AICE Media Studies

  Now is the time for the last  few touches on the film. I still needed to address the lighting issues from the film review. There was some glare on a few clips and a few dull sections. So, we turned down the brightness in the clips and adjusted the exposure. This took care of the glare. Then we did the opposite. We turned up the brightness and adjusted the exposure and contrast with gave the brightness needed. This took care of the last aesthetics of the film. But it was time to move on to the last aspect… the titles. We started by going onto CapCut and picking out different fonts we liked. Then narrowed down that list to 1 that we all agreed on. We ended up going with the Font called Mokgech. It’s a traditional medieval-looking font that sparked a feeling of adventure. We are going to use black as the font color. And they’re all going to come in and exit the same way at the bottom right corner. There is a fade effect applied to help with the subtle look. It’s our preferred style beca

   Now, it was time to apply the feedback to the film. Today, I wanted to focus on editing the audio and transitions. The audio comments were still frustrating because of how much effort I had put in. But I knew it was my responsibility to fix the mistakes.   So, I went back to my process of slicing the audio and attempting to separate the wind from the dialogue. It turned out as good as I could get it. I had put in so many hours and could not give any more. There was only so much we could do. For one scene, we were able to use a voiceover. But fighting the wind did not work because we couldn’t get the audio matched up to the conversations.  We cut some more time for the transitions so they would line up better. This got us to our perfect time, which made us excited. Also used a filter in our editing software to help blend scenes well.  It’s called mix. It’s very subtle and blends the scenes nicely. The other thing that assisted with transitions was the changing of audio. Once it s

   We had just recently completed our audio, and before we moved on to add titles, we needed our film to be reviewed. It’s important to have a new set of eyes review your project after you’ve been staring at it for so long. They can pick up mistakes you cannot because you’re rolling over them. So, we left it up to our friends, who can be very brutally honest with us.   The biggest changes our friends decided we needed to work on was the lighting, audio, and transitions. This was especially frustrating after the work I had just put in to try to make the audio less terrible. But I couldn’t help but agree. You could still hear the wind pretty badly over the dialect in many scenes. They also made the comment it felt jumpy. We took that as if the transitions were not as smooth as they could be. That is another completely valid argument. We did not work to blend the scenes as best as we could. They also mentioned that there was some glare in a few scenes. This was a struggle we experienced

   The time has come for my favorite section, the audio. It’s my strongest skill in the group, so naturally, it’s my favorite. The first step to audio editing is extracting and analyzing the sound from each clip. I have to go segment by segment to ensure we have clean and crisp-sounding audio. As previously mentioned, we had terrible luck with audio during filming.  This was very difficult for me, but I succeeded to the best of my abilities.   So, when you extract the audio, you can slice the clips to remove pieces that won't work for you. It was a tedious process that took me at least 8 hours. I have to listen with both headphones in so I can pick up the background noises if there are any. Once I’ve cleaned them up to the best of my ability, I have to make sure the audio matches what’s on the screen. This is very difficult with dialect. You can only tweak it so much before the words are out of sync with the mouth movements. Once that tedious process is done, I must layer in soun

   Now that we’ve finished filming, it’s time to head to our tried-and-true editing app, CapCut. We’ve used this for every project, and I’d like to think we were successful. The first step is adding the clips into the software in order. Despite how simple this may seem, searching through all the videos is difficult. We have to make sure it’s the right clip and place it in the right spot regarding the order. Then it’s time to eliminate time. That’s the most heartbreaking part. You spend hours acting, getting lines, and making sure your costume is correct. Only to have to cut scenes because they take us over time.   When we put the original clips together, we had 7 minutes and 42 seconds. A lot of time is extra. We start filming slightly before and slightly after to make we catch everything. So that cuts down a good chunk of time. Then we must speed up certain clips for the movie, which eliminates a lot more time. Then, we start to determine which scenes are unnecessary after the movie

   We had the most difficult time with this location and shots. It started on day 1 of filming when we couldn’t film in the elevator. We were struggling to come up with a solution where we could film the shots. I slightly argued with our group member over her solution. She wanted to film in a mall that would have been just as busy. I had thought getting permission to film in a school elevator would be a good idea, and she strongly disagreed. So, I took it upon myself to ask special permission, and our teachers gave us permission. I thought that would change her mind, but it did not initially. She eventually caved and agreed to give it a try.   So, we took the opportunity and tried it. We used the cafeteria elevator. It was after lunch, quiet, clean, and free of school logos. We asked permission from the cafeteria personnel before we started to avoid getting in their way. They were completely okay with that, so we went to work. We would hold the elevator to get some shots and stay in

     Our second to last filming day happened. It was the shots that involved the water taxi and bridge. This is a spot I frequently am at, so I was very familiar with the area and what the area looks like. There’s a very nice restaurant in the area where I often eat, and the smell of the food was torturous while filming. The restaurant in fact, is the name of the water taxi station that we used for the ticket.    This time we also had to deal with the issue of re-printing the ticket. Luckily, my mom works nearby, so she was able to print it at her work. I had to remove the background completely, so it would be blank. I then added 3 onto one document so they would print the right size. And in order to get the yellow color we were going for, we had her print it on yellow paper. These worked out great, and we cut them on the way to the location. We had to deal with the same issues of going straight after school.  So, we had to change in our car…again.  It’s a very uncomfortable experien

  Today we had to film after school. Our schedules are so conflicting this was the only time we had. Siena had a conflict, so she had to leave early, and we had to make sure we got the shots in a timely manner. We left right after school, so we had to change into our costumes in the car after school. That was an adventure; there wasn't much room, and it was awkward. Let's say that the horn got honked a couple times adjusting.    After we changed, getting all our shots in was a race before she had to leave. These are the scenes I'm most concerned about with the audio and lighting. We were heavily fighting the wind in every shot. We attempted to film in between the wind and the gust, but it was difficult. So, we would practice running our lines in the wind. We tried speaking over the wind at one point, which was worse. On top of that, the sun was so bright, so there was some glare on a few of our takes. Britanique had to change many of the angles she had planned for.    The w

  Our second filming location was on Las Olas Blvd. This proved to be tricky with parking. I drove Britanique there, and the clue came true it was hectic and full of traffic. We were going there with the intent of filming the last location of the treasure hunt.   We ended up getting all the scenes we needed to get. It did turn out to be very awkward to get the shots, though. We started by us walking up to the chair, which wasn’t bad. The only struggle was getting the right angle. An older man was sitting on the curb and was very intrigued by our filming. He sat up in one scene and completely ruined the shot. But he was nice and encouraged us at the end.     We then filmed the scene where we found the treasure box. This required some pretty funny takes. Me and Siena messed up our lines a lot because we kept looking up at Britanique. She was completely hunched over the chair and was in a twisted angle. It was very hard to take her seriously.   The most awkward of the shots was walk

  Today was the first day of filming our short film. We started on the garages scenes since they were the opening and closing scenes. I drove Britanique there, and the drive was so long. The draw bridge got stuck open, and a 10-minute drive turned into 45. When we finally arrived, the parking was crazy, but we got super lucky. Siena struggled with parking and arrived almost an hour late, but she finally got there.   Britanique spent time scouting the exact location and angles we wanted in our film. At the same time, Siena and I ran lines for scenes. The shots were very difficult to get because of the location. The cars in the garage kept honking at each other because of the traffic. One shot we got was perfect until an ambulance came by and ruined the audio, then people walked in front of the camera in another. On top of the challenges of filming in a public place, this was the first film Siena had ever acted in, so giving her stage directions was a challenge, and she messed up her lin

  Our process to start filming had a rocky start. After we had finished the posters, problems just came about left and right. The biggest problem arose shortly after we had finished the poster. We had been going through problems contacting Sienna's friend. Her schedule was extremely full, and her responses were slow. A few days before our first planned filming day, she canceled. She backed out on her commitment and left us scrambling. At the last minute, we had decided that would replace her in the filming as the second actor. This was decided very last minute, so it became a scramble to figure out what I my closet would work that would fit into the character's 'look.' So the outfit struggle began. I tore into my closet and picked out the outfit that I would wear for the entire film. I had my outfit, but that was not the only outfit struggle.    The next struggle was to find the desired treasure hunt box. We found brown ones or red boxes but nothing that looked quite ri

   I use Poster My Wall in frequently in SGA to make flyers, banners, awards, etc. For me, it was the obvious choice to design the treasure hunt flyer and fake tickets because I would not need to learn a new system.     I started by looking up templates for treasure hunts or adventures. I used templates to get the look I was going for in my head and turned them into my own. This is much easier than starting from scratch which can often be difficult to find the right background or the right layout. Once I found a template, I deleted the generic pictures. I toned the color and added in the text. Including finding space for the long clue but still making it a flyer. I had to mess around with the font to make it look more adventurous and add back in the pictures. Once I resized the flyer it was downloaded as an image.     The process started over by looking for templates for some tickets for a water taxi. This was a difficult task because there was nothing to base it off. In reality,