Production - The Film (#37)

     So here we are...The Film. Thank you for being on this journey with me. Through the many notes, research, planning, and editing, this is a good work. I hope you guys like it and don't be sad that the dad jokes are ending soon 😔. 

The Assignment:

Link to video

    I really think this is a great class and I loved every step of the way to make this film alive. Even if I had to change major things it came out great. The next thing to do are CCRs. I hope you liked it!! :) 

Dad Joke of the Day:

    What state is known for small sodas?    

           Minnesota!

Production/Planning - Fixed Script (#38)

     After the film, I remembered that I changed the script completely and I didn't make revisions so that what I'm here for today. 

The Assignment

Script by Maya Inman

You have time. Don't Stress. Do it Later.

Scene One - Desk:

Alana (15) walks to her desk, going to start homework for the day.

As she sits down, and begins her homework.

As Alana is working. she remembers she is in her school clothes still, so she gets up.

Alana goes to her room and gets her clothes, then go to the shower.

Scene Two - Living Room/Bedroom:

Instead of going back to her homework, Alana goes to the couch.

She turns on TV and relaxes to watch TV.

Watching TV, she starts to doze off and falls asleep.

Scene Three - Living Room/Desk (Nightmare):

Alana wakes up, panicked as she forgot about her homework. 

Alana starts on her homework.

The Figure reaches for Alana from behind the curtain.

Seeing this Alana freaks out and runs away to her room.

Scene Four - Bedroom (Nightmare): 

Alana runs to her room, closing the door.

As she is checking outside the door for The Figure.

The Figure, already being in the room, slowly opening the closet curtain.

Alana takes a deep breath, thinking that she is safe but she sees The Figure behind the curtain and runs.

Scene Five - Living room/Desk: 

Alana wakes up from the nightmare with a gasp and a small panic.

She looks to the side, shocked.

The Figure watching Alana, near the desk, with the open text book.

Then The Figure tilts his head.

Black Out

The End

Dad Joke of the Day:

        Where do young trees learn math?

                Elementree school!

Production - Editing the Credits and Coloring (#36)

     Today I will be doing the final touches; the credits and coloring. This is the last thing I need to do for my horror film opening, "The Assignment." This blog is going to be a little short because it's mainly going to be pictures as I explain what I'm doing for each step. So here we go!

The Credits:

    I chose the color red for the title and credits to pop out, and red is something that is always associated with the codes and convections of a horror movie. The font chosen is Chinese, (chusache) and it translates late to delivery truck, according to google translate. I don't understand the correlation, but it works for my film and looks eerie, scary. I think it makes the film tense before anything even starts because the audience will wonder, why are the title and credits like that when everything looks normal, (or so I hope).

The Coloring:

    So next on, is coloring. Since this has lowkey lighting in some parts, it would need slight coloring to make this more scary than it already can be to viewers. So in some scenes I used Shadow, Red, and Haunted Canvas, on a low intensity so it is a undertone because these filters are really over powering alone, so I had to lower them, and I think it looks great!

    Soo what do we think?? I really like this a lot and I'm glad on how this came out, and how it is looking for my film. I doesn't look like too much or overpowering for this small film. I hope that I'm not in a honeymoon stage with this, that I think it looks great then it's actually looks bad...Joking joking, I know this is tuff. 😜

Dad Joke of the Day:

    What's a calendar's favorite food? 

            Dates!

Me now that I'm done editing

Production - Editing Sounds (#35)

     Ever wonder how fun but stressful editing a film is? Take Media Studies and you'll understand. 😔 Jokes but today I will be sharing how I edited sound in my film, using non-diegetic sounds to make the film feel more scary. I won't add a video until I'm done editing everything, so you guys can see the final product once. However, I will be adding pictures as I'm talking about editing on CapCut. Yes, CapCut is working again!! When I had that problem a few blogs ago, it was down due to maintenance, plus it was at like 9:30 at night so 🤷 but now it is working again so I'm ready! 

Editing: 

    So the first thing I did was look for music for the whole film. I went on my trusty website, FreeSound, and search for suspenseful music. After looking around for a little bit, I found one that is very suspenseful and gives tension to the film. 

    The next thing I did was add low sound effects to emphasize some scenes. For example, a few sounds of a page flipping, small chatter to mimic watching TV, and etc. I wanted to add these sounds so the music isn't there by itself and to add a realism to the film.

    I downloaded CapCut on my computer, because I was better than working on the website. As you can see, I have added sound effects through out to add to the tension and eeriness of the film. I'm glad I choose to refilm completely because it makes sense and gives me more to work with. A comment that my mom had while helping me was that, I was going to fast. I agree with this statement, because I think I was in my head about "I need to be done with this," so I was rushing through it but after I took a breathe I slowed down and now it makes sense and looks better. 

Credits of Sounds:

Darkest Thursday – A Haunting Electronic Masterpiece by kjartan_abel -- https://freesound.org/s/558271/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

Curtians opening and closing.  Recorded with a Zoom H6 and stereo microphone (rode NTG2). OWI..wav by Khanyisile56 -- https://freesound.org/s/707481/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

Sound effects from CapCut

Dad Joke of the Day:

    What did one hat day to the other?

          Wait here, I'm going on ahead.

Me now that I'm almost done editing

Production - Day Four of Filming (#34)

     Alright viewers, today was the last day of filming!! 😆 I'm free finally, now it is time to turn to editing. Today went really well and I only had a few mess ups here and there. So in this part of filming, I mainly focused on the other scenes of procrastination and adding the horror aspects, meaning the nightmare, with The Figure, who is played by my brother, Sammy. My mom was the camera(wo)man but I was also directing and we helped each other while filming. We were able to get the shots down quickly only needing like 3-5 shots to get it down, which isn't that bad in my opinion. 

    What took the longest, filming wise, was the nightmare scenes because, it was hard to see The Figure in some angels since he is in all black, and in the lowkey lighting it is kind of hard to see him. However, we were able to figure it out so I got this. And when I put all the clips together before cuts, why was I at 3 minutes?? I don't know but I managed to bring it down to two minutes, while making sure it still made sense. I changed the name to "The Assignment" because I don't think "Before Midnight" fits for this film anymore.  So here is the film clips all together, with no sound, credits, coloring, and etc. 

The Film: 

    I'm really proud on how this came out and this looks great compared to earlier versions. Even this project was stressful, I actually thought this was very fun to do and I'm grateful for this class for showing me new things that I didn't know before. It was very nice to know what it is like behind the camera, since I was always in front of the camera. 

Dad Joke of the Day:

    What so lawyers wear to court?

            Lawsuits!

Production - Day Three of Filming (#33)

    What's up gals and pals. As you will see, I changed a lot in the film, comparing to what I had in previous blogs. This was like a total 180 of what was originally filmed. I had also made a Google Form for feedback of what I had already, so I can get feedback on what I can change, do better, and more.

    So to start I will be talking about the the feedback and how I used this feedback to make my film better.

Film Feedback Form

    So the first question is "What feeling did you get from the film?" From this question, most people said suspense, which I understand because the scenes and action of Alana, the girl, makes the film feel suspenseful even as the producer. This is kind of hard to do, but I got this guys.


    The second question is "What did you think the film was about?" This is a short response question and most people said thing that weren't on point with what I wanted to give, which is understandable and I'm not even that upset because I already knew it wasn't giving what I wanted to.

    The next question is "How was the pacing?" The overall answers of this questions were on the high end of the scale. I personally think that overall my pacing was okay, some parts look rushed, while some parts are great with pacing.

    Then I asked if the raining in the background added to the horror feeling. Responders said not really and I understand this since this is the only sound I have so far. One audio suggestion I got was "add suspenseful music" which I plan to do, and is added in this new video below. Then I asked if I should remove any scenes, and most people said no which I expected, because none of the scenes are too much of fluff or filler, that it is unnecessary so yeah.


    The following question is did the main character seem scared? The replies were not really and the acting could be better. The final question was asking for any feedback, and my teacher, Mrs. Ortiz, gave me feedback which is shown below.

    I totally agree with what she was saying, and I have made changes in the film you will see soon! The film looks completely different than before and it makes more sense in my opinion and hopefully others will now understand the point of procrastination. 

The Film:

    From feedback from my friend suggested that since I'm working alone, I should refilm the whole film, which is what I did! The new scenes added, have made the point of procrastination clearer than before. These changes have made the film way better than before, and I'm so excited for you guys to see the final film product!!

    As you can see it looks completely different than the videos before. I absolutely love this version because it gives the procrastination, but scary feel that I was going for.  I'm so ready to see everything come together. The next things to add are the credits, coloring, sound, and touch ups then I'm done. I'm so ready!

Dad Joke of the Day:

    Can February March?
        No, but April May.

Production - Copyright and Fixing Adventures (#32)

     So I completely forgot that I can't have the Spiderman: Miles Morales movie in the film, because I can still get copyrighted for it, even if it's 10 seconds. So for those parts in the film that I'm watching the movie or it's in the background. So I'm going to now write a list of things I need to fix and fill to make my film better. I found a website called Freesound.org which has many sounds available to the public as long as you follow the conditions of the sounds. For example, some sounds have a creative commons 0 (CC0) which means you can use the sound without needing to credit the artist or user, CC by Attribution which means it is free to use but you have to credit the creator, and CC by NC (attribution-noncommercial) which means free to use with credit, but not for commercial projects. I personally stay away from sounds that are under CC by-NC because it just makes my life easier. I was doing research on ways to not get copyrighted and I found this website which I'm so grateful for. :p 

Here is the list of what I need to fix and fill:

`So this will be worked on tomorrow Jan 27,2026. And I will make a blog for the third day of filming and hopefully that will be the last day of film, so I have time to properly edit and do blogs without a rush and it being sloppy. I just want to thank my mom again because she has helped me with ideas and this film won't turn out as good as it can be, without her. 

Dad Joke of the Day:

    I love telling Dad Jokes.

        Sometimes, he even laughs. 

Production - Day Two of filming (#31)

     Helllo guys! Today, was my second day of filming. I would say overall, it went well and better than last time. Although we changed many things from the original script, I like this better. So in the script, it is stated that The Figure is chasing Alana  while the lights are flickering but due to my house being old, the lights aren't flickering as fast as I would like. So what I did this time was have The Figure as a shadow in the back, lurking. This idea was from my mom and partly from The Conjuring. I think this would be scarier because as Alana is working on her last minute school work, The Figure is walking around while she is unaware of what is going on. 

    In the previous blog of the first day of filming, As you see I kept what went right and tweaked it a bit to match the rest of the film. This made the film look way better in my opinion. 

The Film:

    There is no music or opening credits, this is only the clips edited together with the title at the end. This was edited on Canva, like stated from the previous blog. 

    As you can see, instead of the flickering lights. I have made The Figure to lurking in the background then slowly bother and scary Alana, before she notices and gets scared. This has created more tension for the horror aspects of my film opening. I like this way better than what was my idea at first. Thanks to my mom! 😘 Now it's time to move onto editing and finishing up the film. I will think about music and which fits best for my film. Then after that I will be thinking about the opening credits. Lastly, I will tie everything together and doing last minute editing. 

    On the other hand, you can see that I'm under time. I have only about 1:20, when this is supposed to be a 2 minute film opening. So to fix this problem, I will add small filler clips in between scenes to make it longer, but in a way it makes sense. This will be scene in the next blog, so stay tuned for more. :)

Reflection:

    Overall, I think this will be the best final clips and I hope they make the best final film for my class and project. I played with many clips and technics to this film. Next up after all of this is CCRs. I hope I can do well with it as I did with my film opening. 

Dad Joke of the Day: 

    Want to hear a joke about construction?

            I'm still working on it.

Production - Editing Issues (#30)

     Soo...CapCut isn't loading and having errors right now. That is where everything is and I'm unsure why it is doing this because I was working fine last time I used it, and now I  lost all my progress!  Here is some proof: 😕

    What I'm going to try next is clearing my cache, removing cookies, and things like that to see if it works and allows me to access this website so I can continue editing. 

    Bad news, I tried all of that and it did not work. I'm still annoyed but I remembered that Canva also can be used to edit videos so I switched to that. And in doing so Canva is a lot easier than CapCut and has better video features than CapCut did! So in the next blog you will be able to see the difference in video when I switched to Canva. This is a short blog, but the issue is great and I found a solution quickly, which I'm proud of myself for. 

Dad Joke of the Day:

    What did the scarecrow win an award for?

                He was outstanding in his field!

When I lost all my progress of editing:

Production - First Day of Filming (#29)

     Heyy guyss. I'm pretty behind on my production schedule, but everything is working out pretty fine for the most part. Last night I attempted to film and the beginning was great but from there it went down hill. When reviewing my script, during the nightmare, I wanted the lights to be flickering as The Figure is in play, but due to my house being old and not wanting to overheat the bulb, the flickering didn't give me the vision I wanted. On the other hand, the beginning scenes went as planned. There are a few things I'm going to change but overall they went great.

What went well:

    So I put together the scenes that went great in order of how they are going to be in the film. All of these scenes put together are about 20 seconds. There is minor editing, only cutting some shots shorts to make it look better but there is no music, credits, etc. 

    

    When recording, it felt a bit awkward since it's in silence and it only me and my mom in the room recording. She also is helping me film and direct. In the next clips, it is my brother who is The Figure. This was also very fun because behind the scenes we would laugh as we rewatched the videos because my brother is a very silly person. 

What went wrong: 

    So again, these clips are only put in order with minor editing with no music, credit, or etc. Watching these back again, I really don't like them at all. There are many mistakes and the clips don't flow together like the beginning scenes did. I'm going to test a few things later tonight. Hopefully it looks better than yesterday. 

    As you see, the flickering lights didn't go well and I'm not going to  lie, it looks trash, but I'm using this experience to better myself for later.  It was a bit funny to rewatch the fails with my family, but also frustrating because I want this as close to perfect as I can get and it was not going as planned last night, sadly. I know it will come together soon, I just have to trust the process. 😔

Reflection: 

    This first day of recording, went well for the most part. I learned a lot from this experience and I will use it for future of this project. I want to give credit to my mom for helping me film and giving me ideas to do better, as she also has experience in this field. I will make another blog soon for the second day of filming. That's all for today. 

Dad Joke of the day:

    Stop looking for the perfect match; get a lighter. 

The concept of my clips being buns...

Production - A Few Tests (#28)

       Hello guys! Welcome back to my blogger. Today I will be showing you a few shots that I tested out around my house, which is the location of my film. I tested out three shots that I felt were small by also important. Here is the shots I worked with. Please don't mind my cat in the way in one of the shots, he doesn't listen to me 😔. All of these shots are in the afternoon where it is light out even though my film will be done at night. The reason why I chose to test the shots in the afternoon was because I didn't want to waste the night trying the shots over and over again, plus these are short clips so to me, it didn't matter much since I'm testing clips. 

Shot One: 

    Here is a short clip on the parts that I will look at the microwave clock which is stated many times in my script. I wanted to focus on this clip because my character, Alana, does this a few times since she is trying to finish the assignment before midnight, hence the title of the film opening. Looking at the clip, you can see the aluminon foil box in the back, in the final film I will either move it somewhere out of the shot or get closer to the clock, focusing on it. Of course, I won't be waiting for the time to change, in real time, and will be changing the time manually, during the film in the scene Alana is looking at the microwave clock for time.

Shot Two:

    In this shot, it shows a POV shot of Alana watching Tv (Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse) before seeing the reminder on her phone. As you see I didn't have a second phone at the moment so I had used the Tv remote, which for the moment works and gives me the same feel that I'm looking for.  The scene that of the movie I want to play in the background is the scene were Miles is overwhelmed with school and the work piling up. 

Movie Scene from Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse

    This scene is important because it is one of the starting scenes that starts off the film opening, setting up the rest of the film and introduction Alana's character. 

Shot Three: 

    This scene is a 50/50 at this angle. I want to have a scene showing that Alana gets from bed and goes to the desk, starting the next scene: The Desk scene. I don't like how this is a bit shaky and not smooth. I think I should do two shots, different types, showing Alana walking from the bedroom to her desk. I will test that next run. This shot isn't that important since it is just walking, but I'm not sure if in the clip shown, is the way I want to show this small scene of walking. 

Reflection

    Overall, even though it may seem that these are just small clips, they will play a big part in the film and most likely will be in the final film. This helped me see the different types of shots in play and I will be playing around with them more. These shots were done by myself but when it comes to the final film, my mom will be helping me film and be my camera man. These test were mainly to play with shots and try them out with the minor clips that mean a lot in the film overall. 

Dad joke of the Day: 

What is a fancy fish called?

        So-fish-ticated!!

Planning - The Script and Location for the Film (#27)

     Hello viewers! Today I will be creating the script for my two minute film opening.  I don't plan to use talking in this film as a main feature to emphasize the plot. I will mainly try to tell the story/plot by using sounds, music, camera shots and angles to create the feeling and execute the theme wanted. The two characters in the film are Alana and The Figure (Look at previous blogs to get more insight on these characters.) I changed the name of the antagonist from The Nun's Cousin to The Figure because, "The Figure" seems more scary and fits the film better. 

Now here is my script. Enjoy!

Before Midnight
Script By Maya Inman

Late Night. Calm. Stressless.

Scene One - Bedroom:

Alana (15) is in her bed, watching a movie.

A reminder notification pops up on her phone, “Do the homework now”

Alana sighs, throwing herself back onto the bed.

“But I’m so tired..” she says turning off the television.

Alana drags herself out of bed, dragging her feet, and walks down the room.

“Time to work…I guess,” she says, tired.

Scene Two - The Dining/Desk (Continuous):

Alana sits down at the desk, opening the bookbag at the legs of the desk.

She grabs a folder, math book, and notebook.

She opens the notebook and math book, sighing. “I need to stop leaving this for last minute”

She starts to work on the assignment.

She looks at the clock on the microwave showing 10:48pm.

Alana continues working.

She looks at the clock again showing 10:58pm.

“This is taking forever and I’m tired.” she says, putting her head down on the desk.

Alana soon starts to doze off and falls asleep.

Scene Three - The Desk (Nightmare):

Alana wakes up, panicked and looks at the clock, 11:30pm.

“I still have time, I got this.”, she says as she continues to work on the math assignment.

As Alana is working, something behind her outside, passes by the sliding door and she looks back.

Alana brushes it off and continues to work.

As the lights begin to flicker, the figure passes again and she looks back, a little concerned. (The lights flicker from now till said so.)

“It’s just my tired mind, playing tricks on me, " Alana states. She puts on headphones and continues to work.

As Alana continues to work, the figure stops by the sliding door and stands there.

Alana doesn’t hear anything as the sliding door starts to slowly open behind her.

Eventually, the figure’s (The Nun’s Cousin) hand creeps in the house and Alana finally looks back.

Scene Four - The living room (Nightmare):

Alana grabs her phone and rushes to the front door.

As she is looking for the car keys, behind her the figure is slowly coming closer, only moving when the light is off during the flickering of them.

She scrambles through the keys. The figure, coming closer during this.

Alana finally finds the correct key but drops it.

As Alana grabs the key from the floor. (Lights stop flickering)

Alana glances back and the figure is right behind her and her eyes widen.

Scene Five - The Desk (Waking up):

Alana wakes up from the nightmare, looking around frantically.

She gets up and looks to the outside from the glass sliding door.

Seeing nothing, she sits down and looks at the microwave for the time, 11:30pm.

Alana lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

She looks at the work and sees she is almost done, “A few more questions and I’m done.”

She finishes, looks at the clock, 11:59pm, “I’m done, finally. Before Midnight...”

Alana puts her head down and slowly dozes off again.

The lights flicker as she’s asleep and the figure stands behind her.

Cut to Black

The End

    The location for this film is my home. This works best for me and I feel like I will have more time and chances to refilm if needed since I will be home after school and weekends. Here are some photos of the main areas I will be in for the film opening. I rather do this at home so I'm not rushed or anything to leave a place for being there for too long, not having a ride to/from a location, or the time management in between that.

My Bed:

Yes, I love SpongeBob since childhood. Don't judge. 😜

The Desk:

The Living room:

    As you see, we are still in the Christmas spirit in my house, lol. I most likely will remove the most visible Christmas decoration to better the scary feeling. I'm very proud of the script and I hope you liked it too. This took a lot of thinking, so I hope that it came together to what I want and you feel a little scary, hehe. Soon you'll be able to see this in video form, just you wait.  Bye bye for now! 😁

Dad Joke of the Day:

    What's a pirate's favorite letter?

            You'd think it's the "R," but it's really the "C."