Story board

I'm just glad I finally got to storyboarding. This process was one that I didn't want to start but I thought that the sooner I start it the better and boy was it worth it. So far I have a good idea of what I'm looking fr for the opening and how it should turn out. I don't have a very specific storyboard for the opening but I have a basic and general one without too much technique described and how it's going to be used. I first just wanted to be sure that I know what I'm going o do and how it would turn out on paper and if I liked it or not. 

To start I would like to start off with a slight upward tilt as if the father has just grabbed his phone out of his pocket to start vlogging his hike. There would is a little shake to the camera because I would like to use a handheld camera technique to make it look as realistic as possible. Then he actually faces the camera so we could get a better angle of him and the background of the forest along with the dark color scheme even while camping. The costume design would be with the father a white shirt because it absorbs less heat and then a basic backpack with water and some camping or hiking equipment. Later on, as he's describing a little bit of the time and data of what's going on just some little short details to not ake up to much time he then hears a twig snap and is frightened. From his experience, he doesn't recognize the snap because it sounded as if it were from a larger animal, not a smaller one. Here I would like to practice with some folley techniques and find what noise would fit best in the scenario. But then as he turns around slowly he is stuck in the head and knocked down. The camera falls out of his hand and is still rolling somehow facing where the father is knocked out cold bleeding from his head. He is proceeded to be dragged out of the frame by some grotesque hands (costume) then the camera has an upward tilt as it slowly fades again to black. The black fade would be used to represent how his life is fading away and as that's happening the title slowly appears n screen "The Hike" then again slowly fades away.

                                               

That's where I'm at so far with the screenplay and hopefully soon ill be near done with the full two minutes including the credits. Or should I include the credits somehow at the beginning? This is the thing I love about e project as it opens up to amazing and new ideas that you previously would have never thought about. For example, I could have Luci bring a friend home and ask about why he has a hammock in his room and he could easily say it's my father's (In a sad tone). When he says this it clearly represents how he is still emotionally attached to his father and right next to it is the crazy board also developing his dedication to finding out the truth behind what's in these woods. 

MZ signing off for the day ✌ out

Color scheme

 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.

While I furthered my research on the topic of the color scheme I learned that the color scheme is used to develop emotion in the film along with the meaning behind it. 

So the first way we use a color scheme would be to develop emotion or tone. Thought the film I would like the hues of any colors I used to be darker because I want a constant ominous feeling through the air of the film to develop suspense or the ever so close climax. For example, when I produce the film opening I'm going to make sure that the lighting and everything look good but play around with eh filters and brightness of the film in order to achieve that ominous feel to it. Another aspect of the film would be color schemes and how I'm going to use them. The color scheme for the film would be darker solid colors like brown, green, grey, and some light colors like white. The uses of darker color schemes would be to develop that tone of darkness and continue with it thought the film. 

If we discuss other colors like green they could represent life while dark green could represent greed.

Now Luci is a character that we have a lot to learn about but we already know he's dedicated and not afraid. So we could use yellow for the dedications as he's an all-in type of guy while also using subtle purple which represents how brave he is to get himself into situations that are dangerous still to find the truth.

In the opening, his father will also e wearing purple because he's adventurous and brave as he hikes in the wilderness alone but that's about all we'll see from him.

This is mz signing off for the night ✌ out

Audio and Sound

 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!

Editing softwear

 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. 

Imovie 

I movie has a few pros. It's easily accessible. The ability to be able to shoot on my phone and hen still be able to edit on my iPhone is very comforting. It's also straightforward to use and move the videos around, but it's very bland the free version. By bland I mean there's no advanced editing required so and it's only basic editing. The only downside would be that it's mostly only for apple products. At home, the only Apple product I own is an iPhone and I have a windows desktop computer. So I won't be able to use my desktop at home to comfortably edit the videos and sound.

                                                                        Final Cut Pro

A little con on film cut pro is that on the computer I have to download it on a Mac, which I don't own :(

So this one is already out of the picture.

Openshot

This honestly may have to be my go-to editing software online so far. Imovie is fine and the final cut pro is good if you can afford it and already have a mac (which I don't) so this will have to be my go-to. And I'm not at all mad about it. Last time using Open shot it was a great experience. It was very easy to manage and go through the application because it was like drawing and dropping things where you wanted them to go. It was just a bit confusing how to do transitions and getting the film synced up correctly but other than that it was great. 

Of course, there is probably another 100 grat editing software that is great that I have yet to find. But I'm happy with my selection so far and if I run into any troubles along the way there is nothing else I can do then to try even harder to fix the problem. 

For anyone else trying to find great free editing software check out this link below!

https://www.oberlo.com/blog/best-free-video-editing-software

All that's left is to talk about audio and sound!

MZ signing out ✌

Setting and a bit of representation

 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.

"Crazy wall example"

The Film will then open up to the front of his house where they'll be short clips of the front of his house and neighborhood developing his sense of home. Then the camera will follow him through the house having quick cuts to develop those elements previously mentioned like his report card on the fridge and a busy sportive garage. Then the troubled child room where we can see his obsession with this case and find out the truth while a pack of smokes is in the background. This develops how there was no father figure in the house and now he copes with smoking.

He also doesn't want anyone to figure out that he's secretly trying to find out his father's real death especially his mom so no one s allowed in his room. This will be developed as he locks the door every time he goes into his room and when his mom tries to come in she hides everything extremely fast and when his mom asked what he's doing in there he stutters and said " Um stretching?" and because the mom thinks "what els could a teenage boy be doing in a locked room by himself" she just left it be and Luci has a sigh of relief as he heard the foot steps leave.

I'm going to start storyboarding soon hopefully. I'm really enjoying this project so far!

Signing off for the day  ✌ out 

-Mz

Character background

 Our main protagonist is going to be Luci (Luciano). 

Luci is a 17-year-old boy from the suburbs of Weston. From Mise en scene elements, it will be developed how he's got a sweet tooth for adventure and adrenaline. He picked up a love for hiking after his father's disappearance because he was also into hiking. 

If we go back ten years when Luci was only 7 he was being put to sleep because it was already past his bedtime. Around midnight the mother starts to get worried because Jason (the father) has never been out this late. After a few days of Luci wondering and asking where his father is he finds out that Jason is dead as he eavesdrops on the conversation between his mother and the police at his door. At such a young age he couldn't hold back his feelings and broke down on the spot. 

Once he was 14 years old he started to deeply research his father's disappearance. He figured out that his father's report said he was kidnapped but after taking online computer hacking classes he was able to break into the police mainframe and find his dad's files. He found out that his father was mauled to death and he found a piece of evidence that made everything tie together...A video camera. He downloaded the whole file onto his laptop so he can keep reviewing and going over his dad's files. After he found those gruesome pictures of his how his dad was barbarically murdered and chewed up he needed to know the history of this "innocent town."

He found out through ear from classmates and other students in his school that there have been multiple people who go into "Markham Woods" and never come out alive. So now he has two pieces of information that get him closer to finding out his father's true cause of death. 

Luci keeps researching and is now fixated and addicted to finding out what happened this father's death. He foolishly thinks he can take on the woods by himself at the age of 15 with no hiking experience. Little does he know this is the worst idea possible. He doesn't know what to expect and after the terrifying trip to the woods he somehow made it out alive but now he's being stalked by whatever was in those woods.

Around 16 years old he's encountered the mysterious creature about 5 times in the span of a year just watching from afar. He hasn't been close enough to ever see all the details or figure out what is the beast that is following him now. Because he's been followed for the past year whenever he's out past 7 pm he sees him every now and then and once he encounters the beat on his 7th encounter it was the most terrifying moment of his life. He stayed out past 9 pm that day and was heading home by himself when he felt a stare. He knew right away it was the beast. He turns around and he only saw black but once he looks up he sees the beast right in front of him standing three feet away. The beast seems to be about 9 feet tall with long limbs and a terrifying facial structure and details. He wets himself and yells as loud as he cans to have his neighbors come out and to his luck they do. He figured out that the beast doesn't like light because once his neighbors turned on their porch lights he let go of his shirt and took off running back from where he came from. 

Now at 17, he has developed his own case study and a wall dedicated to similar disappearances around those woods trying to connect the dots. All of those cases were put as disappearances and runaways while he figured out they were all brutally murdered around the same time raging from 7pm-midnight.  Now with more freedom and friends, he gathers enough courage to take the woods again with friends. 

Title?!!??

 Now, what should the title be? I was thinking along the lines of "The hike" yea I think we found our title!

Now, what's so important about a title you may ask. Its engagement for the audience and how it's presented could be huge. It's like the first impression you make on another person.

From the title of insidious, we can develop what the movie has in store for us. How its most likely going to be a horror film from the dark red colors fading along with the font of the text. The font of the text has sharp edges especially when it comes to the letter I which would develop a dark and scary ambiance as if it were its own malevolent character. My idea would be similar but not exactly maybe more like a bit of bird box.

This title is a bit different from insidious from the color to how bold and round the font and letters are. This film title does have cut through it so it's a totally different approach. The white and black contrast really draws the audience to those small details that are developed in the title. From the big and bold letter we can also conclude out this film is most likely going to be about adventure and how bold and brave they must be. The cuts also develop possibly the environment and how it could be dirty or run down.

What will my title look like. Well for starters I would like to use A black and white color pallet. Black background with thick bold letters dictating "The Hike." The seemingly out of no where the title will start to fade from white to a darker red indicating a tragedy or the genre of the story at the beginning. And of course if I were a producer I would like to add my own little signature touch to the title so I would make the text bleed a little every three to four letters.

Now I didn't know how I exactly was going to d this so I had to search it up. But how in the world do you search something like this up? Title maker? Title creator? where can i make a title and then edit it and change the font? I finally came up with the correct search and it seemed like it would be convenient because I can make title fonts onto movie which is very useful. Tips with trena incase anyone would like to check out where I got my movie tips from. Sadly I don't own a mac or any of those apple rocuts except a phone but hopefully it will be good enough to work with. What I learned was the animation and customizing of titles though other resources then you plug it into imovie. 

The next thing if possible would be try to use transitions to make it go from white to darker shades until it reaches dark red. The blood dripping would be difficult to produce but ill update yall if I'm able to do it.

All in all, titles are crucial to presenting and opening a film. 

You never want to make a bad first impression right?

This is MZ signing off for the day✌✌

Target Audience??

 Talking about target audience today and why it's so important.

The film insidious has multiple genres. One of which is my target genre horror. After multiple viewings of analysis of the film, most papers and sites concluded that the film's target audience was teens ages 15+ because how most horror films are watched in a group of friends which appeals to teenagers as they go to places usually in groups.

The demographic information pertaining to birdbox is as follows (from variety) The audience who viewed the films consisted from the ages of 18-36 which made up a huge percentage of viewers. This leads to the conclusion that the target audience would be young adults to adults. This again goes well with the target audience as they are still young and watch films and go out in groups of people usually.

Both films had huge payouts with their target audiences and how well they executed their exposure to their intended target.

 Target audience is fundamental because without proper marketing strategies and exposure to the intended audience we won't be able to maximize profits from the production. Our intended target audience are teen, young adults, and adults (anyone 15+). Those people who are into horror and suspenseful films will enjoy how they're going to be constantly on the edge of their seats. Most teens and young adults are into watching scary or suspenseful film productions whether it be with friends, events, or with family.

The intended target audience should be targeted well and we'll discuss how we're going to target and market our young target audience. Here a little hint (Social media, memes, TikTok)

This is MZ signing off for the day ✌out!!

Day 2 Of CPP

 This weekend I couldn't work on much of the project as I was busy with family and soccer events (Weston Cup). I was called to play up one year with the u19s Davie sharks team and we've had an outstanding weekend so far. I had to attend my brother's games in the mornings while my games were at night in Naples so we had to leave home around 6 and wed get home around midnight.

With the little time I had, I tried my best to research the best suspense and horror film of at least 10 years.

I came up with Insidious and birdbox in the end as the two movies I would like to use as references because they both in my opinion rely heavily on sound and how it develops the tone and ambiance of the film.

My initial plan is to create an engaging opening by relying on a quick clip of a character (not yet known) that is out and about in the woods possibly and then all of a sudden she hears a noise and then boom she disappears and then the camera falls facing down and I would like to use a transition so when the camera falls it focuses on some ant's eating away at some sort of circus representing how she was just kidnapped and killed. Then a black screen appears with a not yet noticeable sound but once the title starts to appear then the sound gets more and more intense developing the tone for the rest of the film.

the person disappearing would be a dad who likes to go out on hikes and stuff. The son who would like to follow in his footsteps has his room decorated in a way where it develops how he is still caught up on his father's death after 10 years and about his social life along with other things possibly an addiction he uses to cope with his father's death. 

The next idea would be to open up to possibly the son's room and his plans for his next hike which would be the same place where his dad disappeared. But he wants to grab a group of friends to help him with his mission.

This is what I've come up with so far but I can already see the outcome and how great it will be!

Till next time. 

MZ  ✌️ out

Project Portfolio Project!!!

Introduction to Cambridge portfolio project last class and this class

-Nearpod- Jotted down almost every single note or tip stated through the presentation to try and get the edge on this project and do the best I can. What I learned from the project is the blog is incredibly important to develop the journey that we need t go through when creating the portfolio project for Cambridge. What is also important is that we use as much detail as possible along with as much information as possible in the blogs to really develop that journey we’re going through

Google docs important to me.

I decided that il be using google docs for the majority of the project reflection process so I can write down my thoughts and all the details of my work as I go on.

Watched CCR of barley legal- while watching I came up with the idea that I should try and do a horror film or a suspenseful film. (Not sure yet tho)

Opens up to a man holding a vlog camera which is then later scared and kidnapped leaving the camera facing up into the forest. Then a loud suspenseful sound will play in the background as it cuts to a black screen Boom the title shows up slowly leaving the black screen. Then we open up to a few years later with a mentally disconcert child because that was his father who we saw, in the beginning, die so it would be like 12 years later. He then wants to find out what happened and what took him into the forest. I chose this because It was the first idea that popped into my head and I would like to go with a video incorporated with a lot of lighting, sound, and color along with ambiance to develop my film.

Well, that's all I have so far for Day one. See yall soon!

project relfection

 What's up guys and gals. Welcome back, today we're going to discuss and reflect upon the music marketing project as a whole.

The truth about this project is that at first, it caused me a lot of stress. When I say a lot imagine an assignment in which you lost sleep and motivation to do anything because it was such a dreed to do especially when you're working by yourself. 

Part one was honestly a life-changing experience for me. The exposure to music like "the pretenders" along with "so caught up" opened me up to a new genre of music with which I fell in love with. The real drag appeared when we needed to do the music research charts. The day we got it assigned we were all supposedly researching info for the company sand bands related to the Tesky brothers. I felt like it was a lie because my teammates didn't get much work done till the very end and still don't know if their information is credible without sources. But I'm not here to complain about my teammates because they did come in clutch the last day as they banged out the video and edits while I was getting covid tested.

The process where we got to chose the music genre was quite easy because we all had an idea of what we wanted to do with our story music video. Later comes the research part where I had to find the two companies and I did a glass note while the other three teammates did Ivey league records.

Part two was a bit easier because I received a bit of help from Paulina who did about two bullet points while I had to assign Juuls and William to do one each. This part was easier because we could make up the information and the marketing process was easy with the help from aice media class along with business on how to market anything.

The final presentation wasn't as difficult or challenging as I thought it would be, to be honest. Paulina and the rest f the group went to the town center with my storyboard idea on what to do and they all filmed with me while I was at home doing the PowerPoint. Paulina edited the video and soon after reorganized the PowerPoint to look more appealing to sell ourselves.

Something I learned from this experience would be that if we don't manage our time wisely we won't be efficient in getting our work done and then we cant produce the best quality products.

The overall experience I would rate 10/10 because it was an emotional roller coaster.