AICE Media Studies

     I had my mom and some friends review the final task sequence. One of the bigger complaints I got is that I should've introduced the problem of the missing necklace much earlier. They said a way I could've done this was by touching my neck or something and realizing it wasn't there. Or we could have introduced the stalker a lot earlier. For example, like hiding him in the background in those beginning scenes. They also said that I could've placed more emphasis on the title. They gave me the suggestion of zooming in on the title more, because it's not totally clear on which one is the title. Another critique is that there should be more focus on the empty made bed at the end so that you can tell that she got kidnapped. I also got told that color grading would make the film look more professional. Additionally, I got a lot of critiques on the font, and that the yellow is not fitting and the font.     Most of the compliments we got was on the masking of the tex...

      Today I wanted to add some final touches to the video. This included adding in some last minute effects and audio. I worked with my other group member to pick out audios. I found it to be really difficult timing up the audios with the video. The sounds included basic effects like walking, quick movements, or breathing. Other then that there were certain music effects like sharp violins to make a situation more tense or scary. We also found some copyright free music to put in the background so that it wouldn't seem empty or silent. We originally planned to do the song 'One Way or Another' and emailed the owners of the song, but they never got back to us. Adding the audio really brought it together and made it seem more congruent. The audio that I found to be the most difficult was the alarm sound effect. I had to time it up with the way the scenes appeared. I think that the audio that we chose for it really gave it a creepy vibe after the chase scene. Certain sound e...

     Today for the video I wanted to add in the last few effects. This included some effects where it looked like the character would be walking over the title card. I think that this effect would add some uniqueness to our video, but would be a little hard to accomplish. The entire video itself is edited on the app CuteCutPro, but in order to complete this effect I would need to separately edit the clips in VideoStar. This is because I am more comfortable completing these types of more complicated effects on VideoStar. I vaguely remembered how to do the effect because I had done something similar to it on a past project. To brush up on my memory though, I watched a couple of tutorials so that I could get it perfect. The first step I had to do was make a layer for the original video, a layer for the text on top, and another layer of the video above that. I then had to individually mask out the person on the video. VideoStar had an automated way to mask the person out, but...

    Once I had finished through the beginning of the sequence I had to work on placing together the scenes we filmed at the park. This is another instance in where I had to cut down a lot. I had already cut down the scene of us at the swings to shorten the video. Now, I needed to add in the last few since in the order I wanted it to be in the final cut. I was once again disappointed with having to cut some of my favorite shots, but I'm just glad I could make it in the time frame. I also still managed to work a lot of these shots in with shorter snippets. We had planned to record more then necessary just in case, so it was to be kind of expected. My absolute favorite shot to edit was the shot of us on the swings. I used some visual blurring effects to kind of make the stalker look more ominous in the background. I think this really gave that creepy thriller vibe that we were going for. I also brainstormed with my friends a couple of ways to make the scene of me and my friend wa...

Before editing I compiled all the times on the clips together to see how long it would be in total. With no cuts, it was way over 2 minutes. This meant that I definitely would need to change some scenes around or rework the storyboard. I decided that the best way to go about this would to be to place the scenes in order like normal and then go and cut out what wasn't needed. I figured this would be best because then I could see how it would look with certain scenes gone. I needed to make sure that it would still look natural and put together once cut. A large part that I cut was most of the dialogue from the library. I was kind of upset about it since we spent so long recording, but it needed to be done. That scene took up majority of the time and was just not essential to the plot. I also found that we had recorded a lot of walking and transition scenes. I found this to be another good place to start cutting, because not all of them would have been important for the audience to un...

Once we arrived at the library to film we encountered our first major obstacle. The library where most of our scenes had revolved around was closed. This meant that we had to rework where we could shoot these scenes. We still wanted our sequence to appear like the scene change was at the library. I filmed a wide shot of me walking in front of a sign that said library. I also made a mental note that I wanted to use that shot for a title card when I would begin editing. We also got a couple of establishing shots of the library to use. But, we still needed the shots of us inside the library. Luckily, there was a Barnes and Noble not to far from us, so we were able to walk there. It was pretty busy that day, but we persisted so that we could get the scenes that we wanted. After waiting for a couple of seats to clear up we found a spot to film at. When I chose where in the store to film, I kept in mind that it needed to be farther from other shoppers so that we wouldn't get background n...

On the second day of filming we got started almost immediately. Me and my group member slept in, so we had to rush to get started with filming the rest of our scenes at my house. We called our other two group members to let them know when we would all be meeting up the three of us, but for now it was just us two. We made a checklist of what we wanted to film by order of importance. This allowed us to stay on track and get everything done under our time constraints. I had to be mindful that I was wearing the same outfit with a similar makeup style, just so everything looked congruent. With it being just the two of us, we had no one to hold up lights. This meant we had to be mindful where we would be shooting so that the lighting would be ideal. Luckily, one of the sidewalks by my house had just enough lighting where it wasn't to bright or to dark. With only a couple of weird looks from my neighbors, we were finished with filming outside my house. All we had to film on the inside was...

    Filming at the park gave us a lot of creative opportunity. There was a lot of equipment for our director to stand on, which meant me and my friends could get pretty expressive with acting. One of the ways we did that was through having our director stand on a bench to create a high angle shot of us walking. This really helped to emphasize the scene of the two friends diverging. The places we filmed the two of us walking were also lined with streetlights, which helped to create a warmer environment with our lighting. For certain scenes the park also gave us a good environment to place our characters on different planes. This helped to make our scenes look a lot more visually interesting. For example, when we shot the scene with our two characters on the swings we were able to place the stalker hidden behind on this upper platform. This helped to keep the stalker both mysterious and visually in power.  Once we wrapped up at the park, we needed to film the scenes with th...

     Before filming, I confirmed with my group members where and when we would be filming. I communicated with them what time they would get to my house so that we would have the correct lighting for certain scenes. This also helped us to determine what order we would film the scenes in. Scenes filmed at the park and walking home would need to be at a later time, and the scenes at my house would have to be earlier in the afternoon. I also worked to pick my costume before we began filming. I went with this tank top with hearts on it. My idea was that the hearts would help to symbolize the character's personality and make her appear more sweet or innocent. I also picked out a pair of shorts for the finished costume. I did this because I knew we would have a scene where I fall on the floor, and I didn't want to risk ruining a pair of pants. I also thought that shorts would be easier to run in and would look less awkward compared to my jeans.     Our group had to me...

      Our sequence will start off in  a long shot   and will fade in.   It will show our victim walking home and the stalker hidden, following behind her.   The stalker will  be wearing dark clothes ,   and the victim will  wear casual  clothes.  The soundtrack will also begin here.  The name of the  studio  will  be   displayed here in the bottom  left  foreground.     The second sequence is an  establishing shot , where our victim enters her home.  This sequence will depict the time of day,  which will be in the evening/afternoon.   The title  ofr  the name of the production company will be displayed here in the foreground.     This shot is a tracking shot of the victim as  she  enters her house. She will be  walking towards her bedroom.     This shot includes a closeup of the doorknob as the victim enters her room. I...