AICE Media Studies

 Hi everyone , here is the link to my CR. Thank you so much for following me on this project, I had such a great time.  Link to file:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rPSCJhC6quWWPHfL9_SEAAUNtwTLAP0KEr0NmwB8qLg/edit   1. How do your products represent social groups or issues?  One of the key ways our films represent social groups is through the intentional casting of diverse minority actors. By featuring individuals from a variety of backgrounds, cultures, and identities, we not only reflect the rich tapestry of human experience but also provide much-needed representation for marginalized communities. This casting choice is not merely about tokenism but rather about giving voice to stories that are often overlooked or underrepresented in mainstream media. Addressing substance abuse is another vital aspect of our commitment to social relevance. Substance abuse is a pervasive issue that affects individuals and communities worldwide, yet it is often stigmatized...

Hey guys, we did it! We filmed, we marketed, and now here is my final short film package. Thank you for following my journey.  To look at the website, the postcard, and film just hover over the links! Link to Website:  Echoes of Awakening Website Link to Postcard:   Echoes of Awakening Postcard Link to Short Film:  Echoes of Awakening Short Film             

 Hey guys and welcome to my final production blog of AICE Media! It has been a long journey from going to AS level to A Level and you guys have followed me the entire time. This short film has probably been the hardest project due to all the moving parts of it. By moving parts, I mean so many aspects such as the website, the postcard, AND the movie. But, now that we reshot more film for our movie , we were finally within the time frame. Now that we were in the time frame, it was time to hear from the critics. So, in our group we each got 3 different people to view our film and to give us feedback. I was able to get 3 of my friends to view the film. First I sent it to my friend Isa, who is also in media. The feedback that I got from her was that she didn't like the "scary" music in the beginning but she understood the concept. To give more clarity, the music in the beginning  was meant to give off comedy from the quick transition of scary music to upbeat music. This was a ...

Hi guys and welcome back to my blog! So, our group made a mistake. We had the time requirements wrong for our film. We initially thought that the movie had to be 4 minutes and 30 seconds long but we were wrong. We found out that the movie had to be closer to 5 minutes with just a small time interval leeway of less than 5 seconds. So, once we found this out, we tried to add in some stuff with film we already had. But, after trying, we realized it still wasn't enough. So, this led to us having to go back to the drawing board and re filming. Being that Kyra was on a time crunch with having to study , we couldn't film any scenes with her. So, the only idea that we came up with was to just film some establishing and foundational scenes that would only require me to be in them. So, I had to go back to Andres' house to film some more scenes. It was actually pretty funny because while filming originally I got food dye in my clothes. So, I had to wash my clothes and wear the same cl...

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! We’ve done it. We’ve planned, we filmed , and now we have edited. Now our plan was to distribute the movie to critics first before we actually submit the movie. But, before we do that I suggested a group meet up for fine tuning and final approval of our movie between the four of us. So, instead of meeting after school we decided to meet during our study halls this time. We thought this would be much more easier for the review process. So, our group met and we each came with our tasks to present to the group in its final product. There were a lot of reasons why I wanted to do this final group meet up. First , this was because we didn’t want our critics to focus on things that we could easily fix and see ourselves. Secondly, were we doing this for a class so we were going to get a grade which we wanted to make sure we had the best chance to maximize our score. Thirdly, it allowed us to make any final changes to sound/effects, the small things. ...

 Hi guys and welcome back to my blog. Last time you were here , I was applying what we filmed to our website for marketing purposes. But when I was doing this, I had to take raw clips from the movie and edit them for the website. Now it’s time to edit the full movie. How my group and I decided to do this is to split the editing into different sections. What I mean by this is since our short film skips from middle to beginning to end, there was 3 of us that each took a part of the movie and edited it. Then the fourth person is the one who would look through the entire thing to make sure all the individual edits worked. We decided to take this route because we thought it would be too much for one person to do all by themselves and we could help each other out along the way. I was in charge of editing the ending section of the movie which was the car crash scene. For the actual editing, our group decided that we would all use the  editing software of CapCut. There was many reason...

 Hello everyone and welcome back, thanks for staying along with me. Guess what? My group and I finished filming our short film. Now that we finished the short film, we were now in the post production phase and it was time to do the work to push our movie onto the market. Since, I was the marketing manager , it was my job to make that happen so I got straight to work on the website the very next day after filming. Now that we had pictures and videos from filming and from our movie, I wanted to insert them into our website. I wanted to do this so that the consumers would be able to see some behind the scene work. So I grabbed some of the videos and screenshot specific pictures I liked the most. I then edited them being that the movie wasn’t edited yet and uploaded them to the website to make it the main background. Also, now that we filmed , I was finally able to  truly build the aesthetic of our website because I can see what vibe our movie came out to vs what we envisioned. So...

 Hi everyone and welcome back to production with Marvin. In the last blog you read from me if you’ve been keeping up, my group and I finally started filming. This was after figuring out a perfect date that would work for all our group members with their schedule and stuff. But, being that this movie was longer, our filming actually rolled over into two days of filming and not just one. Another reason for this is that we spent lots of time on the car crash scene and we all had to leave at a decent time for homework and other obligations. So , since this was day 2 of filming we did the same routine as last time from school to location. We all ubered to Andre’s’ house from our school and split the costs. Now , I was playing the main character for this movie and Kyra was playing the supporting female character due to us not wanting to have to depend on even more people and work out their scheduling conflicts. I would say it was pretty hard because this film was more serious so we would...

 Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! We are getting closer and closer to the finish line. Last time you were here , we were preparing to film and gathering some final things together. But , now in this blog I’m going to talk to you about the 1st day of us filming as we finally were able to. So, first off picking a day to film was really hectic and conflicting. This was partially due to my birthday being in February so we were trying to work around that. But, even aside from that, a lot of the dates were just conflicting with our group due to our extracurriculars , family stuff, and etc. But, we finally found a date that worked for all of us. So, since we were filming at Andre’s’ house , we had to figure out how to get there being that none of us have a car. This problem was also hard to all of us living really far from our school and Andre’s’ house in specific was about 30 min away. So being that the school bus would t let all of us on his bus due to overcapacity, we decide...

  Hey guys and welcome back to my blog! So my group and I are continuing the production process for our movie and I have to admit, it’s a lot of work! Last time you were here , I was building the website for my group as that was one of my assigned jobs. But, now that we are getting closer to due date for our movie, it’s time that we now start preparing even more! So, in this blog , I want to talk to you about all the different moving parts of this movie and how much we are doing for it. So basically , the first thing we needed was location. Our original plan was to film at Andres’ (our group mate) house for the scenes that required the inside of the home which is a good chunk of our film. These would be the scenes like the beginning with the date and other things. We decided Andres’ house because he lives in the most central location between all of us. But for the part of our movie where the main character wakes up from the coma, we were going to try to find a hospital of some sort...

 Hey guys and welcome back to my blog! The last time you heard from me , you learned my group and I had started the production process for our short film. You also learned the first thing we did was come up with a title for our film which we decided would be “Echoes of Awakening”.  Now, that we are further diving in the production process , my group and I realized we needed to give everyone jobs to make our film successful. When taking into consideration then jobs, we realized we would need jobs surrounding the marketing for our movie. With that in mind,  I was assigned the job as the movie webmaster. This means I am in charge of building the website for our short film which we will use to market our movie. So , when I got this job the first thing that I did was look for website builder services. I looked through a lot of different services and a lot of them you had to pay for. My biggest thing was trying to find a free builder service because we don’t really have a budge...

Hey guys and welcome back to my blog, it’s been a while! The last time you were here my group and I were storyboaring for our movie. But now it’s time to start the production since we know what we want each scene of our movie to entail. Since my group and I are going to be marketing this project, we realized we can’t even start the marketing process without a title. So the first step was to find a name for our movie with the project. When we researched how real movie production companies do this. And when we researched this, we figured the best way was to think about the essence of our film. So when we talked it over, we came up with some key words that describe our film. The words we found were “awake” , “dream”, and “wreck”. When looking at the work “awake” we thought about how in the film our main character is awaking from a fantasy life. That also went hand in hand with dream because the lifestyle that our main character was living was not real but a lifestyle created in his dream....

Hi everyone , and welcome back to my blog! In this blog, my group and I began story boarding for our short film “The Dream”. We’ve compiled an idea for 60 different shots in order to make our movie. Enjoy and be back for more! This is Marvin signing off. 

Hey guys and welcome back to my blog! The last time you read I was researching for my short film. My group and I were doing things like comparing short films to its feature film version, looking at conventions of short films in our genre we chose (mystery), and etc. Now that my group and I have done the research it’s finally the time to start planning for our short film. So, in this blog, I wanted to talk to you guys about the ideas our group came up with when it comes to the scheduling, location, backup plans, and etc, for our film! Schedule So, for the schedule of our movie, we want to have it completely done and submitted by March 13th. By, this date we will have all of our marketing, editing, and filming done. So, our group decided to start filming around mid February. By filming in mid February, this will allow our group leniency. For example, if we forget to film a certain aspect of the movie, by having a month left, it will allow us to go back and refilm. Not only this but, by f...

The next film I decided to look at was The Vision. The film starts off with very dark lighting, much darker than the previous film I viewed. The warm saturation in combination with lighting adds a suspenseful feeling that is very typical of mystery films. The close ups of different objects in the room builds anticipation for the viewer. It makes me sit on the edge of my seat to see where the story will go. Just like the other film, The Vision ulitizes closer shots to develop the mystery of plot. Another big mystery aspect that is found in this film is its use of sound. Early on, there is a combination of ambient sounds and eerie music that combine to further keep me on my toes. In fact, the lighting sounds even caught me off guard and slightly frightened me. After being introduced to the first setting, a bedroom, and seemingly the main protagonist, the use of dialogue and props furthers the uncanny yet curious feeling in the viewer. The distressed pleas for help from the walkie talkie ...

  Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog!. I am continuing to research short films and their conventions. I am reviewing short films that follow my genre to learn about conventions I would need to use for my short film. As the genre I am using is mystery, I am going to be watching mystery short films. In this blog I am going to research the mystery short film, “Buried Treasure”. I was able to find this short film option on YouTube. When the film opens, the music is the first thing once again that I notice. This music is different though from the last movie I reviewed. The difference was that this music got louder progressively as the opening of the short film continued. The lighting is the same though. I notice the dark lighting. The dark lighting creates a very deep shadow and puts spotlights on certain aspects. This goes back to the point convention I’ve noticed in mystery films which is having the audience very focused on the little details. When watching, I continue to see ...

  Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! The last phase of my short film journey when you were here, I was researching genres. Now we are on a different part. Now, my group and I are beginning to research actual short films. Specifically, we are looking at short films in the genre we chose mystery. In this blog, I am going to look at the mystery short film titled, “The Last Note”. I will be researching by looking at the conventions of the mystery genre across this short mystery movie to maybe help me use those conventions in my short film. So, let’s begin! Immediately when the movie begins the first thing I notice is the music used. The music used in this film was very dark and suspenseful and it stayed at a constant speed the entire time. I also noticed the lighting as well. The lighting was very dark, and it looked like a filter was applied in the editing process. I see that the music is playing through the whole beginning portion of the movie. I see lots of different ...

 Hey guys and welcome back to my blog. In these next couple blogs I am going to be looking at mystery short films for conventions.  The first film I decided to look at was Whittling Away by True Intent. In this film, there is an interesting use of camera angles and movements, as well as Mis-En-Scene. The first thing that really stood out to me was the use of sound. The film starts out with calming ambient noise of a forest. This added a very calming and relaxing atmosphere to the film. Some lighthearted relaxing lo-fi music teens begins to play, which furthers that tranquility in the film. Then, as the young girl reveals she’s holding a knife, the noise abruptly stops. The abruptness is shocking and reveals the the viewer that this scene may not be as peaceful as it seems. This is a common trope in mystery films to trick the viewer into believing everything is normal.  Transitioning to the next scene, the setting switches from forest to a seemingly normal house. With this...

  Hey everyone! The next part of our research was to figure out how we even make a short film. This was our first time ever making one before, and we wanted to do as much research beforehand as possible to make sure we can create an amazing product. We first learned about the writing process, and the most important thing we learned is the value of practicality. By this I mean that when we’re writing our script we need to always keep in mind our limitations. For example, we know that we have very limited equipment for filming, being that we are highschoolers, and thus, we shouldn’t be writing a script that includes things like aerial shots or explosions. By keeping this in mind from the start, we can make sure that what we plan to film will look well-thought out, put together, and professional. Essentially, the big takeaway is for us to not bite off more than we can chew! Another important thing we learned in regards to writing is to never go with our first idea. This is because if ...

 Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! In this blog I will be comparing short films to full length films again! This time I’ll be using the short film “Le Jetee” to the full film “12 Monkeys”. In this blog there will be 2 parts as I will be comparing these as well as reflecting on them with an article I found. So let’s begin! Comparison , Part 1 The concept of these two stories and how they’re similar yet different really interests me. Le Jetee is vastly different from the types of films we see today, and vastly different in style from the 12 Monkeys. It was the first in a series of photo novels that would eventually give way to stop motion movies. The images in this ominous, psychological thriller were all in black and white. However, it was still able to tell a coherent story, which is quite a feat. One reason this film was still so intriguing to watch, despite its unique style, is the types of camera shots and editing techniques that were used within the film. Another as...