Filming Blog: NO FILMING TOOK PLACE

Hi Blog!

  Unfortunately filming couldn't happen the past week, there were a couple of events that took place during this time. I'm involved in certain clubs that I already had scheduled prior to filming this week. On Monday, I am involved in the leadership committee for a girls club called bloom so it is required that I attend that club for every meeting mainly because I have such a big role in this club. On Tuesdays I usually attend choir practice at our school, but I made an effort to film so I decided to miss one practice but in our convenience choir practice was canceled that day. Yet, still no one made arrangements to film as planned. On Wednesday I unfortunately wasn't able to film as planned because there was a mandatory band rehearsal that I had to attend to prep for a music performance assessment that was taking place next week on Monday that the entire band was prepping. It was also a grade that attended this rehearsal because we only had a few left upcoming. This explains why I couldn't make it to film on Wednesday afternoon after school.
  I did reach out to my group to let them know that. On Thursday, wasn't a good day for one of our group members to film so that wasn't able to happened, I also didn't transportation to get back home in time. I also had to attend a rehearsal taking place after school for a black history month showcase that was taking place at the end of the month of Funerary. Though I did not let my group know beforehand which was completely of my responsibility. Friday and the weekends we weren't able to film because of scheduled activities that took place, for me personally I had a youth meeting to go to from my church on Saturday and then church Sunday morning which is an inconvenient time for when we had to film. One of the films were a night scene we had to film for out movie which needed to be done in the night time which was out of schedule for us.
  Later on, I realized that it was going to become more and more difficult for me to meet up with the group so I reached out to them and asked them if I could re-shoot some of the scenes, and film all the necessary scenes that my character was included in. I took the role of playing the main character so I am a big part of filming. Hailey one of my group members gave me the tripod and I Emma one of the group members had the camera at home. I took the tripod from Hailey but, didn't receive the camera from Emma yet. Hopefully filming would go more smoothly this time, and I'm able to film as much parts as needed. This time we would need to schedule and along with everything else we have going on. We'll see how filming goes in the next blog.

Love, Dee

Peer Review Blog

Hey Blog!
 We are going to discuss peer review that happened this Monday. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get a portion of our production done because of issues on the editing software that had occurred. Our group member Emma had technical difficulties that took place during the time in class we were given to edit. I wasn't able to be in class that day because I had to attend a mandatory rehearsal that was taking place that period. We were given another group's product to review as well, but that group had a similar problem as well. Both our groups had technical difficulties that occurred with the software.
 Though issues did occur with the software, I feel like there was ways this could've been avoided. Such as report to our teacher that we were having issues with the editing software in the present moment, as well as explain to her beforehand why we weren't able to have a portion of our product ready for peer review. We might've received an alternative task to do that day, or given extra time to have some portion ready for our peers to review. When we gave another group not a single portion of our project which gave them nothing to be able to critique, and we weren't able to receive constructive criticism on ways we could improve on our film. We were given a review sheet and when filling out our review sheet it was mainly incomplete, and we had to fill N/A (not available to most of the questions as guide lines to critique the other group. We exchanged out review paper with the other group and as shown below we were graded poorly on our filming as so did they. They gave us a suggestion to work better on our time management. Which we as group decided that would be taken into consideration.
 To be completely honest I feel like there were decisions and actions that could've been taken beforehand. to avoid missing out on peer review as part of project. Suggestions we came up with for ourselves were report an issue when there is one taking place at any given time, find a quick solution to out issue in order for it not to become a major problem later on. Be more productive and plan wisely during class time, also to improve on our time management. Set the goal for what tasks need to get done by the end of each class period we are able to edit. Our group takes full responsibility for not being able to take part in peer review on Monday.

Editing Blog: Organizing Footage Planning Titles

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Editing was quite a but of a struggle, honestly we weren't able to get much got done. When arriving to class we were given instructions and we began to edit. During the first 15 minutes of class we dropped off our footage on the SD card to our desktop. Then, Emma one of our group members decided it would be best if we went through every single footage and deleted all the unnecessary videos we wouldn't need or use. Hailey and I didn't think that it was such a good idea to dedicate so much time into looking through each and every single video, and it would take up our time for our editing process. We explained to her that it might take too much time of the limited amount of time we had to edit. However, Emma thought it would be a much easier process to remove all the unnecessary footage and work with the descent ones when we get to editing. Since I figured we wouldn't get a chance to edit I suggested that it would be best to back up our footage so we would still have them in case anything went wrong. While Emma and Hailey was sorting through our footage I took the time and uploaded all our footage to my google drive, which took about 10 mins for it to to finish uploading.  After, we were done uploading we re-watched and sorted most of the footage we had.We took the time to delete footage that wasn't needed and was unnecessary. Sorting through the footage took our entire class time and we were not able editing done.
 Overall, I think we should've took the class time to edit and not look over our footage. Since we were able to upload our footage on google drive reviewing could be done at home instead of during our class time which was intended for the use of taking the time to edit on the editing software which can't be reachable from home.During, other class times we able to start editing more, and get few things accomplished which I'll be discussing in further blogs. That's all there is for the beginning of the editing process blog. I hope you enjoyed reading! See you on the next one.

Filming Blog: Shooting Antagonist Character Scenes

Hey, Blog!

Unfortunately Emma and I weren't available  to film with our group member Hailey this time. But, we were still able to filming happen and stuck to our filming plan as scheduled. Today, we planned to film the scenes with the second main character which was the stalker to our movie. Hailey, went to film the scenes occurring with the antagonist. In the case our antagonist was indeed the "stalker" where the plot starts to develop in our movie. The next couple of scenes took place in Hailey's house once again and we decided on a different location to film it instead of Hailey's room this time.
  The person we originally wanted to play this role was one of our guy friends Raphael, but he wasn't available last minute. It was meant to be a male role, we decided to a last minute change and Hailey's sister was our antagonist for the film. Hailey had her sister improvise as the character, and had her dress up into a male aesthetic version of herself. She wore a black hoodie and had her hair up. The shot was taken from an "over the shoulder" angle which gave her sister a more male like appearance from behind. She told us she was able to film most of the parts for these scenes.
  She was able to take different angles and directed her sister in what to do for each part. She even had her sister improvise in certain parts, imagining what a stalker would probably do in different scenarios. She filmed the scenes in her sister's, while it was dark outside to give the effect of the scene a more unsettling theme contributing to our horror genre. She had her sister scroll through a fake social media page, having her stalk the main character. The different angles that were taken were close ups, over the shoulder shot, and a wide shot in which she stood in the back of the room and filmed her sister on the laptop.
   According to our group member filming did go successfully, and lot was managed to get done. Another successful day of filming, see you guys on the next one!

Filming Blog: Scenes Occurring With Main Actor

Hey, Blog!

I'm excited to announce that we have officially started filming for our movie opening! Which is so exciting, especially for me being the main actor. Though is was a bit difficult due to lack of preparation, but that is completely out of our responsibility. After school, around 2;45ish one of my group members Hailey, had her sister carpool us to out first filming location which was Haileys room at her parents house. Hailey's sister had two of our others friends to drop off first before we could get to filming at her place.
 When we arrived to her place my other group mate Emma and I were greeted well by her parents. Hailey showed us her room. and fixed it up for it to correlate to the mis-en-scene for our first shoot.

After, we finished setting up the camera went over our lines, and what we need to do. Although, in my opinion it's not exactly how I envision filming to go and the setting to be. I was very unprepared, because our group as a whole didn't really discuss dialogue, and we didn't come up with a correct mis-en-scene to correlate with our story line. In result as the lead actress I had to improvise everything, my outfit, the dialogue.
We made enough time for two record the first scenes. I pretended I was on the phone with Hailey as the character that I was pacing back in forth in the room. We took multiple takes of that scene. Then we got different angles of me get on the bed and scrolling through social media on a laptop. Next, we took a take of me heading out the house to meet up with friends at the park. I think filming went successfully, we enjoyed acting out and improvising our lines. It mostly sounded cringe, it was lots of fun and I can't wait to film again.

Planning Blog: Storyboard

In this blog there is an embedded PowerPoint. Just like the others, this google slide has my plans for the video. Though, this is the storyboard for it. An almost set in stone plan for it. Some things will change but mostly will stay the same. The plan for the movie is a girl is stalked online by a mysterious guy. He’s hacked through her computer and is stalking her social media. She made plans with her friends one night and he had heard. She gave away the location and unluckily for her, it was close. The figure drove to where she was and successfully kidnapped her. We had planned out the actors too but not where we could put the titles. We do, however, have an idea of where to put them.

Planning: Location, Participants, Health, and Schedule

In this blog, there is a google slides. This slideshow has all the details to our film. Including the location, participants, health and the schedule. For the locations, we decided on two places. My house and a nearby park. There won't be too many locations so that's all I put. For the participants, we just stated the actors. Since there are only two characters, we just put two official characters in the slideshow and then an un-offical character. We also put the name of the production crew, aka us. For health, we just put our safety precautions like buckling in. And finally for our schedule, we made a rough outline for when everything will be done.

Planning: Title and Design Details

This blog has a google slide embed into it. The slides contain information about the titles. This will help make editing them in easier to do because we have them planned out already. The plans for the appearance for the titles are white font with a blue outline. This will make it seem like a text message. We have also decided on using the closest thing we can find to message fonts. They will come in like a text message with the title name on the right and the name of the actor on the left. This will make it seem like it is being sent. It ties into our theme of the movie which is social media. The more important titles will be in a bigger font to catch the viewers eyes.

Planning: Shooting Script

This blog has a google slides link for my shooting script. This post includes a link to said google docs. This includes angles, movements and shots. Some of the shots we have to include are low angles, over the shoulder shots, match shots and more. This was a bit hard to implement into our plan, considering we had already mapped it out quite a bit. The angles definitely won't change from the original if all goes as planned. When we started planning this movie out, it was only an idea but now it seems like it's going good. We had originally wanted to do something different with our angles, but considering our guidelines, we couldn't. The most fun part to shoot will be the trunk shot, even though it'll be the last part to film. This will most likely be out final product for angles and movements unless something is messed up on filming day.

Planning: Dialogue & Sound Script

This is my slide show of all the dialogue and scripts in film. In this google doc, there is not that much non diegetic and diegetic sounds. The only dialogue is the main girl chatting on the phone. The main non diegetic sound is the music. The only diegetic sounds are the pinging of the phone and the car trunk slamming. Theres also the closing of the car door and room door. There will be some changes to this, but not that much. Maybe some changes to the words that the characters say and or do. Hopefully they won't be that harsh of a change. There isn't exactly much to say about this except that its a google side of my dialogue and sound plans.

Title Research: "The Reaping" (2007)

Hey Blog!!
So, the next film we're going to be discussing the opening sequence to is The Reaping a film introduced in the year 2007. I've watched the opening sequence of this film and studied it based on our horror genre. I examined it due to the following questions.

How many titles are displayed during the opening sequence?
The amount of titles in the opening sequence are 20 titles total. It starts off with series of main actors and producers and closes out with company presented by which in this case is the Warner Brothers.

 What images are prioritized?
The images prioritize are very vague they do not show clear imaging of what exactly is taking place.

 What connotations do the images carry?
The images has you feeling very intense, anxious and anticipated as to what's occurring and what's happening.

 How is the genre reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outset?
I would definitely say the genre is enforced through the score the opening sequence. The bumps along the music takes you on a roller coaster through emotions.

 How did the film establish an enigma from the outset?
The enigma in the film established is very intense and dramatic the way that was established was through the use of different elements of filming as well, such as sound: the extremely suspenseful instrumental. There are flashes with the use of editing, and lighting as well contributing to the mood and theme of the genre.

 What strategies does the film used to ensure that the film is appealing to it's target audience?
The film uses a certain aesthetic throughout the film, and the color design is very dark themed. The font used was a red font.

 How was the technology used effectively?
There are no camera angles of any sort used in the opening sequence more so graphics and mainly editing. With editing there were a couple of fade ins- and different sorts of transitions to move the titles along. The titles also had a floating effect making a dramatic entrance each time through the sequence.

Title Research: "Get Out"

 For this title research, I decided to look at Get Out. I found the opening sequence on the website Art of the Title. This movie has 26 title cards, once again, ranging from producer to co producer and the actors. The titles fade in and out. They are a light blue color and never really change. This title sequence has a lot to talk about.

 The scenes that were prioritized were pretty normal. Two different people getting ready in the morning, one getting dressed and the other grabbing breakfast. There was a scene of trees passing by, perhaps the woods or just a patch of trees. There were some scenes of the man looking at black and white pictures, presumably that he took. It then cuts to the woman knocking on a door, though her hands are full so she knocks with her head. When the door opens, its revealed to be the man on the other side and he lets her inside.

 These scenes don't give away the fact this is a horror movie. They seem almost mundane, every day tasks people would do, not like someone who was in danger would do. Unlike in Split, they don't seem to be in any danger at the moment. They were both completely different stands on horror. Split was horror from the beginning, an obvious horror too, but this one is subtle. It shows the horror in other ways than just being straight up scary.

 As stated in the previous paragraph, this movie doesn't define it's genre in the first minutes. It instead, makes this movie seem like a normal comedy or drama movie. They use everyday activities to open this movie with, such as getting coffee, shaving, driving or looking through photos. There was no music in this opening so nothing suggested horror.

 The target audience is horror fans, though it doesn't seem to be like that. The activities displayed in this part almost seem too mundane, though. Since you expect this to be horror, you expect something scary to happen. Though nothing too scary happens in the first few minutes, they make it seem like something scary would happen, and maybe thats the effect they are going for. Sometimes horror uses these types of techniques to give the viewer a sense of relief, even before anything scary has happened.

 The technology that they use in the movie makes it seem a bit scary. Since this doesnt seem like a horror at first, they use some filming techniques that make it seem like a horror, such as the hand held motion and pans. They also jump back and forth from character to character, showing one doing one thing and another doing something else. This might just be a something I’ve observed in horror, but I have always associated horror with hand held cameras. They use warm and black and white colors while filming. They use tons of close ups and a few two shots in the first few scenes

Title Research: Split

For the first movie title, I looked at Split. I found the opening sequence for the movie on Art of the Title. Split had 22 title cards, ranging from the name of the studio who made it all the way to the director. This includes the title card along with every other title card, producer, co-producer, assistant director and everything in between. It ends with the director as every opening sequence does.

 The first few scenes are of the main girl being captured by our story's main antagonist. It shows a little hallway for two scenes and then goes to our main character. She is being pulled down a hallway while strapped to a medical bed of some sort. These are prioritized by showing how urgent this situation is. The scenes are short clips, giving it an anxious vibe too.

 The connotations for this are supposed to be urgency. Between the quick cutoffs of the scenes and the dark lighting. It makes the viewer feel nervous. The music also helps with the feeling, it's a kind of intense music choice. But this goes with the whole theme of the movie, urgency.

 The genre is defined in the first scene by not really letting you know whats happening fully so you dont get the whole picture. They do this by giving you a sense of dread and splitting up the scenes in a way that gets you nervous about whats happening. The music really helps with defining the genre because its intense. Music in horror films typically are intense music to help make you feel nervous or anxious about the situation.

 The target audience is fans of horror. This opening does all it can to make sure you know this is a horror movie. They use lots of dark and moody lighting and a cool color palette in almost all the scenes we see. The actors also help express this is a horror movie. The actor we see has a terrified facial expression as she is strapped to the medical bed and carried away.

 The use of technology effects the movie properly by cutting away at the perfect time. They cut away to the title card which is just a plain black background with bold white text. The titles appear first in a repetitive manner but then switches to a single, enlarged title. This is the same for all the titles for all of the movies producers, actors and others. The tittle is presented when it just appears on the black screen along with the signature, bolded white text. The movie typically used close ups and pans just to give it more of a scary vibe. The edits were just cut aways, nothing very special.

Title Research: "The Exorsist”

I chose to do The Exorcist as my third movie. This movie is from ArtOfTheTitle.com. The Exorcist has 5 titles, including the title of the movie. It ranges from the studio who made the film to name of the film. This movie has very few titles and the opening scenes are very short. 

The images that are prioritized are a dark house, with a single street lamp. Two people are seen walking down the street that the lamp is on. then it fades to a close up of a statute and then to a sunset. The final scenes are in the desert of northern Iraq where some men are digging through the sand. 

The connotations are creepy. The scenes are dark up until it show the desert in which it is bright, The dark street is creepy due to the worn down house and the lack of people walking down it. The desert is where it becomes brightly lit and illuminated. This isn't creepy because it is just a bunch of men working in the desert and digging through the sand with pickaxes. 

The genre is reinforced by the first few scenes. They make you uncomfortable by keeping it a darker lighting. And like stated before, it shows few people walking on the street making it creepy and unsettling. Mostly considering how late it seems to be at night.

The film establishes an enigma by showing the men in the deserts of iraq. This would make no sense being where a horror movie starts, considering its bright lighting. There is also no music, just the sounds of pickaxes and men grunting, This is where the scene stops, leaving us to watch the rest of the movie. 

The target audiences is horror movie fans. This movie appeals to them by dragging them in with dark opening and then switching to a brighter setting. This leaves us wanting to know the significance of the areas. We soon learn that this is where everything takes places, including the events of the movie. 

The technology is used effectively by using fades to show transition of areas. They also use dark lighting to their advantage and make it creepier. The men in the last few scenes show this was in an earlier time, judging by what they are using to dig up the sand. 

Title Research: Watch The Titles Website

 As I was researching different topics, I found a website called Watch the Titles. I encountered it while researching titles of horror movies. The website has multiple features that were extremely helpful when trying to come up with a title sequence for my project. The website has opening sequences from a wide variety of movies and shows. These cover all genres and styles of film. The site also has the opening sequences of video games which was interesting but not particularly needed for my specific project. Finally, it included interviews of title designers for popular franchises, such as Spiderman. Within the interview they talk about how they came up with the titles that they have made and discuss typography. Typography is the art or procedure of arranging type or processing data and printing from it. This information was nice to look at as it showed the process and ideas the title designers encountered while making the opening of the films. While the interviews were helpful, I focused on the horror movie opening sequences as they were the most beneficial to my research. From the sequences, I could record common elements among the films. I also could take note of how the openings were able to portray the genre of the film with imagery. This information that I was able to collect would then come in handy for making my movie opening. Especially when deciding on what the opening sequence will look like.

Title Research: Art of The Title Website

 While researching my genre and how to make a title, I visited a website called Art of the Title. The website shows the opening sequences of a variety of films and shows. The films and shows are from a range of genres, including comedy, horror, romance, fantasy, and mystery. They showcase openings of films and shows that are both from long ago and more recent. On top of that, the website included detailed articles about the events of movies. It includes very detailed descriptions of certain scenes and describes the opening credits in an easy to understand way. It also assesses the costumes and setting of the movies. These articles included movies that also ranged widely in genre. The site was also very easy to navigate and use. I chose to visit this website to get an idea of what is common in horror opening sequences. The range of movies meant there was ample choices of horror movies to collect information from. This meant I could record how films in the horror genre represent and establish their genre in the opening credits. I also was able to record the amount of titles used in the openings and what imagery was used in different films. This information would then help me when I make my own opening for a movie. All in all, the website was very beneficial when planning and getting ideas for the opening sequence of our own film for our project.

Research & Conventions Horror Genre Film (2017, IT)

While researching the horror genre, I decided to watch IT to get an idea of common techniques that are used in popular horror movies. IT came out in 2017 and was widely successful when released. Therefore, I thought it would be a good representation of horror films and the techniques applied in them. While watching the movie, I took note of common camera angles and sound that was used in the film. I also paid attention for specific editing techniques and elements included in the film.

Camera Angles
Common camera angles used in IT include eye level shots, low angle shots and hug angle shots. It also includes long shots, over the shoulder shots, and two/three shots. The variety of shots keeps the person watching interested and the angles help add to the scenes, especially in the more scary scenes.

Movement
There was also an array of common horror movement techniques used in IT. These movements consist of pans, tracking shots, zooms, and tilts. The use of these movements is crucial to the horror aspect, and are used in the majority of scenes with the antagonist on screen.

Costumes
The majority of the characters are wearing normal everyday clothes for the time period that the film takes place in (The 80’s). There is a character that wears a cast that says “loser” on it but the “s” in the word is scratched out and replaced with an “l”. One of the characters where’s a yellow rain jacket and matching yellow boots that has now become well known for their character. The antagonist wears a dirty clown costume during the entire movie.

Lighting
The lighting in IT is a mixture between brightly lit scenes that take place outside, and low lit scenes that are inside. The low lit scenes are very suspenseful and often are lit with spot lighting to add to the fear factor.

Actors
The main characters are played by Finn Wolfhard, Jaeden Martell, Sophia Lillis, Chosen Jacobs, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Wyatt Oleff, and Jack Dylan Grazer. They all portray their characters very well and fit the characters nicely. The antagonist is played by Bill Skarsgård who is able to make the antagonist as creepy and scary as intended.

Makeup
The makeup is minimal for the characters who are wearing makeup. The antagonist wears the most makeup as they are wearing a full face of clown makeup.

Props
The props used in the film include a lot of small props that aren’t extremely significant and a few important props that drive the entire plot. The less significant props are things such as a lighter and can of hairspray, a knife, and an inhaler. One of the very important props is a small paper boat that begins the conflict in the film. Another important prop is a letter that one of the characters writes to another.m

Setting
The setting is a in a fictional town called Derry, Maine. The town is supposedly haunted and is quite small. Settings inside the town include a library, the school the main characters attend, the characters different houses, and the sewers where the antagonist lives.

Editing
Common editing techniques used in IT include cutaways, jump cuts, and point of view shots. These add to the fear and suspense during the more tense scenes in order to captivate the viewer.

Sound
The sound in the film relies on dialogue and has very little background music. There is quite a lot of ambient sound in the film. Even in more tense scenes, it is still relatively quite to create more suspense.

Elements that I enjoyed
I enjoyed that the main characters were all young teens who are working together to defeat a supernatural entity. The use of kids as the main characters makes it more intense and makes the viewer more fearful for the characters well being as they are still just kids. I also enjoyed the comedic aspect of the movie which was always a nice break from the more scary scenes.

Elements that I disliked
I disliked how predictable the scenes tended to be, an often occurrence with most horror films. It took away the element of surprise at times and therefore made the movie less scary during some scenes.

Research & Conventions Horror Genre Film (2014, Babadook)

The Babadook was a film made in 2014.  The movie was released in various film festivals until it was put onto the internet in november of 2014. They also released it limitedly on the same date. The movie was released onto netflix and hulu around the same time too. The movies ratings were overall good, all around a 4 or a high three. This movie was directed and written by Jennifer Kent.

Angles: 
The Babadook did some typical horror movie maneuvers with lots of low angles, point of views, close ups, medium close ups, over the shoulders and tons of two shots. They mostly shot things using a close up or medium close up but sometimes shot it in a two shot, just to get someone else in the shot.

movements
The movements, once again, are the stereotypical tracking shot, zoom in, zoom out, tilt and pan. The most used movement was pan, mostly to reveal what was on the other side of the room or what the mother was looking at.

costumes: 
the babadooks coat and top hat which he wears for the entire movie until he turns into the dad, in which he wears a suit. The mother wears a pink night dress for most of the movie. She then changes into her work uniform,  The boy wears his usual gray shirt with a blue coat. When he goes to school, he wears his school uniform. At the end of the movie, he changes into a striped sweater for his birthday.

Props:
The boy uses a crossbow, a catapult backpack, and various other weapons he claims are to fight monster with and save his mom. The mother doesn't use props, aside from the bowl of bugs she brings for the babadook and the babadook book itself.

lighting:
the lighting in the babadook is poor. They use this lighting to their advantage and make it creepy, though that was the purpose. They also sometimes keep it bright, only in certain scenes such as in the hospital. In the more intense parts, however, they use harsh lighting with bright shadows and dark darks.

scenes:
There wasnt too many different scenes in this movie. They mainly stayed in the house but sometimes they would change scenes. In a few scenes, the mom is in the nursing home, or the son and his mom are at the park. Though they never really left.

editing 
The editing was just as any other horror, jump cuts, fade in and fade out. They rarely used it but they had used a match shot for one of the scenes.

actors: 
The actors are

makeup:
There were no significant make ups aside from some sick looking blush around the eyes and nose. There was however, some black liquid coming out of the moms mouth along with some rope burns along her collarbone area.

sounds: 
The sounds they used were varied. Kids yelling, the rustle of people shuffling about, the sounds of things hitting the floor, the bed banging, and the babadook yelling into the phone or at the mom.

common elements:
The common elements in this movie were that something is coming after the main characters. They also had a basement trope where there is something down in the basement and the characters need to stop it. They also did a possession trope where the characters try to get rid of said spirit, they end up getting rid of it but something goes wrong.

things i didnt like about the movie: 
Some things I disliked about the movie were all the screaming in it. Though that seemed to be a big part in the movie, the loudness of it just bothered me. There were also some points that I didn't like so much such as the boy being dragged up the stairs. So nothing really too bad, just a few pet peeves.

things i liked about the movie: 
The idea of something coming after the main characters but turing out to be their own demon, aka the fathers death, was an intersting concept. The characters seemed to develp nicely in the movie, as we see them grow into the antagonist or the protagonist. The idea of the book coming back all torn up and taped together was intersting too, it was a nice attention grabber in the entire story.

 

Research & Conventions Horror Genre Film (2017, US)

Us was a film released in march of 2019. The movie was pretty popular, receiving good ratings by many people. The film was directed and produced by Jordan Peele. The movie's budget was around $20 million USD. When producing, actor Lupita Nyong'o had to play two characters. Both characters having an individual script with all different words.

movements
There weren't too many different types of movements, they all repeated. The movements that they used in the film were a tilt, a pan, a tracking shot, a zoom in and a zoom out

angles
The same thing as the movements`, angles didn't really have too many varying angles. They used most of the typical horror movie angles including headshot, closeup, over the shoulder, point of view, two shot, low angle, areal

props 
The props consisted of some stereotypical horror things like bats, golf clubs and fireplace irons and the iconic scissors all the doppelgangers carry on them. There weren't many props in this movie that weren't used as weapons at some point.

lighting 
The lighting was typically dark and had very sharp lights and darks. But in some scenes, it became hard to see with how dark it became and how limited the light was used. In other scenes, they had very high lighting, like in houses and cars.

scenes
Some scenes in the movie were Inside the house, a hall with bunnies, a friend's house, a car, a classroom, sea side carnival, a mirror hall

editing 
The editing was your typical movie edits such as jump cuts, matchshots, fade in, fade out. The most used had to be jump cuts and match shots. Though they didn't use as many match shots as jump cuts, they still used it more than

actors
Some of the actors include but are not limited to Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elizabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Shahadi Wright Joseph and Even Alex

costumes
Some costumes used in Us are the sleepwear of the original family and the jumpsuits of the doppelgangers. All the doppelgangers wear the same thing to match, also carrying the same weapon.

makeup
The make up they used is very minimal. They do a few special effects like blood and gore but thats it. Though some of the gore might have been CGI, I still put it under make up.

sounds 
The sound of birds chirping, chatting in the carnival, waves crashing into the shore, the noises in the mirror house, along with the noises of the other doppelgängers copying their originals. There were some splats of blood or bodies falling as noises too but these weren't made too heavily.

common elements
Horror relies on a dark mood and suspense, which Us used to its advantage many times. They also use aspects comedy to lighten the mood when it gets serious or just because the story is meant to be a horror comedy, wich

what did I like about this movie? 
I liked how Us followed the stereotypes of horror movies, but in an original way. Though they went with typical horror tropes and conventions, they made it work. It was an original idea. The fact that they had an actor playing two roles with totally different personalities and characteristics.

what did I dislike about this movie?
There wasn't much I didn't like about this movie. The only thing I didn't like was the whole "every double is against the original" story plot.  Though it was interesting, it would have been more interesting if it was the Red and Adelaide. There were also some confusing parts such as the ending where Red and Adelaide switch places. That wasn't really explained until the ending of the ending and still, even then, it was a bit confusing.

Research & Conventions Horror Genre Film (2017, HAPPY DEATH DAY)

During my research, I decided to watch multiple horror movies to get a better understanding of what characterizes the horror genre. One of the movies I chose to watch was Happy Death Day. Happy Death Day is a horror movie that was released in 2017 and was quite successful. I decided on this film as it is both recent and popular, which makes it a good representation of current horror films. Throughout the film, I recorded the editing, sound, camera angles, and Mis-En-Scene that was used in the movie. Camera Angles Common camera angles used in Happy Death Day include medium closeups, which were often used when showing the antagonist. Other camera angles that were often used over the shoulder shots, two shots, long shots and close ups. Movement Very commonly used movements in Happy Death Day were zoom ins and zoom outs. Pans and tracking shots are also used heavily throughout the film to show scenes in which the protagonist is running or being chased.

Editing Commonly used editing techniques in Happy Death Day are jump cuts, cut aways, and cross cutting. These techniques add a suspense to the film and amplify the horror in the film. There is also a montage towards the middle of the film. Sound The film does not have a lot of background noise in most of the scenes and focuses on the dialogue. However, when the antagonist is on screen and after the protagonist, there is intense music to add a fear factor of the scene. Elements of the genre I enjoyed I enjoyed the repeating day concept used in the movie which is not used very often in the horror genre. It added an interesting element to the film and fueled the plot well. Although misdirects are used a lot in horror films, I also like the use of misdirection in the film. Elements of the genre I disliked During the movie, I wasn’t very fond of the constantly bright lighting as I felt it made the film less scary. I also felt the mask that the antagonist wore took away the fear for me