Its been a wild one
I'll see yall at the next one
MZ signing off ✌out!!!
This Portfolio Project was one hell of a ride. There were many moments in where I just wanted to throw in the towel and not submit anything. But I Just forced myself and kept ongoing. Through perseverance, I was able to overcome my nature of being lazy.
My project started off fairly well. I thought that I could come up with something great using exaggerated techniques to really prove that I know what we've been doing in school this year. But as time went on ad production started rolling in. I knew I wouldn't be able to do my original ideas
But that's okay because I'm adaptable like water. I just changed my execution of the same idea. At first, I wanted to use ants and a dead carcass to symbolize death in the film once Luci's father gets killed in the woods. But instead, I just used a shortcut to a black screen then a shout to develop his pain then a slow fade to black to represent his final passing moments.
I continued on my project with research which was fairly easy. I knew what I wanted to do before I even started to research so it made it easy to funnel my searches to find what best fit my idea. My idea was to use sound and develop suspense and anxiety in the film. I was able to display that in my film with the use of a chase sound effect and with some wind chimes in the few following scenes. These sounds carried most of the emotion emitted from the film.
I only struggled when It came to actual production day as I kept procrastinating or rushing it. I first rushed the film when I decided to film the day before my trip to Texas. I rushed it because I t was so last minute and it threw my schedule off. I then went to edit in texas but the film was absolutely abysmal. Like if you saw it you'd probably want to bleach your eyes. So I redid the film there in texas
While in texas it was a nice vacation. Noting to complain about only that I still had to do some homework from other classes and continue with the film. When I first got to texas my first mission was to find a new location in which to film that I could attempt to execute my film opening. I found a perfect place to film but... I forgot to mention to my cousins that we needed to film in Landscaping not portrait. By the time I realized it was too late. I had already edited all of the films together and came up with the full film. It wasn't until someone else from the class pointed it out.
But because I'm not a man afraid of a challenge I got together with my friend and we set out to Markham park to go film really quickly. It was a lot easier as I was filming with someone who also takes the class and I already have the idea and story bord memorized.
What I can assure everyone reading this now is that I really need to work on my time management skills. I waited too long to do many of the things that were assigned. One of my classmates filmed the week it was assigned while I filmed like 5 weeks after. See the difference? This project was a to of fun to do tho. I finally got the chance to go outside other than going out for soccer and it was refreshing, to say the least.
Well hopefully this won't be a forever farewell and well see each other soon. Its been a blast but this is
Mz signing off ✌ out!!
The second half of the film is the one where we open up to my house. Instead of going through my house and creating difficult dialogue that is unnecessary, I'm going to do the same as I open up to the house with the short cuts and sense of things around the house developing the ambiance but the only change is instead of Luci and his friend going through the house we get a shot of the window of his room.
My main concern with this project is I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. I want to develop a meaningful film opening while at the same time able to produce a good piece of media. The image above shows a really basic idea of how the transition is going to function. After we get the background of what happened to Jason we get a slow-up tilt of the forest with a scream in the background. The tilt goes up to the sky which is when the film will fade out to show "THE HIKE" along with other credits.
This will continue until the third cut which is the sky above the house where it'll say "10 years later.."
In the image above is the transition to inside the house. The Crazy board (CB) is what is right in front of the camera. Dead center. The camera movement in this section is just a reverse zoom so that way is slowly exposing Luci's organized room while still developing his crazy messed up head. after that, it continues to zoom out to an over-the-shoulder shot of both the friend on Luci's bed and how he asked Ryan if he's crazy and he answers a little bit.
This has been the biggest challenge so far and I'm not proud of how I'm handling it.
I've told myself many times that I would do it, I would get it done, I would get ahead, yet I always find myself not getting anywhere.
I arrived home yesterday intending to finish m project as soon as I can but with all this free time and in the middle of spring break I find it difficult to bang out a blog post or even start the second half of my project. It doesn't help that I have a tournament this weekend either.
I know I sound pathetic right now and I don't want anyone to pity me because this is no one's fault but mine. Letting temptations like TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Netflix, youtube, and going to play soccer get the best of me rather than taking on my responsibilities head-on.
I have no choice but to Film the there half of my film tomorrow even if it kills me because I know the longer I wait, the worse it gets.
So for my plan tomorrow I'm busy in the morning which takes up my whole morning and then I have work till 5. I'll have to get my stuff together and get ready and organized to print everything at CVS and get my board ready that's my plan.
From previous experiences, it's difficult to just jump the ball and try to achieve one HUGE goal quickly so ill take steps. Tomorrow ill complete the crazy board no matter what! Ill complete all aspects of it from the pictures to the strategic placement of thumbtacks, rope, and pictures.
Because I scrapped the vlog intro I can open up my crazy board to a few different ideas or designs. As the evidence will have to most likely develop a page with random words and sentences to make it seem meaningful full or the document to be filled with police information. My plan to accomplish that would be to use a Jane Doe missing person document then edit it a bit. Other pieces of evidence will be straight from the video (The setting) and a picture of the Woods or "Its" home.
That's my plan for tomorrow along with one more thing. Finding Actors who can help me.
Here's a little bit of background. My family decided to send me to texas a bit before spring break because I told them that I have a lot of commitments that I can't slack on. I told them I would still like to enjoy break so I was fortunate enough to be able to go even if it was for a little bit of time. On the 25 or tomorrow, my family leaves for Colombia until April 9th or 10th, and being in another country doesn't help at all with my education because I decided of my own free will to go back to school. After all, online wasn't working out for me. I enjoy learning it's just online school is like I'm there but at the same time, I'm not. So because I'm alone starting tomorrow and because I already wasted today and it's too dark out to film ill have to grow up and put on my big boy pants and do some adulting.
I'll finish my Crazy board and find actors no matter what even if I have to use little kids or the elderly I will resolve!
Mz signing off ✌ out
With the new ideas of what to do, I had to plan it out of course so it doesn't look as if it were last minute. Once I arrived at my cousin's house and the first day I just took a break from school because I had just busted my ass trying to earn this trip with my good grades.
The next day I went out to where my cousin took all the pictures and showed me where the forest paths were. We found a location where kids used to hang out inside the woods and decided that that would be the supernatural monsters living quarters or its den. We found a rock to sit on and then I took out a pencil and a notebook and got to sketching what I plan to do.
I decided to start with a puddle scene where it's calm then we see Luci's father running through the puddle to get the viewers right into the action.
Then there would be a cut to where Luci's father is running through the woods and looking back constantly developing his fear we don't get a closeup shot because it would be too difficult for us to do this while we're running and the cameraman doesn't have the ability hold still. We tried to do backward zoom but it just didn't have the quality that we wanted.
The next scene is where he enters the den and trips and hurts his ankle. He then limps over to a box he found and right behind him you can see the sign where it says home which he ignores and makes home not realize he's in the worst spot possible.
Next, he pulled out his phone and sees that there no service, and while he's distracted looking at his hones and due to his injuries he doesn't realize that the monster is right beside him and he then attacks. We then get an eye-level shot of the monster or a pov shot of the monster which then develops Luci's father's fear and his emotions in his final moments.
Hopefully tomorrow we can see how well it turns out!
Mz signing off ✌ out
I already started to film for the project on Monday this week but there was a little bit of an issue that arrived with it. The film that we took was abysmal. It was so bad that I would be embarrassed to even present this to my closest friends. The technique was off and the lighting wasn't good at all. The acting was even worse.
Yesterday Wednesday, March 17th, I flew to texas for spring break to visit my family, friends and go train soccer. This also gives me the opportunity to film over spring break. Luckily my cousin's house has nice woods nearby where I could film the opening.
I decided to also change the opening. The handheld camera technique wasn't going to cut it because this is Cambridge we're working with not some middle school film project.
So inorder to compensate fro this jurastic change I must film quickly and make sure al the clips I film are up to standards.
To begin with ill have to updat end change the beginning of the film opening. I decided to change up the whole opening into a better and more intese opening. The dialog was horrible so I changed it to the Lucis father running through the forest.
The beginning of the clip will be a close up of water and the father running through it I really would like to get a bit of a splash effect then a quick cut to him continuing running through the forest and somehow finding himself in the home of the "monster."
From then on I may have to continue filming the rest of the film in Florida or if time permits I can make all the props over here in texas.
Anywayas that the good or bad news and in my honest opinion I don't find it to be good to bad I find it to be neutral because it is still doable and the scenary and forest here by where my osuins live are amazing. So my main plan is to have the first opening scenes complete then transition to florida.
Mz signing off ✌ out
With film day coming up soon I had to take this opportunity to write about the opening transition and to talk about the opening credits and how they'll be displayed.
The shooting will be Monday after school.
The first step in producing our film will be to get the costume designers ready and the room and house ready to film. My Latino house has family over 24/7 so I had to do a lot of hard work and convincing that no one interferes Monday with my schedule. The costume designers will be minimum with a hat and shades to disguise the father. I don't have a lot of help with actors but I do have a great neighborhood and brother who offered to help. So I asked my neighbor Nichole and my brother to help me out and they said yes right away.
The next step in the development process would be to find my tripod or make one. Then go to Markham park and before we start filming take pictures of the opening scene to develop at CVS to put onto the crazy board. Then after we take the pictures will proceed on making the opening scene which will include a replica of the pictures we took because the whole point of the pictures is to work as evidence of the location.
After we film and take pictures at Markham park we start our first set of transitions there and work our way to the neighborhood in which Luci lives. Then we look at the storyboard. Make any last-minute adjustment if needed then proceed to shoot.
Then at CVS print out the pictures to put onto the crazy board and ten go home to put them on. With a layout of where to put things already, it should take no more than 5 minutes to do.
After the shooting of the opening, I should have enough time to review the footage and find the optimal sounds for the opening. I doubt ill have to make any foley sounds other than a branch snapping so I think that'll be fine. I doubt ill have enough time to edit anything while in Florida because I'll be leaving for texas in the middle of the week meaning ill have to do the editing portion in texas.
Hopefully with the review and general idea of everything will be right and fall right into place, if not what can I do? I'll just have to do the same exact thing in texas its no big deal because when a challenge confronts be I'm not one who backs down!
I'm so excited about how this is going to turn out!
this is MZ signing off ✌ out
Update for the film opening- Once the father is in the woods then falls victim to unfortunate vents the camera is no longer going to fall down and film ants eating a carcass to represent his death. The film is now going to proceed like this.
The father is going to be vlogging his experience and once he points it to himself and talks to the camera he is then knocked unconscious. The camera falls with him as the father gets dragged out of frame as if he were taken away then mauled to death (Can be inferred). The camera will tilt upward to the sky with high brightness and with around 2-3 fade cuts with opening credits. This will be the transition from the background information of the film to the beginning of the film where Luci is heading home. The quick fades from the sky to black will work as a transition from the series of vents in the past and work towards the present time in the film simultaneously representing his death as his life fades away.
Now for the script
In order to develop the real craziness of the mind of Luci and how devoted he is to find his father I decided on creating a Crazy board. When you search up the crazy board in google youll come across multiple pictures and sights of games and other sorts of board games. But The difference in what I'm making is the investigation of crazy boards. Where detectives just throw information onto the boards, find the missing pieces, and connect the dots whichever way they can.
EX
I started with a blank poster board. I just asked my mother where I could find one and you know how moms have that secret power where they just go around the house for a minute and then when they come back magically having what you were looking for. Well, she did that and when I asked her where she found the poster board she said "I don't know" and then walked away.
I started out by measuring the lengths of the poster board. The total length of the poster board was 28.5 inches and by dividing that by two I was able to find the middle where all the ideas and dots will find a way to connect to the bottom of what Luci is trying to find.
(Wrote in pencil to later white with marker or pen)
After the measurements were completed I drew an outline of what I would like on the board and the main ideas. Although it may look a bit organized now it will soon be a mess to develop Lucis intense and continuous running mind. On the top left, it says "Markham Park" so within that section for now will have ideas of what to do and what he found there. Then the Bottom left was Paranormal activity and sighting along with people's experiences, and the bottom right was police interaction. The same applies to every quadrant on the board other than the middle. top middle and top right. The middle will be a photograph of Luci's father while the top left will be a question mark of who were looking for. The Top right is just in case of any changes and extra ideas to write down
The first Image below is the continuation from the last story board. In the last story board we just develop the opening scene of the father disappearing. In the story board presented below were developing the start an opening scenes of Lucis home life and just the beginning of the movie. We open up to Lucis house and possibly a few other home shots if we need more time but i doubt it as i think with what i have develop it will easily surpass 2 minutes. So after the opening of the house and his home life There is a wide shot that develop the movement of the characters as they go home Lucis and his friend. They ;aster get home in which Luci has to open the door to get in then he has to interact with his mother. This develop how his emotional attachment has gotten so strong to his dead father and he's become less attached to his mother. This is developed through the sharp and unconnected interaction wihthis mom. Here he just answered sharply and super fast. He then introduces his strengths and weaknesses. This was a different touch that i thought wold be pretty cool to get a better understanding of who luci is. Luci is a smart kid with getting high grades in classes which hep him in real life and what he does and then he gets lower grades in classes that he either doesn't care about or he doesn't need. His friend is develop at a decent person who has manners and cares fro others. This is develop trough his actions of being nice and comforting to Luci and his mother when he says nice house to Luis mother.Lucis relationship what his mother further develops how he is determined in some aspects of life. To further develop his relationship with his mother and how unattached he is to her he then runs upstairs as shes talking and then closes the door just as she finished talking.
The while going up the stairs I would like to use a reverse zoom but if it's too difficult ill just have to use the shoulder shot while the mother talks then cut right to the door closing. Once the door closes. The we go further into an over-the-shoulder shot or pov shot. Then we go to a close-up of the friend's face developing their reaction to Luci's crazy and disorganized roof as well. There will be a right to left pan in the film to introduce the full room to the viewers as Lucis grabs the crazy board and places it over the TV.
The last few shots and scenes above develop the friend's kindness and comfort because he is so respectful; towards Lucis, as he introduces something so private to him. The final lines develop the rest of the film and what's to come from our protagonist Lucis as he is going to find out the truth behind his father's death. The only problem with this scene is I must find a way to make it not seem trailer-like. Other than that this should be a general idea of what I plan to do with the plot of the film. The only thing left out was the hammock although it is still going to be hung up. I could easily add it to the film after he asks whats this all about but I would like to keep things how they are now.
This is Mz signing off ✌ out
The blog posting has been a great hassle when producing or planning for the film opening. Coming up with new ideas to write about and then a detailed description pg the process. Now luckily that I'm on the right track I've been able to cut it down from four blog postings to three a week. Before when I was doing 4 blog posting I would do one Monday, Wednesday, and then Thursday and the final one Sunday.
Now that I've cut it down to three per week it is a bit easier yet at the same time a lot harder. Now that I've discussed so much about what I'm going to do, research, planning, and much more there are fewer and fewer things to write about. This is forcing me to come closer to having to actually start producing the film opening. My schedule with three bog postings a week is going to be relatively the same with one on Monday, Wednesday, and last but not least Friday.
In the future, I've been planing a bit on what I'm going to do and by when so I can have a deadline of when things should be done. This week I'm going to talk to one of my soccer teammates who is a photographer and ask him if he would like to help me with my project. Hopefully, if he says yes to my offer it would make the production as he is familiar with the structure of film production as he's taken Aice media studies in the past he's said. I did ask him a few questions before about camera angles and shots and he answered most of them correctly (he probably just needs to be refreshed) but overall he could be a great asset if he is our cameraman and from his previous work this project could come out extremely well.
In the upcoming week will soon have started my production. I want to start filming by the end of this week or Friday. And have it all complete by Monday so I can just edit and insert audio and music during the editing process.
For this week's blog post I'm going to write about the creation of the crazy board, organization of my room, and continue with the storyboard and maybe script what the actors are going to say. Now that I've got a good idea of what I'm going to do next week and planned it out ahead I feel a lot better about myself and what I can be able to accomplish within a week's work.
Because we're just making the opening of the film I'm not planning on moving around too much because it's just the introduction to the film. The areas I chose in which to film are going to be Markham Park and also my own house.
I could just flat out say the color scheme is critical, but then I would be lying to myself. Why you may ask? well because I don't even know what color scheme is myself or remember specifically. So my journey of understanding color scheme starts here and how I'm going to incorporate it into my project.
So to begin I had to search up what is a color scheme and on google it said the choice of color used in basically a work of art or film. So depending not the colors you use or the color hues will create an ambiance or mood thought the film developing the overall tone of the film. For example, the color red is supposed to represent sexiness, seduction, love, passion while if we take it a step further and do dark red then it would represent more blood, death, and sinister like the devil's red.
While searching through Pinterest on color schemes in movies I saw a post that caught my attention of the color pallet they used as if it were those home depot cards you use to see what kind of color pallet you want. When I clicked on the link it took me to various other Pinterest posts until I could pinpoint the source of the post.
The audio and sound that I'm looking for are ominous sounds like the famous Jaws opening sound or the classic horror scream.
While I was looking for sounds to use for my opening I searched for "free ominous sounds" I found great sounds that I could use for my opening but I'm not sure about using some of the sounds because all tho they say free it still cost a monthly subscription or it cost like $10+. I'm still in search of free sounds to use for my opening for after the father gets kidnapped to transition o the opening and using ominous sounds to develop the tone for the rest of the film.
Searching free ominous sounds is quite difficult because while in search of the sound that best fits your needs there are multiple others that sound as if they could work as well.
For example here are a few sounds I would have like to use or experiment with but because of the subscription fee or price, I'm still looking for better free ones.
Website--- https://www.videvo.net/search/horror/clip_type/royalty-free-sound-effects/
https://www.videvo.net/sound-effect/violins-horror-cresc-ma020105/260875/
https://www.videvo.net/sound-effect/sci-fi-supernatural-01/439510/
The subscription says the only one available in the $25 one :(
After discussing with my wonderful teacher about the price issues she provided me with hundreds of free resources where I could possibly find better sounds and audios that are free.
The purple planet is the first website I check ut from Mrs. Stoklosa's recommendations and I couldn't find ominous but horror would do just fine.
After a thorough search of souds that i could use for my opening i found four sounds in the purple planet that i like. Each sounds is going to be used in our opening of the film wen presenting the title which i may have to change to just an upward tilt the into a slow fade to Luci. Still thinking on what to od there.
1.https://www.purple-planet.com/tracks/insidious
this sound develops the tone of what i want. The ambiance from the music is a creepy horror and supsenseful one that can be used as a harbernger of wat is to be expected or to come form the film.
2. https://www.purple-planet.com/tracks/in-my-nightmares
I feel like this is good but not good enough. The beginning is too short and the rest of the sound isn't what I'm 100% looking for so this would be the best for the film.
3.https://www.purple-planet.com/tracks/constricted
Constricted is a good peiec of sound work. The beginning is sharp and what I'm looking for in a way. The sound develops emotions of suspenseful horror and if i find a good way tointrocude the tite this could be used extremely well with it if i were to use maybe a video when presenting the title where the title slowley appears then dissapears.
this fourth one is a bit different but it could be interesting to use
https://www.purple-planet.com/tracks/trick-or-treat
The sound track to trick or treat isn't producing a horror fil but more of a creepy feel ambiance from the sounds which is what i like because this is supposed to make you feel suspense. So i may challenge myself with this sound and see if it develops the tone i want wihint the opening. (Note that I'm not going to use the whole minute just the first few seconds then put it into a loop)
Then youtube sound effect library is a great source of free sounds which are actually really good. Hopefully i can spread the word of this resource to other students soon because there are sund that i could use like windcimes when introucuding the house of the main character luci. The only problem with the some audios is that they're very faint but the sltion would be just try to side the volume of course. Altoughtthe youtube sound effects are free they're more sund effects which isn't what I'm currently looking for but a great resource to have forlater just incase i need it.
*School computers mya block some sounds if the think its innaporpiete. the horror sections was bocekd off basically on my school computer even at home.
tstok.net is a great reliable source of information coming from someone who has thought for many years this process of film and the interest account doesn't only have sounds but many more resources about filma dn tips on better films along with links to other resources like how to make better titles which is something I'm going to look at. I thkn I'm going to make a separate blog posting just about the information inside the interest account!
MZ signing off for the day ✌ out!
This is my biggest challenge or concern when it comes to this project. I have little to no clue what software I'm in reality going to use. I have a few ideas from previous or sample blog postings but I want to know which one best fits my needs.
The Film hike will take place around the current time within the 21st century or a little bit before maybe the 20th century.
Luci is going to be depicted through mise-en-scene elements developing a troubled child living by himself and his mother. Within the city of Weston, there's a variety of parks where we can visit. Just on the outskirts of Weston is where the opening credits will be filmed where the Father disappears in the woods. The park is called Markham park. On the far right of the park, there's a large patch of woods as well as everywhere around the park.
other than the opening the film will also take place at one of our producer's houses. This will depend on who I work with but mostly going to take place at Marcos Zuluaga's house. Through His house, there will be elements of how his lifestyle is. Good grades, a decently healthy lifestyle, athletic, and most importantly determined to find his father's real disappearance. This will be represented in his room with a crazy wall and other details scattered across the room like old files and a camera with the footage of his father's dissapernce.
I'm going to start storyboarding soon hopefully. I'm really enjoying this project so far!
Signing off for the day ✌ out
-Mz
https://youtu.be/bu8Jbv4MbiI Its been a wild one I'll see yall at the next one MZ signing off ✌out!!!