Danniella Miller AICE Media Studies

 Today was officially the last day of filming and editing. Right after school, we all got together and filmed the very last scene of the film. We had actually planned for an extra minute or so. We wanted to wait until the editing was done to really decide what we wanted to do for the ending. Because we had the time, we decided to cut down the extra minute in order to incorporate it into our short film. We were able to get this all filmed and ready. Together, we edited the final minute together. The last thing we needed was to add in the titles. We spent a lot of time looking for the perfect font. With this font, we wanted to show the juxtaposition between drama and horror. This entire film was meant to show how desperation and drama in someone's life can lead them to do horrible things. In having a happy ending, like having Jackie win and be able to fix her family, it would've taken away from the most horrific aspect of addiction in life. Once we found the font we could all agr...

 In one of my previous blogs, I mentioned that we weren't exactly happy with how the shots were coming out. I spent today working with Anya and Angel to see exactly which scenes needed to be redone. Once I had a complete list, I started going through what we had filmed already. I looked to see what exactly it was that needed to improve or change. From this, I made a list of each scene and what needed to be changed. I also took note of what we liked from the scenes. Most of the shots were really good composition-wise. The issues were mostly with our acting at first before we got comfortable. Acting was a bit scary at first. Once I learned my lines and did a couple of rough takes, everything started to natural. A little funny thing about it was that I started to feel like Jackie herself. I don't go through exactly the same issues as the character, but it was cool to take on that persona. We split up the scenes that needed to be redone into two days. Tomorrow after school we will ...

 In our film, our opening scene is supposed to be pans of how dirty Jackie's house is. When we were filming it initially, we were able to get a couple shots of the setup I did in my kitchen. However, in reviewing the footage, we realized that these shots didn't look how we wanted or were blurry. Because of this, I had to work on my own to redo these shots, as both Angel and Anya would be busy today. We wanted these shots done as soon as possible to get them edited as well. Just one problem. I had borrowed some bottles from my friend's parents in the original shot. After we filmed, they asked for them back. I didn't realize that the shots we got might've not gone as planned. With both of my parents working as well, I had no way to get them back in time. In order to fix this, I went through and looked at the shots with me and my mom in the kitchen to see what was truly visible. Thankfully, only two of these bottles were clearly in the shot. Using the blurry shots we h...

 Editing has been, for better or for worse, really hard. When I was working on projects on my own, I was able to have full creative freedom. However, in working with a team, I have had to compromise and work on listening to my group. As a perfectionist, this has been hard in deconstructing my own ideas as to what should be done. But, getting to have differing opinions has led to solutions and ideas I never would've come up with on my own. As I and Anya were mostly acting, Angel was the one behind the camera for the majority of the filming. Halfway through some of our film days, Angel would take some extra shots or have us redo a scene from a different angle. Getting to see these ideas come to life in editing has been amazing. Little details being zoomed in on and working in longer takes seemed insignificant at first. Now, that they are starting to come together, they are more important than ever. It has been generally agreed that some of the shots we have are not as good as they co...

 Today was the first day of straight editing. Because of the size of the file, it was really hard for us to share the videos to get editing started. We tried sharing it through our phones, but even with just a couple of videos, our storage got full. Through email, the videos wouldn't send. It was hard for us to share the SD cards, especially for me. I was using my dad's camera and SD card, and he uses them often for his own personal projects. Along with that, he had a lot of important information on the SD card, that could've easily been lost or accidentally deleted. A storage service ended up being the best idea for us, and we all already had google accounts, We came up with the solution of using Google Drive just to share the file, and once everyone had downloaded a copy of the video, we would delete it off the drive. This made it so everyone could get a look at the videos think about what we wanted to do with them and understand the progress of the film. As we've loo...

 After some practice and a few shots yesterday with my mom, we had another filming day today. We, again, had to refilm some shots with our new Queenie. Anya became the mystery man in the gambling ring. She brought her own costume and I did her makeup, making her look as rich as possible. We made some quick mood boards for the costume and makeup of the characters, making sure we were all together for the ideas we were trying to portray with that character. My mom and I wore the same things like our last filming day, with Angel staying mostly behind the camera. I have really learned that I enjoy planning, storyboarding, and the idea behind a short film, but when it came to getting behind the camera, I felt awkward and completely out of my element. In front of the camera, however, was incredibly fun. With no school today, the three of us got together at my house. We started around 4pm, where we went over and planned out what we were going to film. We also revised our accompanying webs...

 So, because many of our extras getting sick, we have been focusing on using our family members as actors in the short film. My mom has been recast as Queenie, the mom character. We had a few more scenes left to film with our previous Queenie. With the timing of her illness, we wouldn't have gotten a chance to film the leftover scenes without cutting down on our editing time. For editing, we want to give us as much time as possible in order to make sure everything looks good. We might still do an extra day of filming, for any scenes or audio that is needed to be redone, but the goal is to have everything done beforehand. With my mom now being Queenie, we spent the better part of today trying to go over our lines. There was a lot of laughter, a bit of stress, and mixing up words. My mom is originally from Colombia, with her first language being Spanish. Some of the words, mainly "ridiculous" were really hard for her to pronounce. With her, she really likes repetition to me...

 Today we had another filming day. Our goals for the day were to get all of the minutes three, four, and five filmed. We started filming around 6pm so we would be able to capitalize on the setting sun. Minute three would be the entrance into the gambling ring, getting a feel for the kind of place the characters are at, and what it's genuinely like to be there. The main issue we had here was the lack of extras we had available. We wanted to show the gambling ring as being more full, with many different people playing throughout the room. However, most of the people we had available were sick. We ended up mostly using the few friends and Angel's family members in order to get these shots. The good part about only having one dealing table was that it gave the scene a sense of secrecy and exclusivity. However, because these were people close to us instead of trained actors, we spent a lot of time working with each person and trying to get others to understand what the scene should ...

 Due to the fact that today was a half-day at school, we were able to all get together and start filming some scenes. We began at about 12pm, meeting up at Anya's house. While we waited for the actors to show up, we got to destroy Anya's kitchen and turn it into the full-fledged mess that Jackie and Queenie's house is. Bottles, trash, and paper littered the floor, turning her kitchen unrecognizable. We also did some prep work for the props, turning what used to be a freshly-printed piece of paper into Jackie's important letter. We dipped the paper in tea, crumpled it up, and made up fake addresses to write out on the envelopes. We took a few different exposition shots of the room. Our main plan was to get all of the scenes done for Jack and Queenie's house because we wouldn't be able to remake the set. Once our actors arrived, we got to filming individual scenes. Possibly the hardest part was getting the fight between Queenie and Jackie to look believable. There...

This is some prep work and planning we needed to do in addition to what we already had. We decided to use Angel's house as where the gambling ring will be. Anya's house will be messed up and turned into the house. We also renamed the characters of Ash and Anna into Jack and Queenie, in order to make reference to the playing cards. We are getting liquor bottles, ripped-up paper and envelopes, and the important letter, all of which will be brought in by me. Anya will be bringing in an ashtray. We also discussed costuming, Since Anya will be playing the role of the mystery guard, we chose her to be in a very fancy, all-black outfit, with lots of shiny jewelry. This was to show how important and rich the mystery guard is. The guards, played by Angel's friends, will be dressed from head to toe in black, albeit not too fancy. Jack will be in a very basic outfit, a t-shirt, and jeans, which will be very distressed and worn out. Along with that, he will be wearing very ratty shoes ...