AICE Media Studies

 Hello one more time for 2020!! It's New Years Eve today! 2021 will hopefully be a better year than 2020 was for most people. In this first semester of A-Level Media Studies I have reflected on what I learned in AS-Level and learned many new things as well. I'm really excited for every aspect of this project. From the social media, to the postcard, to the blogs, and of course the final film; I think everything is going to come together really nicely. So far we have filmed a majority of our movie. Every scene at the vacation home is done and the ones of the news reporter have also been recorded. We only have three more sites we need to film at in order to wrap everything up. There is the testing site, the grocery store, and the guard house. Everyone has been super flexible and cooperative as well as collaborative throughout this whole process. We have a few obstacles that we face as a group when it comes to scheduling and such, but so far we have overcome every single one. My pr...

Yesterday was our second day of filming. We all met up at Hillery's house from 2-4 PM and wrapped up the scenes that needed to be shot there. We had a lot of fun together and got a lot more done than we even expected to. Every scene that takes place in the vacation home is done, so now we just have to film at the grocery store, guard house, and testing site. We used iPhones to film everything last time and we will most likely use them to wrap the rest of our filming. It's only a day later and we are already talking in our group chat about when we will be available next to film. School starts again for us on Monday, January 4, 2021. Once school is back in the mix scheduling will become even harder than it has been during the break unfortunately. I have hope however, that we will conclude all of our filming within the next two weeks or so. For the grocery store scene we are thinking of going to a grocery store that isn't normally very crowded as opposed to the more popular on...

Today is Wednesday, December 30! We had our second day of filming today. The scheduling conflicts occurred per usual, so instead of filming on Tuesday, December 29, we filmed today. We set aside two hours today to get some filming done. We planned to meet at Hillery's house from 2-4 PM. Chloe, Blake, and I arrived on time and we began filming right away. We started with the scenes that surround the news segments and we filmed them a few different times from different angles and such so that we have plenty of footage to choose from when editing. I say this all the time, but I really am grateful for the way my group and I get along. We always end up having a lot of fun with each other when we get together so there were a lot of laughs between takes. After we filmed those clips that surround Reporter Phil, we moved on. We then recorded the scene that occurs in the beginning of the movie, right as the friends are arriving to the vacation home. We used Hillery's iPhone 11 to film a ...

Hey everybody! One of the parts of our movie that I am most excited for is when the reporter is breaking the scary news about the virus to a group of friends. He comes back once more later in the movie for a safety announcement regarding a vaccine. This reoccurring character: reporter Phil, becomes symbolic of the media and creates a parallel to the real world. The COVID-19 pandemic has been going on since before any of us knew we were going to get to take this class, so since our movie revolves around a similar theme, we knew what we had to include. The media and news stations have played a huge role in our society during this pandemic so we included reporter Phil in an obvious way that would get that message and that feeling across. Reporter Phil is being portrayed by none other than Philip Stein, Chloe's dad. Mr. Stein is very excited about his part and we are eager to see him perform it. Phil's part is also one of the easiest ones to schedule since we are filming it separat...

It's officially winter break now! The vacation from school relieves a big portion of our stress and leaves less room for scheduling conflicts. However, it has still proven to be pretty difficult to find a time when everyone is free. Blake and I both have a job that we work regularly. Mine usually consists of long shifts Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, while Blake works mostly on the weekends. In addition to that, Hillery, Chloe, and I also babysit fairly often. Babysitting occurring most often on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Hillery and Chloe also have sports that they practice during the week, Hillery's being with a team. Furthermore, transportation is also sometimes an issue as Blake and I don't always have a car available for us to drive. So, because of all this, it is hard to find blocks of time to film that are long enough to be efficient, but not so long that they run into anyones additional obligations. By now we have established that we probably need at leas...

 Hi everybody! My last blog took you through the beginning of our filming process. We filmed for the first time on Friday, December 18, 2020. We utilized the drone technology that Blake provided for us and got some great footage of Hillery's car. We also were able to film the opening part of the movie, which takes place in the car, and features all four of us. I think we have some great establishing shots and that our story opens up nice and smooth. It is important that the opening of the movie sets a foundation for the rest of the film and storyline, so I'm happy to say that I think ours has a fluid and easily understandable delivery. Individually, all four of us have been watching footage through and picking out our favorite clips and such. Everyone seems to be really happy with the results thus far. We have been planning he way we film around the scrip more so than the storyboard. I think the storyboard definitely helped us to imagine and envision the type of things we want ...

Yesterday we began the filming for our movie! All four of us were so excited to finally begin the process. We prepared for weeks beforehand. Up until the night before we were organizing our costumes, equipment, plans, script, and all the little details. We arrived at Hillery’s house at 8 AM on Friday, and Chloe and I completely forgot to sign into the class for the day because we were so focused on getting started. Once we got there, Blake immediately began setting up his drone equipment. We all learned how the drone worked and decided to film the aerial shots first and just to gather all of the footage we need. We all piled into Hillery’s red keep and she drove us to a neighborhood that we could film in without bothering anyone. We also had to make sure that we weren’t too close to the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport because we were going to be flying something. We found a good spot though, and filmed all of our things there. Since the camera was too far away to see th...

I feel like my group and I have been working hard leading up to the filming of our movie. Starting production will be a huge step towards the completion of the final product. We are planning to have our first filming day on Friday, December 18, since we are all available to. Blake is going to bring his drone and all of the equipment he needs in order to get some of the aerial shots we envisioned. Hillery is getting her house ready since it is the most convenient location to film at and we all live close by. Chloe is readjusting our storyboard with any alterations we talked about needing to make as a group regarding camera angles and sequence. I am rereading the script and planning out which scenes we will be able to shoot on Friday. I have come up with a few different things we will need and have to have ready by then so that we can be as efficient as possible. We are going to be filming the opening shot of the car driving down a street and a shot of our characters talking in the car a...