Genre Research: Doctor Sleep

Movie Chosen: Doctor Sleep

C.A.M.S: Camera Angles, Movements, and Shots-

A common shot used in Doctor Sleep is establishing shot. Possibly, this shot was mostly used due to the fact that Doctor Sleep is a spin-off of the movie The Shining. Being the case, the director may want the viewers to recall locations from The Shining by using establishing shots. Wide Shot, High Angles, Tracking Shots, Medium Long Shot, Extreme Close Up, Twp Shot, Three Shot and Close Up. 

C.L.A.M.P.S-

Costumes: Jack's signature maroon cord jacket, Grady twin gowns, Rose’s top hat, and baseball outfit. For the majority, the actors were wearing casual clothing.

Lighting: Dim and Dark Lighting to set an ominous, creepy tone.

Actors: The actors all have superpowers and are all supernatural beings.

Makeup: light makeup, blood, and scars

Props: Rose’s hat, baseball glove, and RV

Setting: Rehab Room, Apartment, Overlook Hotel

Editing- 

Cross-cutting from scene to scene to highlight the character’s powers was a helpful editing technique in Doctor Sleep. Cutaways and inserts were common in the movie to dramatize scenes. Fade out and fade ins were also common. 

Common Sound- Diegetic sounds, Non-Diegetic sound, Ambient Music, Incidental Music, and Scores.

Elements We Liked & Disliked-

Elements which we liked were the jump scares and the scenes where the characters would fly around the globe. We also liked the shootout scene in the forest because we believed that it was a great way to incorporate action in a horror film. 

Elements which we disliked was how graphic the murder scenes were. 

Genre Research: The Final Genre Decision

Based on all of our genre research, my group and I decided the final task to be horror. In our recent group discussions, we eliminated the choices of musical, comedy, and action genres. This is because we all do not like it and it would have been difficult to create a film following those common elements. Those eliminations being set, my group and I narrowed the rest of the genres down to action and horror. After extensive research, we chose horror because it would be easier to create a film following the common horror elements, which are stated in the previous blog. Also, it is fun to capture the audience's imagination and be able to terrify them towards the ending of our film. As strange as it sounds, people usually find more of thrill in being scared or watching a film up to the point of a cliffhanger.

Past Genre Research PowerPoint

At the beginning of my AICE Media Studies course, my teacher assigned my group mates and I a genre project, shown above. A list of movie genres such as Horror, Musical, Action, and Comedy was randomized and handed out to each group. Evidently, my group was assigned with the genre Comedy. Including myself, there were four people within my group. We were tasked with researching the norms and conventions of Comedy: common sounds, lighting, movements, angles, and mis-en-scene. Additionally, we inserted picture examples of comedic films, naming some elements of comedy and breaking down the elements which we liked and disliked. This project familiarized us with the filming techniques of the Comedy genre. If we were to do a Comedy film for our final task, we would have an advantage being that we already have background research and knowledge surrounding the genre.

The Winning Pitch

Pitch 1: Ghost(The house on 10th Ave) 

Pitch 2: Serial Killer

    For our first pitch, the girls will be walking down the street and playing with a ball in the evening, which will roll in an abandoned house. They look and see something in the window, which makes them run away and head back to the house, they talk about the figure they saw and go to sleep. The following day, one of the girls convinces the two other girls to go back to the abandoned house; they go inside to find the ball, along with creepy details embroidered around the house. One of the girls walk off to record the back of the house, but the ghost is waiting there; he possesses her and she screams in fear. Soon after, the other girls come running after her and question if she’s okay, but the possessed girl says yes and acts normal. Later, the possessed girl has a weapon in her hand and one of the girls notices and this is where the final scene will cut. The second pitch is our serial killer idea, this pitch will have the protagonists walking down the street and having fun. Then, from an over the shoulder shot, a man will be watching the group from a distance and the group will continue to walk and the man will continue to follow. One of the members of the group would spot the man and inform her friends. The friends become scare, then start to run and arrive at one of their friends house. The friends become comfortable again, but then again, from an over the shoulder shot, the man is watching the group through the window. The final scene will be the serial killer getting stabbed, then the audience will see a low angle of the killers hand moving.

The first pitch is a good idea to do for our final project because it is more planned out. Immediately after the idea came up of making a film involving a ghost creativity flew in the air. Anyeska and Jazmin started to discuss how the scene would begin, escalate and end. Later they discussed to the other group mates what they had came up with. Lesly and Britania added ideas of their own as well. One of the reasons we knew right away this was a good idea was because of the location. Already we had an idea where the haunted house would be and how we would decorate it. Anyeska soon told us the perfect place that had an abandoned house we would be able to use. Locations, props, makeup, camera angles and scripts are already being taken care of. We also thought this would be a better decision because Lesly will be able to film us and make our ideas come to real life. Finally, we wanted to make a film that would engage the audience and make them remember this film. We want them to wonder what will happen next.

The second pitch is not a good idea because the scenes we would film would be very repetitive. The serial killer is basically a stalker who follows these girls. There is nothing special or new about this concept. We wanted to go outside the box and think of something better. To add on, we wouldn’t have that many places to film. The only two places would be the park and the home of one of the girls. Scary movies are much better than these slasher type films. Also, it would be very hard to end the intro with a cliffhanger. As we explained in the first paragraph our end scene for our second pitch was for the serial killer to move his hand. This has already been done with movies like Halloween where they think the main killer is dead, but he never is. Another thing is having someone to film us. Since Lesly is playing the ghost from pitch one, he doesn’t need to be in that many scenes. So he is able to film us, if we did pitch two we would have to ask someone else to film and it would not be guaranteed they would fulfill our vision. 

    

    In the end, we all have decided to do the first pitch because we all love the idea. This pitch is the one that stuck out the most to us because we spent so much time on it. From the location to the final scene. The few months we have to work on this project will be used wisely and efficiently. Making sure we make the creepiest and unsettling intro we can. Adding special effects and eerie sounds, that we wouldn’t have been able to add in the serial killer film. Our group even came up with a name already. We already know each detail and angle that is going to take place. Pitch one is definitely the best choice and even though some things might get changed along the way. All four of us are determined to do the best we can for our viewers and teachers.

Starting the Final Task

      Good day, my name is Britania. I am a Cambridge student at Fort Lauderdale High School, taking AICE Media Studies. Being apart of AICE Media Studies, I have learned a plethora of information about the filming world; from the different angles, shots, movements, and editing techniques to learning how to apply the previous to my very own productions. Being in AICE Media Studies have been a fun, learning journey which completely changed my overall perspective on movies, films, and video production as a whole. As of today, January 17th, 2020, I have been in the course for five months now and I have completed two projects thus far— a commercial and a music video. Along with my team mate, I made a commercial advertising Starbucks. A few weeks later, I got together with a new group, (which I plan to work with on this final project) to film a music video. The song of choice which we used was The Lazy Song by Bruno Mars. Hands down, I can express that the music video task is the moment when I learned how to be more creative with my transitions form one scene to the next. With all that I have learned within this course, it is now time for me to apply everything to this final project. I am extremely ecstatic to get into this final project being that it is the first time my work will be viewed and graded by a source other than my very own Media teachers.

      For the final project, I will be working with my friends and trusted team mates, Lesly, Anyeska, and Jazmin. I have worked with them in the past which have been quite successful, therefore I am certain that our final project together will be phenomenal.

      

Above is a picture of my group mates and I during our planning process. I am the girl to the far left with a big smile on my face.

      Earlier within this week, my Media teacher taught the class the definition of the term pitch. Pitch is a term which describes an idea where a film is encapsulated in twenty-five words or less. Usually one or two sentences. My team mates and I came up with three different pitches. Our first pitch is about a girl who is possessed at an abandoned house. The second pitch is about a serial killer stalking three girls. Our final pitch is about a zombie apocalypse. My team and I are leaning more-so towards the last pitch.

Music Video Editing Blog

      Anyeska, Lesly, Jazmin, and I all worked on editing our music video. It took up the majority of our class time, and unfortunately, the editing process did not go well. Although Anyeska was able to dump all the footage from the SD card to the desktop, it took a while to view each scene we would use and for the computer to handle the download size. Eventually, I was able to finish the downloading process and save it all into Google Drive. After this, Lesly found and downloaded The Lazy Song, by Bruno Mars onto the computer. Once I was ready to edit, I opened Pinnacle Studios and imported the footage and audio into the program. From there, I started editing the raw footage. It was difficult to do this because the preview of a scene (on the right side of the screen) would lag and slow down the computer. Thus, it took me some time to figure out the different scenes just by their image, when I was trying to match it to the lyrics. The following paragraph will explain the different tools I tried to use and what happened during my editing process.

      Due to the fact that our class time was running short, we were only able to begin editing the first scene. First, I used a razor blade icon to split the first scene because it was too long and unnecessary. I thought to detach the audio from the shot, but it helped to match the first lyrics to our dance. Since the background sound was the actual song, we wanted to dance or act out each scene with a reference and to potentially benefit us while editing. I had difficulty trying to place the first scene as soon as the initial lyrics: "Today I don't feel like doing anything" started. Apparently, Pinnacle Studios uses a magnetic timeline, in which any clip you drag and drop into the timeline snaps to any existing clips. I did not know that you can turn that function off, so I struggled to do that. I let my group members try to fix or get the scene to where we wanted it, but they didn’t know how to either. With little time left, we decided to end our editing process and rely on starting and finishing it next class. Unfortunately, after I saved our music video I deleted the footage from the desktop, thinking that I wouldn’t need it, but it backfired and ended up disabling the footage from pinnacle studios. I ended up solving the problem even though it took up 5 minutes of editing time.

      There are editing techniques I planned to use in the music video. Some include adding a title screen, subtitles, cropping footage, and a fade-in/out. Hopefully next class, when we continue editing that I'll see a vision along with my group members of our music video coming to life. I also hope that editing will be successful. I think it may be hard at first, but Lesly and Brit seem to be experienced and ready to edit our footage. The only type of sound I plan to use in the music video is background music. The camera movements and angles we used were: High angle, tilt shot, pan shot, long shot, medium close up shot, over the shoulder, point of view, zoom in/out. All of these editing techniques will be used while editing our music video. We will try to edit so it comes in between 1:05 to 1:15. Ultimately, I will create a fun and interesting music video that will excite and engage audiences.

Filming Blog #2

      Last week Sunday, I met up with my team mates to finish filming our music video. We met up at Anyeska’s house again, but this time we met up around 1:30 PM. Initially, we had four scenes left to film. However, we ended up breaking the storyboard and switching over to new ideas. We ended up only filming one scene on Sunday, which was actually our very last scene of the music video. Scene six and scene seven from the storyboard which I drew, was merged together into one scene, breaking the storyboard. Additionally, scene twelve from the storyboard was changed up. Instead of filming a long shot of Jazmin kicking her socks off then laying on the couch, Anyeska filmed an extreme close up shot of her kicking her shoes off. It was my original idea to show someone taking their shoe off when the lyrics stated “‘Cause today I swear I’m not doing anything;” the reason being that a person can not go out and do anything if they are not wearing shoes. All in all, these changes to the storyboard was made the day before, Saturday.
      Scenes thirteen through fifteen were completely changed up on Sunday. As previously stated, we only filmed one scene on Sunday. Basically, we merged the three scenes together, making them one scene, and cutting our actions short. Our initial idea was to throw up paper confetti in scene thirteen, lay on the floor in fourteen, and in the last scene someone would cover the camera with their hand; Instead, we went against the storyboard again. We decided to only throw up the paper confetti, gather in a circle as we cheer happily, then Jazmin walked away from the group and covered the camera with her hand. Anyeska’s mom was behind the camera for the previously described scene and the scene was filmed as a medium shot. At that point, filming the music video was called to an end. We all felt pretty relieved, so we decided to go out and have some fun.
      Overall, filming was successful. I enjoyed working with Anyeska, Jazmin, Lesly, and Nick. We were quite strategic of how we went about filming the music video. For one, everyone was involved in at least three scenes which means that we all played a huge part in the music video. Moreover, we filmed in five different settings around Anyeska’s house, and everyone had a chance to operate the camera. Meaning, we all actively contributed to the music video as a team is supposed to do. I felt as though I learned a lot from my fellow AICE Media classmates. My biggest takeaway was how to creatively use camera movements, angles, and shots. I am content that I made the decision to work with my friends because for the entire time, work felt like leisure. I will definitely be working with these same people for my final Cambridge project.