AICE Media Studies

    After a long journey, not only with the final task but with this class, here is my reflection. I was challenged many times but I was able to learn much more about filming and editing. I hope you enjoy my final CCR as much as I enjoyed making it!

Our movie entitled Mother, follows a young girl named Jane and her relationship with her mom. Jane's home life has become quite difficult. Her mother has tasked her with bringing other young people home, in order to kill them. It is clear that Jane is conflicted about following through, but still does because she does not want to disappoint her mother. The opening sequence demonstrates the dynamic between the two on a day that Jane brings a new victim home.

     With most of our filming and editing previously discussed we went into editing decently prepared. Each of us had put our own section of the sequence together. Then we all sent our work to Hannah who would be combining everything. Originally, we were going to have everyone fully edit their own work, but we decided  against it since everyone had opposing ideas. The scenes I had sent to Hannah had become blurry in the process of sending. I had become very frustrated because I could not find the issue. I had to discard my original edit and start over. Fortunately, the second time around everything was clear, and would work for our sequence. While Hannah put everything together, the rest of the group members and I solidified the fonts, sounds and filters. Editing lasted only 2 days since we had preplanned most of it already. While Hannah was editing, I focused on creating names for the studio and our production company. I began combining the initi...

     Today was our last day of filming! We planned to meet later on in the day at my house once again in order to get darker lighting. That morning we reviewed which scenes needed reshooting and which were still left to be filmed. One of my group mates, Hannah, arrived an hour earlier to film some scenes that the main character had. We reshot some scenes that were not satisfactory and filmed some scenes we missed in the initial filming days. We had missed a close-up shot on my phone as I was texting the other character, Emily, and also a scene of me walking out of my bedroom. Then, the rest of my group arrived and we started filming and reshooting. We also wrote down and printed the scenes we still needed to film in order to keep track of what was being done. First, we shot the scenes that were supposed to use natural daylight. Those scenes were, boiling water in a tea kettle, and the "mother" sharpening knives. For both of these our safety team, that was c...

       The next step in our editing process was finding a filter. Once again, I search through iMovie for a filter that would fit the opening sequence. I wanted a filter that would make the clips look dull and mysterious. Since our genre is Thriller I looked back on our research and noticed many greys and dark blues in many intense or mystery filled scenes. Fortunately for me, I found a filter on iMovie entitled 'Camo' which made the scenes dull and full of dark blues and greys. I applied the filter to one of the clips to test it out and show it to my group mates. My group mates liked the idea of a filter that drained most of the bright colors from the scene. However, they also suggested that applying the same filter to the entire sequence could bore the audience. One of my group mates then suggested applying contrasting filters on the scenes. She explained that all the clips contain the mother, who is the main villain of the story, could use the 'Camo' filter. The s...

 Once I returned from my trip, there was a time we were not filming. I took advantage of this and began looking for fonts that would fit our opening sequence. I am editing on iMovie, so I looked into the fonts that are offered on there. I couldn't find any fonts that matched the ideas we had previously come up with. I spoke with my group about the font issue, and we looked into other editing platforms. It turned out that iMovie was the easiest place for all of us to edit. So, I became more open minded about the fonts that we had on iMovie. I started experimenting with the different fonts. To do this, I selected one of the clips from what we had previously filmed and put it into iMovie. Once there, I uploaded the clip into a new project and made sure it was the correct length to display the title. Then, I went to the title and fonts option and tested many different fonts. The fonts in iMovie are somewhat basic so it was hard to find some that I genuinely liked. I was able to narrow ...

       Our filming was abruptly cut short so we decided to start editing. However, right after spring break I went on a last minute trip. I was unable to help with editing. I did not feel that it was okay for my group mates to do the work alone so we worked out a schedule. They would begin editing the scenes for which they had done storyboards for. I would do the same but once I was back from my trip. That way, we were able to move forward and I was still able to contribute. Even though I had limited access to the internet on my trip I was still able to communicate with my groupmates on the progress they were making. We all shared the previous knowledge we had on editing and gave any helpful advice. I also researched different royalty free music that we could use for the sequence.     Finally, one of my groupmates found a website that had eerie music that we all liked. We all looked through it and found different styles of eerie music that could possib...

     Prior to spring break, my group mates came over to my house to film the rest of the opening sequence. We had already filmed the middle portion of the sequence at the park so all that was left was the beginning and end. My group mate, Hannah, arrived at my house first and the rest of our group had not arrived yet. As we waited, we decided to film some scenes. Since I am portraying Jane, there were some scenes of her alone, so Hannah and I filmed those. We used my bedroom and my front lawn to film the scenes that I was in alone. Once the rest of the members arrived we filmed the scenes the mother was in. The mother was being portrayed by Jocelyn and she also had scenes alone so we began with those. One of those scenes involved sharpening knives so we had our safety team watching in case of emergencies. Thankfully everything went smoothly and we were able to continue filming.      Then, we filmed the scenes that involved Jocelyn and I. Most of these scene...

    We all arrived and filmed at the park for around 3 hours. The day was quite sunny which was perfect for our lighting purposes. However, the day was also extremely windy, and because of this our filming slowed down a bit.      First, we filmed the scenes of the two girls at the swings. Since I am playing Jane, I wore a black hoodie, jeans, and sneakers. My groupmate who was playing Emily wore a white t shirt, grey skirt, and grey slip on sneakers. When our other groupmate was filming us on the swings, there was a lot of sunshine and the scene was too bright. We had to move on to another scene to allow the sun to be covered by clouds. We went to the playground and shot the scenes of the two girls taking selfies. Thankfully, only one family was at the playground and they were far from us so we were able to film and take off our masks. My groupmate shot the scene from different angles, and we also shot this scene in two different parts of the playground. On...

      With our plan to film now organized all that was left was to meet up. Since our first area of filming would be the park, we had to ensure the weather was in our favor. Fortunately, the weather had been clear all week and we were able to plan accordingly. We also planned to film on a weekday to prevent coming into contact with multiple people at the park. I realized that we would need a couple hours to film. Half of the scenes would take place in the early afternoon, while the other half would be in the evening. We would need to meet early at the park and spend most of our evening there. We all planned to meet at the park after 3pm and begin filming then. I researched other parks near the one we had chosen, in case that it was a busy day. I found two other parks nearby which would allow for smooth transitions if needed. One of our groupmates lives down the street from the park, in case there was any need to leave the park. My sisters had offered to help out with safe...

     Since I am working with three other people for this final task, we knew it would be difficult for everyone to edit the same opening sequence. We decided to either split the scenes up into sections and each of us edits those sections or work together to edit. The editing process is going to be lengthy for this task. I thought that planning out beforehand was vital for our editing to go smoothly. One of the first things we began planning was the music we would include. I knew many songs are copyrighted and we would have to contact the companies who own these songs in order to use them. However, some of our music, like the eerie tones we wanted to us, could be easily found with no copyright to them. For the scenes that Jane is seen with headphones on we all envisioned a well known track playing. I thought back to copyright issues and spoke with my group about it. We began researching if there was any music with lyrics that we could use. In the end, we made the decision ...

      Prior to filming at my house, I made sure that we could create the lighting that my group and I had planned. I went back to our Sound Script and looked at the lighting for all of the scenes that were going to be filmed at my house. I wrote them all down on a piece of paper in order to avoid going back to the Sound Script and confusing the lightings. Then, I went through each scene and recreated the lightings that we wanted. This took longer than expected since I had to verify the lightings at different times of the day. The first scenes in which I recreated the lighting were the scenes in my room. In the Sound Script we wrote that we would mainly rely on natural light. My room has four windows so it was clear that the natural light would work. I also made sure that using the lightbulb in my room would still light the room properly just in case we could not use natural lighting.       Next, I reviewed the lighting for the living roo...

      My group has not yet begun filming for our Final Task. We needed extra time to prepare our locations and make sure proper safety guidelines were going to be followed. Since many scenes were going to be filmed at my house, my family made sure everything was set for any emergencies. We ordered extra masks on Amazon in order to have back ups if anything went wrong. A first-aid kit was also made, composed of bandaids, bandages, sanitizing wipes, masks,  hand sanitizer, gloves, and a thermometer.        I made a plan to sanitize everything before my groupmates arrived. I also planned to sanitize once something was touched. The plan for filming was to not have anyone else but my groupmates and the first aid team in the area we were filming. The first aid team are my two older sisters as they are both trained in CPR. They will be at all the filming locations and make sure all safety guidelines are followed as we are filming...

A major step in our filming process was the storyboard aspect. In order to make sure every scene went smoothly to the next, this was a crucial step. This is a very big task which required numerous scenes that needed to be detailed. Majority of our scenes were taken in a mid shot or close up angle. This way we will be able to see the character’s faces more clearly, along with their expressions

For the opening of our film, planning the title sequence has been an essential part of our work.  My team and I are planning for some of the opening credits of our film to have a normal contemporary font.  We envision most of the titles to be placed on different parts of the screen (not the center). We wanted the titles to give the audience a feeling of unpredictability, as the titles could appear anywhere on the screen.  The fonts will be in the color white and black depending on the background. The space between the lines will also have some place in between if necessary, so the words will be easy to see. For example, if there are two lines, the title could look like this: D i r e c t e d  b y    H a n n a h  E z a m m u d e e n We plan on making the letters of the names of the people a bit larger than their occupation. We plan to put spaces in between each letter of the words that show up on the screen if necessary However, when the movie title appe...

Schedule: 03/12/21 - 03/14/21: Our group will begin filming for our project. 03/19/21: We will spend the day editing and placing our project together. With doing this, we are able to know what scenes, clips, or audio we are missing. This way we can be prepared for our future filming days. 03/20/21 - 03/21/21: We will finish our filming and shoot any retakes or mistakes that we have made.  03/27/21 - 03/28/21: Our group will finalize our project with the editing portion. This will leave us enough time to focus on our reflection as a group as well as make any comments on what was enjoyable and what we need to change in the editing portion.  Location:  Our group will be filming and shooting our project at various locations. Our first location will be the inside and outside of one of the member’s houses. Another location will be a community park, where we will film the middle portion of our film. Participants: Actors:  Raquel Lopez - Jane Judith Reyes- Mom Jocelyn Colo...

SOUND SCRIPT: Scene 1 No dialogue. Scene 2 No dialogue Notification alert sound on phone with texting clicks Scene 3 Mom: “Hey honey, how’d you sleep?” Jane: “Fine.” Mom: “Oh, how wonderful!” Scene 4 Mom: “Here you go honey, everything will be ready when you get home!” Scene 5 No dialogue Scene 6 No dialogue Music Scene 7 Music Emily: “Hey! Finally, we can talk in person instead of just being online friends!” Jane: “Oh my gosh! Yeah, I know right!” Scene 8 No dialogue Music Scene 9 No dialogue Music Scene 10:  No dialogue Music Scene 11: No dialogue Music Scene 12: No dialogue Music Scene 13:  Jane: “It’s getting late Emily. Are you sure you don’t wanna wait at my house?” Emily: “I don't know… I dont think I'm allowed.” Jane: “Oh come on. I live just down the street. Promise you, it’ll be quick. Plus, my mom will be happy to have you.” Emily: “Ugh fine. Just for a little though.” Jane: “Okay cool!” Texting clicks Scene 14: Jane: “See, I told you it was close. Come on!” Scene 1...