The Film

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4whpEiK1L4

https://vacantthemovie.wixsite.com/vacancy

CCR

 

1.      How does your product use or challenge conventions AND how does it represent social groups or issues?

Our commercial does a critical thing to challenge current conventions and Wendy’s commercial standards as a whole by breaking the fourth wall and trying to connect with the audience on a deeper level. This commercial tries to talk directly to the audience through comedy, which time and time again has shown that it is a proficient way of connecting with audiences, young and old and getting more buyers of a product, no matter what that product is. Humor has proved such a strong catalyst for consumerism that comedy has been a potent tool in any advertiser’s belt of strategies. Knowing this, we made a unanimous decision that our commercial would include humor as a main draw and hopefully that everything would go well. Thankfully, it did. Sadly, our commercial did not to anything revolutionary in the terms of social reforms or political issues, but we were not trying to go for such a hard-hitting point, as we were more trying to sell chicken nuggets than trying to raise protest in the streets. We decided against this because we are aware of the controversy surrounding other companies who have tried to do something as drastic as that, such as Pepsi with the infamous commercial that made their stocks drop by a staggering amount for a simple commercial with a simple view. Ignoring any social issues proved to be a positive, as we as a team were able to focus and pin down the answers to many questions plaguing our project at the time: Thankfully, all of these questions were answered and more.

 

2. How does your product engage with audiences AND how would it be distributed as a real media text?

 

      This product appeals to millennial humor by being funny and random. This new form of humor has been proven effective multiple times in the past and is now at the forefront of many advertising firms current and most likely future strategies for outsourced advertising jobs. This new, flashy and colorful approach is now a mainstream affair. Our team decided to try and appeal this 49-year company to a new generation through this humor, and we feel like we succeeded. Further playing into this strategy, we would focus less on television ads and focus more on social media prevalence. This is because television viewership numbers have been steadily dwindling in the past few decades and we would want as many trendy and younger people seeing our advertisement as much as possible, as another part of advertising is to grab the viewers attention as quickly as you can, because the information getting into the watchers brain is more important than the watcher seeing the advert as a whole. When the main topic is put in front of the user immediately when they crave something or have a problem they will hopefully think immediately to that funny time they were introduced to the product and hopefully be a future customer. Our product engages with the audience beautifully, through humor.

 

 

3.      How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

 

            My Production skills developed exponentially throughout the length of this project because this was my first introduction to filmmaking and all of its aspects. This class went through all of the film making processes, such as editing, filming, acting and even finding the right music for the video. Every single detail was carefully curated by the tail end of the project, and everyone in our group was at least proficient in the programs we used and the camera angles and even our line. The great thing about this class is that it compresses down the complete filmmaking process into bite sized chunks, allowing us students to experience an often multi million-multi-year job in only a few days with the camera equipment being provided for by the school, meaning no one had to pay a dime. When I first started this project, I had little to no idea what the first aspect of filmmaking was, and now i can tell you every step off of the top of my head: including some of the different jobs that go into making a feature length film. Luckily, my group did not assign jobs to each other, meaning I was able to experience every aspect. Editing, acting, camerawork, everything! This allowed me to know many things about film. In terms of production, our group of course went through our bumpy bits in the beginning, but through the leadership of our teachers and the determination of all of us, we were able to streamline production, however much production that may mean. We were all directors by the end of the project, and we were all extremely proud on what seeing four idiots with a camera could do and make people laugh .

 

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

Our main technology for this project were as follows: a camera and its accessories, and a computer with pinnacle studios installed. First, we made our storyboard on paper but uploaded it to our blogspots so we could see it from anywhere, even outside where we were filming. Blogspot allowed us to keep and store essential story and acting information for later use so we did not have to lug around an absurd amount of papers for one little project. The bread and butter of this project, though, of witch it would not be completed without, was the camera. Our camera was a small little dinky digital camera, but the lens was fantastic and the footage always came out great. The only problem our team had with the camera was the time constraints put upon us by its battery, with a meager life of around 2 hours. Ours, sadly, was not fully charged, and we were restricted to less than a class period of camera. Luckily, this proved to be more than enough for our ragtag group of heroes to complete the footage in a mere day to their exquisite standard. While the raw footage strung together would make a passible commercial on its own, we decided to spice it up a bit with pinnacle studios, allowing us to use royalty free smoke transitions and surprisingly catchy music that went in our comercial without inner team debate. All in all, technology was such an important part of our project we could not have hoped to finish it without our tools. Learning and using this tech to the best of our ability was separated from the development process, but a treat nonetheless.

 

The Day of Filming

  Today we filmed. Before everyone started showing up Eva made the fake blood. Eva mixed cornstarch, water, and food dye. I instructed her to microwave it so it would be thicker. With no surprise, It turned out great and was quite thick. At first, I thought there was going to be a repeat of what happened on Friday. Two people canceled on us once again. It was already two o’clock and I thought we would have to postpone again. But, I already had extras scheduled to arrive. This meant Eva did not have to act and she could be solely the cinematographer and director. It also means we had another person to check for any issues in the background of the shot. We changed the name of Allie to Alex to fit the gender of the extra person. The cast ended up being:

• Sean as James
• Andrew as Connor
• Michael as Eddie
• Esteban as Alex
• Trent as a Homeless Person

Filming started at roughly three o’clock. We filmed slightly out of order. We started off filming the flashback scene because it was the only scene at a secondary location. So, we walked down to the park. This scene took roughly twenty minutes, including walking there and back. We filmed the rest

Planning

 Today I have set up the plans to film. Everyone in our group will be able to come but, we need at least one more actor, preferably two. We have arranged filming to be set on Friday afternoon. Everyone should be available since mid-Terms will be finished and no one has scheduled any other plans. We intend on inviting two friends who have either worked with us before or have previously taken an AICE media class. Are props will be minimal: we will need tattered clothes (the homeless man character), prop weapons (a hammer), and fake blood. Making fake blood shouldn't be too hard for us since we made some in our last film. It is simply food dye, water, corn starch and xanthan powder. After that we heat it in the microwave to thicken it even more. Safety is our number one priority so, we have made sure all of the ingredients in our fake blood are non-toxic and easily digestible. We will be filming at three main locations: in our house, our crawlspace and a park down the street. We have already made sure all of these locations are cinematically pleasing.

Editing

  My editing skills are only strong in Photoshop and Illustrator so, I am leaving the majority of the editing for Eva. I can however edit the audio so, that is what I will most likely be doing. Eva created a new project in Premiere. I then imported it. The first thing Eva did was line up the clips. This took much longer than I thought it would. Last year it was much quicker. This was because they were only two minutes for the film last year. The hardest part, according o Eva, was lining up the conversation shots. This is because they all look the same. So, she had to watch all of the clips multiple times just to get the order. Currently looking at the footage I fear that we don’t have enough to get to five minutes. I am currently at 2 and a half minutes. I already used a bit over half of the footage.

Update: I finished lining up all of the footage. With place holders for the main titles, it made it to exactly five minutes. This is exactly where it needs to be. This was a great start to the editing process. Now that everything is lined up I have to add transitions, effects, and finish the titles.

The Day After Filming

  This blog is a continuation of yesterday's blog. Looking back at the filming process it went very well and smoothly. A few things we did differently from last year is the amount of planning we did and the quantity of dialogue. The planning helped make sure everything went smoothly. I think my favorite scene was when Eddie scared Sean. I think it was a nice funny scene that lightened the original mood of the movie. That offered a drastic contrast to the ending. One thing I was not a fan of was filming under the scenes under the house. It was fine when we checked when we were scouting where we filmed. I did not anticipate how uncomfortable crouching the entire time we were filming would be. Eva seemed to be slightly bothered by the amount of bugs under the house. I on the oher hand was expecting this.

I haven’t thoroughly reviewed all of the footage yet. I will be doing that tomorrow.  But, from what I can see the lighting was good throughout. One thing I am now worried about is making sure it is not choppy. A lot of the scenes were filmed separately and we have not done a film with heavy dialogue. But, I am confident that it will turn out well. I can’t wait for editing because I feel like our acting had much to be desired.

A Cancelled Event

 Today we had to cancel our filming plans. Not all of our actors were able to make it. There must have been a communication error because our actor stated that he was unable to make the time he previously agreed to. There is nothing we can do about it now, however. We will just schedule our filming for a future date. This may have been a blessing in disguise since I have recently come to discover we are lacking the majority of our props. Hopefully we will be more prepared. To mitigate the threat of having to reschedule for a second time, I made sure we would have extras in case someone doesn't show up. Two actors outside of the class have been contacted along with three extras who will be contacted. When we do schedule our filming, it will likely be some time next week, this will be when everyone is on winter break and everyone is available. We will now have to ask everyone which days they will be available. Then we will be able to schedule a day.

Another Chance?

  We have officially rescheduled filming for Monday, the 21st. Everyone has confirmed they will be available on that day. We chose this day for multiple reasons. One, it is close to the beginning o winter break so many people might not have plans yet (which no one had.) A second reason is because we wanted an ample amount of time to edit since we weren't confident in the componence of some of our actors. Although, it is ironic I say this since my acting skills aren't that strong in and of itself. One of my biggest fears are that we might have to do some refilming since we may have some unsuccessful takes. Unfortunately, we d not have this commodity since a handful of our extras are only in Florida for winter break and will leave state soon after the da filming. To compensate, we will try to get as many takes as possible on the day of filming. We can only try our best to ensure that we will have enough time to capture enough takes and that all of the audio will come out crisp. If not we might have to resort to having actors do complete voice- over over their own voices.

Editing

 My editing skills are only strong in Photoshop and Illustrator so, I am leaving the majority of the editing for Eva. I can however edit the audio so, that is what I will most likely be doing. Eva created a new project in Premiere. I then imported it. The first thing Eva did was line up the clips. This took much longer than I thought it would. Last year it was much quicker. This was because they were only two minutes for the film last year. The hardest part, according o Eva, was lining up the conversation shots. This is because they all look the same. So, she had to watch all of the clips multiple times just to get the order. Currently looking at the footage I fear that we don’t have enough to get to five minutes. I am currently at 2 and a half minutes. I already used a bit over half of the footage.

Update: I finished lining up all of the footage. With place holders for the main titles, it made it to exactly five minutes. This is exactly where it needs to be. This was a great start to the editing process. Now that everything is lined up I have to add transitions, effects, and finish the titles.

Music and Soundtrack Decisions

 

Today we searched for the music we are going to use for our film. We need at least two songs. One is going to sound spooky and the other is going to have a cheerful, upbeat vibe. Our best bet would be to find a small artist and ask for their permission to use their OST. An alternative however would be to simply find a royalty- free track so we don't have to ask for permission. This will most likely be what we do. Each track will have to be at least two and a half minutes. Preferably, the tracks will go over two and a half minutes so they can be altered if needed.

Eva has found a happy song which is royalty free. This could act as the song that is played in the exposition. Although the song is only two minutes long, our short film is five minutes. This song seems like it could work, given it is unlikely that is will be played through the whole first half of the movie. If this song doesn't work however, I'll attempt to find another song we can use ( but it most likely will.)

The Filming Decision

 During Thanksgiving Break, my group and I decided not to film. we came to this conclusion due to a number of factors. The first and most important factor is the ongoing pandemic with covid-19. The pandemic meant that we could not safely film in any public places and could not be in rooms that were congested. Considering that our movie takes place in a suburban home and our need for extras, choosing to film would be a risky move for all parties involved. The second was a lack of time. None of our group could properly set a date and time to meet for filming even if we wanted to film over the break. While it did come as a disappointment that we could not film so soon, our group instead looked at it as a positive. the longer we wait to film, the more time we will have to plan and prepare and make our film as close to the original vision it can be. while it may be multiple weeks until we film, we will be confident in our abilities both as a group and as a filming crew. While with enough planning and rushed preparation we could have completed the film over the break. However, the irritation and the pain from planning a date and the unnecessary danger that the crew would be put into far outweighed the potential benefit coming from filming the movie earlier. in fact, filming so soon could have been rise to much more irritating issues like more retakes than necessary. We, as a group are glad we chose not to film this past week and are excited for filming to the best of our ability in the upcoming weeks. Our film will be much better for it.

Permissions

   As a reminder, our pitch is a group of teenagers who hear a strange noise coming from under the house when they investigate suddenly they start to go missing one by one. We debated upon the three genres for a bit. We ended up deciding on horror. I think it fits the best. Also, it is the one I would like the best. The pace fit the best for the pitch. Horror is fast-paced. This will allow for a very cool action sequence. The action sequences are my favorite to edit. Another thing that I liked about the horror genre is the angles and movements. There is a lot of room for creativity. One of my favorite shots is the over the shoulder shot. It is optimized a lot in horror films. Due to the location we are filming, the common lighting being dim is perfect.  I think this is a great fit for this pitch. There is a lot of wiggle room which, I like. Some of my favorite movies are in the horror genre. I look forward to making this project with my group.  Considering that our movie takes place in a suburban home and our need for extras, choosing to film would be a risky move for all parties involved. The second was a lack of time. None of our group could properly set a date and time to meet for filming even if we wanted to film over the break. While it did come as a disappointment that we could not film so soon, our group instead looked at it as a positive. the longer we wait to film, the more time we will have to plan and prepare and make our film as close to the original vision it can be. while it may be multiple weeks until we film, we will be confident in our abilities both as a group and as a filming crew. While with enough planning and rushed preparation we could have completed the film over the break. However, the irritation and the pain from planning a date and the unnecessary danger that the crew would be put into far outweighed the potential benefit coming from filming the movie earlier. in fact, filming so soon could have been rise to much more irritating issues like more retakes than necessary. We, as a group are glad we chose not to film this past week and are excited for filming to the best of our ability in the upcoming weeks. Our film will be much better for it.

The Marketing of Vacant

We wanted our marketing campaign to be as Wide-reaching as possible. We achieved this by putting our movie on a number of different social media sites. all of the accounts on these sites share the same name so that we benefit from brand recognition. The name of our movie is short and sweet and is a normal word from the English dictionary to increase the chances that we are remembered by people simply visiting our pages. We want the name to stick out and be memorable without being a mouthful. we use many sites such as Facebook and Instagram. reaching out to this many platforms does nothing else but give us more exposure. For the specific form of marketing, we figured that most people will have an account in at least one of these places. The website is simplistic and easy to use. All of the necessary information that one would need to gather a sufficient amount of information on this movie is easy to access by simply visiting this website. The wide reach of our platforms, the accessible site, and the short chipper title are memorable and easy to use. We feel that this social media site will do a great job advertising our movie to anyone who would be interested. we are planning on expanding each site to include more information about the movie. While the number of platforms will most likely stay the same, the information will update with the production of the movie. Hopefully, our platforms are all-encompassing and informational for anyone who would like to see our movie.

https://vacantthemovie.wixsite.com/vacancy

Storyboaring

 My team decided to storyboard our movie make it easier to imagine the movie in motion. The storyboarding process is essential to the flow and the creative process of creating a movie. It allows the people creating the movie to put the movie on a physical medium, without committing to the manhours needed to film a movie. A supremely important part of the movie creating process is the storyboard. This is shown by realizing that almost every movie made in the past decade had at least one storyboard. For the storyboard, we decided to split up the work between us. this made it easier for everyone so that no one person had the task of creating 90 individual storyboard panels. For the storyboards, we did not focus on the quality of the art of the storyboards. we instead tried to focus on the type of camera angle we would use for a certain second of the movie. using this, the day of filming would be made easier on all of us and we could change things quickly if needed. we do not have to write dialogue either, as the script is on a separate document. while it may be inconvenient to have separate documents for these critical aspects of filmmaking, but this allows the separate documents to be as detailed as possible. While art is not my strong suit, I still tried to make the positioning of the characters as visually pleasing as possible. this works around my poor art skills and simply acts as a skeleton of what we should do when the day of filming rolls around. all in all, I am glad we decided to make a storyboard.

Planning Blog

  This blog is the planning blog. That means it will have the following information: schedule, location, participants, health and safety, props, and costumes. To start of is the schedule. By the 13th of this month we will have the storyboard done. For filming we will allot a two week period from filming for the 14th through the twenty-third. The next step is editing which I will be doing for my group. Editing will take place from the twenty-third to the seventh of December. we will then reflect on our video and re-film and re edit for the remainder of December. The location of all of our filming will be at my house. We have a basement which will be perfect for our short film. The participants we have gathered so far are:

Homeless person: Robert

Ally:Me

James: Sean

Connor: Not Determined

Eddie: Trent

The actor for Conor has not yet to be determined but should be easy to find because it has the shortest amount of screen time. For filming we will all take turns because there is not one scene were all the characters are together. Health and Safety is very important to us as a group. There is no big safety issues. We have a scene were we use a knife. For precaution we will either use a fake knife or put tape on the edge so no one will get hurt. We also will be filming in a basement so we will bring flashlights so we don't hit our heads. Overall we will just be extremely careful. For props we will have a knife, random, food and fake blood. The fake blood will be very similar to what we used last year for our end of year video. It will just be water, food coloring, and cornstarch. The costume for Ally, James, Connor, and Eddie are all just clothes you would wear to a party. For example, jeans, a t-shirt, and converse. The homeless person will be wearing dirty clothes that are covered in dirt and ripped. 

this is the fake blood we will be using.

Research 9 the Short

 "9" is an animated short made by Shane Acker for a UCLA animation workshop. The plot is shown to the viewer in a very unconventional manner, with no dialogue or narration to inform the viewer of the plot. Every plot detail in this movie is shown through a purely visual manner. The main character, 9, of which this movie is named after, has his name never specifically given. the only way we can figure out who the protagonist is is through the number on his back. this is true for the other character in this movie, 5. while this may seem simple, it is an effective piece of storytelling and says a lot with a little. within the first few minutes, our mentor character is struck down and the rising action is shown. the passage of time is shown with our hero 9 as the lightbulb given to him by 5 is now a staff, showing he is more experienced. this combined with the zoom out transition gives the viewer a good idea of how 9 is faring without a mentor. The main antagonist is given a bright green eye, contrasting him from the drab colors of the background. the setting is a post-apocalyptic earth. this is implied through human artifacts such as lamps and tin cans. The use of visual storytelling is the most compelling part of this short film. Instead of defeating the monster in a show of strength, the hero's journey concludes with 9 outsmarting the monster instead. this is the perfect end to our villain, as he has been shown to be unstoppable but the more experienced 9 is able to use the tools at his disposal to defeat his foe. overall, a great short.

Short Film vs. Feature Length Film

 In my opinion, the short film was better than the feature-length film. the short film does a number of things better than the movie. for one, the short film does not have any dialogue. while one may see this as a negative, I think it helps the setting. between the two movies, both have similar settings but I believe the short is much more vicious in the presentation. for example, 9 is living in the wild and collecting things to survive on his own, but in the feature-length film, there is a dangerous encounter in the beginning but 9 is then taken to a save haven among the dolls. I think this removes some of the danger that the word had that was implied by immediately giving 9 a resting point. he does leave shortly after, but I still think the damage has been done. I also prefer the character of 5 as a mentor figure rather than how he is presented in the film. in the short, the feeling of a mentor is given through the character's interactions when much is said with simple movements and 5 directing him how to take off a lightbulb. however, a newly born 9 is expected to direct a 5 that has obviously been alive for much longer (workshop, friends, etc.) and 5 is supposed to find solace when 9 tells him to do things. newly born 9. The short gives more of a connection to the viewer in 2 minutes that the movie does in 30. 5s sacrifice in the movie is supposed to be comparable to 2s, but I feel that 2s ignorance in taking the piece with him made me angry with him in his stupidity. all in all, I think the addition of dialogue in the film is a minor detriment but makes me prefer the short film much more.

Shane Acker, Director

Research 9: Feature Film

 The feature film adaptation of the short movie 9 is much more on the nose. The movie starts out with a narration. this narration is a a vague introduction to the word that is being presented to us. The plot is shown to the viewer in a very unconventional manner, with no dialogue or narration to inform the viewer of the plot. Every plot detail in this movie is shown through a purely visual manner. The main character, 9, of which this movie is named after, has his name never specifically given. the only way we can figure out who the protagonist is is through the number on his back. this is true for the other character in this movie, 5. while this may seem simple, it is an effective piece of storytelling and says a lot with a little. within the first few minutes, our mentor character is struck down and the rising action is shown. the passage of time is shown with our hero 9 as the lightbulb given to him by 5 is now a staff, showing he is more experienced. this combined with the zoom out transition gives the viewer a good idea of how 9 is faring without a mentor. The main antagonist is given a bright green eye, contrasting him from the drab colors of the background. the setting is a post-apocalyptic earth. this is implied through human artifacts such as lamps and tin cans. The use of visual storytelling is the most compelling part of this short film. Instead of defeating the monster in a show of strength, the hero's journey concludes with 9 outsmarting the monster instead. this is the perfect end to our villain, as he has been shown to be unstoppable but the more experienced 9 is able to use the tools at his disposal to defeat his foe. overall, a great short.

Horror

Drama