AICE Media Project

Here is my CCR , I hope this gives you insight on why we created and produced this film, enjoy!

Hello everyone! It is finally here, the opening to my film UNLACED,  a lot of hard work went into the making of this film, so I hope you enjoy!  You can watch it here

We finally got our last few shots today and I have to say, I really like the way our shots came out. We went to Andres' house to film our scenes. We went around 7:00 pm to fits because we wanted to get our shots at dusk and at night. And we got some amazing shots. We played with some cool angles, we used a lot of high angle shots, close ups, and low angle shots to mix up the composition a bit. We also got creative with how we got our shots. I had to get into a tree and get a very high angle shot, I was so scared, I climbed the tree with slides on, I though I was going to fall. Luckily I did not fall. Also we used a chair with wheels as a dolly, and I was pulled in the chair to create a smooth shot so we can get a steady pan. We tried to get the shot without the dolly but it was awful, so the chair worked perfectly. None of us own a tripod, so we had to get creative on how to stabilize our camera. We leaned it up against a tree, my knee, and leaned it up against a car seat. The sh

Good afternoon! Today we filmed our intro for our film Unlaced, it went very well and we got some awesome shots to work with. We still have like three shots to get but we are going to film that on Thursday. Today we went to Markham Park, a local park with great places to film. We went to the famous "Hobo Hole", basically it is a tunnel that goes under the highway. We did not go in the hole because it was closed up. But we did climb up the ramp under the freeway and got some awesome shots. The one thing I did not like about today is that I had to lay on the ground and act dead, the ground was full of ants that loved to nibble on my skin. The weather today was perfect for our shoot, it was gloomy out, which is the tone of our movie. But it was hazy and it looks like it was going to rain, which it did after we left. One thing I am going to have to do later this week is find a song for the first few seconds of the film. Im looking for something like the Walking Dead theme. S

Hey guys, so we decided to go with my idea of the two gay boys. We have our entire opening planned out and we are going to film of Sunday. In this post I am going to go through the character description of our main character Brennan (which means sorrow) here is proof . Brennan is a gay teen who is not open about his sexuality, was secretly in a relationship with Leo, who has tragically been killed by Brennan on accident. But that is not the point right now, Brennan is ashamed of the fact that he is gay, he is scared of what his friends are going to say and does not know what his parents will say. He is not alone, a survey taken in 2013 states that 4 in 10 kids who openly come out with their sexuality are not accepted by her family or friends, here is the study . Brennan feels like he would be shunned by his family and friends so he does not tell anyone. Being a closed gay teen is tough not only at home but also in school, there are cases of bullying all over the world, but it is prom

The last class period was a tough one for me. We still do not have a solid idea. And every time I bring up an idea it gets shot down immediately. Three of our group members want one idea and one person wants another, when it comes down to it majority rules and we will go with my idea. But I will go over both ideas and give good reasons why my idea is better and relates to todays society. So as you know we are no longer doing horror, we are going with Austin's idea of a drama/mystery film. His idea was that the film centers around one boy who recently lost his best friend, we find out that he had something to do with his death and made it staged as a murder. Our opening for this film was a shot of the scene of his death, without his body there. For example we want the site to be Markham Park, so the first shot would be a quick one of a field with a shoe in the middle of the field, and then it cuts to our main character Cam in the car while he listens to music with friends and his

Since we changed our idea to a dramatic mystery movie we now have a new target audience, this post will go into detail on who would like to watch this movie and why. So grab your bow and arrow, its time to shoot some targets! (Sorry, that was really corny) The target audience for our film would be anywhere from the ages of 16-35 of both genders. These groups of individuals like to watch dramatic mysteries because it is an escape to their everyday life. They like the sense of mystery for the hour and a half, it is a time for them to be able to fantasize and use their imagination. Check this article out. Our movie also targets gay individuals, men and women. This movie breaks the boundaries of a gay relationship, two men who are secretive about their love for each other is relatable to some but also intriguing enough to engage audiences to fill a theater and watch this. So we are going to surprise audiences' with our twist that our main characters are gay and that one killed t

Today I went back to school, I don't feel great at all, but I went to fix some trade issues. Today in English class we had a substitute and we got done with our work vert early. It was prefect because Austin sits right next to me and we were able to develop our story. We decided that our first shot will be a foreshadow, maybe we can do the last shot of the film first, if that makes sense. Pulp Fiction  is a good example of this, watch it here . John Wick  is another great example but I can't find the opening online. Today we made a story board, a rough draft of one. When it is finished I will post it on my blog. But we did some light sketches of what we want our opening to be. It starts with an establishing shot of the location of the kids death (yet to be decided where) but this will be our foreshadow to a later point in our film. Then from there we go to a close up of our man character "Cam" in a car looking depressed while his friends are listing to up beat m

So today we had class and I am at home sick. It sucks because today was the day to pitch our ideas from the day we met at the media center. So I sent a voice memo to our group chat about my film idea and plot. My group liked my idea a lot and I thought they were going to go with it. But I was very wrong. My group member, Austin came up with a great idea. Since I was not at school I only heard the basics of the idea. So the plot will be about a group of friends who recently lost one of their friends, and our main character is the the most upset with it because he is the closest to the kid who died, but throughout the film we learn that he had something to do with his murder. We are completely changing ideas and generous, and I think for the better, horror movies could be very corny and cliche if they are done incorrectly. A drama centered around a group of teens could work because we can relate to our characters since they will be are age. Next time we meet we will do research a

Hi. So today our teacher sent us to the media center and put us into random groups with people in our class where we pitched our ideas to our classmates for some criticism. So as I said my groups idea they did not seem too thrilled. They said the idea seems rushed and we should introduce our main character in the beginning. So we began to brainstorm, they helped me come up with some great ideas. One idea was to stick with are original idea but to have one of the girls who gets stabbed to stay alive and she would try to solver the murder. The problem with that one to me is that it seems very corny that she would be able to solve a murder before the cops would. But this idea sounds really great, so the film would be about two killers who are friends and who only kill bad people. The opening would be a parallel shot of the two killers finishing up a kill, then cleaning up their kill. This would be happening at the same time as the other shot, and since they are two different people th

So earlier today I was thinking about our main characters for our movie. I had two ideas, one is to center our film around two detectives that try to find who the killers are, or a group of teens who have lost friends from the murders, and will try and solve the murder themselves. After some thought I think that if the movie surrounds teens it will be a stronger selling point to our target audience which is teens. As soon as I though of this I though of the movie "Ouija", which centered around group of teens and basically had no adults in it. The movie was AWFUL. It easily is one of the worst movies I have ever seen, but its not just me, check out this review by a few critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Even though this movie was not critically acclaimed, it certainly made bank. It made about $100 million in profits when it was all said and done. Don't believe me? Check this out. Not only did it make a lot of money, but it spawned a sequel, well a prequel which with a sligh

Music/sound is one of the most important things a director needs to master to create a good film. Some directors do it much better than others. I'm going to show two examples, one good and one bad. We will start with the bad news first... This two minute excerpt from "Batman V Superman Dawn of Justice", directed by Zack Snyder is an good example of awful sound mixing. The lack of sound until the end of the scene makes the beginning of the scene boring and almost comical, look at it for yourself here . The music does not show suspense or make the villain threatening, which probably was Snyder's intention. Okay here is a better example, the film "Jaws" by Stephen Spielberg uses sound to build suspense. And it does so in a fantastic way. He uses a sting of a piano to provoke a sense of fear to his audience.  Why is this important for a horror movie? Why am I showing you all these examples? Well sound is extremely important in a horror/thriller film.

So I'm like 90% sure we are going with my horror/thriller idea. The group realized that it was the best idea of what we had thought of so far. Austin says he has another idea, but i think we are going to go with this one. If you go into a horror movie you will not see a bunch of old people and their small grandchildren, you will see teenagers and young adults, usually it is males. Here is a good study backing this up link . Why do teens like to see horror movies though? Teens who are not avid film watchers that cannot tell a good plot from a bad one is who the production company is making this film for. Horror movies usually have very simple plots, with a cheese love story and likable/ relatable characters. Also nowadays directors of horror movies include real world issues or use current day trends to relate to their audience and create a sense of realism. The purge movies do a good job on this, especially the most recent installment: "The Pure Election Year", this m

Today in class our goal was to research both of our groups ideas: the horror movie and the druggie movie. But this had be postponed to later tonight since we had to work on something else that period unrelated to our project. So here I am giving you all this amazing research! So here goes nothing! My strongest support I have is that how independent horror movies are sometimes better than wide released ones. For example have you heard of the movie "It Follows"? Neither have I, until I looked up top horror movies of 2015., where it ranked number one http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/lists/10-best-horror-movies-of-2015-20151223/goodnight-mommy-20151223 The movie was first entered into a film festival in Michigan, and was bought out to be distributed via wide release by The Weinstein Company. The film was LOVED by critics http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/it-follows-2015 here is just one of the many great examples. On the website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 97% rate.

Sorry for the cheesy title of this entry, it will make sense soon. So as our group was brainstorming the other day, I stared to think of the movies that our teacher, Mrs. Stoklosa showed to us in class. One stuck out me me, the movie "Scream". The suspense that movie built within the first few minutes really makes the audience at the edge of their seat. So an idea popped in my head, are you ready for this masterpiece? The scene opens with a group of teenage kids, two boys and two girls to be exact. They are shown watching a movie on the couch while also being on their phones. One of a girl wearing a black dress gets up and asks "does anybody want any water" after the group says no she walks off into the kitchen. The camera pans around the couch, showing each teen do their own thing. Hen you hear a glass drop. The group asks "are you okay?" the girl in the black then responds "yes I'm fine" The scene is silent after that. The teens go back

Wow, I did not realize how difficult this is going to be... The making of our movie will not be the hard part; that will be me and my group members thinking of a great film opening.  First we stared to name our favorite movies and gp over those first two minutes. Movies listed were, The Dark Knight, Inception, Napoleon Dynamite, along with tons of others. We realize that we did not have the budget or skip set to re-create anything like those openings. So we all went to brainstorm. My group member Austin had an idea to base our opening on a drug attic, he gave some background to his story, but in my opinion it was not a good idea at all. And then one of my other group members, Andres, built on his idea and made it even more confusing! UGH. There is no way we can make that idea interesting. I cannot even describe the idea here, I don't remember the specifics because I kept on having to argue with Andres and Austin. But it includes a man being kidnapped in the first  two minute