Rebecca L.'s AICE MS blog

The most notable revision that we made to our film was reshooting the remaining shot with black bars on the screen. We turned this shot into two separate shots that did not have black bars. The two shots now do not sport the same extremely visible black bars on the sides and feel more like they are shot with care. Our second revision to our fourth quarter submission was editing the opening credits. The film's original opening title was displayed over a black screen for about one second. We added the title card over the beginning of the film to make it more dynamic. We also changed the font of the opening credits to match the opening title.    The original vs the changed font

The first shot of the film is a wide shot that follows the actor. We used this shot as it gave us the perfect opportunity to add the opening credits to the film. The third shot is a match shot, as it begins where the camera was last pointed. The camera then follows the actor to the training room. Our first shot of the actor entering the training room is a mid shot. We used it to capture the expressions of the actor and to give enough room for the flickering lights to work. This over the shoulder shot shows the actor getting a cup from under the sink. As the actor lifts the icebox and the demon stretches out it's hand, a close up is used to show the actor's hands. The final shot of the film is a two-shot, as the two actors are shown in it.

How did you integrate technologies - software, hardware, and online - in this project? We used Adobe Premier Pro to edit our film together. The standard IPhone Camera app was used to film our shots and youtube was used to upload our film to the public. Blogger was the platform where we created and updated our blog. tbc To edit our film, my partner and I used Adobe Premiere Pro. The laptops we used for putting together our project had the software installed, and it was easy to handle, so we used it for our film editing process. For the gathering of the film footage, we used my partner's iPhone 6. The camera app on the phone was simple to use and offered a convenient way to get all of our footage. The footage filmed from the phone was clear and was not blurry. Once we procured our footage, we transferred it from the iPhone to the laptops via a flash-drive. The flash-drive allowed for a convenient way to carry our film footage from laptop to laptop. The aforementioned laptops...

How did your production skills develop throughout this project? My partner and my production skills advanced throughout our project in multiple ways. When we first put our film together, we had trouble trimming down clips into the right size, and it took more time than it should have to get a cohesive and not overly long sequence of shots together. We also had difficulty with editing sound bytes to the appropriate volume and length. However, once we began our second cut of the film, we had improved our skills greatly in the trimming area. We were able to get more concise cuts of the film footage and our ability to put the clips together improved as well. Where we once had struggled with getting the clips tacked onto each other precisely we now handled efficiently. Once we began working on the third quarter draft of the film, we figured out how to easily increase the volume of sound bytes, which helped us with our small jump scare of the demon banging within the ice machine. As we co...

How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text? Our product will engage with audiences by having its own social media pages, such as an official Twitter page that will have polls and trivia questions. This will give fans of the film more content and facts about it, along with sparking interest in people who may come across the account who have not seen the film yet. Along with our social media accounts, we will have our business partnership with Ice-O-Matic. We will collaborate with them to create a 30 second long TV commercial that will air a month before the film is released, and will continue airing until the film's limited release ends. The commercial will feature a middle aged couple who own a diner talking about how they are glad that they purchased an Ice-O-Matic ice machine. The husband rifles through the newspaper and points out that a generic ice machine competitor brand was the same type of ice machine that Sharon and...

How does your project use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? In our film, the main object of fear is an ice machine. Ice machines are not inherently scary, and most horror films use an object or concept that is frightening to the public. By using an object that many find harmless, we challenge normal horror film conventions. The 2014 film Annabelle  uses a doll as its main horror convention, as many people find dolls to be unnerving. Iceboxes are mostly ignored by normal people, so it is a good object to use as an unsuspecting object of terror. We also challenge conventions by using a location that is not very isolated. Most horror films use a setting that is hidden away from most of society, which adds to the tension and the character's feeling alone. With our film, the training room where the film is set is slightly isolated, but other students are seen in the background of the film. In A Quiet Place , the characters are set in a sligh...