AICE Media Studies Blog

 The entire year in class, we have talked in class about filming techniques. . This is because there is a large emphasis being put on them. Because of the emphasis that I have been taught, I want to put a lot of thought into how I film this project. The first thing I need to do is make sure that I have the right camera angles. In the classroom and taught about the most common, and I have watched many film examples to show this. I have chosen a handful of filming techniques that I want to use. They might not be put in the final film, but they are the ones that I felt might be beneficial to add. The first is the eye-level shot. There is nothing fancy about it, but it is very common in films and because of that, I want to add it to ours. It is almost exclusively a close-up or medium close-up shot, meaning that it is taken from a relatively close distance, and leaves most of the emphasis on the actor. Because it is a relatively close shot, I want to use it in our film that will be shot...

  One of the most important things about a good film is the set. One of the most important things to consider is what the area behind the scenes looks like. One of the main concerns about a film set is the lighting. We are going to address this problem in three different ways. The first way is natural lighting. . This will come in the form of a fire that we will all be sitting around. As of right now, we do not know how big the fire will be, and how bright it will be, but we know that it will be a main source of light. this natural sort of light will make the scene more realistic. The second source of light will be artificial light that we cannot control. This will come in the form of light from other apartments and other buildings. When Taylor described where she lived, she mentioned that there are other tall buildings near her and other townhouses that share the space. This means that they will more than likely be giving off the light, helping us out. Lastly is artificial light t...

  One of the most important things we needed for our project is a location. Because of the nature of our film, we needed somewhere somewhat stereotypical. . After watching many movies about abductions, we narrowed the location list down to three places. Generally, they take place in a field near a farm. Because none of us live on a farm, the next logical step was the beach. . The issue with the beach is that it gets too dark at night and we are not able to use things like a ladder or a campfire. After checking safety guidelines for the beach that were put out by the city, we realized that it is illegal to start a fire on the beach intentionally. , This leaves us with our final option, someone’s house. We spent a while trying to think of his house to go to. I live on the beach, but as I mentioned before, we could not film on the beach. Why its parents were out of town, so we could not film at his house. . Also, Cecelia does not have a backyard that we could film in. We discussed who...

  One of the many things to consider for our project was the costumes. We had a general idea of what was going to happen in the film, but we weren’t sure who was going to wear what. In one of our original concepts, One of us would have played an alien in the film. This means that one of us would have had to wear an alien costume. We found that it was difficult to buy an alien costume and meet our standards, so we decided not to use one. Now that we know what the four of us are doing, we need to decide what to wear. Context clues given in the script can help us with what to wear. The characters make implications that they had been spending the day together, having fun. Taking this into consideration, we can narrow down our list of possible costumes. Using this, we will dress as though we had been spending the day outdoors. Casual clothing, tennis shoes, and hats will all be present. The costume design is obviously subject to change by each person, so this rule will not be strictly f...

  One important thing that our group spent some time thinking about was props. Props are important to our story because they give it a sense of realism. One of the most important props would be our marshmallow sticks. I knew that we would be sitting around a campfire, and roasting marshmallows seemed like a logical thing to do. When deciding which kind of sticks to use, I considered many options. We ended up deciding to use some marshmallow sticks that Taylor has at her house. I spent at least 15 minutes trying to brainstorm other props that would be used in a situation like ours. One of the other things that we needed was drinks. I am not entirely sure what everyone will be drinking until we start filming, but we know that everyone will have a drink with them to give a sense of realism. The drinks will also be practical, as we will likely be thirsty while filming. I looked on many websites and stores to get ideas for what to buy. One idea I had was sunglasses. In the dialogue, one...

  For our group project, we decided to use royalty-free music. Because our film is about an alien abduction, there are not many regular songs that we could have used. Our group was considering regular music when the characters were sitting around the campfire, but ultimately we decided not to. Contacting the artists and getting the rights to their music is difficult to do over social media, especially those who have millions of followers. Many artists have their direct messages turned off so that they are not bothered by the constant conversations with fans. Even though our intentions were pure and we likely would have gotten their consent, we decided not to spend too much time trying to contact an artist. Instead, we opted to use royalty-free music. This allows us a wider variety of music while not constraining us to a specific song. The music lets us set a tone for the parts of the movie. When the characters are all around the campfire roasting marshmallows, we will have an upbea...

 1. The movie opens to a fire burning. This will be a good way to get the audience intrigued 2. The camera will then zoom out to show all our characters as a way to introduce them to the viewers. 3. Taylor will then suggest that the group roast marshmallows and they begin to do so. 4. The camera shows Taylor laughing to put the viewers at ease and prevent them from suspecting that anything bad will happen 5. She then states how happy she is once again comforting the viewers. 6. Denton describes day the providing a little backstory for the movie. 7. The camera shows Cecelia and Wyatt right as Cecelia is about to speak. 8. Cecelia shows her appreciation for the marshmallows and thanks Taylor 9. Wyatt is reminded and also thanks Taylor. 10. The camera shows Taylor smile. 11. Taylor acknowledges their appreciation and says “no problem, guys” 12. Everyone sits quietly as calm music plays and the camera fades to black. 13. The camera comes back in to show the group still sitting a little...