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Showing posts from March, 2022

Editing Blog

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 Today is March 31st, and today I edited the first 10 scenes that we filmed at my house. Editing proved to be difficult, as one problem was that the editing software I was using for every other project now had a watermark. I had to pay 2$ to get rid of this watermark. Then I had to download the background music we decided on, as the original track we wanted to use wasn't available. We had emailed the producers but they never got back to us and so we decided it was too late to look for tracks from other movies, and decided to use royalty free music. The track we used fit the description we were looking for, ominous & mysterious. Once I put the music in, I had to sit alone in a room and narrate scenes as our production was done from Merlin's head perspective. I messed up a couple times, on the timing of it all, and so I kept doing it until I perfected it. I asked Juan and Keith to give their two cents on how it was going so far. I sent them a snippet of what I had completed s

Filming Blog

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 Today is March 28th, 2022. Today was first day of official filming. We met up at my house, Juan and Keith came at about the same time, and Alejandro came not 10 minutes later. Once they all came to my house we decided to start filming right away. We decided to start with a scene of Merlin waking up and there being no power. This part was easy, and then we transitioned into an emergency broadcast, this was in the past. Merlin then starts doing his daily routine and the vibes are obviously ominous. Then a high shot shows Merlin walking down and out of his house, looking at his watch, and the sky. He doesn't make it to far until he is confronted by a walker, the second variant. Its been about 2 years since the outbreak broke out, and it looks as if there is no one with Merlin. We had a problem with doing the high shot, as we did not have a drone to get up high. I suggested we get on my roof and film that way, as it gives a great view. This was easy to solve, and done without much dif

Change of Plans

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 Today is March 17. We had originally planned to film with our group today for our final task. Keith Rogers, set up the plans today to film and it was not a problem before, but some problems arose. Everyone was free at a certain point but then it turned out I would have to go travelling right before spring break. I think it was not smart to plan something so long beforehand, and then have to cancel. We should have expected that, people travel, and right before a big break. Juan Baca also was crammed to the brim with work. Juan works for his dad and thus he would not be free to film, at least not on days that we all could. Another problem that we did not account for is how busy the streets would get during Spring Break. Busy streets make it hard to film especially with the central idea of our short film being an abandoned town. Keith too had to go travelling, to go up to Georgia, but the thing is, Keith was not leaving until late that night, so he would still have time to film. This is

1 change made from Review Blog

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 Today is March 13, 2022. The last blog we did came at the cost of a film day. On that day we decided to film review and go over some other things from our storyboard and script. One major change we decided would be pivotal to set the stage of the movie would be removing the part of Merlin of having a brother. Removing the identity of the person who knocks at the door, makes the story more ominous. The reason to make it like this was simple. The main story was always meant to be mysterious, and leave the viewer with a cliffhanger. When not knowing who it is at the very end, the character has to make assumptions on who it could be knocking. This adds variety to the story because if this was a real short movie, people would come up with their own theories. Another reason we decided to remove this off the story blog, this part of the story was NOT apart of the script that was originally written by me (Monzur), and a mistake. Another positive part of removing a brother from the story, make

Filming Production Blog

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 Today is March 6th, 2022. We were supposed to film today, we were planning to meet up at the park, near Juan's house. This location was familiar to three of us as we used this location as the spot of our last project. We were scheduled to leave at 3:00 PM. Unfortunately, it was pouring and the plan of filming outdoors would be spoiled for today. I decided that the best thing we could do instead of just calling it wraps, was to go to my house. We all arrived at my house not too long after, as the park is relatively near my home. We decided what we should do instead of film, was to review our script and storyboard. There were some chunks of the story and script that didn't sit well with me, so we started with that. We had an argument over who should play the main character but that was a quick resolve with a game of rock, paper, scissors. Once we established the MC, we decided on a part of the script we should take out and another storyline to incorporate. I got us some food, as

Production Music Blog

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 Our film Nightmare, takes place in a post apocalyptic time frame and is about the story of a boy who wakes up to a world where nothing is right, and everything is a Nightmare. The setting is gloomy and ominous, as such we decided to go for a theme that would be considered eerie, and make the viewer uncomfortable in a sense. Obviously we don't have the talent or capability to make our own theme song, so we decided to look at movies or shows that were already well established. I think its clear that one of the most popular piece of entertainment that comes to anyone's mind when thinking about this sort of genre, is the Walking Dead. Its evident that this show has something that not a lot of other shows or movies had, thus it has had such a long run time. The choices of music in the show in the different scenes makes it perfect. Although, it can be argued some seasons were not up to par, the theme song playing throughout every scene just gave a ominous, eerie feeling to it. I em

Storyboard Blog

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  Box 1: Pedestal up to show the kid laying in bed Box 2: Jump cut to show alarm clock Box 3: Aerial view of kid, close up of eyes Box 4: Tilt up and dolly back to watch kid turn off alarm clock Box 5: Action shot showing kid walking to his window Box 6: Point of view shot out of the window on the street                                               Box 7: Tracking shot of kid coming out of his room  Box 8: Tracking shot of kid looking for his mom  Box 9: Over the shoulder shot until he goes into siblings room Box 10: Wide shot  of the full room with no one inside of it  Box 11: Eyelevel shot of kid going into frantic after seeing no one in the road  Box 12: Over the shoulder shot of kid running  Box 13: Close up shot of phone showing no service or wifi  Box 14: Pov shot of cars all around the kid  Box 15: Tracking shot of him running back to his house  Box 16: Goes to his house and thinks that it is all a movie  Box 17: Close up shot of him grabbing supplies into his backpack  Box 18: