Editing part 2!

Hello everyone, welcome back! In this blog post I’ll show a little bit more about my editing process and how is my progress so far.

So, I started editing the first scene of my opening, which is the one where my character enters through the door. I changed the color tone of the scene using the “filters” session in Adobe to make the scene more warm. Here is a picture of how I did it and the intensity of the filter, which was 20:

After that, I added the scenes where he sits at his chair and starts looking at the evidence of the FBI folder left at the desk. I had to add many different cuts of close-up shots between these scenes, including an extreme close-up of his eyes reading the evidence, the close-ups of the “wanted” poster and the crime report informations to allow viewers to understand more about the story. Here are some screenshots that I took of some of these scenes: 

Before moving to the lab experiments, I used a scene where we could see the shadow of Dr. Werner’s hand putting his gloves on, to show that he was about to start doing something and mark the shift of my opening to the science part. 

After that, I started putting the lab scenes together. In my script, the idea was to do a scene with fast cuts of the equipments being used and also use a suspenseful sound on top of each cut to make it more tense. I used the website “Pixabay” to gather my suspenseful sound effects. I chose one that’s called “suspenseful boom”, which is kinda of a deep beat that I’ll use on top of each cut showing the lab experiments, and a melody called “horror suspense” to put it as background music throughout the opening. The only scenes where I won’t use this background music, are during the flashback scene and the final scene where the scientist is speaking on the phone. It was kinda hard to put each audio layer correctly on top of each scene, but I tried my best and I think it created a nice effect in the end. Here are pictures of my current timeline with the audio elements and scenes: 

Now, I have a total of 1:39 minute of video, leaving me with a comfortable window of 20-25 seconds to add the remaining 2 scenes which are short and can be perfectly done within these seconds. Overall, I’m so happy that I could edit most of my project in two days! I’ll probably edit and change some details during my peer review, but at least I already have a big idea of how the project will look like when finalized. Also, I had a little bit of difficulty to edit scenes with many cuts like the lab scenes, so I think this was probably by biggest challenge because it took me a little bit more of time to edit those details. But still, I’m already really excited to just add the last touches and see how my project will look like!

Editing part 1!

Hii there! In this blog post, I’ll talk about the editing software that I will be using to edit my final project.

During our second group meeting, I asked for suggestions of which softwares I could use and Emma gave me the idea to use Adobe premiere, since she was also using it for her project because it was really effective. Honestly, I explored a little bit of the platform and I loved it, so I took her suggestion! After browsing through the app, I decided to watch a YouTube video on how to use the platform and how to improve. Here is the video that I watched: 

Since my project is about a suspense/thriller story, I need to be careful when editing the color, cuts and the pacing of each scene, so I figured that Adobe allowed me to do that. Also, since I wanted to have warmer tones of lightning in my opening, especially because the lab scenes need to feel serious and tense, I needed to use a platform that allowed me to use different color tones and explore them, and Adobe also had that. I can adjust the brightness, contrast and color tones to create the atmosphere I want.

Another important reason is the audio editing system. I plan to use a suspenseful background music and specific sound effects to build tension. Adobe allows me to layer different audio tracks and control their volume, which will help me create a more dramatic effect in important scenes like when we hear a “boom” sound from the liquid drops. 

I also chose Adobe because I want to improve my editing skills. We learned how to use different editing platforms in the beginning of our AICE Media course and Adobe was one of them. However, I used Adobe with the help of some of my classmates because we were doing a group project together, but now, I have the opportunity to do it by myself and work at my own pace. So, I chose Adobe Premiere because it’s not super difficult to understand and it also gives me the freedom to edit the way that I want, but still allows me to create a suspenseful film opening. I’m really excited to start editing and putting everything together!

Shooting process!

Hi there! In this blog post I’ll share my shooting process for my project, how we set up the setting and props, and also some behind the scenes videos. 

First, me and my parents set up the home lab at my kitchen countertop with the lab equipments that we bought on Amazon. We filled each beaker and lab tub with water, since we would add food coloring inside them. Here are some pictures of my dad organizing and filling them up: 

We started filming the lab scenes that will appear in the middle of my opening first because we thought these were the easiest and most fun scenes to film. One thing that we had to think about when filming these lab scenes was the lightning. I wanted a more yellowish color tone to make the environment more comfortable, since the scientist was working at his personal home lab. So, we decided to close all curtains and turn all house lights off and only leave the yellow floor lamp at the living room on. Honestly, it was really easy to film these scenes because it didn’t require any acting, since I mainly used close-up shots of my dad’s hand doing the experiments, and it was really fun to record also. Here is a short video that my mom recorded of me during the process of filming one lab scenes: 

After that, we filmed the scene that comes right after the opening scene (which is my dad just entering the house). This is one of the first scenes of the film and it shows my dad sitting at his chair and opening the FBI folder. I couldn’t film the scene with the FBI folder yet because the prop that I ordered will only arrive next week. So instead, I decided to film the scene of the extreme close-up shot of  my dad’s eyes, showing him reading the files and crime reports. Here is a BTS video that my mom recorded of me filming this scene: 

And finally, we filmed the last scene of my opening. It was a medium shot of my dad receiving a phone call of an unknown number to tell them that he found the evidence needed about the suspect through his DNA tests. I used my dad’s old phone to call his original phone because I was using my phone to record the scene, and my mom used hers to film the behind the scenes video. Since I was the one recording, my mom was the one in charge to call my dad’s phone. Here is the BTS video that she did:

I finished recording the majority of the scenes over two days, I’m just missing 2 short scenes that I’ll record next week because I couldn’t do it this week. The first one is the quick flashback scene of the crime and the other is the scene showing the FBI folder with the crime report because I ordered the folder online and it only arrives next week. Other than that, I finished all major scenes and will start editing shortly!

Overall, it was really fun to shoot these scenes because my parents worked really well and they helped me a lot. Also, I could really feel like I was a real life director, so it was really nice to create something like that!

Group meeting #2

For our second group meeting, we were assigned into a new group with 7 different people: Lydia, Emma, ​​Benjamin, Amelia, Cristina, Eli and me. We talked about our projects' progress, some production footage and ideas for our CCR's. 

Lydia went first and she explained that her film opening is a sci-fi story about a scientist who wears futuristic glasses that can see the future. In one of those visions, she sees her death and she tries to find out why and what happened that caused her to die. Lydia is working with a group and she said that they filmed almost everything already. Also, she isn't sure of how to do her CCR, but one of our group members suggested that she could do something related to science and lab, like experiments, since it has to do with her story.

Lydia's blog: https://blogging4scool.blogspot.com/ 

Emma was second and she said that her opening is a mystery thriller about a girl called Raven (which spells nevar backwards and it sounds like “never”, and this word appears many times repeatedly.) who is accused of killing her best friend. The film starts with her already in a prison cell looking stressed, writing “Raven” backwards many times on the wall. They created the prison set using paper bars and a dog cage inside Emma’s room, which I thought was really nice. They also did an interrogation scene at her dad’s office as if he was the police. During this scene, she has flashbacks that show that she didn’t actually commit the murder. For her CCR, she plans to do an interview with her dad acting as the police officer. 

Emma’s blog: https://blogcreation4school.blogspot.com/

Benjamin was the next one and his opening is a thriller/mystery that starts with a teenage boy in his car with blood on his hands with police sirens in the background. He said that the opening starts with the ending scene and after that first scene of the boy in the car, the film cuts to a scene of the boy alone in his room. He starts answering the text message that his mom sends him asking where he was, but then he decides to call her, but a man answers his call instead of his mom. He starts asking where are the keys that are under his doormat, but they weren't there. After that, the man tells him to look at the mailbox and the scene ends with the boy shocked and scared. For the CCR, he said that he was still thinking of ideas, but we suggested that he could do something like an interview. 

Benjamin’s blog: https://universidadcatolica0.blogspot.com/

Amelia was the next up and she explained that her opening is a coming of age story about a girl never left her hometown to live somewhere else, so she has a dream of traveling a lot to discover what’s outside in the real world. However, she feels like her parents are kinda pushing her back, since they want her choose a college close to home and to them. For her CCR, she said that she isn’t sure of what to do also, so we suggested that she could also do something like an interview or a conversation between the director and the audience. 

Amelia’s blog: https://amesaicemediastudies.blogspot.com/

Cristina is also doing a coming of age movie, but it’s about a 17 year old teenager called Evan who is a DJ that is just starting his career. The film starts with a flyer for an audition to open for a famous house music DJ. The flyer says 18+ only, which is a problem because Evan is underage, but he doesn’t let that stop him, though. He rips off the part that says “18+” and starts making beats to prepare for the audition. For her CCR, Cristina said that she was thinking about doing it with her sister and then Amelia suggested that she could make a type of podcast. 

Cristina’s blog: https://crisc999.blogspot.com/

Last but not least it was Eli’s turn. Her opening is a thriller about a character who has schizophrenia and is accused of murder, but he thinks that he saw his psychologist kill someone. There is also a wolf character that it isn’t real, it’s only inside his mind, like he’s having an episode. Her and her group already started filming and they plan to meet again this week to finish the last scenes. For her CCR, Eli is thinking about doing an interview style video where she interviews her main character, but she’s still figuring out exactly how she wants it to look.

Eli’s blog: https://eliwritess.blogspot.com/

I think it was really nice to share our ideas with different people once again. Here is a picture of our group:

Company logo creation

Hello, in this blog post I’ll explain the process of creating my company logo!

So, to create my logo I chose to use Canva because I think you can create many things there really easily. I searched for “movie company templates” and chose the one that I liked the most. I edited the background and elements colors, as well as the text. I chose to use “GFS Studios” as my company name because I wanted a short, but simple name, so I decided to use my initials for it. 

For the colors, I chose to use a black background since my opening is a suspense story and I wanted to keep the aspects in my opening simple and serious, including the logo company since it appears right at the beggining and is the first thing that viewers see. I kept the movie clapper board element black as well to match the background. Also, I chose to use a light grey color to create my name, “GFS”, because I wanted to keep the color pallet of all elements in the logo within the same tones. 

After editing the text and colors, I decided to add motion and animate the elements. I clicked in each element and went to the “animate” section of my Canva page and chose the ones that I liked the most. I decided to make each letter appear slowly, at the same time that the clapper board slowly appeared from the top right corner of the screen. I wanted to add motion because it makes the logo look more creative and fun.

Here is the screen recording that I did from my laptop, showing step by step of how I created my logo: 

Finally, here is my finalized logo!

Prop Creation!

Hello and welcome back! For one of the props that will be used in my opening, I decided to create an FBI folder with a crime report case file inside of it. I will have a scene where Dr. Werner opens the folder and looks at the criminal’s file with the informations of the crime that he is running DNA tests as part of the investigation. A close-up shot will show the criminal’s face (Kate Lima) on a wanted poster, as well as a crime report with the type of crime she committed to make the audience understand what kind of investigation Dr. Werner is helping to solve. 

So, I bought this folder online and I thought it would work really well for my project since it shows FBI on the cover and it looks pretty realistic: 

Now, for the crime report file inside, I chose an online template on Canva and I edited the original information on the template and added the information of my suspect, Kate Lima. Here is a picture of the original template and the edited one that I will use in my opening: 

For the wanted poster of my suspect, I took a picture of my mom’s passport photo (since I needed a picture where she looked serious), and then I blurred the picture on my phone to make her seem more mysterious and not show her detailed face yet. Then, after I blurred the picture, I edited another Canva template of a wanted poster with a mugshot background and put my mom’s picture on top of it. Here is the original template and the finalized one:

Finally, the last prop that I created was the DNA analysis report. I once again created this on Canva but for this one I couldn’t find a ready-made DNA report. Instead, I chose a medical report template and edited it into a DNA report document. I had to do a little bit of research to see how real DNA analysis reports looked like, so that I could make it more realistic and accurate to a real life scenario. I gathered the most important details and elements that I needed to add in order to create this document and wrote my character’s information there. Here is the original template and the one that I created: 

Costume Creation!

Hi there! So, today I’ll show you the costume that my main character, Dr. Werner will wear throughout the opening. 

My dad will play Dr. Werner in my film and since the character is a scientist, I decided to buy a lab coat on Amazon to make it very realistic. I also told my dad to wear a plain white shirt inside the coat to match the colors and make it look more professional. Also, he gave me the idea to add a small detail, but it could still make a difference, which was adding a pen inside his pocket to make him look even more like a real scientist. Here is a picture of my dad wearing his outfit, ready to start filming: