AICE Media Studies 2017-2018

       In my film, the conventions that I picked out from other film openings was the incidental music, children, and eerie lighting.        The incidental music occurs in every horror film opening, it immediately gives the audience an idea of how the whole movie is going to go.        Of all the research I did, about 4 out of 5 of them involved the use of child actors. Children are always considered innocent and pure since they haven't experienced the bad and corrupt parts of society. People are always protective of them, so when a child is being hunted or murdered, it scares the audience because they know there is nothing they can do to help.         The eerie lighting also plays a major role in any horror movie. In all of the horror movie openings I watched, all had dark lighting and dim colors. The more vivid the colors, the more safe and good the image feels.        My film does not represent issues in society today, the film is meant to entertain the targeted audience

Location #1: Christine's House (Driveway) (close-up)- a still shot of the basketball bouncing in and out of the shot (mid-shot)- hand-held shot of Jaxson dribbling and shooting a basket (close-up)- hand-held shot of Jaxson hearing and looking towards the sound he hears (wide-shot)- a still shot (tripod) Jaxson walking and running to behind the house and towards the sound (mid-shot)- a hand-held shot of Jaxson running towards and through the gate (mid-shot)- over the shoulder hand-held shot of Jaxson running through thick brush (mid-shot)- over the shoulder of Jaxson walking to a thicker part of the brush (wide-shot)- over the shoulder of Jaxson seeing the "being" in the brush (mid-shot)- of Jaxson walking towards the "being" and a pan to the being (mid-shot)- of the "being" reaching out towards Jaxson (mid-shot)- of the of Jaxson reaching towards the "being" (close-up)- still of the "being" (close-up)- o

In the first production we created, it was filmed in the late morning to afternoon, so it was very bright and cheerful, thus going against our overall plot. While looking through the Adobe Premier pro program, we found that it provided a lighting filter. So we used it to make a gray-ish hue, which made the film all that color. There were little changes in lighting. So for the next film, we filmed closer to sunset to get the best natural lighting. The natural lighting from sunset gave a eerie feel while watching, as the film progresses further, the lighting becomes darker.        Towards the end of filming, we had to practically "race against the clock" since we were loosing daylight, and the darker images wouldn't show up non screen. This was one of the hiccups we encountered and we were left with more shots to film, but absolutely no lighting. SO we assumed we would film at a later date, but ended with no more time. The gray filter didn't really help with th

This is the storyboard for the revised film.

Chloe and I felt like our film didn't really hit its mark when we showed it to our classes, so we revised it and completely changed it. Some people said that it was really slow in the forest scenes and the plot line had a huge gap in it. Soon the new script, the audience will actually be seeing the monster and see it capture and "eat" its prey. MISSING ACT 1 JAXON IS WALKING DOWN THE DRIVEWAY WHEN HE SEES A “PERSON” STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RAVINE. HE WANDERS DOWN TO INVESTIGATE. WHEN HE MAKES HIS WAY DOWN, HE MEETS THIS DEMONIC BEING AND STARTS TO INCH TOWARDS IT. HIS MOTHER STOPS HIM.  JAXON (HEARS A FLURRY OF WHISPERS BECKONING HIM TO COME CLOSER) MOTHER “JAXON! WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING?” (PICKS UP JAXON) “YOU KNOW YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO WANDER OFF!”  (LOOKS BACK TO WHERE JAXON WAS STANDING AND SEES A BUSH RUSTLE) ACT 2 (PARENTS TALKING IN THE BACKGROUND WITH NEIGHBORS ABOUT A RANDOM TOPIC) JAXON SEES THE BEING

       This is the concept for the missing persons poster. This one is for our main character, others will be made, we will just replace the pictures with ones we take ourselves and change the descriptions of them. The demonic being hangs this poster up on a wall full of missing persons, like she is keeping score, and this little boy is her latest kill. In the film, I want the actress to look proud when she gazes upon the posters instead of a natural reaction like terror or sadness. 

We filmed all the monster scenes with Jackson and Chloe, and her costume design and make up turned out really good! We had trouble with the contacts, nut we got them in and it upped the scare factor. Jackson and his mother were very cooperative and helpful in the reshoot. Chloes monster makeup was made out of face-paint, eye shadow, and eyeliner with the assistance of the classic cornstarch syrup for blood. We had our friend Zoe from Booker High come and help us with the look. She is in Bookers VPA program (visual performing Arts) and is also really into Halloween make up as are Chloe and I.

My partner and I decided that instead of never seeing the "stalker monster", we will actually have the monster be seen. The concept is that we have my partner dressed up in some ratted, dirty clothes, with monster makeup. This is one of the concept art images that we are thinking of using for our monster. We already have blackout contacts to make it seem like that our monster had no soul. We are thinking of putting black veins from the eyes to make it seem like blood lust or the monster is hungry for its next meal.

       My partner and I presented of midterm draft to our classes and got mixed feedback. Some of the good things we did were the choice of our actors, we portrayed the innocents of children very well and we portrayed the great curiosity of kids. Our classmates also said that the dark lighting and dim colors really helped with the overall feel of the film.        However, there were a couple of missed marks regarding the production of the film. We had a plot hole when our main character, Jaxon, went from the hidden waterway to the school. We put a transition that insinuated that time had passed, but the audience didn't understand what was happening. Another problem was that our camera movement was shaky, our tripod was not the best and the audience could hear the squeaking of the camera on top pf the tripod. Another issue that was brought up is that the film was moving too slow. One could already guess that something was going to happen to the young boy and they had to wait 2 min

       In our film, my partner and I decided to cast a young child for our main character. We wanted a young child because of the way they look, act and percieve the world. Young children have innocent views of the world and think nothing bad of it, even though the world is filled with dangers. Our main character is young boy around the age of 7, we wanted him as our main actor because he looks innocent and sweet. In my research, when a child is taken it makes the audience more empathetic. Young children we think perceive he world as good and they don't understand that there are bad people        The other two children we have are older and would suggest that the "thing" only feasts on the very young and innocent, the two older children can't notice or see this "thing".