Editing Blog: Editing and arguing

   Yesterday was the first day that we started to edit our film and select what footage to use. When we filmed last weekend we took basically every shot twice or more for to find the perfect shot, however this created a problem. Our group memeber  consist of very  differently minded members, and were very stubborn about our opinions. All of us together had a hard tim deciding between many shots. The first couple of shots were mostly all agreed on together. However, One of the first shots was perfect, but the wind was a little to loud. There was another shot of the exact scene that was not as well filmed, but barely any wind. Half of our group wanted the first and the other the sending, witch started an argument. We were agrguing for a wile on this but we all soon finally realized that this really didn’t matter because we could also just do a voice over. With that in mind we used the first shot instead.

   To continue on with, the next proceeding shot created an argument too. This shot could of replaced the next two shots. If we would of replaced the single shot with the two shots it would of made us loose around 10 seconds off our time. We decided to leave this shot till later when we knew what are time was in total. Moving on from that shot we got to the nock out scene. This one we decided we might redo. We decided this because both shots looked very clunky and in realistic. We thought the same answer with the next scene when we tossed Zeke into the back of the trunk. This scene was also unrealistic, and needed more improved acting. Our last shot was in my opinion needed to be redone, but the rest of the group said it was fine. All in all, we had some good shots to choose from when selecting yesterday, but some shots need some work to be done on them.

Filming Blog: Filming in the alley

   Last weekend, on Saturday ( February 22) we all got together to start filming. That afternoon we all gathered together at Paige's house. We didn't check out a camera out the day previous because we didn't need it. We decided to film on Paige's phone because it was a lot easier to manage the battery and the storage of the film. At Paige's house, We decide to film like we did on our previous project and film in order of the scenes so all of the film would be organized in Paige's camera roll. The first shots we filmed was the first scene with Zeke our main character walking down the street. These scenes were very easy to film with little to no hard aspects of  the scene. We continued to film our fist couple of scenes with no problems. We also decided to do voice overs for some scenes too because of the wind was a little to strong top hear some of our voices. After filming the easy scenes with Zeke walking down the street we started to film in Zeke's dads car.
   Zeke's dad stayed when he dropped off Zeke at Paige's house because we needed his car in a couple of scenes. The first scene we filmed with Zeke's dad car was the first person view of his dad driving. We had Elijah with the phone film over Zeke's dads shoulder  to get the both hands on the wheel. after filming in the car, we were ready for the abduction scene. We had Me and Eli pop out of the car with a bat and pillow case in-hand for this scene. We are going to re-shoot this scene in my opinion because it was a little to clunky because in this scene Eli with a bat had to pretend wack Zeke on the back of the head, but not actually hit him with the bat. After this Scene We had to do another very clunky scene with Eli and I throwing Zeke with a pillow case into the back. In this scene I accidentally smiled at the camera, whitch we didn’t notice until after we were done shooting. For the last group of scenes we had to film in a dark room and tie up Zeke to a chair. This scene was ecoecialy hard to film because Elijah and I are very clumsy. It took us around 10 trys to do it fibaly right, and the final shot we have isn’t that good too, so we might reshoot it. Overall we did pretty good for this filming session, but we need to retake a couple of shots.

Filming blog: First weekend of filming (we didn’t)

   This weekend was the first weekend my group and I were able to film, but we didn't. On Wednesday night last week, February 12 we finally finished our story board and had all of the necessary tools to start filming. we had the sound, shooting scripts all done and finalized. Our titles were all organized for each scene. With all of that together we had our scheduled planed too. On Thursday, February 13 we were ready to film. During class on that day we were able to get our camera, but we decided not because of Zeke and Eli. Zeke and Eli that morning left for Harvard. Zeke and Eli left for a school debate competition, witch we knew for months beforehand. This was all planed to happen and a counted for in our Scheduled plan.

   Zeke and Eli left on Thursday morning, being gone for 6 days (February 13th - 19th). This leaves Paige and I being the only ones left to film. Most, not if all scenes in our movie have the main character being in each scene. The main character is being played by Zeke, who is gone witch makes filming not possible for just Paige and I. Their is One scene witch only has one undetermined actor, witch could be played by Paige, Me or an extra that we could of filmed. We decided not to because it would of been easier to just film it all when the whole crew was here. With us not being able to do anything this past weekend, we all took a little break. We didn't really need to film on this weekend in the first place because we have the next weekend to film. We also have another weekend to re-shoot our film. Paige and I have planed our filming weekend, down to the hour. We can only hope that Zeke and Eli will be  able to attend this weekend.

Story board

Moving forward to this step in our experience of making a film, it was time for us as a group to come together and really visualize the entirety of it and everything that will be included. This story board that we've made has come together with all of us putting in work. We all had the same vision at the beginning when deciding on this topic, but now that we needed to think of the extremes and every detail put into it, it was much harder for us to agree. After many disagreements, we finally made a story board that we can all agree is perfect and high grade work. In this story board, we've drawn the exact layout of the film and how it's going to go down in terms of looks. The descriptions under each picture tell us the more extreme details including whats going on in the scene, camera angles, camera movements, and what titles will go where. The drawing and descriptions were not perfect, but they're more than enough to give us a sort of guideline when we actually start to film. We plan to follow the storyboard exactly as written but if it doesn't turn out that way, we will make a few adjustments. Being that this is only the blueprint of the film, it's okay for us to stray away a little if we have to or if we have a better idea. We are now just a few days away from picking up a camera and starting our first scenes to this project.

 

Title script

Today, our group finished working on how the titles will be. We decided again to use google slides to create our presentation. It has benefited us in many ways because of its various capabilities. We decided on our titles by watching many titles on artofthetitle.com and seeing how they work. This helped a lot because it gave us a rough draft of how ours is supposed to look. While working on how the titles would look we came across a problem. The problem was whether we should just randomly put the titles on the screen or let them fade on when something happens. Paige and Roscoe thought the random idea was better because it would be easier to do, but Zeke and I thought that the other way was more visually appealing and fit the genre more. Eventually, we decided on putting the titles on the screen as something happens because it would fit the thriller theme we were looking for more. Besides that, we feel like the titles will come out great and we are glad we came to an agreement.

Schedule plan

Today, our group completed our schedule and decided on our locations, participants and a health and safety plan. We used a google slides presentation because we believe it is the best way to put all of these important things together. Google slides is a good way to put together many different elements of our film and to add photos. We decided on our locations based on proximity and environment. There was an issue amongst our group about where to film. The issue arose because the group was divided as to whether a more populated area was better or worse. In the end our group came to the conclusion that a less populated area was better and if necessary we will get extras. We had no disagreements about the participants because we have enough with just us and can use any more volunteers that wish to participate. Our safety and health plan was also easy to create because we all agree that safety is our top priority. Overall we have completed our schedule and decided on other important details to make our film the best possible.

Sound Script

In this blog, we'll be going over what we will actually say as actors in this film. There won't be a lot of dialogue because the only time the main character reacts with people is when he is hit upside his head and thrown into the back of the car. There will be however some dialogue between the antagonists of the film before they plan to execute their task of taking the boy. We plan on having these kidnappers communicate through phone call to their colleagues before the next scene takes place. Also in the vehicle we are using there will be some short speaking here and there. In this blog, we will be including the short google slide show of what exactly will be said. In each slide, we have a new time someone speaks either the main character or the kidnappers. The speech will be short and not have much elaboration at all. It will also be specified whether the conversation is in person or through cell phone. When we start to film, we plan on following this script to the exact so the last minute changes isn't something we need to necessarily worry about. If forever reason we are forced to make a slight change to the dialogue, we will do so. This dialogue should be one of the last pieces towards starting the filming of this clip.

Shooting script

   Today we finally got to write our shooting script, which is one of the most important parts of the paling stage.  We finally got to flesh out our ideas for our movie and really figure out what's going to happen in each scene.  Even though we were excited on the idea side, it was hard to fit every single idea in and what direction should we take some scenes in. We all had some different takes on what the story should be and how it was presented. some of us wanted toe interrogation scene, whit is at the end of the shooting script to be at the beginning, while others didn't want that at all. As a group we decided on our final shooting script, not as one of our group members ideas, we decided to make a compromise between all of us. We think that all of the ideas that we implemented work smoothly and that balance each other out. The plot that we created, is very interesting to all of us and is pretty good. We have a lot of intriguing details that we would like to add to this shooting script, but were on a time limit. All in all we all think that we made a good shooting script.