Editing day #2

Welcome back!! this is the second day of editing we have imported my clips into Premiere Pro from the SD card it was a long process importing the clips because there were so many clips, but I finally was able to do it!!

Now that the real editing has begun, I have imported all of my clips into the timeline and started cutting them down to making sure everything runs smoothly. I focused on trimming unnecessary footage and tightening the edits so that each shot flows naturally into the next. This process helps keep the introduction engaging and prevents the scenes from feeling too long or unpolished.

I have also started color grading the clips to give the film a more cinematic look. By adjusting the colors, contrast, and lighting, I am working to create a consistent visual style that matches the mood of the story and makes the footage feel more professional.

In addition, I need to add foley audio for the sisters’ laughter because the microphone did not capture it clearly during filming. Adding this sound in post-production will help make the scene feel more natural and realistic, while also strengthening the emotional connection between the characters.

Editing day#1!

 Hi Cambridge! So today we have started the editing process on Premiere Pro it has been going smoothly but we still have to do a lot of editing and color grading. This is what we have so far.

In the picture, you can see the film title along with the timeline where I have begun editing the introduction and opening scene of the film. During this stage of editing, I carefully added multiple sound effects, such as the sound of ocean waves and seagulls, to help establish the beach setting and create a realistic atmosphere. I also included the voices of the sisters in the background, which adds emotion and helps introduce their relationship early in the film opening.

All of the audio elements work well together and blend smoothly, creating a calm yet slightly emotional tone that draws the audience in. I used fade-ins and fade-outs on the introduction texts to make smoother. This allows the title to appear clearly on screen without feeling abrupt and helps the transition into the first scene feel smooth and natural. Overall, the editing choices in the introduction help set the mood of the film and prepare the audience for the story that follows.

Music

We are now in the editing/filming process!

We have now filmed a bit of our project and are starting to edit what we have.

One important aspect of any film is the music. Me and my partner thought long and hard if we wanted to incorporate music into our film opening. We were leaning towards no but at the end we ultimately think it will add a big part to our film opening. 

At first we did not want to have any music because we wanted it to look authentic and realistic. We wanted the waves of the  beach to be heard alone and we thought the silence in the bedroom scenes was essential. We have now finally decided we want to incorporate. a little bit of music during the beach scenes. This will help convey the happy and playful energy the sisters had whenever they were hanging out together.

The music site we will be searching sound from is called Epidemic Sounds. We are going to try and find any subtle but happy and playfully music that we can layer over the beach waves and beach sounds.

I went and looked into the “ Happy” mood section to find the best options for what we want.

Here is a link to the site: 

https://www.epidemicsound.com/music/featured/?override_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.epidemicsound.com%2Foauth_callback%2F&is_new_user=true 

CCR Question#1 Research

 As we have are now at more than the half way mark of our portfolio project, we have something else to think about and that is the CCR. The CCR is the Creative Critical Reflection portion of the project. For the CCR we have to answer 4 different questions in 2 different digital formats . These could include a podcast, talk show, director commentaries or any other creative form of media.

The 4 questions are:

1.  How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
2. How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

Today I am going to be talking about question #1.

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

For this question it is important to:

• Discuss genre conventions

Citing is always very important. Wherever you found your information, YOU NEED TO CITE IT!!!!

• Discuss if you chose to challenge the conventions or not.

Thoroughly explain your decision on why and how you chose to challenge these conventions.

• End with representation.

How do these conventions represent the social groups or issues.

I have not finished developing my response for this question fully. I have rough start of it so far and it would be this:

Our film opening uses and challenges genre conventions by first setting a relaxed atmosphere with ocean sounds, then uses a digital camera and during the beach shots to establish the "memory" or "flashback" aspect. It challenged the typical horror concept of scary ghosts by making the younger sister look "holy" or faded, which shifts the focus from fear to the emotional bond of siblings. This represents the social issue of grief and loss, showing how the older sister is stuck between her happy memories and her current reality. By having both the friend and the sister speak at the same time in the final shot, it represents how losing someone can make a person feel isolated from the real world, highlighting the mental health impact of losing a family member.

Group meeting #2

Second Group Meeting!!!!!

Today we had the second group meeting. It was me and 6 other people. Andreina, Ethan, Selena, Santiago and Isabella. These are mostly different people than last group meeting to be able to get different feedback and advice for our film opening.

Here are my brief and rough notes from the group meeting for each person in my group.

Andreina

Thriller/ horror/ suspenseful film. She hasn’t started filming yet. It is about technologies against humans in a way. Intergrating credit sequence into the notifications  or on TV, computer. Getting multiple texts and not knowing what is going on.

Ethan 

Sci-if film opening. It is about an astronaut stop motion about them going to space. He has started to filming a bit. We asked him about if has asked for help because we were shocked he is doing stop motion since it can  be pretty difficult and we found it really cool. He said he is doing it all by himself which is actually really impressive. For his CCR he is thinking of doing a 1990s look, and a sock puppet show.

Selena

She is doing thriller, suspense film. Thinking she might use lower angles to make people look really tall and slim. Trying to film at night at a park so she will try and ask a park ranger for help to film for longer time since the park does close and wants it to be night time. Texts will be coming in first slow and then quickly. Creepy man will be watching her and moving suddenly from back to front. She is going to film Wednesday.

Santiago

Thriller, action type film. Podcast type movie with a doctor that made a medicine to save everyone but it went wrong  and now a man is trying to save the medicine has a timer because if not everyone will die in 48 hours. Using dad’s studio to film the podcast and all his group memeber’s parents are going to be actors for the film.

Isabella

Thriller, drama film. It is about a cheerleader at practice with other people then she starts looking at a guy. It cuts to her at her house and then starts rushing to pack and puts drugs in bags then she  rushes to car and  going with her its same guy she looked at. She’s an agent and can’t tell if she’s good or bad. Might do peels off most asked questions and a podcast. Taking a while to film because of extracurriculars.

Macie

Finished filming there’s a magazine with a preserved person. Made magazine in Canva and show the famous people that make the preservation for people. Main character is a janitor and she is using her dad to be seem as the famous person that does this.

My feedback-

For my opening I explained to my group my idea of my opening and they gave some good ideas on how to represent Lilly (the little sister) a bit better. They said I could use wind chimes to represent or symbolize Lilly. A sound effect/music of a wind chimes could start sounding whenever Lilly is around. That could help the audience know when the older sister would be hallucinating about Lilly when she is around and when she is not.

Filming Day #1!

 We have officially started the filming process!

As I said before me and my partner had to reconsider our filming days due to inconvenient events we both have going on coming up. I had my dance competition today so she was able to go and film a part of the beach scene. My partner also asked some of her friends from her TV production class to help film at the beach.

Although we still have some filming left at the beach we have some done which really helps. We will both soon go together an film the bedroom scenes and might have to go back to the beach to film with the digital camera.

Filming went really well at Hollywood beach and now we have a great start to our film opening.

Here are some behind the scenes at the beach!

Behind the scene video of filming.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ovurqOE7VsR9wcx_g1xagIrVMCgZAbGO/view?usp=sharing

Obstacles and Issues

We have encountered our first obstacle….

My partner and I originally planned to film February 27–29, but those plans changed because she had to leave early for the Student Television Network (STN) competition. Since she was leaving on Thursday, filming during that time wasn’t possible, which caused a lot of stress.

We then tried to film on February 22, but she couldn’t film Saturday due to her last practice before traveling, and my I couldn’t film Sunday because of I have an important dance competition. At that point, we both felt overwhelmed and worried about falling behind.

To solve this, my partner asked friends from TV Production and AICE Media to help us film, and they agreed, which was a huge relief. We also realized we hadn’t bought the white dresses yet, so my partner ordered them on Amazon to make sure they arrived in time.

Another issue was equipment. Because she had practice on Saturday, she couldn’t check out equipment from TV Production, so we borrowed a camera, tripod, and microphones from a program partnered with Cypress Bay High School.

After returning from STN on March 3, my partner and I plan to film at her  house that same week, and that way she will  be able to check out equipment from TV Production. Despite the stress, these obstacles pushed me to be flexible, communicate better, and problem-solve under pressure.

Production Logo

The process of coming up with our production company name took a while. At first, my partner and I searched through different websites, looking at examples of production company names. Because we were unsure of which name we anted or come up with, we also asked our friends to help come up with ideas for production company names. A friend jokingly suggested the name Aura Films and that’s when I got the idea for a production name. My partner and I said that Aura Films was too simple and common for the type of film we wanted to make. 

That suggestion made me to begin to think of an idea in my mind. I thought of the word Aurora instead of Aura which sounded more elegant to me. I liked how Aurora smoothly rolled off the tongue as compared to Aura. After deciding on Aurora Films, I looked it up to check whether the name was copyrighted and legitimate and not completely in use. Although I found that a production company named Aurora films. I did not want to scrap the idea completely as it closely fits our vision. 

To make the name more unique and professional, I decided to add the word Filmworks, resulting in Aurora Filmworks. Because we are working on a film and the idea came to mind. I felt like this made the name stand out more while still maintaining the elegance and cinematic feel that I was looking for. 

For the text we decided to go with white and a bold but elegant font. It was plain so we decided to add a glow and the top of the text to make it stand out a bit more. Including Filmworks in the name also gave it a more professional feel rather than being too simple like my panther and I said. In the end, this entire process went from a fun little inside joke to a creative but well thought out decision that fits the tone and style of our film perfectly.

Title Reveal

 A very large and important part of any film is the title. The title catches people’s attention and ultimately is the way people remember and can tell others about a film. This is why it was quite difficult for us to choose a title for our film opening. We want it to be perfect.

Here are our top 3 title options we had:

• Echoes in the Tide

• Washed Away

• Where the Water Meets

We decided to go with “Washed Away” since we think the beach is going to be a very significant place for the characters so “Washed” plays around with the idea of waves at the beach. Since Lilly passed away we decided “Washed Away” would be an interesting way to showcase this idea.

Why it just clicked

To be honest, it took a long time and we were going back and forth on this. "Echoes in the Tide" sounded cool and “aesthetic”, but maybe a bit too fancy for the vibe we’re actually filming. Then "Where the Water Meets," we liked, but it felt like it was missing something. It didn't really tell you how the characters were feeling.

But when we said "Washed Away" out loud, it just fit. It’s got that double meaning we were looking for. On one hand, you’ve got the literal beach setting and the water constantly moving. On the other hand, it perfectly describes that empty feeling the characters have now that Lilly is gone. It’s like her presence was just swept out to sea.

We want the audience to feel that connection the second the title fades into the screen. Using "Washed" makes the beach feel like more than just a location since it is a of the grief. It’s simple, it’s catchy, and it really sums up the feeling of our opening scene.

We are really excited now that we found a title, our project feels like a whole now. All we have to do now is the fun part. The filming!!!!!

Audio and Sound

For our film opening, my partner and I want sound to play a major role in how the audience feels before they fully understand what is happening in the film opening.

The opening begins with a black screen, where audio is used to immediately set the scene and spark curiosity. During this moment, the audience will hear ocean waves, distant talking, and seagulls. By using sound before visuals, we want viewers to imagine the setting themselves and start thinking about what kind of story is about to unfold.

We plan to add a subtle but tense sound effect after a few seconds. This adds to the tension and suggests that, even with the scene's noticeable peacefulness, something more darker or disturbing might be in the future . We are thinking of two unique musical approaches for the beach sequence. One choice is to symbolize innocence, freedom, and happy memories with calming, upbeat music. The second choice is to use light, tense music that sounds a lot like the theme song Poppy Playtime to convey a sense of unease beneath the joy and suggest that the plot might turn darker.

As the film transitions away from the beach, the audio will shift dramatically. A strong suspense sound effect the same one used in the beginning will be used to show this change in tone and setting. After this transition, there will be no music for a short while , allowing silence to build discomfort and focus the audience’s attention on the emotion of the moment. When the main character begins looking at pictures on the wall, sad and emotional music will slowly fade in. This music is meant to communicate feelings of loss, memory, and longing without using dialogue. 

As the story becomes more unsettling and dramatic the younger sister’s presence feel less real. There will be a scene  where the younger sister places her hand on the older sister the music will continue playing to increase tension and emotional impact. Near the end of the opening, sound becomes especially important. The mix of music, silence, and subtle sound effects is used to confuse and unsettle the audience. When the sister turns around to see if her younger sibling is there there will be a sudden suspenseful sound effect.

This audio choice is meant to leave viewers with unanswered questions and a sense of unease, encouraging them to keep watching to understand the meaning behind what they heard. This audio plan may change as we continue developing our film opening, but our main goal is to use sound to guide the audience’s emotions and create suspense from the very beginning to the end.

We plan to add a subtle but tense sound effect after a few seconds. This adds to the tension and suggests that, even with the scene's noticeable peacefulness, something more darker or disturbing might be in the future . We are thinking of two unique musical approaches for the beach sequence. One choice is to symbolize innocence, freedom, and happy memories with calming, upbeat music. The second choice is to use light, tense music that sounds a lot like the theme song Poppy Playtime to convey a sense of unease beneath the joy and suggest that the plot might turn darker.

As the film transitions away from the beach, the audio will shift dramatically. A strong suspense sound effect the same one used in the beginning will be used to show this change in tone and setting. After this transition, there will be no music for a short while , allowing silence to build discomfort and focus the audience’s attention on the emotion of the moment. When the main character begins looking at pictures on the wall, sad and emotional music will slowly fade in. This music is meant to communicate feelings of loss, memory, and longing without using dialogue. 

As the story becomes more unsettling and dramatic the younger sister’s presence feel less real. There will be a scene  where the younger sister places her hand on the older sister the music will continue playing to increase tension and emotional impact. Near the end of the opening, sound becomes especially important. 

The mix of music, silence, and subtle sound effects is used to confuse and unsettle the audience. When the sister turns around to see if her younger sibling is there there will be a sudden suspenseful sound effect.

This audio choice is meant to leave viewers with unanswered questions and a sense of unease, encouraging them to keep watching to understand the meaning behind what they heard. This audio plan may change as we continue developing our film opening, but our main goal is to use sound to guide the audience’s emotions and create suspense from the very beginning to the end.

Props and Lighting

 Today I will be talking about the last mise-en-scene elements i want to discuss which are our prop and lighting choices for our film opening!

First I will talking about props. 

Props

Props are essential in any film because they create meaning. In our film opening there will be many props utilized but today I want to talk about the most important prop we will be using.

The most important prop is going to be the picture frames. The picture frames on the wall of Meliyah’s room symbolize her and her sister’s relationship. The pictures sho her and her sister when her sister was alive. Meliyah is going to be looking at the pictures and the her sister’s hand is going to reach out symbolizing that Lilly’s presence.

Lighting

For the beach scenes, we want to use bright, natural lighting to create vibrant colors. Filming during the day will help make the blues of the ocean and sky stand out and give the scenes an upbeat, happy feeling. The sunlight will show the warmth of the moments between the sisters and make the beach feel lively and full of life.

In the bedroom parts, colors are still there, just way softer and not as bright as on the beach. It feels like that makes a big difference for the mood. We are thinking about using light from the windows or a light kit to keep things calm and kind of emotional. The beach has all that happy, lively vibe with brighter stuff, but inside the house it turns more serious and reflective, so toning down the colors shows that switch pretty well.

That lighting difference sort of highlights how the feelings change between outside and inside, without messing up the overall look of the film. This helps everything come together seamlessly without having an unclear film opening

Setting and Costume

 Today I am going to be talking about some of the mise-en-scene elements for our film opening! First will be our setting and costumes.

To start off I will be talking about the setting. Our film opening is going to take place in 2 different settings

Setting #1: 

The beach

We chose the beach as the first setting since it gives a positive introduction to our film opening which is exactly what we want. We want to first showcase all the good times the sisters had so we thought the beach would be the perfect place for this goal.

We are thinking that we are probably going to go to Fort Lauderdale beach since it is the closest to us. Fort Lauderdale is usually filled with children giving a joyous atmosphere to the beginning of our film opening which is what we are trying to convey.

                                           

 

Fort Lauderdale Beach

Setting #2:

Bedroom

The next place would just be Meliyah's bedroom. Since Meliyah already has photos with her sister in her room we thought filming in her room would be the most realistic for this scenario.

Finally the costumes!

We have chosen to have the sisters wear white flowy dresses at the beach symbolizing their innocence and fun times they had. This will be worn when they are at the beach at the beginning of the film opening.

Then the last costume would be just casual clothing since they will be in the bedroom. Probably jeans and a top since they would be going out somwhere.

This is what we have so far! I am so excited to get the filming started soon.

Meet our characters

 Today I will be giving more of an insight on who our characters are for our film opening.

Our main character is the older sister Meliyah.

Meliyah:

Meliyah is a 16 year old girl that lives in Weston, Florida. She has one younger sister named Lilly and has a very special bond with her. Meliyah is a very calm and happy person. She is usually not emotionally driven but when it comes to her younger Lilly she is very dependent and protective of her. Meliyah was always very close to Lilly but since Lilly passed she has not been her self and it has taken an emotional toll on her mental health.

Lilly: 

Lilly is Meliyah’s 14 year old sister. Lilly has always looked up to Meliyah and always wanted to make her proud. She recently passed away to an unexpected car accident when she was out with her friends and now her family’s life has not been the same ever since.

Camila: Cami is Meliyah’s best friend. They met at school when they were in middle school and have been close ever since. Cami grew a bond to Lilly and knows how special she was to Meliyah and has been trying to help Meliyah navigate this new chapter of her life by distracting her and trying to get her to have fun everyday.

These are the only characters that will be in our film opening. This is more of a “who are they?” section so you guys can meet them and learn about them more.

Storyboard and Script

Today we worked on our script and storyboard for our film opening! Me and my partner are not very good at drawing but any storyboard can help with visualize and organize your thoughts. They're specially important during the preproduction phase and also throughout the actual production. Storyboards are a guide while you are filming. You may become overwhelmed and unsure of what shots you need, and what exactly to record so a storyboard, can help you choose which shots are best for the production. 

Here I have our storyboard!

Storyboard:

 

Lastly I have here our script. Meaning this is what our characters dialogue will be during our film opening.

Script:

Beach setting

Script:

Older sister: "Come on Lilly"

Younger Sister: "Wait up"

Older Sister: "Okay Okay I'll slow down"

Bedroom scene:

Older sister friend: " Hey what are you doing, we're gonna be late"

Older sister: "Sorry im coming"

As always this is what we will be following and any changes that we make I will be updating here!

Film opening plot Idea

 Today my partner and I finally got an idea of what the plot of our film opening is going to be about.

Idea:

The first shot would be a black screen and then after a few seconds it would reveal the title ( we are still thinking about what our title will be) but in the background you can hear ocean waves, and seagulls. We want people to visualize what the setting is going to look like before the black screen disappears and reveals it. We want viewers to be curious and thinking of what the scene would be.

The opening shot is going to be an older sister and younger sister running in the sand. You can still hear the background. The first shot is going to be on a digital camera to give a visual effect on the sisters having fun. This will also allow the credits to be shown at the bottom during the next shots which will be cutting into different shots of them hanging out at the beach. We will try and use the rule of thirds to better incorporate the credits.

The next scene will take place at their house. It will cut to the older sister in her bathroom looking at herself in the mirror then it cuts to a tracking shot of her walking over to her bed and she starts looking/reminiscing through pictures of her and her sister on the wall. This will include close-ups of the different pictures the older sister is looking through.

The next scene is an over the shoulder shot of the younger sister reaching out to the older sister but her hand is faded or “holy”.Then it cuts to a wide shot of her looking back but no one is there. 

The final shot would be her friend opening her door and asking “What are you doing?” but at the same time the younger sister will be next to her friend also asking “What are you doing?”.

This is a general idea of what we have planned for our film opening. There might be changes along the filming process but this is generally what we will be trying to follow. I will keep the blog updated if any changes are made.

Inspiration:

The inspiration was from a music video that was produced by our TV production student’s called “Wonder” which incorporated vibrant and vivid shots of the beach which we really liked and wanted to do something similar for a part of our film opening.

Wonder (2025) CBTV

Hermeneutic Codes

 Our next task for our portfolio project is to research a media theory that we want to use and integrate into or film opening. One theory that stood out to me was the Hermeneutic Codes by Roland Barthes.

The Hermeneutic Code is essentially the "mystery mechanic" of a story. It works by creating a gap between a question being asked and the answer being revealed. Instead of giving the audience all the facts at once, they give "enigma codes" which are a narrative technique used so the audience can keep guessing on what is happening or what is going to happen without knowing everything right away. By intentionally not showing the truth or providing "snares", this helps build suspense and keep the audience engaged on what is going to happen which makes them want to keep watching the film..

In my film opening, I can use this code to relate the line between reality and grief. For example, if the audience sees the daughter talking with the sister seeming completely normal before noticing a "snare" keeps the audience thinking everything is normal. The turning point would happen when the dad walks in and sees his daughter talking to nobody revealing to the audience that the sister isn't actually there. 

Researching this media theory can help better develop the plot of the film and will be able to help keep the audience engaged as the film goes on.

Group meeting #1

 We are officially in week 3 of our portfolio project, and today we had a group meeting. I was is a group with 7 other students and we each shared our ideas of what we have so far for our project and gave each other feedback and ideas for out project. My group mementos were: Manuela, Andreina, Sebastien, Julia,  Taryn, Juan, and Andres

Here i am going to insert the notes i took during the group meeting.  

Manuela - thriller like the orphan

Andres-treasure hunt, something and is not sure of setting since it has to be at night probably wants to do a museum type setting 

Andreina- horror/thriller ring camera showing alerts but no one there, vibe changes from fun to isolated spooky music

Sebastien-mystery/thriller bag puts them in trance like weapons but man is controlling

Julia-drama someone grieving because someone died, maybe r roman ace and took inspiration from the Titanic

Juan-thriller action, introduce main character with flashbacks about who he was what’s happened to him was bad and goes to present tense, fight scene,he did something bad ,serious

Taryn- sci-fi post apocalyptic , something big happened, not close to civilization making a tent trying to survive

Those are rough notes of everybody else’s genres and ideas for their project. Some had mor ideas than others and that is okay. This really helped me see what others are thinking and I found really intriguing what everybody is thinking of doing. I also thought it was interesting how most of us decided to do something in the realm of thriller, horror and mystery genre.

Feedback for my project: photo frames of when she was little and getting ill, thinking out loud , wearing like clothes she doesn’t usually wear or white and be pale or like she looks normal, camera angles of he dissapearing, teenage girl talk about her life with her sister

I am really thankful for this activity because i got a lot of feedbacks from my classmates on how I can execute my not concrete ideas and now i have a better understanding on how i can make them all come to life and make the best of them.