More Research!!

 Greetings on this fine day or night depending when you're reading this post! So over the past couple days since I made my decision over what the heck I'm going to film, I decided to do a little research on the more paranormal horror genre to help me execute this film. 

Some things I noticed about the paranormal genre is that they mainly rely on both creepy and dark lighting and creepy sounds, whether they're diegetic or non diegetic, well except for Midsommar who managed to make a horror film beautiful. I saw that there are multiple elements and options of lighting that can be used in horror films specifically.

Some elements include:

Uplighting

Underexposure

Silhouette

https://nofilmschool.com/2016/10/8-spooky-lighting-techniques-you-can-use-your-horror-film 

Sounds mainly used in Horror films use infrasound, which is a very unsettling and hidden sound which is typically used to freak out the audience. Infrasound exists in nature, and is created by wind, earthquakes, avalanches, and used by elephants to communicate over long distances. At a high enough volume, it may be possible for humans to perceive sound as low as 12 Hz, but even common objects emit infrasound, something some horror movie composers use to their advantage. Films also use a lot of suspense music which helps build tension and anxiety, especially when jumpscares come up. They also use foley sounds, which help mimic a certain sound the director wants to emit. A Quiet place uses foley a lot to help give sounds to their creatures.

I also researched some other similar films related to my genre as inspiration. 

Veronica (2017)

Dead Silence (2007)

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-the-hidden-sounds-of-horror-movie-soundtracks-freak-you-out#:~:text=One%20unsettling%20and%20hidden%20%E2%80%9Csound,hear%20sound%20at%2020%20Hz. 

The Writing Process has begun... Kind of!

 Hello and welcome back to yet another blog talking about my process yet again. I decided to take a look at my original script that I wrote in Spanish and really think about what changes I wanted to make. For writing my scripts, I really like to use Celtx since it really helps me make my script into the right format, and there is also little options to position the format based on the character, the place, the action and the dialogue. 

So down here is a small part from my original script and I'm translating it first to English which kind of helps me with the process of changing things up a little easier for me. 

So basically the original concept was that I had to make "the ritual" with the friend mainly through Facetime since we were still in the middle of a Pandemic back in 2020 and I obviously had to improvise a litte when I first started writing it. But now that things have settled down, I have a little more liberty to involve more characters since it was originally 2 best friends and the main character's sister in total, but now I'm thinking to make it more of a friend group thing and the purpose of the sister was to make the main character differentiate (idk if I said that right) the right and wrong, in this case, whether to go with what her friends tell her, versus what her gut tells her. I'll still keep the original concept that they play and nothing seems to happen, but maybe I'll include that one of them decides to play alone and that's where things start to go wrong.

I got a lot of ideas which will hopefully come together so wish me luck🤣🤣

I have decided

 Hello again! I am here at last to share my decision over what in the world I'm going to do with my short film. If you have read my last post, if you haven't you should, I had a little dilemma over what type of short film I wanted to create. There was this horror idea I have made a script for from a past project, which I did plan on tweeking, and the drama genre idea of the girl that wanted a career in something (I haven't specified), and the parents disapprove (ew), to put it in a short note. But with a lot of thinking, and even more asking around to which one I should go with, and a lot more indecisiveness from my part (I'm a Libra don't judge me), I have come to a decision. 

So... I have decided to do my horror idea! It definitely took a while to come to this decision, since both of the pitches I had were very different from one another and also really good ideas for a short film like this one. I already picked up my regular script and I'm looking through it to see the possible changes I can make to it, besides the fact that I have to translate it. I'm also thinking of adding like 2 more characters to make it feel more of a "slumber party", I'll most likely ask my friends to play them because we all love mysterious and thrilling films so I'm pretty curious over what they can bring to the screen. I'll figure out some names in the next couple days, as well as how I can change the plot. So yeah, that's my little update so far, my next post might be a slight sneak peak of the script.... Maybe yes maybe no, you'll have to wait and see!

I think I have a few ideas...

Greetings fine folks! Welcome back! So I think I got an idea on what I want to do for my short film. But keep in mind, IT'S ONLY AN IDEA. So yea....

I was thinking of making like a paranormal type of horror movie which I kind of wrote a script for for a summer camp a few years ago, but I'm obviously going to change some things, I'm trying to do something new-ish here. I originally made it about 2 friends who were on Facetime  nd one of them was talking about this new trendy game where you bring a doll to life, the main character doesn't think it's smart since it's something she doesn't like to mess with. She kinda feels pressured into doing it but ends up doing it anyway, but then weird things start happening. But the script is in Spanish so I obviously would have to change it to English and change things on the plot.

I also just came up with this second idea while writing this post where it feels a little more realistic. Maybe it could be about a girl that wants to do a certain major for college and follow this certain career path which her parents don't exactly approve, especially the father. Since the father believes that the only careers that matter are the ones that provide a lot of money, and it's hard for him to understand that money doesn't matter in a career if the career doesn't make you happy. I feel like that's what people, especially teens or people about to enter college, can struggle with and relate to even today, at this very second. It also in a way feels kind of personal, since some have no idea how many people actually go through the same struggle of the parent's expectations vs what the individual wants.

For the horror idea, I was thinking of a few similar films like Annabelle, the Exorcist, Ouija, and maybe Dead Silence.

 

           Dead Silence (2007)                                                                                   Ouija (2014)

For the more Drama/ Coming of age little idea I had, I've been looking at films like Soul Surfer, Ratatouille, and Billy Elliot. I also found this website where a woman who shared her story about how she started to realize she should stop looking for others' approval and seek her own. 

                                   

        Billy Elliot (2000)                                                                    Soul Surfer (2011)

https://advice.theshineapp.com/articles/how-i-learned-at-29-to-finally-let-go-of-my-need-for-approval/ 

So yeah those are a few of my ideas that I wanted to share, I'm not 100% sure which one I'm going to choose yet, but I'm not gonna lie, either one I'd be pretty glad to be working with. I'm kind of excited for this new "chapter" in the prject where I can come up with different ideas, but it's also kind of nerve wracking since negative thoughts could come into my head like, "what if it's doesn't work?", "What if it turns out bad?", "Will people like it?", and even questioning whether I can pull this off on my own. But I do trust myself to know, especially future me who's going to say, "Why the hell was I freaking out so much? I feel dumb for having this mentality". I can't guarantee that there will be things that'll go exactly to plan, some things are bound to change. That's pretty much the daily rant for today, hope you enjoy me spilling my thoughts out almost every single week so thanks for that, and hope you decide to stick around! Or else... (that was a joke)

The Start of the Portfolio Project... Again...

 Greetings once again... so I'm here to break the amazing news over how I'm officially starting to plan my Portfolio Project!! Yayy!! Never thought I'd say that again, just kidding I knew what I was getting into when I signed into A Level in my course registration. Anywho... Today we got to choose what type of project we wanted our portfolio project to be, as well as if we wanted to work individually or with a group. I obviously chose to do a short film, which would include me making a short film, along with a social media page for the film and a postcard to give out at a film festival.

You're probably wondering, girl why the hell did you think it was smart to do a short film project by yourself? Well on the bright side of working by youself is that I get to have a lot more creative freedoms on what I want to do, and a lot less scheduling situations to worry about. I also prefer to do short films in order to show off my creativeness as I like to call it, and also have the chance to do something new, which is interesting since I have no idea what type of film I want to make, much less a genre. I was thinking of a few ideas in my head, but with further thought I realized I'd overcomplicate myself, and we don't want that. I'm trying to prevent a brain explosion and the little braincells I have left (that was a joke), also the fact that I'm not some big and fancy editor who can barely do some bare necessities in editing. But hey that's what Youtube is for right? Either way, I don't wanna worry about not having anything yet too much since it's just the first day of the project and we're barely figuring out which type of project we wanted to make.

However there are some things I had pretty clear, I will make a weekly schedule for me in order to organize what I can do during the week, I do have this agenda I got for school, but then I suddenly stopped using it since I started writing my assignments on my notes app so I can use that. As well as what film editing software I'll be using, which is obviously Adobe Premiere Pro, which is literally the only editing software I can actually use besides iMovie, even though it can sometimes go a little coo coo and crash on me, but that did teach me to save and render even the slightest change to a clip soo it wasn't all bad. Also thinking of using Instagram for the social media page and go between Canva and Adobe Photoshop to help me make the postcard.

So yeah, that is all I got so far and I hope to give you guys a better idea of what I'll be doing very very soon!!

Feelings about going from AS to A Level

Hello and what is up in this amazing day! Or night... or whenever you're reading this. Anyway, I feel like getting some stuff out of my chest. As you may know, I'm now an A Level student for AICE Media and man does it feel weird, and not only because I'm now doing everything in person compared to last year. 

Honestly, it feels kind weird how far I've come in this class and has taught me a lot regarding both patience and time management, especially regarding projects. There were definitely things I loved about AICE Media, as well as some things I didn't exactly love. Such as, loving doing projects, especially in groups and we create different things. There is also the part that sucks where you either don't agree with a group, or maybe because something in the project doesn't turn out the way you want it to be, and trust me it happens a lot more often than you think.

The main difference between AS and A level is that in A level, we do do discuss a lot about postmodernism. If you're wondering what that is, it's basically unpredictable and also can be very confusing at times. You may actually know a couple of these little films which actually involve postmoderism such as The Truman Show, The Matrix, Pulp Fiction, and Blade Runner. To be honest, I never really knew that postmoderism was a thing and how different it can be portrayed in different films, which are mainly used when questioning reality. We also don't have homework really, since we're mainly doing projects where we had so much time in class to do and a lesson here and there. There is also the fact that instead of a film opening project, you get to have a little more of a variety for the portfolio project you eventually to Cambridge in April. Including film and music promo, short film, documentary, etc. The Portfolio project is actually what we're starting to work on very very soon, so you'll have to prepare yourself for a lot, and I mean a lot of blog posts for the next 8 weeks regarding my progress making my portfolio project, so good luck for what's coming and... "enjoy the show".

Other thing I've been doing

 Hello again!! It's been about a day since I last posted here and I wanted to talk to you guys about my film distribution project, which I'm proud to say I enjoyed it. It was definitely fun to be able to create promotion and distribution strategy for a new "film", but the challenge was that my group and I didn't make the concept or plot idea. We actually partnered with the advanced creative writing class where we got to choose a story and transform that into a teaser, a trailer, and a huge distribution plan for release with showtimes, streaming, and the whole shebang. 

To tell you guys a little about the film, it's called, "ROT", a psychological horror/thiller which is basically about this guy that lives in a post-apocalyptic world and he meets a woman who follows him around at the beginning, but for some unknown reason, she wants to kill him, but we never know why or who this woman is, much less what her intentions are. Could it be revenge? Survival? Vendetta? You won't know. 

When we gathered up to start planning, we really wanted to focus on how we wanted to portray the trailer and the teaser, like what shots we wanted to do, as well as where a good spot can be for us to film. We also decided to split the distribution portion to make it easier, and I was able to research the distribution companies, the streaming services, as well as one of the 2 film festivals we wanted to release our film at, we also wanted to include a plan for us to do in case the movie doesn't do as well as we would've liked. One of my partners, Sophia, inially had a place (dumpster) behind her workplace that we could use, but we had to change that a few days before filming started and do it in a certain parking lot in her neighborhood, which seemed to work better since it was a little more open, and there were dead palm tree leaves that helped with the vibe. But one thing I'll say, it was cold as hell when while we were filming that there were times I could barely press the button to record, but good thing I was able to pull through and also kept my fingers. During post-production, I was able to help find music for the trailer, as well as working on the key art, which I'm very proud of. 

For the poster, I wanted to include the lighter as the only source of light and enough to show the main character's face, which helped with the mood and tone of the film, but not to mention it also looks cool. I found that using a thinner font for the title was pretty traditional on horror films, which is something I wanted to incorporate. I actually used Canva to make the key art, and I like how it's simple, yet it symbolizes a lot, since if you see the trailer (which you should definitely watch), the lighter is very important.

This is our poster (made by yours truly)

Our teaser

Our Trailer

I'm Back...!! Also what I've done since

 

Hello folks!! No time no see! So it's been a couple months since I last published anything in general was when I submitted my film opening project back in April and boy how things have changed. To start off... I'm a senior now!! Wow I never thought I'd say that and you're probably wondering what I've been doing since I last posted. Well I'm here to give you guys a little update.

First of all, I'm officially an AICE Media A Level student now and we have definitely been busy since school started. I would first like to discuss my "brand identity project" and it was definitely something that opened my eyes over not over how I wanted to introduce myself for the year, but also helped me discover how much I have changed the past couple years and really discover myself in a way. I won't lie and say it was easy to just go up in front of the classroom and present, I was definitely freaking the crap out, because let's face it, if you were stuck at home looking at a screen for a whole school year you would've been the same. But hey, I got over it and man how good it felt to talk to people again, and I also realized it wasn't as bad as I thought, I got to interact with my classmates and my extremely talkative side definitely made an appearance. 

It's also not a real blog post without some pictures showing my amazing project, who do you think I am?

Here's my amazing logo (Which I'm very proud of if I say so myself)

Man what a beautiful baby right there (also the meme...)

 This part of my presentation I still stand & it's a relationship I want to have with all of you!💖💖