HORROR – Designed to frighten and panic. Often convey a terrifying and shocking finale. Deals with one of the most primal natures, fear.
CRIME / GANGSTER – Developed around sinister actions of criminals or mobsters who operate outside the law.
DRAMA – Often serious. Plot driven. Realistic characters. Current social issues, social hills.
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.
Procrastination: A Short Film
As my first preliminary task that I had to do a short one minute video. Personally, I did not know much about shots and angles before doing this video. However, I was open to learn right away.
First, my group and I had to brainstorm ideas for the story, which was a rather difficult task because I had many different ideas that we could choose from, nevertheless we eventually figured out and decided to do a short story on a procrastinator.
Before shooting the film I did the storyboard
During the storyboard brainstorming, I had to be conscious of the different shots and angles that we wanted to do to enhance all the feelings that I wanted to translate to the audience. For instance, as the camera-lady, I decided to do an extremely close up of the eyes to increase the feeling of distress that the main character was feeling the moment he realizes he did not do the homework his teacher is collecting at the moment. My group and I also had to be considerate of of the lightning choices we had in the school, which weren’t the best, so a decision was made to use the flashlight from our phones.
Furthermore, I needed to take into account the symbolic codes in our film; for example, the protagonist is supposed to be a reckless student who doesn’t really care about school, so to symbolize that my group and I had our actor walk looking down at his phone while listening to music with an empty-looking bag-pack hanging low on one shoulder, while walking late into class.
Angles are a crucial technical and symbolic code to demonstrate how a character is feeling, so a low angle was applied in a scene where the protagonist is walking into class to convey his feeling of power, as if he is on top of the world oblivious to the fact that he had a homework due at the very class he is entering.
One thing that did not work well, was the use of color. The protagonist was wearing a white shirt, which symbolize innocence and purity, and that is the opposite of what we were trying to convey. So now I know that next time, if I’m doing a film with a “bad guy” again, he or she would rather be dressed in black or red, to symbolize danger and/or darkness. Also there wasn’t any contrast between the white board behind the protagonist and his white shirt, and that can be distracting for the audience.
However, a thing that work in our favor was the mise-en-scene. Since the film took place in a school, we had the advantage to shoot in our school. Even better, we got the chance to shoot in one of the classrooms, so there wasn’t any necessary props that needed to be added to make it look more convincing, since all the props were already given.
Overall, since I did not know much about the technical part of film making, it was a difficult task to endure; however a great learning experience as well. I got the opportunity to collaborate with my peers to create a decent first short film.
Hello, I’m Emilia, a junior at Mast Academy, and this is my blog for my AS Media Studies class. Here I am going to document my research on the codes and conventions of film making, as well as my experiences producing the first two minutes of a film. I am looking forward to collaborate with my peers to produce a uniquely superlative movie opening. I’ll keep you posted!
This film opening will:
After the film project is produced, I will make a creative critical reflection on the positives and detriments of the production of the film opening and the final product answering the following questions:
AS Media Studies