Gadgets and more 🎬

 Welcome back once more!

Today I'm going to show you guys some of the things we used to film some scenes! most of them were rocks or surfaces I could rely on so the camera movements weren't that shakey. I did not want to use a tripod because I kind of liked that organic vibe the hand held shots give to the opening, it integrates you a bit more in the story. However, I have the worst pulse you will ever see, so I did make use of the environment and some gadgets.

For starters, for one of the first shots where the camera slowly follow's Ash's feet, we used a scooter and a shoe. We did kind of improvise with what we had around in our garage.

For the high angle shot in the bathroom I used the celling fan as support.

And for the mirror scenes in the film I had to sin in the bathtub only holding the phone so my reflection wouldn't be in the mirror.

Here are some pics of where I was sitting and how the position of the mirrors made it very tricky to try and not be in the scenes where the mirror opens and closes.

So, this was a bit of the behind the scenes and how we did to film in a non-professional way. I hope you'd find it interesting!

We are almost done! 🎬

 Hello, hellooo!!

Today I had enough time to film my scenes!! I actually had a lot of fun with my brother filming this. 

We spent hours playing around in our neighborhood, and inventing gadgets to hold the phone in order to film. For example, we shot a scene where the camera follows my brother’s feet while walking. What we did is that we used a skateboard and a shoe to hold the phone while moving it at the same time as my brother walked. It was pretty useful and it worked out extremely well! 

I also used several focus pulls throughout the scenes, which helped in focusing the attention on several objects, or my brother. It was a great technique!

I wanted to insert some of the videos I filmed, but unfortunately I’m not home and the videos do not load from my phone. I promise that when I get home I will post another post with the behind the scenes!

Back at home! 🎬

 Heeeeeey, so I'm back at home!

 Luckily I had enough time to shoot some scenes, but the sun came down pretty fast and that limited my time. 

I have been trying several ways to insert the videos in here. but they are not loading correctly. So I created a folder in my one-drive with them. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jpU6FDt_tZCBCfX1HF0F1t_c_G70w1fa?usp=sharing 

These videos are the setting scene ones, during the time these are on screen the names of the crew that worked on this project would be showing on screen.

I do not have much to say today, but I did find out that we don't have school on Monday, so I will have an extra day to organize, phew!

Some unfortunate events... 🎬

 Sooo, as I was hoping not to happen... My mom decided, last minute on Monday, that we should all go on a road trip. So my shooting schedule was... let's say... ruined.

So as I'm writing from the backseat of our car, with two suitcases, four bags, my brother, and my dog panting on my ear, after an exhaustive day, I remembered about you guys, I had to give you guys some kind of update. 

After all these days, going from here to there, sleeping in random hotels... I've come to the conclusion that some of them have really bad lighting. In the short amount of free time my brother and I had in them I tried to spend it recreating some of the scenes for my film opening, of coarse, these were like the "planing scenes," not the real ones.

And the lightning would change from cool to warm, from dark to god-like bright... and stuff like that. So in a moment of curiosity, I searched for a lightning tips video on youtube. I found this one, which I can say I actually found really useful and interesting to learn from. 

The guy in the video really shows how to cover some lightning problems in an easy efficient way, or even how to just hide some less important details that can actually show a more professional look. For example, the tape on the kitchen light that is reflecting on the tiles. Not the most important detail probably, but it does make the piece a bit more professional-like.

That's all the update for now... What I had to film and edit within a week, I will have to do it now within two days... So excited... yay....😮‍💨

openings I took as example 🎬

 Hey, hey, heyyy!

Since I'm starting to film tomorrow, today I decided to do some more research and documentation on film openings. Let's say... I spent the day looking at credits, titles and opening scenes 😅

So here are some of the openings I liked the most

Borgman Opening Scene (2014) - Surreal Thriller HD

What I like about this opening is how it has several close ups of the main subject doing their daily routine. This is something i wanted to incorporate in my film opening too.

INTRUDERS Opening Title Sequence - New Paranormal Thriller Premieres SAT AUG 23 on BBC AMERICA

What I like about this other opening is the editing technique, the color filter and how the credits appear and disappear throughout the scenes.

This two openings pretty much involve all of the techniques I'm looking to have in mine. I hope this helps clear a bit more what I picture in my mind. 

Shooting schedule 🎬

Sooo, since we have all of spring break free, and I cross my fingers so my mom doesn't decide to do last minute plans... I've made a shooting schedule, as the one we saw in class when the guest speaker showed us.

The days I plan on shooting on, are from the 21st to the 23rd. The 24th and 25th will be used for editing and re taking any scenes that did not turn out well.

Im exited to see how my work turns out and to show my friends too, they seem really invested in my story apparently! 😊

First group meeting! 🎬

 Welcome back, today is the first day of spring break! So I will make sure to film and edit the rest of my film during it. 

But today I’m here to talk about the group meeting we had yesterday. This is when we all come in small groups of 4-5 people to talk about our blogs and film openings to get feedback. It was really cool and actually helped a lot!

Even though I’m really shy and don’t like to talk in front of people since my first language is not English, I think that the group really liked my film idea and their comments were really sweet and supportive, so this gave me the confidence I needed to explain even better what I wanted to do. 

I also explained how I was in need of a song, because I know what I kind of want right now, however, I haven’t found it yet. My main idea is to find music like the “Coraline” movie intro. But I still haven’t found something I can use 🙁 

Here is an example of the type of music. 

Is the type that is not creepy but it does not sit right with the audience when watching it.

Going back to the topic, my group had a bunch of great stories and their blogs looked really cool and great too! You could really see how invested we all were in the blog and film opening. Overall, the experience was great and comforting, I loved it. Thanks Ms. Stoklosa! 😊

The real backstory 🎬

Hey, hey, heyyy! Today we got to shoot the scenes from yesterday that we weren't able to shoot due to the bad weather. However, what is promised is debt, so in this post I will be adding some backstory to Ash's life about his parents.

I know you may think that adding more to the story at this point its not important, but it is! Doing this helps me to develop the opening. I can hint with details events that represent the story or symbolize certain moments.

Ok, so the parents relationship goes like this... Usually the neighbors heard quarrels between both of Ash's parents, Alice and Greggory, mostly about money issues, or problems with Ash, at least that is what the neighbors heard most of the time. The eves-droppers also recall that, almost all of their fights, were always the same. They heard Alice scream, then the breaking sound of something. Inferring that Greggory was abusive with Alice. What they didn't know is that Greggory was the abused one. 

Alice would often rage and scream then throw things at Greggory, sometimes injuring him, sometimes injuring herself. And their one-sided fights would actually be about how Alice reproached Greggory of how he had such a low paying job, how he was not worthy of anything good that happened to him, how he couldn't go out with his friends because she was going out with hers and someone needed to stay with Ash... And the list goes on. The few times Greggory decided to stand for himself, Alice would threaten to commit suicide. 

Aside from this toxic relationship and the some economic problems their family had, when they were in public or in front of Ash, they were the perfect American marriage. 

As for the shadows Ash sees, he doesn't know this yet, but they represent the traumas the people around him has. When Ash finds out that the shadows, not only hunting him, but his aunt too, can give him the  answers to what happened to his parents by listening to their whispers, he decides to go back to his first house. Where it all happened. Once Ash starts to explore the house after so many years, he discovers the whole truth, the whole story. Of course, he is only able to do this by talking to the phantoms in each room of the house, who help him recreate some of the scenes that he never got to see. Ash discovers secret rooms, traumas, and the real truth about his family. 

But when he gets to the last room of the house, where it all happened. Where his parents were brutally murdered. His brain can't take no more, he has seen all the damage, all the truth, does he really want to know why or how his parents were dismembered that night? Yes. 

Unfortunately, Ash never came back to his Aunt's house that day, and she didn't report his absence until several days later, when she noticed. Ash went missing for 4 years, and he was finally found when a new married couple went to see the house to buy it. The woman was pregnant, and she was young and pretty, around her 30's. The man was tall and not very strong, a bit bald on the top of the head too. Was it a coincidence that that married couple looked exactly like Ash's parents...? Would the story be repeated...? 

However, Ash was found dead on the floor of his parents bedroom. Dead due to an overdose of the pills he was taking. After the body was transferred to the morgue, and the finger prints were processed to know who the corpse belonged to, they matched. They had matched with a partial finger print found on the body of a married couple that was dismembered on their sleep. An unsolved case form 9 years ago...

I would like to leave the ending kind of open, but what the audience is supposed to wonder after this plot twist, is if Ash had something to do with his parents death. To clear things up a bit, Ash had a personality disorder, therefore all the shadows he sees are his other personality telling him the story of the problems his parents had, but one side of him didn't seem to see nor notice, meanwhile the other side was on "sleep mode" but it temporally awakens with the pills. 

What really happened is that this side existed within Ash since the start, it awakened when Ash heard or saw his parents fighting, therefore Ash had no memories of the unhappy family they actually were. And one night, after he was sent to bed without dinner. He tried to reach the fish food on a high shelve of his room, slipped and fell, causing his other personality to take full control this time. Ash was the actual murder of his parents, or at least, the other Ash was. 

The personality of Ash that was most of the time in control was quiet, nice, and obedient. But the other was aggressive, impulsive, and had the mind of a sociopath. What the pills actually did is that it merged both personalities together, making that Ash could still be the quiet, nice, obedient boy, but still see those memories that were locked away by the other personality.

Weather complications 🎬

 Unfortunately today's forecast said it was gonna rain, and it did.

This messed up a bit our shooting schedule since there were also really strong winds. That kind of ruined the more chill vibe the neighborhood should have since leaves were flying everywhere, trees that wouldn't stop moving, my neighbor's chihuahua flying around... Plus, the actor's hair has all pushed back due to the wind. It almost kind of looked like the movie was about a paranoid kid in a hurricane.

But, all this made me think about the credits again, (don't ask me why, it just did) how about that when the credits come up on screen the names are in black, however some letters would be in red, what this would do is that once you take all those red letters it would mean something; a word, a phrase... 

This is something like in the show "Gravity Falls." At the end of every intro, Alex, the creator of the show would introduce this secret messages that would make the audience get more intrigued and try to decode them to see what they meant. 

Obviously in my credits it wouldn't be as hard to decode since there is only letters, but the audience should be perceptive enough to acknowledge this.

I imagine the secret message being something like, "why mom" or "why didn't I notice" something that hints that Ash's parents weren't exactly happily married as I sated in the backstory post. Maybe Ash's mom abused his father mentally, and sometimes even physically. I wanted to do this to add some more drama to the story of why Ash's parents were brutally murder, and to remind people that violence doesn't have a gender. Which is a quite important lesson in today's society.

All this just inspired me to write a bit more of Ash' backstory that will add a plot twist to his parents murder, I will explain it all in tomorrow's post, so stay tuned! 

 

The title and credits 🎬

 Heyyyy! It's been a while, and today I come with my new updates. 

So, as I shot the scenes, and looked back at the story plot, I decided to name the movie with a title that is intriguing. In my opinion the title is just the perfect combination between knowing what you are going to watch, and not knowing what you are about to watch. I know it sounds controversial, but believe me, the tittle its just a small peek at the whole story. 

Soooo, without further delay, drum role please...🥁🥁🥁... I present to you, "Fears of a Kid." And I guarantee you that with the correct font and color, the title would create a big impact on the audience! 

here is an example of the font I want to use ---> 

Think Nothing, by Jonathan S. Harris on 

https://www.urbanfonts.com/fonts/scary-fonts.htm 

I would also include a phantom figure somewhere on the tex, probably on the "i" in kid. The use of this phantom/shadow would create a more iconic and more attention grabbing title that is easier to remember. I also really liked this font because it looks like its drawn by a kid, which gives it personality. Lastly, I would like to try and make the title's opacity lighter so it simulates the shadows/phantoms the main character sees.

I recreated with Photoshop how it would end up looking, and this is how it turned out. Pretty cool if you ask me, I can definitely see the essence of the movie in that title.

The point of the title looking lighter here is to show how it would be see-through, therefore not only simulating these things Ash sees, but it also allows to keep watching the scene happening behind the title. 

As for the credits, I would like to type them in the same font; however, i'm still debating the color, I was mainly thinking of red or black.

Convey through music 🎬

We all know dialogue can develop a scene, but how about music? Can music develop a scene?

Well, we are about to find out, because my film opening is mute, there is no dialogue. So choosing the music to carry a 2 min opening all by itself, it's no easy task.

I listened to a lot of not copy righted horror music today, and I think i might start hearing it in my nightmares.

This three are my top for now, however, I feel like this last one does fit quite well to set the mood I'm going for. The song is more of a mysterious vibe, more than a scary one, and thats exactly what I want the audience to feel, curiosity, suspicion, thrill... Not fear... at least for now... 😈

I was also planning on adding the music after the setting scenes, what I would do on this ones is to play the actual sound, the swing swinging, the car's wind sound when it passes near the camera lifting the leaves on the street, the sound of plants crashing with each other due to the wind... Then, when Ash is introduced, the music would start playing.

I think doing that would not only break the monotony of sound in the opening, but it will also set the audience more inside the movie. Making them connect with the main character a bit more, and to set the mood so the audience feels Ash's world.

Shooting the key scene 🎬

 Today we did the first shooting of the key scene. But it was more of a testing shooting, to plan the angles, shots and props we need to use for the real one. 

Here is a link to the google drive folder with the videos. There is three of them.  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EQXCkjC3SzWEQT-n17ehfSenXMWF7yJj/view?usp=sharing

Not going to lie, we had to re-shoot them several times because the actor didn't quite understand the director directions. But I think they turned out pretty well. 

I know this blog is kind of short, but we did have a pretty busy day today at set. The only thing I need to figure out at the moment is how to edit a shadow behind my brother's reflection in the mirror. But overall, the rest of the production is going smooth and easy 😄

Wardrobe choice 🎬

 Today I'm back with a new update... Yes sir, as you guys read on the tittle, Its about the wardrobe choice!

So I decided to have a fun little trip to Sawgrass with my brother, or as I like to call it, "Come with me to the mall because I say so 🥰 " 

Unfortunately, the lead actor didn't really like the idea, even though I BEGGED and even told him I would let him buy some other clothes that weren't for the production,

 he said... AND I QUOTE "Go talk to my manager" I'm sorry, what-? 😀 

So that's exactly what I did, I went to talk to our mom- I mean manager... And she was totally on MY side, she completely understood how lead actors can be stubborn as a child. Therefore, she decided to take immediate action. So guess who had to leave the house because he got scolded like a child... YES. my brother. 

We ended up spending the rest of the day hopping from store to store. Thrifting, looking, planing if it would actually look good, if it matched the vibe… etc. 

Not going to lie, I had a lot of fun with Mauro that day… And we were able to find some super cool clothes not only for the production but for my lead actor career to skyrocket due to his awesome style. 

For now, the film only has one wardrobe change and it’s from pj’s to what seems a school uniform. Here are some pics of how the uniform had to be in order to fit the monochromatic vibe I decided to go for.