AICE Media Studies

  The creation of a postcard for our film was my responsibility. I wasn’t sure how to make a film postcard so I needed to do some research. I used sample postcards from Regal Cinema to gain inspiration for the general format that my postcard should have. Once I understood what exactly a movie postcard was supposed to contain, I needed an outlet to create them. I am very familiar with Adobe Photoshop so that program was my first option, but I decided against it because I would have to lay all the groundwork myself. I settled on using Canva, an online card creating website. Canva is very user friendly with basic controls and it has a variety of templates that can be tweaked to fit the user’s needs.  Honestly the design process went a lot smoother than I would have thought. It was very easy because our film had a pretty specific theme so I could sort Canva by them. I was going for eerie woods when creating these postcards and I think that they came out well. My groupmates gave me...

 We are nearing the end of the process.  The film creation process, that is.  We have completed filming already as well as planning.  Filming was a ton of fun.  We got together with our friends and spent a day filming the movie from afternoon to dark.  There were a fair share of problems with our filming.  Namely, the location had its obvious weaknesses and the daylight escaped us faster than we could predict.  The editing process has not been easy either.  It is fun working together with everyone to put together the clips we shot in the best order.  All that's left to do is a few finishing touches.  One important one is finding sound.  No matter what type of sound it is, whether its music or sfx, we need to add some sound.  A lot of the shots are too quiet for our liking and we would like to spruce them up with some imported audio.  I know I mentioned a song but, I don't think we have a good way to add a song to our ...

  This is our film, it was a long and arduous process but we are happy with the finished result.  Most importantly, we learned a lot and had a lot of fun.

  Being one of two editors, communication is key to efficiency. It is important that the end product is one that we both (alongside our third groupmate) are happy with. This blog is going to be a recount of our editor meetings where we discuss our vision for the blog and give suggestions to one another. We try not to interfere with each other’s editing process too often; once we pass the file to each other, we kind of let each other have free reign. Our reasoning behind this is to avoid “backseat editing”. Rather than constantly chirping in each other’s ear while editing we try to give a general explanation of our desired outcomes and we try to work off each other’s suggestions. We often edit in Discord calls however. Discord is an application that allows us to livestream our editing process to each other and communicate audibly while doing so. When in these calls the editor that is not actively editing the film typically just mutes themself and stands by until the other editor has...

     The editing process began with myself identifying what footage was the best among the footage that we had recorded. Once I had determined which scenes were superior, I put them in the correct order. After putting the scenes in the proper sequence, I needed to shorten the scenes down to their proper length. Almost every scene had excess footage that needed to be cut such as short periods of time where the cameraman is fumbling to stop recording. After a bit of tweaking, I got the duration of each scene down to where they needed to be. I realize that the scenes may need to be altered more, or cut altogether, later in the editing process, but I just wanted to get each scene down to their proper length early on. The next step was to make sure there were no audio issues. Unfortunately, we had many audio issues. The film location was less than ideal so there were many elements that were out of our control. We filmed somewhat close to a highway so there are some car sounds ...

Previously, I wrote about the location of filming.  More specifically, that it was in a new spot and that it had its own fair share of problems.  Well, the location wasn't the only problem.  There were problems with many other things.  For example, the time of day we filmed.  Another example is the noise.  The time we arrived at the park was around 3:00.  As I mentioned before, we wanted to film during the afternoon.  This was to simulate the position of the sun in the morning.  So, we would film all the necessary shots that happen in the morning first.  After it got darker, we planned to film the shots that take place at nights.  In other words, the beginning of the movie.  However, filming took longer than we expected.  We ended up filming a lot of shots that were supposed to take place in the morning during a time that was a little bit too dark.  So, when we got to the shots that were supposed to happen at night, i...

 Among Us shares many similarities with our previous project Among Them.  Among them was shot in a dark forest similar to Among Us.  Also, the setting for both projects is a campsite.  We did this intentionally.  We figured that Among Them came out very good and that we wanted to expand upon our idea in a newer, longer project.  So, we decided to film in a spot similar to the place where Among Them was filmed.  Among them was filmed in a park called Markham Park.  When we were planning Among Them, we had a big dilemma with finding a filming site.  We wanted an abandoned building initially, but later changed to a dark forest.  But, we live in a rather developed part of south Florida.  So, it was hard for us to find a place with enough trees to pass as a forest.  Markham park was the only option close enough.  So, when we went back to Markham Park on filming day, our first idea was to use the same spot as we did for Among Th...

 The beginning of filming day started slow.  We decided prior to film at night and evening.  The reasons for filming at night is because the scenes happen mostly in the dark.  But, you may be wondering why we decided to film in the evening.  According to the script, not many scenes happen in evening.  The main reason is because of the position of the sun and sunlight.  The script calls for scenes in the early morning but, we do not want to go out at night and morning.  So, we figured that the sun is in a similar position in the evening to the position it is in during the morning.  This led us to schedule filming in the evening and night.  This will allow us to film in one long go so we don't have to set up the tent twice.  So, none of us had to wake up early.  After packing up my backpack, I set out to the park.  We live in Florida and, therefore, are used to the heat.  But, on filming day, it was very cold.  It ...

 I wrote about the search for actors in my last blog.  It was a problem finding actors.  It made all of us very nervous.  But, something made us more nervous.  That thing is scheduling.  Scheduling is very tricky.  Especially when one of our groupmates has a job.  The job is only part time, but it is hard to change working shifts.  So, when filming day approached, we had to work around his job.  His job had him working Sunday, Friday, and Wednesday.  So, we planned to go on Thursday.  This was so we could have an extra day to film in case anything went wrong.  But, what we didn't know is that our other group mate had a part time job as well.  He had just started his job and could not take days off.  If he took a day off during training, it would look very bad on him.  Usually, this would be good news but, one of the days he had to work was Thursday.  So obviously, we couldn't film on Thursday.  So,...

 The filming of Among Us will begin soon.  Similar to its sister project, Among Them, there are not enough actors among the group.  The group last year was made of 2 people and we needed two actors.  This year, we need even more.  One may think that it will be no problem because there are three of us in the group now.  However, that is not true.  Filming day is approaching but, there are dilemmas.  One is that one of our group members can not be there for it.  This is because he has work.  We are lucky enough to have found a place to film at a concrete time because two of our groupmates work part time jobs that interfere with their schedule.  It will be a shame our groupmate will not be there but, we can manage.  Or so I thought.  The total amount of people needed on set is at least 6.  This is because there are five characters.  For scenes when all five are in the same shot, one person is needed to film them all...

 We are preparing to begin making our movie.  We feel we have planned enough and we are satisfied with it.  Our script is slid but can be changed on the fly if anything goes differently.  The One thing that is essential to our script, however, are the props.  We need props to develop the setting and to amplify the atmosphere.  the atmosphere we are going for is mysterious and scary.  After all, our genres are horror and mystery.  One of the props mentioned in the script is a tent.  The setting of the film is a campsite.  Though it is impromptu in the story, the characters happen to have a tent on them.  It will be a hassle loading and setting up a tent in a park but, it serves as a safe space for the campers.  The surrounding is dark and dangerous and the tent provides the only shelter they can come across.  Another prop that is important is the lantern.  The lantern is also symbolic as it is one of the few light sour...

   We plan to title our movie "Among Us".  It will be about a group of friends either in the woods or an a abandoned building that have a killer among them and they must find out who it is before they all die. I say it will either be in a abandoned building or the woods because we are not sure yet.  Preferably, my group and I would like to film in an abandoned building.  But, it is hard to find one.  Last year, Nicholas and Grant wanted to film their movie introduction in an abandoned building, but the area they live in has no unused, abandoned buildings. We considered using one of our homes as the building but, it would be too difficult to change a house to have the look of an abandoned building.  The alternative is filming in the woods.  Last year, they used the trees in a park near them to make it look like the movie was in the woods.  The park is Markham Park and it has a lot of space to film. Most likely, we will end up using it as the s...