Just a dude that watches movies!

  I can definitely say that the project was fun to work on and there's so much I can speak about it. It was a pretty good experience and even if it had its ups and downs, it's good to see how far we came, from not knowing anything about how to film a video and how to edit it, to then having a piece of full knowledge about it! At the start, I was extremely nervous and had no idea what I'd do with this but now, this turned out to be much easier than I thought it would've been! This was especially enjoyable with my two group members who then became my friends, Abdullah and Alejandro. They made it super easy and made it super enjoyable and they helped me continue to edit and film with their comforting and also motivational words. As for the class of Media Studies, I really didn't like it at the start, even though I enjoy the topic of film and how its filmed and made, had seen it a pretty much a chore. But now I recommend it for anyone that just wants to have a relaxing ...

So at long last, the long awaited and hyped film opening! The main talk and focus of all of our previous blog posts has finally arrived! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiW6EZ0qnhA&feature=emb_imp_woyt  

  At the end, we made some last minute edits to fix some errors that were left in the film, one of the main issues was the cast appearing in the background which was a huge errors as they weren't noticed during the day of filming and the main focuses were the shots and the videography. The first error to be fixed was that we had noticed that the cast would be seen in the Background, which on the day of filming, we didn't notice at all. Blurring out the cast was our first solution but it didn't work well as it didn't look well either! We could've blurred the entire background out and we tried but then the Drivers face was blurred out which obviously wasn't going to work, as the main character is the driver who's the central focus along with their mood which is heavily expressed through facial expressions and the actions they do. But Abdullah, managed to make an adjustment that worked to blur the background using blur bubbles to adjust it and tune the windows ...

  In filming, Lightning is pretty much one of the most important factors, it sets the scene, and also defines the horror genre as a whole, its darkness gives a whole massive meaning to the story and the film as a whole. Darkness shrouds something into the unknown but can also protect a character from a threat in the film.  Lighting wasn't really something that was a major focus in our movie. We originally had intended to use lighting much more and create a darker much more mysterious atmosphere but it also wouldn't have worked well, as the editing wouldn't have been easy to do with the dark lighting. In one part though, we did use a fade to black lighting as we originally intended to film in a darker area but it wouldn't have worked how we wanted. The fade to black was used to show a transition from an innocent and happy setting to much more darker and ominous. One main issue we had encountered in the film, the shading between the second and third scenes. There was a la...

  When using the sound for working on the film, we had a wide arrange of ideas for the sound we wanted to implement, like background music and radio noises, but we had a few issues while trying to implement these ideas into the film. For the background music, we couldn't find background music that worked well as the music we did find was either distracting or disconnecting from the film, additionally, it felt unnatural. So we didn't have any background music to double on the realism in the film. For the radio, we couldn't really find anywhere to implement it there as well but I feel like if we had more time then we could've had the radio discusison so it could build more towards the main topic of the film and foreshadow the climax. We added some non diegetic sound so it could be used to build up anticipation and suspense for the title reveal. We had limited diegetic sound with most of it being dialogue and also some additional background noise to make it more realistic.

  So I can't really complain at all about the group I was working with at all not gonna lie. Both of Alejandro and Abdullah are friends of mine that I met as time progressed and as we got through more and more classes in Media Studies and we thankfully had little to no issues, and thankfully, we managed to divide the work between each other to make everything even and fair. Abdullah helped a lot with the editing and had also implemented a wide variety of ideas to all processes of filming. Alejandro helped a lot with the videography and the filming along with also implementing a wide variety of ideas for the filming. I helped out with a lot of the dialogue, the costumes, some of the shots we used and some of the shots I feel like we could've used, etc. In reality, we all oversaw each others assigned roles in the group project and we both were incredibly helpful to each other, along with having any useful words and or critiques that would be applied to what they needed to fix. I ...

  We also didn't make the title sequence to be that big of a deal either since we didn't want a lot of complications and wanted the audience to pay attention to the film and the characters expressions and their motions, etc. We had an arc shot at the beginning with the names of the different actors being shown to credit them and not take the audiences' attention away.  The first portion of the sequence and the beginning of the movie, and then the second part along with the title sequence. Also as shown at the very beginning of the blog, we credited ourselves along with the title of the film and also used the color yellow since its known as one to attract the audience and also has a nice constrast towards the blues in the sky.

  Representation was something else thaat we didn't think about a lot in the film. Since it was mainly something that wasn't really a present topic in our film nor really was it something we focused on a lot. We just wanted a normal group of teenagers who really had no traits or defining attributes and that they wouldn't be defined by the color of their skin, their race or ethnicity, or whatever religion they believe in. We also can't really focus on their personalities or traits since our film is pretty short, like three minutes short.

  So earlier this month, we chose to reshoot and redo our film opening. But of course, as mentioned previously we came in with more preparation and more people which would overall help the movie be a lot more better. We first off managed to plan what we would say while filming the movie like the main topic surrounding the film and also what shots we wanted to snub in there. I unfortunately couldn't make it this time around but I still assisted with the dialogue and what would be said, along with a couple of the shots that could've been added in as well. There was an Issue which as mentioned previously, it went down on the back parking lot of Our School but there was a club meeting happening at around the same time, but we used our issues to our advantage and used it to create a much more realistic atmosphere and vibe into the film itself. They then got to shooting in the car interior, but a lot of the equipment that was available was unfortunately unavailable! So they had to im...

The Colors that we'd use in the opening wasn't really a major thought during our process. But we definitely did think about it! Since our main goal, or one of our main goals was to use colors to essentially express the situation that would be ongoing during the film. We choose specific color palettes for both the main character and the side characters, with the main character wearing white which would ultimately imply their personality to be kind, sweet, innocent, lovely, and just any other character trait that sounds like that. In contrast, the passengers would wear darker clothes to hint towards their ultimate fate that would occur later in the film, but they also need to be more expressive so the color makes more sense. We also chose a red car to be the vehicle driven in the film as Red often connects towards a dangerous, much more threatening so all in all it manages to work perfectly.   

  So one main thing that needed to be covered during the editing was the Audio! Audio and Sound are basically one of the most important factors when it comes editing a film. So obviously it was one of the main things Abdullah had to cover while working on editing. We struggled with this the most, we reviewed the footage so many times, tried to find good background music a lot of times, but we just couldn't find something that was just right. For starters, we had issues with the flexibility of the Audio since we'd end the scenes abruptly after filming ended that caused tons of issues with audio transitions to different scenes. But we managed to solve that since we were cutting scenes regardless due to issues with space so we kept ambient noise by having audio from one scene fade into another. Another issue was the title card scene to kept it on the screen long enough for the viewers to read. We had no Corresponding Audio so it was hard to make the sound be good. We then used a p...

  So as Abdullah began editing, me and Alejandro offered a wide arrange of solutions to help fix any issues that were found during the footage. We did notice that a lot of the cast was appearing in the background of the driving scenes. Both me and Alejandro had suggested on trying to crop it but it'd also look pretty weird. Abdullah gave his input on the situation and just said to blur them into background which was a pretty good solution! Another Issue we found while filming was the length of the conversation footage since we had over four minutes of footage that needed to go down to at least 35 seconds, but Abdullah had to figure that out on his own. We saw a lot of the cuts and what cuts Abdullah made, looked good! It allowed for the story to flow well even with the limited things that we had and it worked well! 

  So onto the editing part of our film! So for this part, me and Alejandro decided to take a step back and let Abdullah take a step in as he's the most exeprienced here when it comes to editing and actually knows how to do editing and since he was in charge of editing for our previous sound project. I do think that he's capable of creating something wonderful since a lot of his previous stuff is pretty good! Me and Alejandro helped out a lot with how to lay out the shots and the Videography of the shooting process. I also helped primarily on the tone and mood of the film along with helping with the costume designs with Abdullah helping with the sound as well. We did help Abdullah in many ways though, mainly just by giving suggestions on what he could do with the editing process and just any corrections that were overall needed to make it better and to fix any errors and just overall make it a nice good film opening! This allows us to truly let our creativity out there into the ...

  So as for the Equipment we used here, a lot of it was pretty simple since most of it was stuff that we had or just free things that were easily usable. We used an Iphone 13 Pro for the camera as well as the microphone since obviously we don't have that kind of budget to buy fancy microphones lol, but hey if it works, it works. For our editing process, which I'll delve deeper into the next couple of blogs, we used a Windows Laptop along with multiple programs meant for editing that also assisted us heavily with the audio used and we also used a website called HitFilm express to edit the very video.

  So this part of the project was overall pretty simple to do but also pretty important. The Title is meant to add atmosphere and also increase how memorable it'd be and such. We went through various other titles chosen for films and decided on what could overall match the overall theme and mood of the opening, The Search.

  So we also talked about the main character in an earlier blog post, but something we didn't talk about were the side characters! So they really don't have any big importance or big role for that matter in the film. Their only role is just to be the ones who go poof and thus begin the suspense and the mystery that it revolves around. Additionally, them wearing darker clothes in contrast to that of the main character represents their fate. All in all, they're legit only there to have a secondary role as the main focus here is the main character and just the emotions they go through once their friends meet their fate.

  Forgot to say! But while we were reshooting we decided to add another scene with Daniel opening the car trunk. It may have been a weird and sudden change but we all decided that it'd spice up the film a lot more and make the viewers enjoy it and truly be able to feel the emotion of whats currently happening in the scene. We added it between both the third and fourth scenes of our project storyboard. To go into more details, the driver would get out of the car, open both doors on the left side, then go to the other side, open the up the doors again, you get the pattern! Additonally calling out for his friends and scurrying through his car only to come to the conclusion that his friends aren't playing with him, and they truly are lost. We managed to make this be able to transition smoothy into the scenes and we hope that it managed to show the emotions of the lost and confused driver.

  Now the big question is, why did we decide to reshoot? For starters, on our first day of filming, after looking and revising through a lot of the footage, we needed to redo the conversation footage since it was kinda a mess sadly and its also the longest scene of the movie and also provides the viewers with a nice old background of the film itself. Not to mention, not a lot of expression was shown, we fumbled on our words a bit here and there and no interaction with the camera as well! So in short, we basically went in unprepared. But we came in determined for the second day with more people, knowing exactly what we were gonna say, how we'd do our scenes and how we'd do filming. Not to mention, we also knew how exactly it'd take for each film to be recorded and such. We decided to film in the back parking lot of our School which only took us like an hour or so once again, and would ya guess it, it was much more succesful!

  So since we've wrapped up both days of filming. One of the main things that we need to talk about is how everything was done behind the scenes! We filmed on February 26 of 2022, which yeah! It was kinda late but hey, we managed to get everyone to film! We managed to film all of our major scenes and also managed to get that sweet diegetic sound from the background noises of the park that everyone just so seems to love so much! We chose Miramar Regional Park as our location to film, mainly just because it seemed to be what we were looking for. We all decided on wearing black with the exception of the driver with the exception of the driver as previously mentioned in a lot of our other blogposts. And would you look at that, filming didn't even take that long. Only took us about an hour! But alas, we needed a second day which will be further expanded upon soon! 

As promised previously, the second day of filming went down! We got a different change of setting as well! We went from the park to the back parking lot of our school which was a much needed change of scene. We mainly settled on this as it was much easier to film and in reality, it was practically the same thing as the original setting.  Here portrayed are photos of us getting into the car in the parking lot of the school behind the football field of the school. It was four in the car. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it that day so I wasn't able to film. But a lot of my thoughts and ideas were present at the time! For starters, a lot of my ideas with how camera work should've been used was indeed present. Like the scene where the driver slowly starts to find out what happened to the other passengers like with the frame focused on the driver as it then slowly moves towards everyone else as he has a nervous breakdown. Here we have more photos of us filming. The first photo sho...

  At last, the long-awaited day of filming has begun! After days, even weeks of planning, we finally began filming. So why don't I give a detailed description of how it went down? For starters, we meet up at Miramar Regional Park where we decided was a pretty spot for filming. It was four of us, me and my group along with someone who we got that had a Car that was easy enough for being able to film in. After everyone got there, we began to plan our day of filming out and we got to it! From here, we see our Camerman filming the Car Driver getting into the car along with everyone else going into the car to film us getting into the car. This was probably a part where we could scratch it off of our list as it was filmed easily with us matching the dialogue perfectly and everything.  Here you can see the Car and a little bit of the interior in which it was filmed. With us then getting to quite possibly the hardest part of our filming process which was filming our conversation in th...