In my second preliminary task, I had to do the first 2 minutes of a movie of any kind of genera. My peers and I decided to do horror.
The film goes by the name of “Closer” : https://youtu.be/R3NhWfF4k9k
The premise of the story is of a mysterious door in a hallway that seems to attract people, and then sucked them in in a violent manner. It starts with action right away, a girl opens the door and gets aggressively pulled in as she screams in terror. Another girl hears her scream as she walks through the hallway and gets curious, and wants to find out what is going on. So she proceeds to walk to the mysterious door with caution. She decides to open the door and gets immediately sucked in as she screams in horror, paralleling what what the first girl did. The camera starts to go farther away from the door as the title card “Closer” comes in.
On a rate of 1-10 how well did my group worked as a team? What could have made it a 10?
I believe we did pretty well, so I would rate it a 9, because everyone had a set task to do. I did the screen play, shot list, and brainstormed ideas for the film genera, as well as shot ideas, also I volunteered myself to be one of the characters in the film, I was girl #2. Ignacio did the storyboard as well as brainstormed ideas for the film as well, he was the camera guy too. And finally, Bruno was the cinematographer, and helped with opening the door aggressively to make the film be more believable that an unnatural force is sucking these girls inside the room. However, what could’ve made the process a 10 is for my teammates not to get distracted during filming, the filming process would have been much shorter if they wouldn’t have stop to talk once in a while. But overall, I believe we did pretty great.
What went well and what could have been improved?
The storyboarding, brainstorming, screenwriting went pretty neatly. However, filming gave me a bit of a hassle. Since the story is horror and one of the conventions of said genera is dark lighting and lots of shadows I tried with my peers to make the best that we could do with the lights, but since we were filming in my school, I didn’t have control over the lights, and it was pretty bright; however in the room that was set to film, inside we turned off the lights and turned down the blinds (except for one broken one but we put bag-packs over it to cover the light) so the darkness gave it the sinister look that I was looking for for the film, but on the outside it still looked bright, so a dark tint was added post production to make it seem evil and mysterious.
What difficulties did I encounter during filming? How did I overcome them?
As stated before, lighting was a big issue that my group and I overcome by putting the bag-packs over the window, as well as adding dark tones to the film post production. But my biggest struggle was acting, I am a camera shy person, I don’t really like to be in the spotlight (especially if we are going to show it to the whole class); however, with encouragement from the peers in my group, and the fact that we needed to get this done, I got through it. And it wasn’t so bad after all.
What difficulties did I face when editing?
I was not the person set to edit the film, that was Ignacio’s task, he was the camera guy as well as the editor; however I did give him notes on putting the dark tint, and adding the scream when the girls get sucked in; but nothing that he didn’t know anyways.
How did I prepare for the audio in my film?
My group and I decided on adding all the audio post production. So, there is diegetic sounds, such as the screams; and there is un-diegetic sounds, such as the music and the sound that comes up every time the door is on screen. All of that was added post production, so there weren’t any difficulties with audio during filming.
What aspects am I happy with? What could have been improved?
I am pretty happy with the ending product, it is mostly what I had in mind; however I do wish I would have been more expressive while acting; like when my character hears the scream I could have done a more confused expression. Also the lighting, it would have been great if we had more control over them, but now I know to bring lighting props for next time. However, overall it was a great learning experience, and I am satisfied with the film.
AS Media Studies 