CCR #2 Script

     In this second CCR we will be answering the following question:

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

When writing the script I used the following tips and tricks to answer this question:

- Discuss how you arrived at your target audience, cite necessary research

-Discuss how your production choices, content, etc. work to engage with your target audience

-Next, discuss how you plan to make your film available to audiences

-Responses should address realistic options for an amateur filmmaker. For example: you would not release your film worldwide to theatres, this is only an option for major productions

    Once I knew what to do I began to write my script:

    When we first began our portfolio project we first had to create the idea of our film and research the genre. When we chose horror we had to do a lot of research. That is when we found that the target audience of most horror movies are individuals from the age of 15 - 25. This is because people at a younger age often enjoy thrills rather than and older person, like when have you seen a 55 year old ride a roller coaster, and I mean coaster, not a kiddy coaster. We felt that our film wouldn't follow the common 15-25 year old target audience because we felt that it was a little more mature because of the drinking. There for we believe that it would 17 - 25, because the older audience could relate to the film more. We also felt that this way we could engage our audience more by having slightly more mature topics. An example is alcohol, most 15 year old's don't go out to parties and drink illegally. But when people become older and become more mature, it is more common to see people go out and do these activities. This way the target audience is more likely to have some experience with handling alcohol, this would help them make a connection with the film.

    When it comes to the future of our film we are hoping to get this shown worldwide. Obviously we are all small upcoming actor, director, and filmer/editor. Our idea is to submit it to many film festivals around the country. The ones we are entering in are the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival, Miami Film Festival, New York Film Festival, and Austin Film Festival. If we are successful we hope to sell CDs to make some money so we can push our film out more, and continue participating in these festivals until we gain some attraction. Then we would host a "private" showing in a theater such as Cinemark. After this we would keep on doing this until it impossible to keep going because it is our dream to be film makers.

fearworm.com

Editing #2

    When Arthur first edited he was really basic using a lot of the transitions that were given to him like the fade in and fade out. But after doing some research together about editing, because editing is an ability I want to have in the future, we were able to all get on the right path. During class we decided to name our film lullaby because of the doll and being able to add creepy doll music into the opening. We also decided on the font of the opening credits and the color, red, because it is a common horror movie convention that we wanted to have in our film.

     

    We also at first wanted to edit the darker shots to make them brighter. Although this idea wasn't bad the quality of our opening dropped and we decided to go back and reshoot everything that happened outside. While outside there were a lot of noises so Arthur ended up silencing a lot of the or removing the sound of them entirely, I have no clue how he has become and editing genius. During the future editing process I wasn't to stay involved because videos have always been a part of my life and I really want to learn how to edit. 

Editing #1

     The editing mainly is going to be completed by Arthur. Although I wont have much editing to do I still decided to edit it a bit. Obviously I didn't do as much as Arthur did, but I put together all we the shots we had done to see how they had come out. From here we were able to decide what to do, because we could see how our film was actually coming to life.

    For this editing I used a simple app on my phone called cap cut. It was really easy to learn to use and very simple. All I had to do was insert the shots that we decided to keep in our film and trim out a little bit of the end or of the begging to where it was just the actual shot and none of the like "3,2,1 action" or "alright cut that's good". This was also the very first ever editing that was done on our project.

Production Post Getting The Right Shot

     When filming we had to use a various amount of angles and attempts to get the right shot. Not only this but we also had to use the right lighting. An example of this is the shot of our main charachter falling on to the light post. In the original attempt it was way to dark in both the shot were you are behind him and the shot were you are at the bottom of the pole. After Arthur having to sit still in a lunge position for 15 minutes to get that shot, we had to go back the next week to re-do it because it didn't come out how we wanted it.\

Here are some key things we changed:

- Locations: we went to a brighter location with more lights and cars so that maxi was much more visible to the audience when re-filmed

- Lighting: with the help of 2 phone camera and a really weird type of hug around type of pose I had to do to Arthur we were able to make it much brighter . We also had a shot were me and Arthur were both squatted over point lights at Arthurs facer to get the right amount of light shined on Maxis face to make him easily visible. Not only this but the lights on maxis face contrasted the night sky and made it appear darker than it actually was.

- Re-shooting: At first we didn't really shoot much we shot whatever we thought we needed and left. This is why we had to go back to maxis house again after a couple days to re-film almost everything. For this reason we ended up taking about 30 shots for about a 2 scenes that needed about 3 or 4 each. This is why we were able to get some of our film done because we were able to play around with the scenes and cut then insert them in a way that we wanted it to seem

CCR #1

     For my first CCR I had to answer the following question:

How does your project use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? 

This is my script on how I answered it, enjoy!

 CCR #1 

How does your project use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? 

Script: 

After a lot of hard work and dedication my group and I have completed the script. Now it's time to talk about it. My group and I chose horror, and we studied many films like the conjuring,jaws,it, and scream to look at typical conventions throughout horror movies. We decided to stick to the typical conventions in horror films so that our audience could easily depict the genre of our film. We used these films as inspiration in some of our film openings, for example the dark creepiness of IT. The text, being red and big and bold, while maybe even having some blood incorporated in it. We also chose from the exorcist to have a calmer start to the opening instead of a filmlike Jaws where you have a girl get killed by a shark in the first 2 minutes of the movie. Our idea at first was to have someone killed but then we decided to not kill them, because it would give away too much of the film. So, we ended up deciding to lean towards fear. We started off with the idea of our main character being alone in a forest stuck in a loop of some sort, kind of like In the Tall Grass, but then we decided to lean towards a different fear. Dolls, love them or hate them, they have been one of the biggest and, in my opinion, creepiest aspects, of horror films. Over the last 100 years dolls have been a consistent thing that people could say about horror movies. This is because of the insane popularity of these films. A fifth of the top 25 horror movies are all about dolls, and they have made combined these 5 films alone have made around $1,078,426,404 dollars. Which makes up a seventh of the average yearly revenue off all horror movies, this is why we decided to incorporate a doll into our film.  

The way my group and I are challenging social groups is by the attire. Most of the time in horror movies, you don't see a man in a suit. Normally you will see an individual with casual attire get killed, this is because subconsciously most people can relate more to wearing casual clothing than business. This is a way that we incorporated a social group that isn't usually spotted in horror. 

Before we were ever told or began working on the project I thought I knew what a horror move was. Now that we have actually done a lot of research, case studies, and comparing and contrasting horror movies. I feel like I actually know how to describe a horror movie was. Before this project I would've most likely just said a dark movie that scares people. But now I am able to refer to specific conventions and how they effect people. Not only this but I've also learnt that less is more. Before I would've made a horror movie where a lot if happening such as someone killing a lot of people and you see this happen. But now I've learnt that keeping up the aspect of mystery is also part of the horror because it keeps the audience engaged. 

https://www.statsignificant.com/p/why-horror-films-are-hollywoods-best

https://www.statista.com/topics/12896/horror-movies/#:~:text=Spooky%20season%20is%20upon%20us,span%20of%20only%20a%20decade

Production Post 3

  Filming overall throughout this whole week was pretty successful. Although most of the footage we have will be scrapped and redone ñ. We are being very meticulous about everything we do in throughout this project so that we can score the maximum points possible, and pass to be able to receive college credit for this class. Another thing we learnt throughout this production process is ideas come as you film. So for example some of our shots we got were experimental and weren’t our original idea. But once we saw it and told the others our vision, we chose to film it. Then this way we have some idea of how it looks in our film, and if it looks good we might keep it. For now we just have to deal with some of the of the problems we have with filming this. This project has been a lot of fun so far and I am really glad that I get to feel to be a part of something bigger. For now here is a funny, but frustrating (for Maxi), blooper that happened which happened while Maxi was drinking Apple Juice.

Production Post 2

 During our filming of the bar we had our character stumble out the bar. While filming this we had an issue. We were in a suburban neighborhood and typically when you leave a bar there aren’t any houses near it. So when filming we had to find an area where there weren’t any houses. Not only this but we also had issues with the dark. Although we wanted our shot to be dark, we didn’t need it to be that dark. We hope to film next time when it’s a little bit brighter, but when it is still dark. This way the main character is more visible to the audience.

    In addition to this next time we group up we wish to get more scenes done as this will help us set up a "rough draft" of our project so we can see how it looks. Then we can slowly replace every scene with the perfectly cut, edited, and shot version. To make our master piece complete.