Question 1 CCR research

The CCR #1 question is:

 “How does your product use or challenge conventions, and how does it represent social groups or issues?”

The question consists of two parts. The first part asks whether our film uses or challenges conventions, which, based on my research, refers to whether it goes towards or away from already established filmmaking expectations. I think our film, Erebus, follows conventional film structures. It also doesn’t stray from typical expectations in a movie/tv show, as it avoids elements like flashbacks or time loops, instead putting the story in chronological order.

The second part of the question focuses on how the film represents social groups or issues. While Erebus doesn’t specifically target a social group, it does however target the social issue of mental health. This is evident in the portrayal of the main character, Leo, whose depressive state is shown through his facial expressions and dark clothing. His vulnerability, leaves him more susceptible to torment from the demon. Up to the film’s opening, it remains ambiguous whether this torment is in his imagination—tied to his mental condition—or a real supernatural occurrence. The theme of mental health is further emphasized when Leo calls his therapist from his car, showing he has had problems in the past with this.

Sources used in research

https://library.fiveable.me/key-terms/film-and-media-theory/audience-expectations

https://scriptclickcreate.weebly.com/conventions.html

Thanks for reading, next blog post will be about Question 2 CCR research.

EDITING DAY 2

 Honestly, editing was pretty uneventful, I just put most of the videos together using Premiere Pro,

 but I haven’t yet added any sounds, and we need ALOT of sounds, some of them are:

• Footsteps for Sebas running
• Breathing for Sebas (it wasn’t loud enough on the video, so we couldn’t hear it)
• Car starting
• Car sounds
• Ambience
• Music
• Forks on plates
• Stings to increase the scariness 
• Some more I can’t name off the top of my head.

I will try to use either a sound database or make them using foley.

That’s mostly all we need to finish up our film opening, I will try to finish this by the end of the week and post the final blog about the film opening. And move to CCR questions

My next blog will be about starting the CCR questions, I hope you have enjoyed our process for creating our film opening!

EDITING DAY 1 (title card)

 Today, I started editing, and I have seriously taken 4 hours to make this title card sequence, I had the idea of the text popping out under the car, but I didn’t take into account how long it would take me to learn and actually be able to make this. But i powered through, and now we have a final product. I used Adobe After Effects to create this sequence, however, I imported it into Premiere Pro, which is where I will be editing the rest of the video. I also added a little flicker effect, to further emphasize the theme and genre, and also to make the title less boring and feel a little more alive. 

I had a difficult time choosing the fonts, here are the ones that I had originally thought of.

In the end, I went with American Slasher, just because it really popped out to me as a horror film looking font, and i want the font to really interact with the story we have. So it’s really perfect to me. We all agreed that American slasher was the best one, so i used it in the title card, however, i used eurocine for the credits, as they are calm, and contrast with the horrorness (i dont know if this is a real word) of the title. 

For the credits i did all of these, as they are the ones that are mainly seen in films now.

Without further ado, this is it!

Overall, i am having a great time learning new things, and without further ado, this is our title card/ credits.

FILMING!!!

 FINALLY! We have finished filming, right on time too. We got all the shots we wanted, so id say that was a success!

So, we didn’t use any drone footage, since it was HORRIBLE quality,  it looked like we were filming from a microwave. We tried to tape a phone onto the drone, but then, the drone wasn’t strong enough to propel upwards. 

So, we did the next best thing. I climbed this tree right in front of Mias house, and i filmed the car from up there. 

We got the perfect shot from that spot, and I will be editing it to create our title card and credits.

We shot over 60 videos for the entire thing, so that was pretty good too.

But then it all went wrong.

I think i might be the unluckiest person ever!

FIRST, While filming, I tripped and accidentally dropped a vase at Mias house. And then we had to clean it all up.

THEN, when i was leaving at the end of the day, MY CAR DIED. So i was stranded until almost 11pm until my dad came back home and brought a little jump starter so i can start the car again.

Thankfully, we got everything done today, so we are good to start editing, which i will do tomorrow.

My next blog will be about starting the editing process, and i hope you enjoyed my misfortunes on this dreadful day. 

Creating Costumes

  Since the main character is a teenage boy who will be played by our teammate Sebas, he found a hoodie and pants he could wear to embrace our character Leo. A hoodie with the hood up usually represents a person is sad or wants to be left alone, this is perfect for our character because he is dealing with some mental issues causing him depression.

The costuming for this character is important because he is the main character and he is the main part of our film opening. He also is the person that we want to use in our representation theory part of the project, as we want him to represent people with depression and other real issues, since those people are rarely represented in the mainstream media today.

As for the demon, another main part of the film opening, he will be dressed in all black, his face will be covered with a black face mask, and only be shown with back lighting. I will be playing this character and i have a black suit that I will be wearing and a black ski mask which I will flip backwards to cover my face, as well as black shoes. 

The costume will look something like this, with ominous lighting and sounds to really set the mood when it is on the screen.

Thanks for reading my blog today, I enjoyed the creation of these characters and i hope you enjoyed reading this as much as i did writing it. The next post will be about our First day of filming!!!!!! I am really excited to start filming, and I think our idea is really great.

Obstacles

We had an issue in our filming process because we had planned to film this weekend, on March 1st-2nd. I had found someone who had a drone for our opening shot of the car. But me and Sebastian met up this Wednesday and tried the drone, and the camera quality was not what we were expecting. The camera had an orange shade in the daytime and would be completely dark at night. We were not able to film on Wednesday due to this, so we postponed to next week, instead filming next week

So now we have to either film another scene to compensate or find another drone. Which caused us to have to begin filming Wednesday of this upcoming week 3/5. And possibly on the weekend of 3/8-9

We wanted to create a scene similar to this car, except while its driving, with the title appearing from the bottom of the car, using Adobe After Effects, while the drone is stopped, the title being "Erebus," in red, like blood, to show the genre of the movie clearly, which is psychological thriller/horror. This scene would appear near the end of the opening scene after the main character Leo gets in the car to call his therapist as he runs away from the demon Erebus. The car would speed off, and we would see the title under it as the car drove away.

We will try to find another drone to help us create this because we really like this idea.

We also had another incident where we didn't agree on a particular story. We had all agreed to do horror, and we thought that a slasher was perfect; however, our story was very iffy, and we didn't totally agree on it. We thought the story was lazy and didn't develop much thought. So we scrapped the idea and went with Adam's idea of doing a story where we take something that usually feels safe and comfortable and make it into something that makes you feel uncomfortable and in imminent danger. I decided that it would be while eating food. We all agreed that we should film at a restaurant, but after calling many restaurants to ask, none of them agreed to close so that we could film the empty restaurant. So we had to make it into a family dinner. 

Thank you for reading this. Hopefully we will be able to film on Wednesday, so we can get this over with. Our next blog will be about.

Scene Development

The first scene would be of Leo eating dinner at the table with his mom, his dad, and his sister. The table is set with plates and silverware and food and drinks. Then it cuts to his family being gone off the table in an instant, a door opens, and a man with his face covered in a black suit (Erebus), the demon, is standing behind the door. 

The demon then gets closer and closer, and we see Leo getting more scared, until he even starts to shake. The demon is now standing where the dad was before. Then, back at the dining table, the dad appears, sitting where he was before but with the demon behind him holding a knife to his neck. Leo yells "STOP," and in the blink of an eye, the family is back where they were sitting, flabbergasted at Leo and why he just yelled. He runs out of the house, embarrassed and scared for his life.

In the next scene, he gets in the car and slams the door. As he drives away, we see through the rearview mirror the demon sitting in the backseat. His hands shaking as he grabs his phone to dial a number, and he picks it up, and he says, "It's back." That scene is of him calling his therapist because the demon is haunting him once again.

This is where that scene would take place, so you can see through the demons pov in the backseat through the rearview mirror.

Thank you for reading. My next blog will be about obstacles we faced in this project. I hope you enjoyed!