AICE Media Studies Blog

     This film has many important aspects surrounding the central plot. Although not prominently emphasized in the plot of the film, the main subject, Rachel, is impliedly representative of the LGBTQ+ community. Since she mentions that she has a girlfriend, and is seen on a date with said girlfriend, this idea is definitely evident to the audience. As a lesbian, she may have faced criticism, hatred, and emotional or physical harm in her life which could have led her to have the substance abuse issues that are prevalent in the film. A possible consequence of this could be her estrangement from her family which was mentioned on the informational sheet of paper she reads every morning. Alcoholism is a coping method that many people often use to try to forget about negative things in their life. This and other alcohol-related issues are a leading cause of death in the United States, and while completely preventable, it is an issue that goes mostly uncared for. Eventually, her...

Website: https://24featurette.wixsite.com/official-24film Postcard: https://www.canva.com/design/DAFdwpD2EIs/sJRkMIl14EeeXWK8VTOOAA/view Front: Back: Short Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVYNheq0LfA https://vimeo.com/user195753003

 Hello, hello, hello! As you are reading here with me today, the group has officially completed the editing of the final project! Today was the day for all touch-ups and small finishing details. My wonderful editor Jordyn was able to take into account all of the critiques received yesterday and fix them or work them into the film. To begin, the group started with the audio aspects. The first critique encountered was the suggestion that the police voice should be muffled. In order to do this, Jordyn quotes that she had to " alter the equalization and as such alter how muffled an inputted audio sounds." Simply put, she says that she had to lower the frequency of the audio in order to make it sound more distant and create that "muffled" sound effect. The next sound aspect of the film was the music, correlating with the suggestion that the volume of the music should be lower. Instead of simply decreasing the volume level, Jordyn suggested splitting the clip into three s...

 Hello again! Today's blog is quite an interesting one! Now that the film is complete, the group thinks it to be valuable to have other people's opinions on the work. In particular, I interviewed my father as well as my sister and her best friend (pictured below). Although my father is not necessarily a film connoisseur, my sister and her best friend have taken this course before. I was hoping with this experience they could offer me some valuable tips and critiques. As expected, my father did not have any negative commentary. Being as supportive as he is, he could only give compliments and say he would not change anything from the film. As much as I appreciate hearing this, especially after all of the group's hard work, I was hoping my sister would offer me some more unbiased and bluntly honest feedback. Thankfully, she did provide me with some considerable criticism. She suggested first that the group should go back and touch up some of the transitions in between scenes. ...

 Greetings! I am so excited to be with you today as I near the end of the production series! To kick off today's editing, the group began discussing the title sequence. The main issue regarding the title sequence was the font. Jordyn browsed the fonts available on the DaVinci Resolve software, but none of them really appealed to the group. I really wanted to have a font that looks like the number on the alarm clock; a sort of techy font to centralize or work in the idea of the clock, but this was not easy to find. Jordyn ended up finding one just like it on an outside website and was able to download it for free, so I was ecstatic. Jordyn also suggested the idea of having the titles fade in and out to represent the character's unsteady memory, which I liked as well. After deciding on these aspects, the group moved on. The next step in editing was adding the clips that the group filmed yesterday. For the date scene, Jordyn cut the clips to scale and into individual scenes, then ...

 Hello again, it's been a while! I am here to report back to you for the final day of filming, finally! Today was quick, and the group finished up by filming the 3 scenes remaining. The first scene was the date which involved Ashley and me. The group had envisioned this scene being filmed in Ashley's patio area on a small table and chairs, which was a bit of an issue because it was raining. The group decided that once the rain slowed down, it was not noticeable in the videos, and therefore, continued filming. To begin, Ashley curated her drink: a mixture of lime juice, water, and sprite, while I stuck with water. To begin, Jordyn filmed only Ashley's scenes, ensuring that her position matched that of the previous scene. She took one sip of her drink at a time, four times total, then finally drank the rest in one large sip and slammed her glass down on the table. Next, it was my turn. Jordyn positioned me at the same angle and spacing as Ashley was in the camera, and then I ...

Hello again! After such a long weekend of filming, the group has now taken on the task of editing. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, Jordyn is the main lead in editing in the group, as she has the most experience and is the most tech-savvy, so she again took the lead here. The main application used was iMovie. This was used to combine the raw takes together, ensuring that the scenes line up, and the transitions are correct, as well as adding a few subtle transitions and hues. This application made it exceptionally easier for the group to see how to line up the shots during filming. After I shot a scene, Jordyn would mash them up together on her phone and make sure the transitions between scenes were as seamless as possible. If these clips were not to the group's liking, the application also allowed for the individual scenes to be cropped, zoomed, pinched out, and moved up or down.  After this rough-draft stage of editing, Jordyn uploaded the clips onto a software called DaVinc...

 Hello, hello! Now that the weekend is over, the only glimpse of hope I have is recalling back upon it, and upon my filming during it. After the exciting fun of Saturday, I was beaming with joy on Sunday during filming! Similarly to Saturday, the group met at Ashley's house between 12:00-1:00 PM. The filming began again by pre-recording the needed audio clips for the day ahead.  In yesterday's blog, you may recall that I mentioned how the office scene ends with Ashley smiling into the distance to provide a transition to the next day's filming. This picks up again in Ashley's bedroom, for the second  morning scene. If you were curious, she was left off smiling because she was on a phone call with her new girlfriend. This carries over to the following day as she listens to her recorded voicemail, mentioning her date with said girlfriend, which would take place that night. To get her into the same position to allow for this seamless(ish) transition, I again had to use a re...

 I am so excited to see you again and to jump right into my second day of filming. The group had planned to film over the weekend to catch up after not filming for so long due to scheduling issues. A convenient weekend was selected by all members, and I was ecstatic to film again! On Saturday, the group met at Ashley's house at around 1 P.M. and began filming. Before the video filming had induced, Jordyn and Ashley worked together to record the audio on the voice recorder which was necessary for one of the scenes being filmed.  The main focus was on filming the opening scene of the character waking up in the morning. This scene included her awakening, grabbing her glasses, and listening to her tape recording/reading her sheet of paper. The group decided to film in chronological order and began with the awakening scene. This was quite simple as it did not require much effort, and a favorable result was produced in just two takes. I filmed atop a small 3-step ladder to achieve a...

Hello, great to see you here again! After finally being able to film, the group was so excited to begin the editing process. As outlined in my filming blog, the group was only able to complete one scene due to time constraints, so this first part of the editing process was rather brief. When assigning tasks to the group members, it was agreed upon that Jordyn was the most tech-savvy and would therefore be the leader of the editing aspect of the film, in the same way that I handle the marketing and videography, and Ashley handles the musical aspect. Jordyn began editing shortly after filming ended, and for this brief scene, she primarily used the application iMovie on IOS. Upon asking, Jordyn told me that this was very convenient for the short duration of the bathroom scene. As I have again outlined in a previous blog, the group used various technologies and tools for filming, one of which being a phone stabilizer, which, as the name entails, holds the cell phone steady while filming, a...

     Welcome back again! Today I am going to share the adventures of my first day of filming, and I am so, so incredibly excited! To begin the day of filming, the group gathered in the parking lot after school. Jordyn decided to ride with me, and Ashley drove by herself. With a quick pit stop, I made my way to Ashley's dad's house with Jordyn as my passenger. Upon arrival at Ashley's house, the group began some minor setup. Jordyn and I began to move some things around Ashley's bedroom, such as books and clothes. After, the group began to discuss minor technical details of the filming process and took a look at the equipment that a group member had brought. This equipment included a digital clock, voice recorder, and various tripods and phone stands. After this, the group was to begin the actual filming and looked at the script as a guideline. While quickly reviewing it, I realized that there were many missing details/specific props which, although minor, are essential ...

 Hello again and thanks for tuning in! Tomorrow, the group will finally begin filming! I am anxiously awaiting until then, but for now, the group's focus is the marketing aspect of the film. The group has decided to create various social media pages in order to boost the release of the film and as the main form of marketing, including Instagram, Twitter, FaceBook, and YouTube. The group would use YouTube to make fun content such as bloopers. Jordyn suggested creating compilations or collections of these videos, which I thought was very fun! The Instagram account could be for more intimate details about the characters and the actors. The group thought recording content like Q&A's or fun "get to know me" videos. The Twitter account could be used to reiterate ideas from our other social media to reach a bigger audience. Many people use Twitter, so the group wanted to use this platform as well. Jordyn also suggested creating a website to give viewers more information ...

Hello and welcome back to my blog! Today, I am going to share some of the unfortunate events that have recently been preventing my group and I from beginning the filming process. My group has a very conflicting schedule with work days and overloads of homework, so it was difficult to find a date that worked for each group member. Although behind what was initially planned, my groupmate Jordyn suggested that the filming would begin this past weekend, on Saturday the 25th. The group unanimously agreed that this date would work. I was so excited to actually start filming! But I lost hope quickly....unfortunately, this date did not work out. Everyone in my group is a high school Junior, and cannot film as the SAT Exam is taking place this Wednesday. The group agreed to prioritize SAT studying as the filming could take place at a later date, one on which they and I are much less stressed. The date now planned for the start of filming is this upcoming Thursday the 2nd.  Now that the date...

     Hello, it is so good to see you again! I am so excited to kick off my planning series of blogs for this project! Starting off strong, I would like to talk about the musical aspect of my upcoming film. Music is a vital part of the film for my group, especially my partner Ashley, who is very musically talented. In fact, she proposed writing a score for the film herself, including the instruments that she has access to like guitar and piano, focused around a central clock-ticking noise that was presented by the group as an idea. If this becomes too much for her, or the group decides not to go this route, my groupmate Jordyn suggested browsing royalty-free music and sound effects which could be layered to create a similar effect. Jordyn also suggested that the group could create Foley sound like the videos the teachers have shown in class, in order to amplify the scene in which the main character's partner is killed, to make it sound more gruesome, but actually have the ...

Hello again! Today my teammates and I completed our short film storyboard. As you will soon see, it was a collaborative effort with a range of art styles and drawing techniques (although stick figures do seem to be a commonality)! By working with our storyboard, we can now visualize each of our scenes as they will occur in our featurette. I have also explained each scene below, as to ensure all of the presented information is as clear as possible. Scene 1:     In Scene 1, we will begin with an establishing, overhead wide shot, as to capture the interior of the subject's bedroom. Their room will be neatly organized to portray the fact that they are a functioning alcoholic, In this scene, three of our opening titles will be shown for roughly two seconds each. Said titles, like the rest in the short film will both fade in and fade out. In this case, the studio name will appear over the subject, disappearing when their alarm goes off. The production company name will app...

  Hola (we’re trying to keep our Duolingo streak going)! I am very happy to see that you have decided to join us on our journey through the pre-production process yet again. Today we will be discussing our plan for the coming weeks, as to ensure that filming goes off without a hitch. Below you will see that we have divvied up our plan into five different categories, as to allow for a more straightforward representation of what we intend to do. Participants:     In order to ensure that the participants and each of their roles for this particular project are clear, I've broken down each of their roles below: *Actors- Aja Masri as “‘Kaitlyn “Katie” Hara”’ Jordyn Minnis as “News Reporter” Ashley Scanlan as “Rachel Pewt” Richard as “Police Officer” Filming- Jordyn Minnis Aja Masri Editing- Jordyn Minnis Aja Masri Ashley Scanlan Directing- Jordyn Minnis *When it comes to our official actors, it is likely that we will proceed with our current selections; however, they ...