Creative Critical Reflection

 CCR

It's finally time to wrap up my journey in this filmmaking process. In my CCRs, I talk about my whole process in making the film Times Up. I hope you guys enjoy!

CCR- How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

CCR- How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

CCR- How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

CCR- How did you integrate technologies- software, hardware, and online- in this project?

Final Film

 TIMES UP

    Hello everyone! It is finally here, the finished product.

    This opening sets up the rest of the story, where our 'final girl', Emma, seeks revenge on the killer who murdered her best friend. Alright, let's start this film, 1... 2... 3... Action!

    Isabella and I worked really hard to make our film become a reality, so I hope you guys enjoyed it just as much as I did producing and editing it!  

Production

 New Title Font & Color

    Hii! So, I have some news to share with you all... I changed the title font and color. I know, I know, I already had one picked out, but while we were editing the film, we realized that Premeir didnt have the Weiss font. Because of this, we went searching for a new one. Then we found the font, Lehmann. 

    We really liked this font. It still had that sharp look that we wanted from our other font, but it just had a little bit more (I can't explain it). We used this font for our credits, too. Now, the color we changed to a darkish red because we wanted it to feel like the slasher movie it is, the red representing blood. We also changed some of the letter sizes, just to give it more of a deranged look. Now our title looks like this:

  When showing the title in the film, I wanted it to slowly zoom all the way into the title until the screen goes black. However, I couldn't figure out how to do it without the speed changing halfway through. Even after searching up a video on how to do it, I still couldn't get it right. Again, I am still new to Premier, considering this is the first ever film I have actually made. So, I was expecting some problems like this.

    That's when Isabella came up with a solution to just make it zoom in up to the full title instead. We still get that zoom in affect, but now the speed wouldn't change. It was perfect.

    This was our last step in completing our film. I can't wait to show you guys the finished product!

    

Production

 Fixing the Audio 

    Welcome back! Today, I just wanted to share how I fixed the audio on some of our clips.

    What I wanted to do in this process is make it so that any sudden noise that we had or any non-needed noise was adjusted so that we didn't have conflicting audio. So, that meant any loud noise, like the TV static and the thud that they heard come from upstairs, was raised so that the viewer watching would also get scared. 

    In this picture, you can see how I adjusted the volume of that specific section so that the thud could be heard. 

    In the pictures below, you can see how I muted some background noise. In the first picture, this was the clip we wanted to use; the only problem was that a person in the background dropped something, and there was a loud noise. We really wanted to use this clip because we didn't like the other ones we took, so instead of replacing the clip, I just turned the volume all the way down so that it couldn't be heard.

    In the second picture, I muted a section where the mic caught the rustling of our actor, Ana, moving the blanket.

 

Now that that's done, our film will sound authentic without any bothersome sounds. 

Production

 Fixing the Lighting

    Hello! We are now in the phase of editing our film. So far, we have put clips together, but that's when we noticed an issue: the lighting. 

    We didn't really take into consideration how hard it would be to film in the dark. We noticed when filming that the clips came out a little darker on the camera, but after putting our phone's flashlights up as an extra lighting source and also putting up candles, we thought it would be enough; however, it was not. Some people might say, "Why didn't you film it with brighter light?" or "You should have filmed it with the lights on,"  but doing this would take away the whole idea of the characters watching the movie in the dark.

    After playing with the lighting in Premiere and going back and forth on seeing which filter looks better, we finally managed to get the brightness up as much as we could without it looking unnatural. 

Before:

After:

    However, no matter what we did, the film still looked super grainy. We tried everything we could, but nothing worked. Though I'd still call it a win because the video still looked much brighter than it was before. 

Production

 Behind The Scenes

    Hi everyone! We have officially finished filming. Horray! Filming was actually really fun to do, and we had a great time, but everybody still made sure to work hard and do what they needed to do. While I was filming, Isabella was holding a boom stick that we made for the audio, making sure the video in the background was playing, and also getting all these clips we have of behind the scenes. 

    There were some bad moments, like when my hair caught fire because I leaned too far back to do a shot when there was a candle right behind me, and good moments, like when we got the perfect shot. Soo, I thought it would be a good idea to share what it was like creating our film. I created a little film below of some funny moments we had, and also some serious ones. I hope you enjoy!

 

Planning: Props and Clothing

Props and Clothing

    Hey everyone! Now that we have our title and script, it's time to plan out what our characters are going to wear, the costume designs, and the props that are going to be used. 

    We have three characters: The two girls, Emma and Amberlin, and the killer. During the film, it is clear that both Emma and Amberlin are having a hangout/sleepover. We want them to wear something that they would most likely wear to a sleepover in real life, something comfortable. So, we contacted our actors and told them to wear something like sweatpants and hoodies. However, for our actor for Amberlin, her character gets killed and will have fake blood splattered on her shirt, so Isabella and I told her we were going to provide her with one. 

    We looked through stores for a shirt we could give to our actor. We knew that we wanted the color to be light, so that the blood was visible, and the right size for her to be comfortable enough. 

    We came across 3 shirts that we thought would be a good fit. A bright pink Peanuts shirt, a Blazy Susan pink hoodie, and a Seattle dark blue hoodie.

 

    We quickly ruled out the Seattle hoodie because we knew the color would be too dark and the blood wouldn't show. 

    The Blazy Susan hoodie was a good color, but we didn't know if it would fit our actor 100% or be too baggy. 

    Finally, our last clothing item standing was the Peanuts shirt. We thought it was a good color, would fit her, and was a shirt she could definitely use in the future. 

    A prop we had to prepare was the mask that would be on the killer. We wanted to make the mask original, so we got a white mask from Hobby Lobby. We also got a black cloth for the mask to go over the eyes so that the eyes wouldn't show. 

Process when making the mask:

    After panting and assembling our mask, it came out to look like this:

    Okay... so Isabella and I aren't great artists, BUT we don't expect all the details to come out in the film, as long as the mask looks a little dirtier and used. 

    Our last and final prop was the killer's murder weapon. We wanted something scary, but still safe to use in case anything happened. We were thinking of a prop knife, but it's hard to find them in the middle of March when it's not Halloween season.  So, we ended up going with a knife sharpener I had in my house that looks like this:

Thats it for all our props! Now we are all set to start filming!

Planning: Storyboard

 The Storyboard

    Welcome back! We have made it, our last step in the planning process... the storyboard. After lots of brainstorming and testing out different shots, we have made our final storyboard. This will be the outline of our story, guiding us when actually filming the film. Sooo, without further ado, this is our storyboard:

                                   

                                   

    Yeah... these pictures are the epitome of trusting the process. The drawings aren't the best, buttt we have to work with what we've got. Both Isa and I collaborated on our storyboard, discussing what shots and movements would look best, and weve think weve come to a great conclusion. I just hope everything will look better when it's actually filmed!

Planning: Camera and Equipment

 Choosing Our Camera and Equipment

        Hii! Today I'm going to share the equipment were going to use to try and make our film as best as it can be. 

    We wanted our film to feel as authentic as possible, so we asked our teacher if we could borrow one of the school's cameras for the film. 

    We got a Canon EOS Rebel T7 DSLR camera-

        For audio, we wanted to get mics to make the audio nice and clear. Sooo, we got these dJI mics.

     However, a problem we ran into was that the mics only came with a 1/4-inch audio cable, and the camera we had only had an input for a 3.5mm one. That meant that we would have had to get an adaptor. That's when our teacher gave us another camera that worked better for us overall, and that would take the 1/4 inch. She provided us with a Canon EOS Rebel T8i camera. 

    With this camera and the mics, I hope that it could bring our film to its greatest potential!

Planning: Casting sheet and Characters

Who's Starring in Our Film

    Hi everyone! After extensive research, we finally know who is going to take part in our film. Meet the cast: Naysa, Ana, and Isabella. 

       Our two friends, Ana and Naysa, both have experience with acting because they do theater at our school, so we thought they would be perfect for the role. For our last role, the killer, Isabella, took on that role. Wow, producing and showing up in our film. We thought that one of us could play this role because the killer only shows up for a couple second in the end. With this, we agreed that she would take on this role.

    I bet these actors will be amazing, and I look forward to seeing how great they will act on camera for us!

Planning: Title and Font

 Title and Font

    Hello! After figuring out what our film will be about, it's now time to come up with the perfect title name. 

    We know that the killer in this film includes a timer ticking down when killing his victims, so we were thinking something with the words 'timer', 'ticking', or 'time'. Maybe something like 'The Timer' or put 'The Ticking Killer'. However, we didn't really like it because it wouldn't really put the viewer on edge; it wasn't ominous enough. That's when we thought of the name "Times Up". It gives the viewer an idea of what the film will include while also making it mysterious; it makes them question "What will happen when time is out?"

    The next step is to figure out a font. The different fonts that I discussed in one of my previous blog posts are Shlop, Grave Danger, Weiss,  ITC Serif Gothic, and Trajan. Since, in our film, it involves a countdown, which you kind of think makes you think of a clock, we were thinking a more cleaner look, like ITC Sefif Gothic, Trajan, and Weiss. 

    Between those three, we liked Weiss the best, mainly because of its sharp edges, which bring out a horror-like vibe and clock-like look. So, we tested out our title with this font and loved the product. This is what it would look like:  

Panning: Script Writting

 Writing the Script

    Welcome back, everyone! We have officially started the process of writing the script! We knew that our film was going to open with a killing scene (as most horror/slasher films do), so we plotted a few points on how we thought our film could go. 

    Our first idea was to have an establishing shot of the house and then a shot of a record player playing, then a POV shot of one character coming up behind another character, scaring them. However, with this idea, we didn't really have anything original come to mind after the scaring part, so we tried a different idea. 

    The idea was that the film would still open with an establishing shot of the house, but instead of one character scaring the other, it would just be two girls sitting at home watching a scary movie. We didn't want just a random killer coming after them out of the blue; we wanted something a little more interesting. They were already looking at a TV, so why not do something with the TV? That's when we came up with the idea of the TV turning off and saying something.

 

    We had a really hard time coming up with what the TV would say exactly. We thought maybe "I KNOW WHAT YOU DID," but that sounded too much like the movie I Know What You Did Last Summer. Then we thought about if the TV played a video of them bullying a kid, or bad text messages that they had typed, but that idea didn't flow. 

    So, we put ourselves in our fictional killer's shoes. Why was he killing these girls? What did he get from this? The answer was clear to us; he was doing this for fun, treating it like a game. That's when the idea came to us: a simple countdown. Putting a countdown on the TV would show how the killer wants to have his way of fun with them, and treat it as a game. 

     After that idea was set, the other points just came naturally, until we had the main points of what our film would show. Now, with the idea of what our killer would do, we wanted to add a type of foreshadowing. So, we thought of adding a shot where it would show a magazine on the counter titled 'Killer Strikes Again' at the beginning of the scene. This gives the audience an idea about what will happen.

    Since we had the major points down, the script was easy to make. We just need to decide what each character will say and their reactions. So, after all this planning, our script came out to look like this:

Planning: Setting

 The Setting

    Hello everyone! Our first step to starting this film is to figure out where exactly we want to film it. 

    At first, we were thinking of typical horror/slasher settings that are secluded, like the woods; however, because we live in Florida and don't really have easy access to the woods, we quickly shut down that idea. Then we were thinking, maybe somewhere outdoors, like a parking lot, but then we couldn't really think of a plot that goes with that, and I was worried about any noise issues we would have if our actor had to scream. 

    Our final idea was one of our houses. Many horror/slasher films take place at houses, like both opening scenes I reviewed in my earlier blog posts of Scream and Totally Killer. We thought it was a good idea since we would be able to have easy access. We decided on my house since we thought it would fit the vibe we were going for more.

Planning: Production Timeline

Planning out Ahead

     Hello everyone! Time is super crucial when it comes to making a film. You want to make sure nothing goes wrong and that you have the most amount of time to edit and put the film together (especially if you're not super familiar with the editing program you're using). With the calendar below, I have planned out the next couple of weeks ahead to make sure we have the most amount of time to make everything as good as possible. It's a tight and busy week, so we need to make sure to work hard and do our best!

I know, even I'm a little overwhelmed with how much we have to accomplish in the next couple of weeks. The first week of March, we'll focus on finishing the script, writing our storyboard, and getting film equipment. Then the second week is production week. We'll review the final storyboard and make sure to get all our props. We need it to be on a night when we don't have school the next day because we wanted the outside to be as dark as possible, meaning we had to film it at night. We don't know how long it will take to film, so we wanted to make sure we can stay up making the film without having to worry about waking up the next day. Our actors are always really busy, and including everyone's extracurricular activities, the only day we could get with them was March 12, so that means we have to make the best of our time because we only have one day to get every shot right. 

We'll have a whole week to edit out the film and make sure everything runs smoothly. I made it so that each day we work on a specific major criteria of the film, like on one day we work on putting the clips together, and the next day we focus on any sounds. Well also have a little extra time after that busy week in case a problem happens, or we just need more time. 

With this calendar, I hope that it will make us more organized when editing our film, and everything will run smoothly. I want us to have the most amount of time when it comes to finishing up our film, while also getting it in on time. 

Project Proposal

 Project Proposal

   Hello everyone! I just wanted to share how I, Arisa Alvarez, am working with Isabella Camelo to create a horror/slasher film opening. We decided to make our film opening in the horror/slasher genre because not only do we enjoy watching that genre on our own time, but also because we'd like to learn more about how this genre is really made and all the thought that goes into making one of these films. 

    Potential target audience for our film opening could be late teenagers to young adults who enjoy thrill and suspense. Our films will feature two teenage girls, making the characters relatable to young adults. The target gender is slightly more toward females because of the film's opening characters and because of 'the final girl' trope. 

    Potential social issues that I will address in my brief are that our final girl character will be dealing with the death of her best friend, who she tragically found dead. She deals with facing the trauma of that night when the killer attacked them at her house. While her friend died, she managed to live, barely making it to the hospital. As the final girl, she will come face-to-face with the killer towards the plot's ending. As she fights for her life and tries to get revenge for her friend by trying to defeat the killer, she goes against the typical stereotypes of females, showing that they can be strong and independent. 

    The software that we plan to use is Premiere Pro. At the beginning of the class, we got experience using this software, creating our own product. Because of this, I am now more familiar with it and will be more comfortable using it to edit our opening scene. However, I'm not a total pro at using it yet, so I hope that, as we move forward with editing, I become even more familiar with it. 

    The plan we have for our film is to first plan out the script, so we have an idea of how the scene will go and what we need to do to prepare for it. Then, after the script, we will come up with the title as well as the font and color of the title. After, we'll decide on clothing, props, and actors.  

    We will fill out things like a casting sheet for our actors and storyboards to plan out our film for every shot and camera movement. 

Casting Sheet

Storyboard