Links

 Here is my final film opening, and my two CCR videos on YouTube! Enjoy!

CCR 1

CCR 2 (Featuring Ana Sofia Canon)

Film opening

My YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@beatricejones-j5x

Reflection

I can't believe I'm done. Done with all the planning, blogging, filming, questions, and editing. I've had a really fun time learning through this project and improving my media skills through my work. Looking back at my initial project ideas, I've come a really long way. This experience was super engaging and I had a lot of fun working with Anabella. 

We changed some of our script, scene sequence, audios, and other bits and pieces as we went. I resolved issues along the way like finding a costume for our killer, and getting bottles that portray alcohol. When we first began this project, I didn't enjoy blogging weekly, and I think that reflected onto my blogs. Overtime, I actually grew to like it and realized how helpful it was with keeping me on task and organized. It has also been a fun platform for me to be myself on and share this journey. 

Me and Anabella had some laughs, especially when we filmed with Ellie (Olivia's dog). It was really nice to share this work with a partner, I've known Anabella since the beginning of my sophomore year, so not very long but we've grown pretty close through this class and it's projects. 

I did feel some stress at times with our schedule, and with the stress and heavy workload from my other classes, it made me worried of falling behind on this project. When things came up and got in the way of our editing or filming I was anxious about being delayed with everything and therefore getting pushed back by a lot but in the end a way to resolve anything was always found and I was honestly just overreacting most of the time! I was also nervous for the editing portion because I don't consider myself a good editor, but I learned a lot through trial and error and tutorials, and I can now confidently say I've improved in the editing area by a lot and am more confident with myself when it comes to editing.

Overall, I'm proud of this project and my effort I put into all my work. I hope you as a reader enjoyed reading about all of this just as much as I enjoyed writing about it! Thank you so much for following this journey, I hope you enjoyed this final read.

Last time editing!

 When it came down to editing my CCR videos, I struggled to stay under 11 minutes... This was a big issue and it had me worrying, I had talked for a bit too much but thankfully I was able to cut some footage down and end up passing by just barely with 10 minutes and 56 seconds in total for both videos combined! I had a lot of important points I wanted to cover and explain, so I tried not to cut out too much. For the software I used a mix of Adobe Premier Pro again and iMovie. I don't have a lot of experience with iMovie, except for a few projects in the past but it was fun to use something new and see what they had to offer. 

I incorporated a lot of media into my editing, this was my main focus. I used many audios and sound effects from Pixabay. For my fan mail CCR video I used this song in the background to keep the video interesting. Then for my sound effects in both of my videos, I used a surprise sound effect, cricket sound effect, applause sound effect, and a sad trombone one. Since all of these from Pixabay are copyright free, it made my editing go so much faster and smoother, it was extremely convenient. 

(Pixabay audio I integrated)

Another big thing I added in both of my CCR videos when I edited them was overlays of photos and icons. I mentioned a lot of thing from my research that I posted about on my blogs, such as some names of pre-existing horror movies that I researched. Then I added in photos of the main social media software's I was talking about, and some examples of popular movie festivals across the U.S. Something fun I decided to incorporate into my editing was when I was talking about how I used a stabilizer for my shots to reduce the look of a hand-held effect, I added a shake effect onto the clip, it contradicted what I was saying and it was something fun I stumbled across when playing around with the special effects.

(New York film festival)

(Texas film festival)

The last major thing I edited into my CCR videos was sample posts of the official Haunted Memories Instagram account! This was so fun to make, I uploaded photos I took behind the scenes of filming and editing days. I screen recorded me scrolling through the posts, and added it into the fan mail CCR video. The account is accessible to the public, and the posts are up! It can be found @hauntedmemories.official on Instagram.

(Post from our Instagram)

(Post from our Instagram)

(Post from our Instagram)

CCR filming

 To create my CCR videos I invited my friend Ana over to be the host of the podcast Popcorn and Plot! We had so much fun getting ready and setting up, practicing, and recording. My mom helped us out with the filming, and we used her phone because after this whole project my phone unfortunately has no more storage left... 

It was super successful, the lighting in the clips was amazing, and the sound picked up really well. To create the podcast like setting, we worked with my living room couch. I put two decorative pillows on it, a coffee table with an orchid and some mugs on it, and a big plant next to the couch. In the frame, the couch was the centerpiece and me and Ana sat close to each other on it. The only props we used were the host's question cards I made a few days ago. They had the podcasts logo on the back and the questions on the front. Since my last blog, I've made a few more of these cards...

(The final four cards)

For my second CCR video, I went over to Anabella's house and filmed at her vanity. I explained this a little further in my last post but I used this setting so I could be at the original filming set in Olivia's room for the video. I ordered a prank box on Amazon, when you open it confetti shoots out! I wanted to do this so I could add a fun twist to the fan mail Q&A video. For the questions, I took some cards and envelopes and wrote down fake addresses and fake names on the envelopes, with the questions from the fans inside on the cards. I borrowed this cute mini clip-on microphone from Anabella to use for the video, it was broken but it added to the vibe of the YouTube like video.

(The vanity post-production)

(Prop envelopes with questions and addresses inside)

(Clip-on microphone)

CCR Production Ideas

Now that I have written all of the scripts for my four CCR questions, it's time to bring them to life. The first two will be presented through a video of me 'opening fan mail'. I will be at the original production set, seated at Olivia's vanity opening these letters from fans with questions inside. I'm really excited to integrate the original set and have some fun with the envelopes. I wanted to make my video creative, and I was originally going to do a basic interview, but thankfully I racked my brain and thought of something better and more engaging. For the envelopes, I'm going to use basic white envelopes and place inside papers that would be the fan mail, with the questions typed on them. For the final envelope, I'm going to have some fun with it and add a twist of it being a prank. It will be one of those where when you tear them open confetti gets launched everywhere! I think It's a fun twist that can spice the video up. I will be creating these envelope props tomorrow, and ordering the confetti pop envelope soon so I can film the CCR as soon as possible and then focus on editing and integrating multimedia into the video.

The third and fourth questions will be done through a podcast called "Popcorn and Plot" with one of my friends as the host. She will be a fan of Haunted Memories, bringing me on to the podcast to dissect the film and ask me questions. Her podcast entails her watching a film once a week and then bringing on the film's producer to talk to them about it. To create the props for the podcast, I took index cards and taped little icons of popcorn buckets that I printed, to the back of the cards. I chose popcorn because it represents the podcasts name. On the other side, I wrote the questions for the host. The questions will be the ones I wrote and answered in my CCR scripts that I published on my blog earlier this week.

(My index cards with the questions on the back for the host)

CCR Question #4

Three down, one left! This one was one of the simpler questions, here is my script and at the end you'll find the conclusion that I wrapped up the CCR portion with...

What hardware usage went into this film?

For the film, we really only used a stabilizer and an iPhone in terms of our hardware. We used the stabilizer to minimize the effect of the scenes having a handheld look. We borrowed the stabilizer from our teacher for a few days. The iPhone we used was an iPhone 13, we used its camera and speaker to pick up on our foleys and record our scenes. The quality was nice, and by pairing it with the stabilizer we were able to execute the shots well. 

What about software?

Now for our software, me and Anabella used a shared Word document, to plan everything out and write down ideas that we eventually came back to. Blogger was a big portion of our software, I uploaded weekly and had the blogs follow everything we did, kind of like a recap. Pixabay was also another software we used, we found three fitting audios on it to incorporate into the background of the more important scenes. These were added in when we edited on Adobe Premier pro, which brings me to my next software. Adobe Premier Pro was a big software we relied on, it was easy to use for our editing, and it has a lot of nice features. On Adobe I edited in all of the sounds for the clips, by matching up foleys with actions and cutting down imported background music. A very small amount of our editing was done on the photo's app, this entailed me cropping certain videos, toning down the brightness, or the exposure. 

Conclusion:

Thank you so much for having me on the podcast, I loved sharing all these details about this production of mine and getting all these great questions. I had a fun time learning a lot of new things and working on making this story fun. I enjoyed the whole process, and I'm proud of my outcome. I hope that when viewers from anywhere watch this film, they feel a lot of emotion and understand the heavy messages it holds. 

CCR Question #3

 How did your production skills develop throughout this project? Good question! Here's how....

Script: 

How did your production process evolve from the start to the end?

We started off with a lot of detailed research, this actually really helped me understand how to build a horror movie and what conventions the plot should have. Blogging was another thing that helped make the process smoother, as it was kind of a place for me to keep all my files, scripts, ideas, and documentations of the whole process. When it came down to getting all of our props, we did struggle with the tattoos. We didn't have any budget space left to buy them so we changed it up and ended up drawing them on ourselves which was what we wanted to stay away from but we didn't really have any other options at that point. When we started our filming days, we had some setbacks that we persevered through, like bad weather, actor unavailability, and some technical issues with the cameras. Thankfully, we had a little bit of wiggle room in the schedule, so our filming delays didn't effect or ruin anything else like the editing. One last thing that we did change was the script for the Jonathan, Anabella's dad didn't want to curse a lot and yell too much at her, so we toned it down and it ended up sounding good.

What did you learn?

Overall, I learned that even with setbacks the outcome can still be great and problems can be resolved and worked around. With good experience from my previous projects, I felt confident when filming and making decisions in the planning for the shots, editing, and sound. I also learned how to be more creative with my work, especially when it came down to working on our props, such as the ski mask, the tattoos, and the bottles. My editing skills have improved, and I've learned more about editing software's like Adobe Premier Pro. 

CCR Question #2

For the second question of my CCR I made a script on how I would answer it, after I broke it down into smaller parts...

How does the film reach the target audience?

The film reaches its target audience through active engagement on social media, and through promotions. The active socials entail responses to comments and messages, regular and consistent posts to maintain the relevance, and for promoting, multiple platforms are used so the content can reach more of the target audience. Since the film is based on a teenager from todays modern world, the usage of social media is fitting. Like many other films that have been produced as of recently, the backstage bits and the journey of the films are usually documented on socials like Instagram and TikTok, which is what we've done with Haunted memories. 

How will the film become available to the audience?

To distribute Haunted Memories, we will release it to a few film festivals across the US. The dates and locations will be published on socials when we near the time for the festival releases. These festivals are incredibly fun and relatively affordable, which opens the opportunity up for many more viewers to come and enjoy our film. 

For this question, I wrote a bit less for the responses because I wrote a lot more in the first question, and I wont have enough time to speak for longer than this in my CCR video. I also have some multimedia's I will include in the video, which take up some time.

Group meeting #2

 Today we had our second group meeting, I got a few people that I had in my first group meeting, so it was nice to ask them how far they've come and how their project has been going. I showed them my blog posts, a few clips from filming, and editing. I got a lot of positive feedback overall, and some helpful suggestion that I already discussed over with Anabella. From my group, Amparo was explaining to us how her group has been struggling with filming locations, so we all collectively came up with somewhat of a solution for her. We helped her tweak her plot to fit a park rather than the former location, which was the beach. Her group had some complications with getting to the beach, so they needed to make a switch. She showed us some of their new footage and it looked great so far. 

I wanted to get the groups feedback on my idea for the video for my first and second CCR questions. I was thinking of doing a video where I open 'fan mail' and respond to the questions from fans. The group said it was a creative idea, and I'm so excited to do it. They suggested that I film the CCR at the original set location. I think this is really smart and fun, so I'm going to try and film at Anabella's vanity which was a big location for Olivia. 

(Photo from the group meeting)

CCR Question #1

 This first CCR question delves into the conventions of a horror film, and how it represents social groups and issues. For the first two questions I will be doing an interview with a host. This is how I would answer the question in my CCR video...

What makes your horror film, a horror film?

For our film, we followed some classic horror traits, we have the themes of death, dark suspense, and a villain. But we dropped the jump scare aspect, and the heavy gore. We did this because making gore special effects makeup and mis-en-scene elements is tricky and expensive. Usually, horror films start off with a bang, a big jump scare, but starting off slow and building the suspense is something I find more pleasing in films, so we went that way. 

What issues does Haunted Memories touch on?

Haunted Memories touches on some difficult topics, one of them being abuse. It follows the relationship between a teenage girl and her abusive father. No physical abuse is ever shown in the opening, but its heavily hinted at, we focused more on emotional abuse. The rest of the film would have some flashbacks of physical abuse between Olivia and her father Jonathan. Representing this type of a relationship is important considering the staggering statistics we currently have of abused teenagers. One in four girls are estimated to experience child abuse, according to the National Children's Alliance. It’s really heartbreaking and more attention should be focused on resolving this issue. Depression from grief is also something that is noticeably big in this opening, as we see Jonathan struggle deeply with the loss of his wife. It leads him to live a very alcoholic, aggressive, and abusive life towards Olivia. We would continue this message through the remaining of the film by keeping the alcohol bottles around the house, and by having more heavy scenes of Oliva and Jonathan arguing.

What social groups are represented in your opening? 

We represent a broken family, a sad social group. The addiction, abuse, trauma, and loss are all factors that contribute to the falling apart of this family. Which leads to the end of the film where Olivia and Jonathan would go their separate ways, despite Olivia having defeated the killer who was after her and her relationship. Dysfunctional social groups and relationships are common things you can find in films, but what makes them all stand out is the effects they each toll on their characters, and how the relationships effect their decision making throughout the story.

Sources: 

-Click me!

Editing the credits

On Adobe, I've been working on our credit sequence and title. We start the opening off with the credit sequence, and then it transitions into the title, so I thought it would be fitting for me to start with this. The credits are going to be five photos of Anabella and her parents, from her childhood to show the life and bonds they had before the mother passed. Some of the photos are of Anabella and her mom, Anabella and her dad, or Anabella and both of her parents. The photos stay on the screen for about six seconds each, while the credit text boxes roll over them. We wanted to aim for a thirty second credit sequence, so that all the credits can roll, and the photos can sink in with the viewer because they are important establishing blocks. Our credits include, the director, producer, writer, names of the main actors, editors, cinematographer, and the copyrighted music for the three audios I talked about yesterday. We might add some more along the way if we think of any others, but we covered most of the roles that went and are going into this project.

When we learned about this project, and how to create it we learned that our title shouldn't go at the end of the opening, so we decided to have it play right after the credits. Originally, we were going to have the title appear during one of the scenes like the one of Anabella in the mirror, but we ended up with putting it over a black screen after the credits, right before we begin with the father driving home after work. We are still playing around with a few different options for the font of the title. Adobe has a lot of options, and we don't know what to choose, but we want something that looks professional (but kind of scary). 

(One of the family photos used in the credit sequence)

(One of the mother-daughter photos used in the credit sequence)

Editing sounds

Now that we filmed all our scenes, we started transferring our files to a new project on Adobe Premier Pro. We were able to log in and use it for free with our school email, me and Anabella shared the project with each other so we can both edit it simultaneously. We don't have a lot of experience with Adobe, but our teacher did provide us with a lot of tutorials a few months back on how to use it and it’s cool features. We also have had multiple lectures on editing from our teacher, so I have been looking back at my notes to help me plan out this editing process. 

 When we were still in our planning phase, we chose a few sounds, and I shared them here on my blog. We are working with integrating certain clips off those sounds into the background of scenes as well as adding in some of the foley sounds me and Anabella recorded this week during the production days. 

 For our foley sounds, we made one for the dad walking in, the leash being clipped onto the dog, the door slamming shut, the door opening, and some more walking. We did all of these with various things we found in Anabella' house. For the footsteps Anabella placed her hands inside her shoes and stomped around while I followed closely with my phone to catch the audio. For the leash clip noise, we took one of those big carabiner clips and snapped it loudly, with again the phone right next to it to catch the audio. 

 When we integrated these sounds into our project on Adobe, we placed the file of audio over the scenes we chose to go with them. The same was done for the audios that I talked more about in one of my planning blogs. For the editing process, Anabella and I decided that we will both work on it, we both know we don't know how to do certain parts as well so we'll just help each other and divide the work that way. We have been able to call a bit to discuss choices in editing, and to edit together.

I have been really liking Adobe so far, I remember it all looked really complicated at the start, but over time I understood the functions and it became simple. I have re-watched a few tutorials on YouTube to be able to see how to overlay things properly and smoothen the audio over a clip, it's been helpful.

(What our Adobe project looks like so far)

That's a wrap!

 We finished our productions! It was really successful and fun. For this second day of filming, we used all of our props. The photo frame, the mask, the bottles, and the tattoos. We finished making our props over the weekend, for the bottles I ran them under hot water to be able to melt and peel off the pre-existing stickers. I then printed out simple labels of alcohol that I found online and taped them onto the bottles. For the killer's mask, I dyed Anabella's old pink go kart mask black. To do this, I used black fabric dye from the supermarket. I ordered an antique looking photo frame from Amazon, I got a small one because we are just framing the face of the mother. With all of the other props, the tattoos pushed us out of our budget, so we decided to make them ourselves by drawing them on with marker. 

  (This week at a glance!)

We worked on all of the shots that take place inside of the house this week, which concluded our filming. We filmed at my partner Anabella's house, we used her kitchen and bedroom. For the kitchen scene with her and her father, we scattered the bottles around the frame and told Anabella's mom not to wash dishes for the whole day, so the sink was filled with dirty dishes. After we did their argument scene, I followed Anabella to her room for a clip of her slamming her door shut with rage. Thankfully, we borrowed our teachers stabilizer and used it for filming because it made all the shots steady and made it easier to hold the phone for filming. 

In Anabella's room, we did the majority of the content. Before I came over, she set up her room to make it fit the character and use the props we bought. She taped up some of the collage photos she bought, and she hung up the tapestry although it didn't end up in the frame. She cleared her things from the wall and her vanity. We set up the photo frame on the vanity, with a printed photo of her mom inside. She started off by doing heavy eye makeup, with black eyeshadow, thick mascara, and a little bit of purple mixed with red eyeshadow underneath her eyes to make the crying look more realistic. Since she couldn't cry on command, we used eye drops to make it look like black tears of mascara were running down her face. For the costume, Anabella and her dad both wore the same thing they wore last time we filmed. Anabella wore a hoodie and shorts, to resemble she is comfortable and just relaxing at home. Her dad wore something a little nicer, because he had just come home from work in these scenes. 

When I was filming scenes, lighting was a big thing I kept playing around with. On the phone, I would click the frame and adjust the lighting to try and get better shots, it also helped the camera focus on the characters a bit more. Now that we have begun editing we can fix that better, but it was fun to adjust to see what worked best with different angles.