AICE Media Studies

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...

 Happy Thanksgiving! This past week, November 23-27, we have had no school due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Half of my film group went away and celebrated Thanksgiving with their families somewhere else. We did all stay in contact, however, through our texting group chat. We spoke quite often about the social media, blogging, filming ideas, details, and any other concerns we may have had. In our chat we made the decision, as previously discussed in my last blog, to only include copyright-free music in our film in order to avoid having to ask an artist for permission which could be time consuming and could alter our filming schedule. We also talked about our individual blogs and decided what information we wanted to include within them so that we could all be on the same page. I did meet with one group member, Chloe Stein, over the break since we were both in the same place. Chloe and I met (and social distanced!) to discuss our personal ideas for filming and also to do some researc...

 Music is without a doubt one of the most important aspects a film can have. The audio has the ability to drastically change the mood of a scene, the reaction of a character, the time period in which the movie is set, and so much more. The intensity or emotions of a moment can be altered to an extent that doesn't even seem possible due to music choice alone. In cinematography, we have even seen certain music become iconic and immediately associated with a movie or event. This could be the daunting and terrifying music playing in the horror/thriller Psycho (1960) as Marion is attacked in the shower, or the emotional, heartfelt delivery of "My Heart Will Go On" sung by Celine Dion in the movie Titanic (1997). As a group, we have been discussing the music that we want included in our film. We are breaking things down scene by scene, and sometimes line by line in order to create the best movie we can. All of us understand the incredible effect that music can have when used co...