Final Project: Graveyard Filming Blog

Now that we had our opening done, it was time to film the main intro. We planned on filming this in a graveyard. We found a local yard to film this in, however. We felt that it may be disrespectful to film in a graveyard. The scene we left off with was the party scene. This scene ended with the two characters getting into a mysterious person's car. The car would then lead off into the dark field. We used the same setup as last time: Owen was filming, and Jimmy, Trent and I were acting.

The scene we filmed today would mark the end of the credits. We are going to implement the credits into the first scene, the party scene. Keep in mind, everything that we filmed was in the dark of the night. We did not want to use lighting because it would take away the effect of suspense and tension. These two are the main elements that make a thriller.

Throughout the filming process, we tried to use as many different camera angles as we cou
ld. We made sure to us e over the shoulder shots, low angles, and close ups. These would help build suspense. To be completely honest, we created the dialogue right on the spot. We knew this scene would not require much dialogue, so we thought it was best to just make up the dialogue as we went on. Hopefully, our film will not require any reshoots. The editing process will be done as a group effort. We also used the same camera that we did on the first and second filming attempts.

Final Project:: Filming Blog House Retake

We filmed this past Friday at our groupmates, Jimmy's house again. We were not entirely sure our first filming attempt would do the job.

The first time we went to Jimmy's house, we filmed the opening of the movie. It would open with a party scene, followed up by a mysterious driver pulling into the driveway. Owen was filming, and the three actors were Trent, Jimmy, and myself. The film starts inside Jimmy's house, with a wide shot of the party scene.We created this scene using casual party props. Some of these include cups, drinks, chips, and chairs. We plan on putting in upbeat music during this part. This will help set the idea of a fun time which will later have a drastic change when the main character and his friend step into the car. Our first filming attempt did not fully capture what we wanted with the effect. That is why we did the second attempt.

The second attempt was filmed at Jimmy's house again on Saturday, February 22nd. We added a little more to the party scene. This meant more props and different lighting. We believed this would help set the mood different, and then would create a much better effect of suspense. The suspense would be created in the next scene when the driver pulls into the driveway. We filmed this scene as well, and it turned out great. During the editing process, we might add some suspenseful music. This suspenseful music will build tension and make the audience scared. The whole point of a thriller movie is to have these types of mood switches.


This is the camera we used to film everything:

Final Project: House Filming Blog

This past week, we filmed for our final project. The final project is the last film we have to do for our class, AICE media studies. There was a variety of options we had with our film. We could make it a comedy, horror, thriller, and drama. However, my group of four chose to do a thriller. We chose this genre because it is not very hard to pull off. We are confident that we can make all of the elements of a thriller stand out. These elements include tension and suspense. Our group has already planned out the film idea and schedule. We used a storyboard to sketch our ideas and to help with visualization. Now, we were able to implement our ideas and create the actual movie.

We went to our group mates house, Jimmy. His house was not the most convenient for me, but it still worked out. It was about a 30 minute drive to his house. The goal of going to Jimmy's house was to film the first scene of our opening. This scene is a party setting, and Jimmy's house was perfect for this setting. We were able to get party cups, chairs, and other props to make the scene come to life. We had one cameraman, and three actors, one of the actors being myself. We plan to make film in a cemetery next time. We also want to film in the dark to make the scene come to life.

Planning Blog: Storyboard

Our current AICE Media Studies project's objective is to create the opening to a movie. In this case, my group and I are doing a thriller/horror film. Our film focuses on the ideas of suspense and tension. However in order to start filming, our group needs to brainstorm and write out our ideas. The best way to do this is to use a technique called storyboarding. A storyboard is a graphic representation of how your video will unfold. Each box represents 6 seconds of the film. We used this storyboard technique after we discussed different film ideas. Our storyboard consists of 10 pages with 6 boxes each, representing three seconds of our film. The storyboard also shows the titles. This will help us during the editing process when we are trying to implement our titles into our film. Overall, the storyboard is a great way to brainstorm ideas to help the editing and filming processes.

Planning Blog: Title Design

Title designs may not seem like the most important factor of a film, however they are probably one of the most important parts of the film. If written and edited right, they can really set the standard for your film from the very beginning. Having a boring and poorly edited title design/designs will make the expectations of the rest of your film very low and will discourage the viewers from watching more. The most important parts of media are satisfying your viewers, which will in turn make money for you and your industry. That is why the title designs are such an important factor. We will have a multitude of different types of title design, while also following the order of titles. Our film will consist of middle screen titles. This will mainly just be the actual title of our film. We will add effects to this to make it less boring and more engaging. We will also have foreground titles which relate with the theme of the film. Finally we will implement titles that are blended in the background. These are meant to be the "less important" titles that the viewers are supposed to try to catch. These will help engage the audience as well.

Planning Blog: Location, Participants, Health, Schedule

This film will require all of our group members. We will have three actors, one person filming, and another to do the editing. In order to organize and plan this out, we needed to write it down and make sure all of our team mates were aware of the plan. Location is one of the most important factors of our film. The location will decide where we will film, as well as determine the setting and mood of the film. The participants are the people that will help in the production of our film. This includes actors, the director, and the editor. Health is also an important part of the production of our film. Making safety precautions ensures that our team will always be safe, which is very important, and makes sure that the filming location is safe to film at. Finally, the schedule will keep our group organized and help get our film finished in a timely manner.

Planning Blog: Sound Script

">For our sound script, we wrote down all of our noises that we will use for our movie. Thankfully, the noises are all during the scene while we film, so we do not have to add any noises post editing process. Any transitions that we would have to use thankfully only would be jump cuts, further lowering the time it would take to edit. All in all, we will have a very brief and quick editing process so we can focus on filming and making our acting the best it can be. The sounds take very little meaning in this film portion, but it is made up for by the acting. The majority of our film is focused on the angles of the camera and how the characters react to the crazy situation that both of these loveable scamps get into. The driver is silent for most of the film but this adds to his mysterious aura. Tyler and Steive obviously have a past history and the dialogue shows as much. The dialogue will help bring suspense and confusion. We will also add diegetic sound like wind breezing by to create more suspense, because that is the most important element in a thriller.

Planning Blog: Shooting script

This script describes everything that will be in our final project not including the dialogue and sound. Our shooting script consists of 11 different and unique scenes, each scene having a variety of different camera angles, and lighting effects. This is especially important in our film because our film is a thriller/horror film. One of the most important elements of a thriller is its use of mystery and suspense. The different camera angles will help build suspense. For example, the over-the-shoulder shots will build suspense by concealing the killers identity. The lighting effects will also build suspense. Low key lighting will also help conceal the killers identity, showing him only as a silhouette. This will build tension which should make the viewer scared and tense. This will be backed up by eery sound effects and dialogue to create even more suspense.