Film Opening

 It's done. It's finally done. After however many weeks it's been I finally finished the film opening. Here it is! Really proud of what I was able to accomplish with this. The Summer of the Swarm!

Creative Critical Reflection

Here are my CCRs, where you here me talk about my creative process and other stuff relating to the film opening. Hopefully you find these very insightful.

Goodbye

  Well, it's over. Unlike the films I intend to make there is no last minute twist or a guy popping out to scare you at the end, this is the end of my journey through AICE Media Studies AS and the film opening project. It's been real fun making this project, as well as all the others I've made throughout the curriculum. It's also been really challenging, and there are certainly things I would've done differently with hindsight. That's not the type of thing to dwell on though, as this has been an amazing experience for me. I've learned a lot about film technique and production, and I feel a lot more confident in my abilities. I'm really happy with how my final project turned out, and I'm really happy that I took this class. I'm so excited to continue my filmmaking journey and to share my creations with the world.

 Thank you, and goodbye.

Yes, I Did Film the CCR

  Good news and bad news, which I notice has been a bit of a theme. So I DID film the CCR, using this old greenscreen that I've had for like four years. It's old, but it works well enough. The problem, as you might be able to tell, is that I don't have it on my computer yet. It was some kind of storage issue, so I deleted a bunch of files that I don't need, and right now I have the videos uploading from my phone. It's not giving me any kind of prompt saying that I don't have enough storage, so hopefully I'm fine. I'll try to get this whole thing edited by tomorrow night.

CCR Approach

  For the CCR, I'll need to make two videos for two different approaches. The idea I've came up with to the two videos represent a kind of "old versus new". The first video will take on a very modern aesthetic, capturing the look of celebrity interview videos posted by publications like Variety and Wired. These videos tend to have sterile, white backgrounds, and feel very formal. For the second video, I'm going to take inspiration for vintage late night TV shows, specifically the ones that would play horror movies with a host that introduces them. For this video, I plan to play the parts of both myself and the host who is interviewing me. I'm excited to film both because I have a lot of things that I want to say about the project and I think this will be a fun exercise in expressing them.

CCR Prep

 Now that the actual film opening is done, it's time to make the creative critical reflection, or CCR. For this I'll need to make two videos that each use a different approach to answer each of these four questions:

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

• How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

• How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

• How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

I've given it some thought and I've came up with basic ideas ideas for how I want to answer them. This is of course not exactly how I'll express these thoughts in the videos themselves, but it is the core of it.

Question: How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

Answer: The Summer of the Swarm uses a variety of horror and thriller genre conventions, such as shots from the point of the view of the monster, a dramatic zoom in, creepy static establishing shots, and a character who serves as the initial victim. There's also the initial black screen and subsequent opening shot with ominous buzzing which is meant to feel foreboding. In terms of challenging conventions, one way this is done is through the film's bright, daylight color scheme and the upbeat music which plays when the park is introduced, which is uncharacteristic of the genre. The other way is through how the first victim is an average looking woman of middle-age, as opposed to a younger, conventionally attractive person

Q: How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

A: The product engages with audiences through establishing the setting, then creating suspense and establishing mystery. The setting is established through the weather report voice over as well as the numerous establishing shots of the park and the surrounding South Florida area. The upbeat music during the introduction the park is used to illustrate how it's a popular place during the summer, even if the hot weather can be considered dangerous. The juxtaposition of the weather report and the park introduction creates irony and a sort of dark humor, which also engages audiences. Ironic humor also occurs through the juxtaposition of the calming music playing through the victim's headphones and the danger she is in. Suspense and mystery are created through the POV shots, which inform the audience that danger is present although the victim doesn't know, as well as the fact that the audience doesn't know exactly what the danger is. For distribution, the film would start by premiering at film festivals, possibly some genre specific ones like Fantastic Fest, Beyond Fest, or TIFF's Midnight Madness. There it would be able to get the attention of a distribution company, where it would get a limited or wide release in theaters before being released on a streaming service.

Q: How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

A: One thing I learned was the importance of casting people who are experienced with acting for roles that require actual dialogue, as this lead me to having to rerecord the weather report with someone more skilled. I also learned that editing takes longer than I thought it would, especially because there are certain small details, like sound, that take a lot of time to get right. Cutting a shot at just the right time is a skill in and of itself, and I needed to learn how to establish a good rhythm of shots through editing.

Q: How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

A: The entire project was filmed on my iPhone, which was very convenient, as it allowed to me to not have to worry about lugging around big and expensive filming equipment. It also allowed to conveniently pull out my phone whenever I wanted if I saw something that would make a good shot, which is exactly what I did for many of the establishing shots. For software, I used Adobe Premiere to edit the project, which was provided many useful tools to allow me to achieve my vision. I also used Canva, an online graphic design program, to create the studio logo and title card. Lastly, I used the online slideshow program PowerPoint to make the presentation slide which is shown at the end.

Branding! Branding! Branding!

  Ok I'm basically done with the film opening, and I know that you're dying to see it. Before I show you that though, there's something else I want you to see. I decided that to make my film opening seem more realistic to how actual movies begin, I would create my own studio logo. This was a relatively simple process, although it was somewhat frustrating, given that I'm not the best at graphic design and will never claim to be. Before I designed it, I had to come up with a name. I settled on the name Livewire Studios, which was inspired by one of my favorite song lyrics ("Don't touch me, I'm a real live wire", from the song "Psycho Killer" by Talking Heads). Plus I just think it sounds cool. Anyway, for the logo itself, I wanted something with a kind of vintage look. This led to me choosing a 50s style font, with a quirky alternating color scheme and lowercase "i"s in the text. After making the logo in Canva, I downloaded multiple versions of it so I could edit them to be slightly animated in Premiere, as I wanted a quick, snappy animation. For the logo's audio, I searched "electric" on Pixabay and found this VHS start up sound effect, which I thought fit perfectly. All that was left was to add some grain to complete the vintage aesthetic, and bam! There it was!