CCR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWs6PDraHTM

    Hi my name is Lily Rosenblum, and I am the director of the suspense and horror film Run. Throughout our film, our group used plenty of small elements that are common to horror films as a means of establishing the genre. For example, we used suspense music that slowly built up in loudness. Such suspenseful, building up music creates a sense of anxiety in viewers that is common to a horror movie. You can see an example of such suspenseful music in the next clip. Moreover, our team added blue tones to the film to create a sense of darkness that naturally creates a sense of fear in viewers. Our team also used costume by giving the predator dark clothes, leaving viewers with a sense of confusion as to who the villain is and why they had no defining attributes that could help anyone identify them. Moreover, our team also used a baseball bat as a prop due to the affiliation with damage and danger. Our team’s video did, however, challenge typical conventions by making the villain a female. Typically, in horror films men are made the villain due to their stereotype as “stronger”, thus our film counters typical conventions.


    Our team’s video ultimately represents the social issue of race that is so prevalent in our society. The man being chased in the film is African American which indirectly represents the struggle of African Americans being oppressed in our society.


    Our team’s video engages with the audience due to the cliffhanger style of our video and the questions left unanswered. Viewers do not know who the man being chased is, who the predator is, or why the man is being chased by the predator. While viewers see the chase and the moment before the climax of the man being hit, viewers technically do not know what will come next. Does the man get hit? Will he escape? Will viewers get any further background information? Suspense movies tend to leave questions unanswered and slowly build up to showing viewers the deeper meaning of the movie, thus our film opening engages audiences by leaving them to question what direction the movie will be going in.


    Given that the characters we chose to use in the film are young, our target audience is younger people who also care about the underlying social issue of racism in the world. Thus, I would like to advertise this movie on various forms of social media such as Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat as younger individuals tend to use those applications. Moreover, on the basis of convenience, younger people tend to use streaming applications such as Netflix and Hulu, thus I would put the movie on those applications.


    In terms of filming itself, I also learned the importance and difficulty of steadying the shot through balancing the camera on objects and keeping a steady hand. Also, I learned the importance of maintaining a steady speed in a tracking shot. Both of these issues were present in the shot shown here, as when we trailed alongside the running actor in the car, we struggled to avoid showing the bumpiness of the ride or moving too fast or slow for the actor. Moreover, I became stronger in my ability to lead a group and tell the actors where to go and what to do in order to best convey the meaning and direction of this film.


    Throughout the process of making this film, I grew exponentially in my ability to use software such as “Premier Pro” to edit the film. Prior to the film, I had no idea how to use Premier Pro, but by the end I became aware of how to color correct, fit shots to frame, upload videos in order, and add music and transitions. I also became far more familiar in the process of uploading videos to YouTube as well as using a blog to upload videos/pictures as well as to document my journey.

Final Film Link

https://youtu.be/-Mj4gxLmMAE

Ultimately, our group decided not to change our film due to the nature of the comments that we received on our film. For example, one comment suggested to "stabilize some of the scenes" to remove shakiness. However, as part of the creative vision for this film, my group intentionally allowed the shakiness to make the film seem frantic, as that is how the main character was meant to feel. Another comment requested that we shorten the first scene of the film, however again, as a team we decided that the length of the "man running" scene was important to establish the setting and dark mood of the film. The only other confusion was over context, however our team wanted to leave the beginning of the film with less context to encourage viewers to "continue" watching to find out exactly why the boy was being targeted.

Film Link

https://youtu.be/-Mj4gxLmMAE

Editing Week 2

In this image, our team is selecting a font to begin putting title words on our film. There was a long list of fonts, but we ultimately ended up choosing  the font "arial" due to its simplicity and easiness to see. We want the intention of our film to be clear, as well as the credits to be clear, thus this font worked the best to clearly represent our film.

In this film, our team is putting words on the film in a tracking manner. Our film is very dramatic and action oriented, thus our words will be moving across the screen to follow the action of the film. One team member began to write out the words and then paste them onto the screen, allowing the words to move across the screen.

In this image, Maddie and I are working on cutting down the length of some of our shots. In the filming process, we did not realize how monotonous some of our shots would feel, so we had to shorten some of the ongoing shots to maintain viewer interest in the film.

Editing Week One

In this image, I am transferring videos from my phone to the computer to begin editing. I plugged my phone in and created a folder on the computer from my iPhone video files.

In this image, Maddie is "scaling to frame size". Sometimes, in the process of transferring videos from the phone to the computer, the videos scale on a smaller level than they were filmed. Through pressing "scale to frame size" all of the videos turn into a size that is more accessible to work with and shows the entire shot.

In this image, Maddie is color correcting the shots in the film. Maddie added blue tones to the film to further the sad, dreary feeling that we are attempting to encompass in our murder mystery film.

Film Progress Week Two

This shot represents a potential "point of view" shot for our film. Part of our film will encompass the murderers chasing after Josh, the victim, in our film. Thus, thus specific shot can be used to show the chase from the murderers point of view which gives viewers a new perspective in the entire plot line. The only problem with this shot is that you can not film and drive at the same time, so the person filming has to try to position the camera so that it looks like the driver is filming.

This location represents our official establishing shot. I like how the length of the road gives a sense of depth to the film as viewers subconsciously recognize that this film will take them for a long road ahead. There are no real issues in this scene except for ensuring that, for the first few seconds of the film, there will be stillness on the road with no other movement so that viewers can fully engulf themselves into the setting.

This picture represents the car chasing shot in our film where the mysterious driver is following/chasing the main character as he runs. The only trouble we may run into with this shot is making sure that the camera is steady enough to clearly capture the shot which can simply be fixed with a camera stabilizer or tripod. 

Filming Week One

This image represents our establishing shot for our short film that falls under the first scene drawn into our storyboard. Ultimately, our main character will be running down a road before he begins to get chased down, thus this initial establishing shot will set the dark, mysterious scene. Ultimately, we realized that this shot would certainly be implemented into our film, however we need to re-film this scene on a more mysterious dark path at night. This film will not be too difficult to create as we merely need to introduce the setting through a brief panning shot.

This image represents one of the multiple scenes of our main character, Josh, running. The only problem with creating this shot is maintaining a stillness of the camera. In this image we did not have a camera stabilizer, thus the shot appears very blurry as the camera was bouncing. In the future, we will need to re-film this scene with a camera stabilizer to maintain the steadiness and clearness of the shot that will ultimately help portray the concept of the film better.

This image represents the final scene of our short film in which the main character has been hit over the head with a baseball bat. This shot can simply be filmed through standing above the character to show their unconscious state. Moving forward, we can take the image from a higher angle to encompass more of the ground and create a feeling of isolation that the character is going through as he lays on the ground alone.