AICE Media Studies Blog

 This marks the second to last day of filming for my project. This was an exciting moment for everyone involved. Getting closer to the end of the project gives a good motivational boost for me and the actors. This may lead to more enthusiasm in the actor's acting and me in my editing and shooting.  This day of shooting started with complications but ended rather well. As I do every filming day, I texted my actors before the set filming time to confirm they were ready to go. Claire confirmed after around fifteen minutes, but as it hit an hour before noon, our planned filming time, I began to worry about Sofia's attendance. I had planned to film page 5 of my storyboard this day which absolutely needed both of my actors on set. When Sofia did respond she called me to say she confused her schedule and had to cancel. At first I was frustrated. It's hard not to be when someone cancels on you and you have to change your schedule. However, I remembered that there were only two film...

 March 13th was the first filming day with Sofia's second character, the Survivor. As I did for Sofia's other character, I let Sofia have a lot of creative freedom with her characters costume. Much like last time, she took my basic concept and made it more fleshed out and complete. I really appreciate the lead she takes with her characters, especially because I know she is more knowledgeable about fashion and character design. I am better with story and writing elements myself.  Considering the scenes shot today, we finished page 4 of my storyboard. The first obstacle I faced was the second shot of the page where the Kid and Survivor run across the street. From where I had to stand with the camera I had little to no visibility of incoming cars. I would signal from behind the camera to my actors when I was ready, but it was up to them to spot cars before they started running. My actors are very competent individuals, so there was little issue after the confusion was clear. The ...

 At the beginning of this process I had a somewhat loose and very different idea of how my project would look at this point. Now, that view has changed a few times. I thought it would be beneficial to catalogue all of my changes thus far and reflect on them.  My first big change was my actors. I originally planned to include myself, Sofia O'Connel-Zamakis, and Nadia Ahktar. Sofia and Nadia are my two best friends, and Sofia has acting experience, so I thought it would be a good fit. However, as I talked to Nadia she expressed her anxieties about availability and acting ability. I agreed with her, it would be better to leave her outside of such an important role, and removed her from my actors list. Her reserves about her acting ability reminded me of my own stage fright. I would be a much better fit behind the camera, but having only me and Sofia still available I thought I wouldn't have a choice. This is when I found out another friend of mine, Clarita Pavillard, who also goe...

 Last Sunday, the 6th, I filmed the third page of my storyboard with Clarita and Sofia, my now only actors. I decided to take myself out of the acting because of my lack of skill in it and so I could focus more on the other aspects of the project. I found myself a lot more confident behind the camera during filming, even taking better charge. This also greatly improved time management and complications regarding someone holding the camera but not understanding the angles or shots I'm looking for. I planned to film from 12 to 1:30pm, finishing 6 scenes. This was based off the previous filming session where we finished 8 scenes in about two hours. I wanted to be absolutely sure we would get all necessary scenes filmed, but it turns out I didn't need to worry as we finished at around 1:05pm, 25 minutes ahead of schedule. The saved time could also be attributed to less interruptions. The main filming location is on a disc golf course, so intermittent interruptions from disc golf pl...

 For this project I wanted to have a song that was more subtle and without lyrics to let the characters and actions speak for themselves. Plus, I don't listen to a lot of music in general, so my frame of reference for more popular songs is small. With this knowledge I felt the best way to go was with a royalty free song. This also saves me time to coordinate with my actors and work on my editing skills. I spent days combing through songs on YouTube that were royalty free and exchanging search terms to get exactly what I was looking for. I came across a few songs that were close to what I wanted but not close enough. Through one of these almost perfect songs I found the YouTube channel "BreakingCopyright" that uploaded royalty free music from many independent artists. The channel had a wide variety of music so I went to the playlists firsts. The adventure playlist turned out to be too upbeat and the fantasy playlist was too whimsical. It came down to me skimming over the E...

When it came time to start editing, I was much more prepared than I was for filming. I had already had my background song chosen and some video clips compiled. The only thing I lacked was experience, which I made an effort to make up for. After finishing my storyboard, I looked into free editing software's I could download on my computer. After a brief search through the options and a thorough search through the reviews, I chose FilmForth. After downloading my chosen software, I took to practicing by making a brief screen recording and exploring the editing tools available. I also watched the tutorial video available for the software and browsed the blog where the manufacturers detailed updates to the software and answered user questions with detailed guides on how to use the platform. I found the video and blog to be very well organized and helpful. My favorite part about this software was the lack of watermarks put on my videos. When I asked my friends for recommendations they al...

 The first filming session of this project was pushed back at the last minute to Wednesday, March 2nd, due to my underestimation of the length of the storyboard process. I assumed it would take a weekend or less, but it took about 4 days to complete and I restarted once to add more shots to the first five scenes. Now, the storyboard is complete and I was ready to film. I invited my main actors, Sofia and Clarita, but Sofia had something come up last minute and cancelled. This left me, who will eventually be playing the Demon, and Clarita, who would be playing the main character: the Lost Kid, which was shortened to Kid in the storyboard for simplicity. Another oversight on my end was my camera. On the day of filming I lost the charger to my camera, and without a backup camera I was in a tough situation. Luckily, Clarita let me borrow her GoPro so we were ready to go. Finally, to address the actual filming. To keep things simple we only filmed scenes with Clarita alone. We explored ...

Page 1: This page starts the film in the woods, showing the main character, Kid, walking around and picking up rocks. Kid shows boredom in the second panel by kicking up dirt, but is still wary as seen in the final panel where she looks around. It is made clear there is something else in the woods by the bushes rustling in the fifth panel and the foreboding music that begins in the fourth panel. This page is mostly uneventful, but it sets up the location, mood, and attitude of Kid. The titles here are slightly rushed to fill up space and leave more space for more intense scenes later in the film. Page 2: This page starts the rising action as the Demon accidentally reveals themselves by snapping a stick behind Kid in the first panel. The second panel gives a close look at the Demon's shadow, confirming there is a demon but keeping it vague as to keep the audience intrigued in the suspense. I thought of putting the title in the shadow early into this process as a play on the meaning ...