so I was furious and I panicked because I didn't know who else I could ask. Luckily, one of my best friends who goes to school in Michigan was visiting for spring break and I begged him to be in my film and he said yes. With that resolved I calmed down a bit and went to bed. The next morning I began getting my props and equipment ready as seen here:

Then I got a call from my friend that was now playing Mark saying that his mom is mad at him and he can't go, so I freaked out again. His mom and my parents are very good friends and my parents knew how this important this project was to me and my Aice Exam, so they texted his mom and begged her to let him go. She immediately said yes and he was able to go again!! Keep in mind this all happened at 3:30 pm when I was scheduled to film at 4:30, so If my parents hadn't of convinced his mom I would've had to cut Mark from my story which would've caused a huge mess and yeah. That aside, I drove to Markham with the guy playing Asher so we could get a head start on some of the shots that I had to film with only him. I did the insert shots first (of the cross, the glove, and the hut) and then did some location shots of the campfire, the camping sign, and the forest. Then, my other actors came and I filmed the car shots, the leaving the car shots, the campfire shots, and then it was 7 and the park was about to close, so unfortunately I didn't get to finish the shots I needed to get of just Asher. Luckily, I see the actor who plays Asher a lot so we are just going to film the rest of the shots over spring break. Here are some behind the scenes pictures:

I will update when I finish the rest of the shots and I will add some footage that I took into my next blog.

CCR DISCUSSION

On Tuesday, we had a lesson about Creative Critical Reflections. We learned about the different questions we had to answer, things we should and shouldn't do, and suggestions on how to answer the questions. Here is what I took away from the lesson. We have to answer 4 questions provided by Cambridge in a creative and engaging format while also incorporating research and personal experiences with the project.

My teacher recommended that we have two creative critical reflection pieces. I am thinking of doing two questions for each video. She said that the maximum time for all of the responses combined is 10 minutes so I need to keep that in mind.  Here are the things that my teacher recommended and discouraged.

Do: write a script, be creative, and incorporate research

Don't: Wing the CCRs, talk for the whole video without engaging the viewer, and provide general responses (be specific)

Now you may be thinking, what are you thinking of doing Julia? Well, I have many great answers to that question. I have many possible ideas that I would want to pursue. Some include a Vouge makeup routine interview, a "most searched on Google interview" a reality TV show segment with confessionals, a carpool karaoke type of thing, and a hot ones wing eating interview. Here are some examples of these types of videos.

Vouge Makeup tutorial 

Most searched on the web

Confessionals

Carpool Karaoke

Wing eating challenge

With that in mind, I am going to start coming up with ideas for my CCRs but I am happy with the ideas I have come up with. BYE SEE YOU SOON!

TECH STUFF

Hello!! with less than a week until filming I need to figure out what equipment I want to use for my opening. This blog post will not be long because I already have an idea of what I want to use for my opening I just need to explain it.

So, my dad owns a Sony camera. Here it is:

This camera is relatively old but I LOVE it. I always use it to take pictures of me and my friends and videos of concerts and just everything. This camera is mainly for taking pictures but you can film on it. I was thinking of using this camera because the quality is really good. But, my friend has a cannon camera that IS for filming so instead I am thinking of using hers. I will still have mine as a backup in case something happens and I can't use it.


As for audio, for the scenes that have dialogue, I am going to record the audio on voice memos as the scene is taking place and try to match it up with the video. If this doesn't work out (it's my first time trying this) then I will just rely on the camera audio which might not be the best idea but again I'm going to have both options available in case one backfires.


My dad also owns a tripod that I can attach the camera to, so for shots that aren't supposed to be shaky, I can use that. Also in my opening, there is a car that the friends are driving in. The person who plays Claire said that I could use her car for those shots because she was already going to have it at the park.


Overall, I am very fortunate that I already had access to great equipment because it made this a LOT less stressful, and I can't wait to start filming!!

CREDITS/TITLE

Hello!! As you know I am filming this Sunday, but something that I haven't started to think about (which I should be thinking about) is how I am going to do my credits, where I want to insert them, how I want them to look, and where I am going to put my movie title. I know this is more of an editing thing, but I would like to have an outline and an idea before I start editing so when I do have to edit I already know what I want to do. 

Something that I was very adamant about in the beginning of my project was having a black screen before my film with my movie title and with some background information about cults in the United States. As my idea grew into what it is today, I am willing to let this idea go because I don't think it would work well with my film opening. Although I really liked this idea, I think there are better ways that I can create a feeling of suspense while still keeping genre conventions in mind.

I found this article with a lot of information about credits and titles and it gives a good example of an opening that incorporates credits really well. Here is the article.

I found this list on IMDb which lists the "Best Opening Credits in Film". Here are some of my favorites that I watched

Panic Room Credits

Zodiac Credits

Cape Fear Credits

I am going to do some experimenting on Canva and see if I can find a font that I like for my Title or my credits.

 Here are a few fonts that I found. I am not sure which one I want to use but at least I have my options and when I am editing I can try them all and see which one looks best. As for the placement of credits and my title, I am planning on having my title in the very beginning of my opening where the outside of the car is seen. It would occur while the music that I chose for the beginning plays. I want the rest of the credits to play during the car shots and while the group of friends sets up. I think I want my credits and my title to be the same font, so whichever font I end up choosing during my editing will most likely be used for both. I think this is all I wanted to figure out, so I'll see you next time!!

PRE FILMING

Hello, I'm back! Since next week I'm filming, I want to make sure that the filming process goes as smoothly as possible because I have 5 people who are relying on me and I don't want to waste anyone's time. I am going to make a list of shots and put them in order so I can be as efficient as possible. I will make this document on Google Docs and use my storyboard as a reference. Here it is:

1st: Car (ext)

2nd: All Car shots (int)

3rd: Friends getting out of the car (ext)

4th: Friends getting stuff out of the car

5th: Asher getting his stuff

6th: Vision sequence thing

7th: Asher putting picture away

8th: Asher walking to camp

9th: Shot from in the trees of Asher walking to camp

10th: Shot of Asher walking to trees (from inside trees)

11th: Friends setting up

12th: Friends playing (Ruby and Jade, Claire and Asher)

13th: Shot of Claire looking at Asher

14th: Ruby looking at her

15th: Friends sitting around fire pit

16th: Shot of all friends sitting around the fire

17th: Slow zoom into Asher

18th: Friends waking Asher up

19th: Pov of Claire asking

20th: Medium of Asher saying yes

21st: long shot of him walking to forrest

22nd: Shot of friends sitting around fire put when Asher sees there and campsite empty shot (skip)

23rd: Asher in the forest peeing

24th: Whip pan behind him

25th: Glove on floor

26th: Asher walks to glove

27th: Glove again

28th: Shot of Asher hearing screaming

29th: Tracking shot of him running

30th: close up of Asher scared

31st: Asher confused

32nd: insert of cross

33rd: Insert of hut

34th: Insert of white glove

35th: Insert of wooden cross

This allows me to film efficiently and also keep in mind the daylight outside because I plan to film around 4:30-6:30 or 7 so I have to make sure that the daylight is sufficient for shots that require that. I put the inserts at the end because, for those, the sunlight doesn't matter because it's supposed to be in the future anyway, and I also don't need anyone else for those shots. Some things are switched around it is not exactly in the order of my storyboard again because it makes it more efficient. I'm very glad I did this because now the filming day will go a lot smoother and be a lot more organized. This is something I wish I had done for past Aice-Media projects (which are discussed in my previous blogs) like my music video project because the order of filming was chaotic and not planned and it made things a lot more stressful than they needed to be. See you next time!!

MISE-EN-SCENE

Hello, I'm back!!! Today I want to decide on some mise-en-scene elements that I want to incorporate into my opening. The first thing I want to focus on is costumes/colors. I want each character to have a meaningful wardrobe and color to them.

Asher: I thought he should wear a white shirt and baggy jeans for his character. I think the white, in my head, corresponds with the visions, and the jeans make the outfit casual and basic. These two things together paint Asher as just a regular guy while also corresponding with his character. The shoes would be the same as in this picture because the person playing Asher has these shoes and they go with the outfit nicely.

Mark: I picture Mark wearing also a very basic outfit but I picture him wearing black. He is a very laid-back and "chill" guy and I feel like he and Asher are almost like Ying and Yang because they balance each other out and work really well together. Here is what I want him to wear (except with lighter washed jeans and no bag):

Ruby: For Ruby, I had a picture of my friend who was going to play Ruby and she was wearing the exact outfit that I imagined in my head so It made it a lot easier. I imagine Ruby as being preppy, cute, and feminine. I also think the outfit is a nice contrast to Mark's outfit which shows that they are very different but they complement each other. Here is the outfit:

Jade: I've been having trouble trying to decide what I want Jade to wear because I want her to be edgy but I don't want her to be too edgy. After some brainstorming, I decided on this. I think her color would be black and I think this outfit is a good mix of edgy, basic, and a little girly. (lighter washed jeans)

Claire: I wanted Claire to be very girly and feminine. I thought pink would represent this the most and I want her to wear this outfit:

Besides costumes, I have the props that I have discussed in my past blog posts here they are again:

And here is the setting in which I want to film:

I'm glad that I got costumes figured out and reassured my other elements because filming is NEXT WEEK!!!! I feel very ready I'm just missing a teensy bit of research on filming approaches which I will do tomorrow!!

AUDIO

Hello, today I finalized my date for filming!! I've decided to film on Sunday the 17th of March because that gives me all of the spring break to edit and do my creative critical reflections (CCRs). I talked to the cast of my opening and everyone said that day worked for them so now we prepare!!

One thing that I wanted to do was start thinking about the music in my opening (as I mentioned in my last blog post). Today I began looking. After some digging I found this cool sound that I want to play during the car scene when the friends are driving to the campsite. The song just matches what I pictured in my head so I think I'm going to use it. I found it on a website called Bullet Proof Bear. Here is a bit of the song: When you wake up. This was my main focus for today because I wanted to make sure that the friends in the car's dancing matched with the song because if not that would look stupid. 

Another thing I wanted to find out was what I would do for the visions. I found this dizzy sound effect on Freesound that was really cool. I can't download it right now because I have to make an account and I'm too lazy but here is a screenshot of it.

It sounds really cool and I think I want to layer other sounds like a faint heartbeat and nature sounds because Asher is outside. I will do that during my editing process. For now, that is all I planned to do today, I know it is less than usual but since I finished my screenplay, storyboard, and story outline, there are only little things like this that I can do until I start filming. I plan to do a bit more genre research and write a post about mise-en-scene elements.

STORYBOARD

Hello! After having my group meeting and changing some aspects of my screenplay and story outline, I thought it was an appropriate time for me to create my storyboard. For me, creating my storyboard is almost like creating my final draft. I don't know why but I've always felt like this. Obviously, that doesn't mean that if I don't like something I can't change it, it just means that my idea is pretty much finalized aside from maybe a few shots here and there that I might end up changing. Now before I started creating my storyboard, I just wanted to have a look at some more film openings. I know I've seen quite a few in my lifetime, but a few more wouldn't hurt. So I watched this video on YouTube called: Top 20 SCARIEST Opening Scenes in Horror Movies. I watched this video more for fun than for my project, but it did end up reminding me of the feeling that I want to emulate in my opening. So with that said, here is my beautiful story board!! (I can't draw):

















I ran out of storyboarding paper in the end so I got creative!! But I am really happy with my idea, and I was really able to picture shot by shot what I wanted so I am very excited to see it come to life. One thing I need to figure out before I begin filming is the music I want to use because, at the beginning of my opening, I want the group of friends to be dancing to a song, so I will do some research on some songs. My teacher gave my class a few websites that have royalty-free music such as freesound.org, bulletproofbear.com, bensound.com, and purple-planet.com. I will take a look at these websites and see if I find something that I like. See you next time!