AICE Media Studies

      This has truly been an amazing journey that has made grow as a film-maker and as a person. It has taught me so many valuable skills such as researching and combining conventions and creativity. This final movie was definitely my favorite as it pushed me as a film-maker. My favorite part of the process was brainstorming ideas for the movie though I enjoyed everything else as well. Still, I could improve my editing skills but this class did set me with a great foundation! 

Finally, all of our hard work has created this project that both Sara and I are incredibly proud of today! I had an amazing time doing this project and grew so many useful skills developed in earlier projects. I am very proud of the final project. Thank you for coming with me on this journey and I hope you enjoy it! 

   Welcome back!          Yesterday, Sara re-edited the scene from before and we just reviewed it! The thing I was most uncertain about was removing the curtain scene, as Sara's father suggested.  In editing, she removed the scene and played it back to me, and honestly, it looked a lot better aesthetically! Including the curtain, the scene caused a bit of confusion and removed some of the apprehension built up in the opening. Eventually, we determined extracting it would be best.     Next, Sara wanted to change the transitions between each clip. Although this was not discussed or suggested prior, it was something we agreed could be improved when scrutinizing the videos repeatedly. As she explained, it would take a good few seconds to pull out the ingredients for the next step. So, although she didn't move anything in the frame, the reflection would change on the glass bowls. This did not bother me personally, and if I had been in charge ...

 Hello again!      Today, I asked my friends and family to review the rough draft of our project! They all had helpful edits on what should and should not be changed, including my parents (who watched together), my brother, and my friend Christina! I picked these people for very specific reasons. Firstly, they offer a wide range of perspectives from age groups to interests!        My parents introduced a slightly older audience which I thought would be radically different than the advice of my own age group, as presented below, but was surprisingly not. My mom's advice was more technical, believing that the areas for most improvement were the lighting changes and music which was definitely helpful! My dad had similar ideas but elaborated that some of the scenes were mismatched which created an odd combination. Both agreed that it had a good concept, but felt the film itself could be improved. Afterward, they were appreciative that Sara's pare...

Hello there again! Sara started the actual editing of the introduction today. She was able to finish connecting all the sequences today. However, regrettably, we didn't look for the music because she ran out of time.  First, we had to decide which elements from the cupcake scene to use. Sara had to choose which scenes she thought would work best because we didn't highlight in the storyboard which particular stages in the process she would use. In an effort to have choices when editing, she recorded each step of making cupcakes which was a smart decision. Although it took some time to choose which takes would be most effective, Sara is confident that she found the best ones.  Every shot was crooked, which was another significant problem encountered. Sara had to start from scratch because she didn't notice this until after importing all the clips into the editing program she was using, iMovie. Sara believes that her tripod became misaligned, and because she didn't check e...

 Hello there!    Today, Sara began editing. From the get-go, we had both agreed that she would be on the one edit due to her greater experience and more interest. Additionally, this would balance out more work that I took on in the planning stage! While I can edit, I edited my last project, I lack the finer skills that are essential in an undertaking such as this. Also, the filming was on Sara's phone which automatically syncs to her computer due to Apple's device sharing. Thus, it is more convenient to do it on her laptop, and further, for her to do it!      While I did not personally edit, we still discussed many of the choices that go into it, and Sara made sure we made each decision together! The first task was to manipulate the lighting, but other lighting had been minimal due to budget constraints. Tools such as lightboxes are fairly expensive and not an expense we were willing to make for their limited use, so instead, we planned for Sara to edit it ...

  Hey, welcome back!      We shot the last few sequences we needed yesterday! The main filming is finished, however, we might go back once others have looked over our work to see what extra we need for a good title sequence.      As we would be employing Sara's parents, performing any scenes with more graphic violence would be uncomfortable, so we sought to keep the scenes as straightforward as possible during the preparation stage. Furthermore, if we asked them to act out serious events, the acts could come out as forced and unrealistic because they are not professional actors. We had a lot better time filming, though, because we toned down everything.      We started with the conflict between the couple because it seemed to be the most straightforward. While we tried to film this, we ran into a few problems. Finding a way to make the voices through the microphone sound less clear and less like the performers were speaking to the microp...

  Hello again!       We shot the scenes at the table today. They comprise the singing, the movie title scene, the singing scenes, and the scenes where the husband is waiting at the table.  When we were setting up for the scene, we noticed we were out of candles. To fix that, Sara and her mother had to go shopping to purchase the candles for the cupcake and the icing.   Nonetheless, everything worked out nicely since we discovered these candles, which would look fantastic on video. Since we already had all the cupcakes created, filming the cupcake icing was the first thing we did. This was a quick and easy process.         We started recording Sara's father, our actor for our husband, as he approached the table and sat down. We opted to film this even though we hadn't talked about it during the planning process in case we needed a better segway from the other sequences. We wanted to sing "happy birthday"...

  Hello again! Today was the first day of filming! We had made the decision to focus on the cupcake-baking sequence while postponing the icing. There were many reasons we opted not to film the icing sequence, but the main ones were that we needed more time and resources to do it. We were aware that baking the cupcakes from scratch might take some time. We had to make sure we worked in smaller sections so we wouldn't become bored or fatigued in order to make this experience more enjoyable for us. We simply couldn't because of our schedule constraints. Sara had to go back the next day since there was no frosting left when she went to Publix to pick it up.     Today we filmed the scenes of both making the batter and baking it. We still hadn't decided how we would show the progression of time while the cupcakes are baking. We have a few ideas which had left undecided. The first idea is to show a time quickly moving, when it goes off we show the wife pulling out the ...

  Welcome back!          For our movie, we have to make cupcakes. This opened a series of choices. Firstly, using pre-purchased cupcakes would be the simplest,  but the issue of filming the cupcake-making process arose. If we were to utilize pre-made cupcakes, how were we supposed to film the process? Therefore, we determined it was best to make the cupcakes ourselves.         However,  that still left us with two options, box mix or from scratch. We both agreed that a Box mix would be both simpler and most likely more frugal, but it would be difficult to show the process with the limited amount of steps the box mix has. Making the cupcakes would be both time-consuming and cost more, however, both Sara and I have many of the ingredients required in cupcakes so it would not be entirely burdensome. Overall, we decided to make the cupcakes from scratch as we would have more content to use during the editing process and gives ...

  Welcome Back!  Today, we discussed our music choices for the film! We had a couple of different ideas but were restricted by both time and permitting. Deciding to research on our own, we agreed we would discuss our music choices afterward, sharing our opinions. With this, I wanted to share the research process with you! Sticking with the genre of the film, I wanted to do a murder ballad to introduce more suspense into the scene and present the theme of murder, composing a Hunger Games-esque apprehension. For this, I looked into Appalachian murder ballads and found a few options such as Down in the Willow Garden. However, Down in the Willow Garden specifically did not have readily available royalty-free music, but was old enough that I could not find a musician to reach out to ask about using the music. This eliminated that option.  The next one I looked into was the popular song, Goodbye Earl by the Dixie Chicks as it had a similar idea to our film. In the song, a...