Director's Cut CCR

Final Film Opening

Link to film opening !!

Advice to future Aice Media Students

Since I am now an almost Aice Media AS alumni, I feel as though I would share my input on the project as a whole and what advice I would give to students in the future. In my last blog I mentioned how everything went fairly smooth creating the whole project, but it did not just happen by luck. It took a lot of ahead planning of every little detail: from the shooting schedule, the props, the storyboard, the angles we were going to use, the cuts we would insert, the audio, the actors...etc. If Alexa and I did not do as much planning as we did, we would probably still be working on filming right now. However, no matter how much planning you do things can still go wrong. Certain props that we had planned on using did not work out, we had ran out of room in the film and had to cut out a whole entire scene, and we had to go over our spending budget for the props. Another factor contributing to a stress free portfolio would be to manage your time well!!!!! Timing is everything! Do NOT leave everything for the last minute because you will hate yourself and you will regret not starting earlier, trust me. Therefore, my advice to future film opening creators is this: make sure you try and plan as much as possible can, try to avoid procrastination at all costs, and although cheesy make sure you remember to have fun with what you're doing! Take advantage of this awesome class where you are able to explore your creative side because it is not that often where us as high school students get to do so!

Reflecting

So, I did re-watch and re-watch, but I felt like there nothing else that I could have done to make it better; I could have maybe filmed certain scenes with better angles that were more aesthetically pleasing as well as getting our message across to the viewer. Yet, I am very happy with how the film turned out and the project together as whole! Going into this project I was completely mortified because I thought I would never be able to come up with an idea, or I would leave everything to the last minute and never be able to finish in time. Fortunately, that was not the case: we were able to come up with an idea within the first week of brainstorming, planned everything according to schedule, and editing wasn't as stressful as anticipated. I actually would have to say that editing the film was my favorite part because I really enjoy messing around with the tools that IMovie offers like the coloring, the audio, the speed of the film, and the different types of cuts. There is just something about putting individual clips together and being able to make a whole video that flows together and sends a message to a viewer that just amazes me. I really would not mind do something in the future that has to do with creating video content, but I feel as though as much as I enjoy I would never have enough talent it for it to turn into a career for me. But hey, who knows what the future has to offer! Maybe I'll end up being the female version of Steven Spielberg, or actually maybe Tim Burton since we did create a mystery/horror film!

Finishing touches

Now that our film opening is FINALLY done, we decided to show our peers again and see if we need to touch up anything. In class we showed as many people that agreed to watch, and we got amazing feedback along with helpful constructive criticism. What people commented most on was our props, and how they made the clips 100x scarier and very realistic. Which, I was glad to hear because we put a lot of time and effort looking for good props! However, some also recommended that we alter the color/saturation of certain clips again to reflect that real dark and scary vibe. So, Alexa and I took their advice and did exactly that. We opened up the film on IMovie again and played around with the coloring; we added more cool tones but also took away some color and lowered the saturation to show that scene is very lifeless. Colorful scenes in movies usually mean that everything is very happy and full of life, while scenes with no colors reflect dark times and a sad tone. I learned all of this information about color from lessons in my Aice Media class, and I also researched online to get further details. I am really glad that we asked for our peers' opinions because sometimes it is always good to get a fresh pair of eyes that may point out things that you may never have noticed; it was very beneficial. Alright, so now I think we are OFFICIALLY DONE, and I could not be happier with the way it turned out! However, I probably am going to be sitting in bed watching it over and over again just trying to find something that could be better. I'll let you know in the next blog ;)

The final product...I think

Today, Alexa and I met up and pretty much wrapped up the whole process of editing our film opening!!!!! We started with the news report; we texted our good pal and fellow Aice Media Studies peer, Zach Cohen, to record himself reading the report because we felt as though his voice was best fit. Boy were we right, his voice was perfect! It sounded so clear and firm like a real reporter; if I hadn't known it was his voice I would have assumed it was a legitimate news anchor. I even watched a video made by a real reporter giving advice on how to talk like him basically, and he said your voice is not supposed to be weird or dark; you are supposed to talk as if you're talking directly to people, and Zach did exactly that. So, shout out you Zach! After inserting the news report and getting it to match up with the scenes, we created our follies. One for the scene of the man putting on the gloves in which we just recorded Alexa rubbing the actual plastic gloves together because we couldn't find a different object that sounded better. Then, I had to record myself, since I play Annie, screaming at the top of my lungs, "Help! Help! Somebody help me please!" It actually turned out well once it was lined up with the scene; we didn't even have to cut the audio or clip short because it lined up perfectly. Finally, we added in the one thing that makes a world of difference: the scary music!! We used the selection of scary movie clips that is provided through Imovie. It is heard in the background from beginning to end until the last 5 seconds where it goes completely silent because we felt as though it would make it scarier. Sometimes less is more!

 Source:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-ZZIifnt5s

The process continues...

Last post I mentioned how we stopped half way with editing the opening; today we finished the rest! In the shot of Annie's face being zoomed into we turned down the saturation a little bit to show that the color, or life, in her could be limited. The transition is a fade to black to the next clip where the camera zooms out of a white paper ducked tape to the wall with the number 5 on it to show that Annie is the 5th victim. Originally the clip was normal paced, but we felt as though the clip of the 5 needed to be slowed down a bit to make sure the audience understands that it is an important scene; it is the name of the movie as well. Once that was done our film as at a time duration of about 2 minutes and 27 seconds, so we had to completely cut a last scene that we filmed. It was of the kidnapper walking into a bathroom and washing away the blood on his hands, and then when he walked away you could see the movie title "5" written in blood on the mirror. Although it was a cool scene, we felt as though it was not completely necessary to keep in the opening. After transitions we moved on to sound. We added in the sound of a radio being tuned, switching between channels to the clip of the man hitting the clock radio, to show that it is indeed a radio and he is listening to it. Directly after the tuning stops we are going to insert a news report talking about the Annie's disappearance, we already have it written we just need to find someone to read it that has a news reporter's voice. Which, is what I will blog all about in my next post!