Late Nights are the Best Nights

Last night, March 27th, my group and I filmed a majority of our film opening. We maybe started filming around 8:30 or 9:00pm and didn't end until close to 3:00 in the morning. It was definitely a long night but we made great progress and I am proud of the shots we captured.

As previously said, this past night was the night that my group and I incorporated the blood component into our film opening. We only wanted to utilize one night for the blood because we knew we would use all of it. Might I remind you that this blood is a good 97% sugar; therefore, making my entire garage smell like candy. It didn't anything close to candy but it definitely smelled like it. We only made one batch of blood and it was surprisingly enough to cover our victim's body, as well as be used on top of the table we had set up in the garage.

We did have a slight issue with our actor not being available that night, BUT luckily we had someone willing to take over. I did feel bad for keeping him out so late but he was truly a life saver (shoutout to Fabrizzio).

We are still missing a few shots from within the garage. These shots would maybe only take a couple hours to get so my group and I plan to capture these shots Monday, April 1 or Tuesday, April 2. Over the weekend I plan to edit the shots we already have so all I would have to do later on is incorporate those shots into the video.

Here's a sneak peek of how our victim's body looked like with some blood poured over her:

Lights, Camera, Action!

WE HAVE A SET! I technically already said that my group and I will be filming in my house, but this time I will be showing some proof and talking about the lighting situation.

For the most part, my group and I will be filming in my garage. When we film we found it better to film at night so not much coverage is needed in the holes of the garage door. The set will mainly be dark with some flashlights and lamps be used for a more mysterious lighting scheme. In the photos below 2 hurricane flashlights are used, one LED and one covered with a red jacket. The LED gave off a slight blue tint which worked to our advantage to have a contrast in colors on set. We set the lights on either side of the garage to allow the lights to fill up more space. We have come to the conclusion that the LED light will be our primary lighting source because with the bright light our subject of the frame will be seen more easily than the other light. Also, the LED light allows for shadows to be sharply seen on the garage door which will help with the scene where the murderer “rips out” the victim’s heart from her chest.

Overall this lighting scheme worked better than we had expected. See below for how our set turned out!

Editing...what?

Hi everyone! I just wanted to take a moment to talk about what program I’ll be using to edit our film opening.

I will be using Adobe Premiere Pro CC to edit. I like using this program because it has a lot to offer. I am able to edit so many things from sound quality to image quality and even adding certain graphics. In the program I am able to see what I have imported, what clip I am currently editing, my timeline, and a preview of my product all on one screen. This makes it easier on me so I don’t have to keep flipping between multiple tabs. My specific laptop, Apple Macbook Pro 2017, isn’t made specifically for editing so working in Premiere Pro is a little slow but not too slow where I’d have too much trouble editing.

Learning how to use Adobe Premiere Pro does take some time but I think it is worth the wait. I had to play around the program to find where everything is but now that I know I find it a lot easier. I would personally recommend using this program to have more access to other resources and have a high quality product.

Don't go breaking my heart!

We have a heart! Granted we all have a heart, BUT for filming purposes we MADE a heart! We followed a recipe we found on youtube posted by Glam&Gore (video below).

The recipe wasn't too hard to follow. Mind you the heart is being made out of gelatin. The recipe said to put the "heart" in the freezer for 45 minutes to allow it to set, but after those 45 minutes in the freezer the heart was not set. I was a little frustrated at the time because my group and I really wanted to use the heart that day. Sadly we couldn't use it.

We kept the heart in the freezer the entire time we were filming so it could harden up. After my group members left my house, around 10:30pm, I went back to check on the heart and it FINALLY SET!!!
I took it out of the plastic wrap we put the gelatin in and it was tedious because I didn't want to rip off to much jello. It turned out definitely better than I had expected! The shape of the gelatin did actually look like a heart. It is very delicate, and cold at the moment, but definitely looking like a heart.

We used strawberry jello to emphasize a red color in the heart. I further did so by adding red food gel around the heart to make it look more bloody.

Overall, I am very satisfied with how the heart came out and I am so excited to start using it in future filming sessions. Up next, making some organs!!

It's about to get bloody!

We have started to film our opening but before we started to film we wanted to make our blood and heart so they'll be ready for use. In today's post I'll be telling you how we made our blood. We made our blood by following this recipe:

1/2 cup of red fruit punch
1 cup of corn syrup
2 tablespoons of red food coloring
1 tablespoon of chocolate syrup
2 tablespoons of corn starch
1 tablespoon of cocoa powder

The recipe called for red fruit punch but my group and I decided that it wasn't necessary and just substituted it with water. Adding the water gave the blood a thinner consistency but not too watery. We combined all of the ingredients in a bowl and mixed continuously until all of the ingredients were well incorporated. The darkness of the blood came out better than we expected. We thought it would need more red food coloring but it was not necessary.

On Tuesday, March 19, we were going to start spreading the blood around the set, but before we could start using the blood we realized that it was already so late and we came to conclusion that once we start using the blood we will need to spend that one day and one day ONLY for the blood. The blood will stain and take a little while to clean up.

I left the blood out on my counter because I was afraid that if I put the blood in the fridge it would either become thicker or possibly freeze. My group and I plan on using the blood this coming Wednesday, March 27th. We will also be filming most scenes on that day as well as Thursday, if necessary.

OH! One more thing...THE BLOOD IS 100% EDIBLE!! I personally wouldn't eat it but if anyone wants a taste let me know. I'll hook you up with the best shot of blood!

Stay tuned for my next post about our HEART

Who's Who?

I thought I'd take a moment and tell you who our production members are! I'll break it down for you and mention who is the director, producer, writer, editor, and actors. Just to let you know, names will be repeated since my group is small and my group and I don't plan on making up names. The names stated will be restricted to the film opening sequence, considering that the film opening is our main focus for the project. So without further ado, here is the team:


Director:  Gabrielle Hidalgo

Executive Producer: Isabella Restrepo

Producer: Thabata Gonzalez

Writer: Isabella Restrepo

Editor: Gabrielle Hidalgo

Lead Actors: Isabella Restrepo and Luis Gonzalez

Director of Photography: Thabata Gonzalez and Gabrielle Hidalgo


I am honored to be working with this team and I am confident that our effort put together will help create an amazing production. I can't wait to see our final product!

We've All Got Issues

As previously said my group, including myself, have other priorities in our life which ultimately interfere with our project progress. All of the group members have different schedules only allowing so much free time. My group planned on filming a small portion of our film opening today but there were previous plans that were made that interfered with our time frame; therefore, we could not film today. As a result of today the only time that my group and I will be completely available to film is a couple days during spring break.

I have taken the responsibility to edit most of the film opening, since I have the most experience in using Adobe Premiere Pro CC, but since we are filming relatively close to when the entire project is due I will be spending the rest of my spring break and most of my free time to edit the film opening and be confident enough that the project is at its best quality.

SECOND GROUP MEETING!!

My class had our second group meeting for our projects. This meeting was just as helpful as the first one. For this meeting each of the groups were in different stages of the project but seemed to have a decent amount of progress done. The feedback the other groups gave me was mainly positive and I'm glad that they approve of the idea my project group has come up with. I received some feedback saying that I should do a little research on vampires, possibly to help create a stronger cannibal character. I will take some time and do a little research on that.

As the group meeting progressed it seemed that all of the groups I met with, including mine had some issues with filming sessions. My group's issues will be addressed in a future blog post. As we discussed our issues, we all seemed to figure out solutions to allow us to create our project at reasonable times without getting too stressed out.

Overall, this group meeting was very successful and I can't wait to see not only my group's final product, but everyone else's.

Let there be light!

The title of this blog is quite deceiving considering that most of my group's film opening will be shot at night, while mainly utilizing garage lights, lamps, and fridge lighting. The last few seconds of the film opening will feature the very beginning of the story, introducing the protagonist.

As my group and I film our night scenes we plan to use my garage. We will arrange the setting to have more open space to allow our "dead body" and table to have enough space where it would not be too cramped, considering that half of my garage is used for storage. In my garage there are LED ceiling lights, but one side of the lights do not work which ultimately works out well because it would create a more creepy setting. We would also use a desk lamp put on top of the table to help bring more focus towards what the antagonist is working on. Finally, the fridge lighting would be used to bring focus toward the heart in the jar being put inside of the fridge while also featuring a glimpse of the antagonist wearing his mask in the background of the frame.

For the last few seconds of the film opening, the scene would be filmed within my house in my kitchen. This scene would be filmed during the day. The scene is a direct continuation from the antagonist placing the heart in the fridge to the protagonist opening her fridge to grab something to eat (2 months before). Here the fridge lighting will also be used to bring focus to the protagonist's face. In the background, natural lighting will be used to set the scene's lighting. My kitchen has 2 sets of windows in a corner that does not have blinds, which ultimately allows natural lighting to come shining through.

Overall my group's goal in lighting is to utilizing garage ceiling lights, lamps, fridges, and natural day lighting to set our scenes.

Filming has BEGUN

Today I utilized my free time to start acquiring some footage. However, I did not start filming the actual scene previously discussed that would be used in the film opening. I started to film the stop motion portion of the film opening.

The process of getting these shots were a little more difficult than I had suspected. I had to go through the complexities of drawing a moon, handwriting every single letter in the production company name, and setting up my camera equipment so that the production company could be clearly seen. As I set up my camera equipment I realized that, not only was the tripod too short for the table top, I was too short for me to have the ability to see through the camera lens and actually take the pictures. So I ended up shortening the tripod and kneeling on top of the table top just so I could get the pictures.

Though this process was a little more difficult than expected, I can say that the final product didn't come out too shabby.

So...what's the story??

After some long thinking and a copious amount of back and forth decisions, we have finally finalized our story and how our film opening is going to play out. To start off, our film title is Blood Date.

Our story will be taking place in present day Fort Lauderdale, or more specifically Weston, Florida. We decided to stay local for a couple reasons: don't have to travel far for film production and our story can happen pretty much anywhere. Our story will feature a female protagonist who is searching to go on a blind date. Our antagonist is going to be male with the same interests, but with a twist. He turns out to be a murderer. Not only is he a murderer but he is also a cannibal. The protagonist does not find out that the antagonist is a murdering cannibal until more than half of the film has already occurred but clues are revealed throughout the film. In the film the protagonist and antagonist meet through a dating website that sets up blind dates. The two hit it off and go on more dates together throughout the film but then the protagonist ends up doing wrong toward the antagonist therefore sparking the murderous cannibal inside of him. In all his rage the antagonist goes after the girl and kills her for what she has done to him. Being overly stressed about this whole situation he eats the girl's corpse but saves her heart creating the symbolism of the protagonist breaking his heart.

The final scene of the film would be the same scene as shown in the film opening but the film opening utilizes numerous close-up shots to create mystery. The final scene would show the literal and figurative big picture.

We have our story but some frames still need to be drawn for our storyboard. Here is a new update:

S.t.o.p. M.o.t.i.o.n. Intro

For our film opening we wanted to incorporate our production company intro, Moonrealm Pictures. In every film there are production companies that are featured in the first few seconds of the film by showing their intros. Take examples such as Lionsgate, Pixar, Dreamworks, Metro Goldwyn Mayer, etc. Though, unlike these major companies, Moonrealm Pictures will be featured as a stop motion intro.

What is stop motion?

Well, stop motion is a 2D or 3D animation technique to make any object appear to move on its own. The object in question, whether a ball or in our intro's case a simple piece of paper, is moved by small increments between individual photographs or frames, providing an illusion of movement when the sequence of photographs or frames are played back. Easier said than done.

For this part of the project I took full responsibility of completely this sequence due to the facts that I have the camera equipment and more experience than the others in my group in stop motion. I was inspired to utilize stop motion for this part because I find that stop motion is underrated and its ability to provide a completely different perspective is not exposed enough to the public. This task will be time consuming but I am determined to put my life into this project and create the best product.

Here is an example of how a stop motion paper logo would look like:

Antagonist Character Change

At the start of our project my group and I wanted to feature our antagonist as this stalker but who is also a cannibal. Weird but different. But we were told that stalkers are quite the cliché in thriller movies. Considering my group and I want to try a different take on thriller films we made the decision to revolve our antagonist's character around cannibalism. I don't know about you but I certainly have no idea about how one becomes a cannibal, let alone the complexities of cannibalism. So I did some research. It was a little hard to find some articles that could possibly help emphasize our character's appearance, but there were some that gave me some very interesting facts.

By definition, cannibalism is the eating of the flesh of an animal by another animal of its own kind; therefore, human cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh or internal organs of other human beings. According to this article from the National Geographic, unless facing black widow spiders or praying mantises, the only times that one would see cannibalism would be stress-related or due to lack of alternative forms of food. For example, if a group of people are stranded in the wild, there are no other animals or non-poisonous plants around, and no rescue is coming any time soon then these people would eventually need to resort to cannibalism if they plan to stay alive.

The article stated that starting in the 1970s and '80s researchers have discovered multiple instances in the animal kingdom that cannibalism was completely a natural behavior. Us humans, on the other hand, have been taught, since Homer and the Greeks, that cannibalism is the ultimate taboo. When in reality combining this ultimate taboo with our obsession with food, we end up with this new fascination toward cannibalism. This idea of cannibalism as a taboo was used to de-humanize the people others have encountered.

Also stated in that article was the character Hannibal Lecter, from The Silence of the Lambs. This character is a murderer as well as a cannibal, which is exactly what my group and I are aiming for.

I think the research I have come across, though it might not be a lot, has helped me visualize the character my group and I truly want to create. When filming comes around and we have our actor I think the hardest task is to portray our subject as a cannibal while simultaneously not revealing too much about the character. This will take more thinking and processing.

After meeting with my group today we have made more progress in our storyboard and really focused on the cannibalism aspect of this film opening. Updates on the storyboard will be discussed in a future post.

Overall, the research has helped our production but now it's time to focus on how our antagonist will be illustrated as a cannibal.


Cites:
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/cannibalism-common-natural-history-bill-schutt/
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/02/22/515668867/cannibalism-its-perfectly-natural-a-new-scientific-history-argues

Time to Plan!

Today I spent some time planning what and when my group and I would start filming for our project. We still have to finish our storyboard but once we finish we will immediately start filming. We'd like to give ourselves as much time to capture our shots and maybe experiment a little bit to see which shots would look best. As well as giving us some time to edit all the shots together while simultaneously incorporating sounds and music.

Over the course of the next week we will start off by completing our storyboard by adding maybe 10-15 more frames. Then we would move on to filming some shots. Due to our film opening taking place mainly in a garage and/or at night we want to utilize our free time at night to film those shots. If we must film during the day we would only film garage scenes, but we would cover the openings of the garage to exhibit a darker setting.

Between myself and my fellow group members, we seem to be preoccupied with other things such as in and out of school activities. To make this project be created to its greatest potential, my group, myself included, will need to make time for this project. This project is very time consuming but will definitely work with a personal schedule by utilizing one's time management skills. If not, the project may end up not looking the way it was imagined from the beginning.

After this week we want to truly focus on shooting footage and editing in between film sessions. Throughout all this time I will update my blog for each film session.

Stay tuned for future updates on the project!

FIRST GROUP MEETING!!

I sat with a few other members of different film opening groups and we discussed with each other what our ideas were for our project, while also giving some feedback. I think this was a great meeting because we were bouncing ideas off of one another trying to incorporate them into our project. Having a group meeting this early into the project, I think, works really well because before a lot of progress is made in most projects some things can be changed after having a group meeting. Even if things are not changed then I still think that having these meetings early in the process helps for the overall project.

For my project, nothing was changed but hearing everyone's feedback about my ideas for the film opening really helped me feel confident about my decisions. I'm excited to see how all my group's and my ideas play out in the final product, but before that all happens I'm truly excited to have another group meeting further into the progress we've all made.