Creative Critical Reflection Question 2: Script

 Brief Preparation

    The primary audience to our film is young adults and teenagers. This is because we chose to interpret the target of the disappearances as teenagers whom we are attempting to represent as somewhat dimwitted and naive. Our goal with this is to cause some tension between these generation by which we predict they will be inclined to interact with our production, even if it is just to argue the stereotypes it would be great for the film marketing.

    The distribution method we have chosen is a film festival local to us. The Cypress Bay Film Festival. This would be a great way to distribute our film because it would directly target our sought audience.

Script

Podcast

music will play

    Hello! This is Lucia the host of the Up-and-Coming Media podcast. I'm super excited to share with you guys my newest film, Amber, but before I do that, I want to address some aspects about it. 

crowd clapping sound effect

    Let's start by who my target audience is and what I did to engage them. It's... drum roll please... teenagers to young adults! Well Lucia isn't your film about this age group going missing and not being the brightest? Exactly. That is how I believe it targets them because since it uses a controversial representation of their generation, they will be more enticed to interact with my production, even if it is via diatribes and what not.

ooos and aaas

    Not only will my take on representation cause our target audience to engage with the film but it will also be fantastic for film marketing!

Ad break (The purple mango tree wallpaper factory)

Wow now I'm really enticed to wallpaper my studio! Moving on, I'm sure you guys have heard about the oncoming Film Festival at Cypress Bay Highschool. This is possibly the smartest way for me and my team to get the film out there since the event will be crowded with our target audience. We talked about why we're distributing our film originally in a festival and honestly, it's because I'm not famous yet... I know it's crazy but yeah, I can't afford to drop a lot of money to have it shown in theaters and things like that. Even so, after a week of the premiere at the festival I'm going to release it on YouTube since some people will already know about it and so it won't be unknown.

Group Meeting 2

     We got the opportunity to work with different people going into this meeting. I was honestly happy about that because it meant I had the opportunity to get a more diverse input as well as take into account various perspectives.

    With the group I was sat with, we decided to show each other some of our raw footage and show each other how our editing process was going. From this I got to learn about all the different ways these people had thought to incorporate the credit sequence and their titles. 

    I did my best to give advice to the other members whilst simultaneously receiving input on my work and deciding how to involve their suggestions or something of the sort. One girl showed me her title segment and I had to tell her that the title blended too much with the background and was unrecognizable, I told her that if it were my production I would make the font stand out more by having a thicker boarder.

    Overall, I got really positive feedback with lots of people loving my transition which made me very proud. I'm really excited to apply all their thoughts and concerns to make my film opening the best it can be.

Creative Critical Reflection Question 1: Research

     This question challenges the use of genre characteristics, representation, mise en scene, and media theories. Lucky for us most of our blog posts are directly applicable to the research that went in to making the choices we did.

    In order to ensure I answer all the CCRs to the best of my ability, my goal is to create a complete breakdown of the specifics that I need to have to answer correctly as well as gathering all my thought into one post to make it easier for myself. During our production process my partner took lost of notes as to why we made the choices we did.

Horror Conventions

    Clearly, we aimed to create a horror/thriller film opening which is why it was critical for us to incorporate some of the specific conventions of the genre into our media product. We researched a lot about what went into horror and honestly everything was VERY specific and there's little room for creativity, which is why we had to find a way to make our film unique and not like any other while still sticking to the strict guidelines.

    It was essential we used some these techniques because they play a very important role in setting the mood and creating an atmosphere. Some of these included our intense use of backlighting and low-key lighting and our incorporation of the supernatural. Honestly, we tried to avoid bright lights all together with the exception of the detective board since it is literally meant to enlighten the detective to find the cause and save everyone else from suffering the same fate as Amber. But most importantly, we wanted to base our film around the element of mystery, since it is basically what the whole film is about and it helps add to the fear aspect.

    Fear in created primarily by the elements used to create suspense, like the darkness and the music. Which was great since we relied heavily on those features to give audiences auditory and visual cues that something out there was to be feared. 

Production Techniques

    As far as using production techniques to further solidify our theme of mystery, we, as previously mentioned, relied on sound and lighting.

    All throughout our opening you can hear the suspenseful music playing accompanied by the usual lowkey lighting with a couple backlighting shots to create more urgency. We used flashlights to achieve these shots, and it can be seen in my post "Filming Update 1" and we also took advantage of their strong light to create a couple shots where Ben is looking around and the light is only pointed at him creating an emphasis on his emotions which clearly show discomfort.

Representation

    We choose to make most victims of our film children. This is because the stereotype is that teenagers in specific are compulsive liars as well as very gullible and are therefore very vulnerable because of this mass distrust adults have for them. We agreed that by making them the primary target of the monsters we would be reinforcing that.

    We mainly used our character Benjamin to portray this. We did this by mainly showing him alone in dark clothing which represent the rebellious stage most teens go through. This outfit choice, all black, also solidifies the innocence in children and how regardless of how harmless they may be, they are always connected to death through decisions, and everything can change within a split second.

Editing Part 2: Adding sound and tweaking the videos

     We're finally adding the music and I could not be more excited to incorporate this song into our film opening. I think the sound we choose is perfect for our film and am so glad we came across it. This song was found on the YouTube Audio Library and was composed by Jeremy Blake. This is a very suspenseful, mysterious song and so it fits the theme perfectly.

    Our goal while incorporating the music is to find the perfect volume for it to where it fills in the silence of the credit sequence while not overpowering the elements we actually want to be heard by our audiences. I think my biggest struggle was figuring out what volumes sounded best for each feature, but I figured it out as I went, and I love how adaptable this experience has been.

Editing Part 1: Putting it all together

     As we come to an end of our production period me and my partner have begun editing. This is something I really looked forward to because I feel like editing is super fun and it always amazes me all you can do with the help of Adobe Premiere. 

    I began this editing journey by looking at our storyboard which helped me put all the essential clips as a guideline to the story. This was incredibly helpful due to the fact we ended up filming an abundant amount, most of which was somewhat improvised. With this in mind we decided that we would use the footage that looked best whilst still conveying our story in a fluid manner. As a result, we ended up with more footage than planned but that's always good.

    I have some prior experience in editing thanks to my Film 1 and Film 2 classes I took in middle school, where my teacher allowed us to express ourselves creatively by answering all of our questions about how to use the app and even showing us alongside us. All of this has been a great help with all that I am aiming to do for our project. For example, I already know that I am going to have to tweak the colors on some of the clips because we had very different lightings within our different locations. Another thing I am working on currently is speeding up some of the credit tracking shots since it is a little slow and hard to watch since yarn is not all that interesting.

Production of the credit sequence

     When it came to the credit sequence, we took a lot of inspiration from The Conjuring (2013) and their use of images to provide insight into the film.

    They include these credits and images in newspapers which is how we decided to create the detective board in the same style. When we created it, we made sure to find a font that could look handwritten as to not stand out too much and have the credits appear integrated in the investigation. We loved how well this flowed and hence, we wanted to do something of the sort.

    When we were trying to figure out how to make the concept our own as well as having it be an element that would be essential throughout the whole film, we landed on the concept of creating a detective board. Our unique element is that we are going to be transitioning from detective board sequences to actual movie shots hopefully seamlessly, by zooming into the images on the board which are the first shot of our actual movie footage. 

Creating Our Props! Featuring: The Detective Board

     Going into this we both had a pretty clear idea of how we wanted the board to look and what elements we were set on incorporating into the final product, since we would need to use it for two different purposes. 

    First, we used it only for the credit sequence shots which were super fun to film, and then we had to take all of that off so we could get started on the actual board. We started by cutting out the images we wanted to use for the transitions since we intend to zoom into these images and almost "teleport" into these moments. While I cut them out, my partner started looking for what we wanted to include in the board to make it feel more realistic. So, she quickly started writing down call times, blood types, and other random information. 

    We also decided we wanted to have evidence from the crime scenes, so we went out and got some leaves and decided we would figure out some way to include them to where they looked essential to the investigation.

Recipe for Blood:

1/4 cup maple syrup (depends on quantity you want)

1 tbs red food coloring

1/2 tbs green food coloring

1 tsp instant coffee

Directions

    First add in maple syrup and make sure it is very liquidly. Right after, add in the red and make sure it is dark. Following that, add in the green and mix thoroughly, recommended use of popsicle stick. Once the mixture is smooth incorporate the coffee slowly making sure there are no lumps left. After getting general mixture adjust according to your personal preference!

    

    As soon as we finished our mixture, we started testing the blood out. We took sheets of paper and started dipping our thumbs into the mix and stamping them. We quickly noticed we weren't getting the results we wanted and so we had to change our strategy. First, we tried evenly coating our fingers to get a more even result, but it kept on coming out splotchy which is when we decided to stamp our fingers more gently which certainly helped. 

    Ultimately, we found that stamping our fingers first on a piece of scrap paper and then on where we actually wanted them gave us the best results and so it is what we did. From there we started stamping them in pairs and in different sizes to represent different characters who would have died at the hand of the monster and therefore were key pieces of evidence in the investigation.

Now that we had all the elements completed all that was left was putting everything together. When it came to choosing our yarn color, we originally thought to use red because it's the first color that came to mind when we thought about detective boards but after reverting to our color theory notes we thought it would be much smarter to use purple since it represents mystery and curiosity in essence representing problem solving. Then we labeled our fingerprints and smeared blood on Amber's missing person poster, as well as crossed out the word missing in blood to constitute death instead. Overall it took us around 2 hours to create the board but I am pleased to say I have never been more proud of anything in my life.

Filming! Update 1

     I am so proud to say we have absolutely been keeping up with our self set schedule and are almost done with filming! We have truly been super productive by, for example, anticipating what props we might need, and what we would use to create our desired lighting.

    Since we choose to film during the night in poorly lit areas, we had to find different ways to achieve shots, like this one where we were trying to create backlighting. My partner was stood on the other side of our actor and was instructing me on where to point the flashlights, and how far apart they should be from each other, as well as helping me figure out how far I should be. At first this was a struggle because my partner was the one originally holding the flashlights but she is quite a bit shorter than me, so we came to the conclusion we had to swap. Thankfully she is very understanding and easy to work with.

    We both took turns filming, since we each had a vision for specific scenes and therefore wanted to assure our ideas would be properly executed. This was really helpful because sometimes we both knew how we wanted a shot to look but one of us would ultimately be able to recreate it better and bring our vision to life.

    Honestly, this was a very positive experience all around and we fortunately didn't experience any unforeseen circumstances or issues. Our actor was reliable, filming conditions were perfect, and best of all, there were no bystanders or people we had to worry about avoiding.