Shooting Process!

Hey there blog! Today we finally wrapped up shooting all our scenes for our film opening! (Yayyy) It was honestly really fun and enjoyable. Surprisingly, Jordan’s a really good actor. I think we all enjoyed filming and even though we went through some problems, I liked our result :)

Day one

The first problem we ran into was the mics. I clipped them onto Jordan and Marissa’s back but they kept sounding muffled for some odd reason. So we spent 45 minutes trying to figure it out… Eventually, we fixed the problem, or I guess the problem fixed itself because the mic’s started working pretty well! I don’t know what made them start working but it was definitely a relief.

Anyways, we filmed all of our daylight scenes on Saturday, all the way up until Jordan fell down. Everyone brought the props, wore the right clothes, and I didn’t forget the filming equipment so things went really smoothly! During some tracking shots I had some trouble keeping up with their walking pace. I genuinely felt like I was going to fall over any second. But, I powered through!! We got some pretty good shots:

 

Day two

Today, we filmed at night time! (When Benji wakes up from hitting his head) And it was super fun. If you disregard the mosquitoes..

Marissa did her SFX makeup and it looked awesome! She also has fangs on to pull the vampire act off.

One of my favorite parts about shooting this day was the lighting. We wanted to add a cool blue aspect to show the shift from a vibrant and warm aspect (joyful) to a seemingly unforgiving and mysterious aspect. We put a filter on our light and it made a really nice effect. We did have some issues when trying to get the lighting right because we didn’t want it to be too blue, so we took pretty long on a lot of shots.

This is my favourite one with the blue :)

Overall, filming was an excellent experience! Our issues were minor and were so glad we didn’t run into any major problems. Marissa and I were really proud of our end product and even Jordan liked it! Tomorrow, I start editing and making the magic happen

CCR #2

 Hey there blog! I'm gonna keep doing individual blog posts for each question of my CCR in order to keep on track of my progress and share my ideas :)

Like I mentioned in my blog post about CCR #1, for the first two CCR's I'll be incorporating the questions and answers into an audio podcast! Once again, I'll be doing a podcast to showcase these ideas, and I might have changed my mind lol... You know how I said I was thinking of doing an audio based podcast? I feel like doing a visual one would be really cool too!! So I'm still thinking about my options!

For CCR #2 I must talk about my target audience, production choices to engage my audience, and focusing on different distribution strategies. 

I already did research for this CCR in the past regarding target audience (see my research here) But ill include some of the graphs of my research again: 

I'll mention these statistics in my podcast to define my overall target audience. Including other aspects such as vampire age groups. 

Some common production choices in horror movies are mainly used to evoke fear in the audience. Dark lighting, shots of characters alone, quick cuts, sound effects, etc. are very common aspects. In my film, we utilized all of these, including an extra addition of cool lighting for an unsettling effect. I'll make sure to also speak of these topics in my podcast. I might compare my film to common horror films to show just how much I utilized important production choices. 

For an upcoming film, I have to be realistic. It probably wont be distributed in a movie theater... I can distribute this film in film festivals, like common ones that I can enter such as the UF film festival, or the Broward film festival. This can gain attention from critics and perhaps allow our film to be distributed in even more aspects, while also getting recognition for our work. Uploading the film to YouTube can gain us an even greater audience. All of this can be done with little to no payments, and easy access for beginner film makers. 

This blog post was basically an outline of what I researched and what I plan on talking about in my podcast. This was a really helpful blueprint, and I cant wait to see the final product!

https://roundourworld.com/2024/10/23/understanding-production-choices-in-horror-films/video/

CCR #1

 Hey there blog! I have to start working on my creative critical reflections now! I plan on splitting CCR 1 and 2 into one video and 3 and 4 into another. I want to create a podcast that takes a creative approach and answers questions excitingly. Originally, I wanted to make a video podcast, but since I also have to focus on finalizing my film opening, I believe a sole audio podcast would allow me to spend time focusing on other things too. 

The first question of the CCR I will do will include topics about genre characteristics, common conventions that were challenged/embraced, and ensuring our audience views the film in the direction we want (probably should utilize a media theory) 

Using the original research I did on common genre conventions in film openings (check my other blog posts! Here's one about film openings.), I already know some of the genre characteristics I'll talk about. I'll talk about darker lighting, mise en scene, monster/scary choice, color theory like the color red in horror, and reference other horror films. 

I mostly embraced these aspects in the film, and will make sure to reference how I personally used these in my own film opening. 

We want our film to be viewed as scary. Not exactly terrifying, but we incorporated a plot twist to leave the audience on edge. We utilized the enigma theory as you can only see a quick shot of the vampire pouncing, but you can't see the outcome. 

The "questions" will be viewers of the podcast sending them in. I'll read them out loud and answer them, I want my podcast to be informative and slightly comedic, so I'll try to include some of those elements too! 

To be even more realistic, I want to include some fake advertisements in the middle of the podcast :)

Here's a rough draft of how my podcast will open and the general gist of how things will go:

(Intro music plays)

"Hi there! I'm Juliana, and welcome to Snapshot (audio of a camera shooting), where we talk about film techniques and all things film related!" 

"If you've been watching me for a while, you know that recently I made a short film opening. I've talked about it the past few weeks and I can't believe I'm finally done."

"I'm always the one doing the talking, so I wanted to give you guys a chance to ask me some questions. You guys had some pretty good questions on Twitter (tweet sound plays) and I can't wait to answer them!"

"First question, from @dai34perm, "You mentioned your film used horror characteristics, what even are horror characteristics?" (etc)

I'll add many sound effects to make up for the visual experience, and I hope it's as enjoyable as I think it'll be! (By the way, I take heavy inspiration from Brittany Broski, she's hilarious) 

Issues...

 Hey there blog! Okay, so we ran into a MAJOR issue. I literally almost cried. Marissa has connections with the drama club, as she has many friends in it. So, we agreed she would ask around for any male part to be in our film, as Veronica is going out on a date with a guy. She found someone last week, yay! (Or so I thought..) He agreed to film, and perfectly aligned with our schedule of filming the upcoming weekend on both Saturday and Sunday, literally perfect!!

Today, as I was writing my blog on foley sounds, I got a text from Marissa. She tells me the guy she found from drama CANCELLED. He said he unfortunately couldn't film on those dates and he's been really busy with school so he has to focus on his schoolwork. I mean, I get that, but I freaked.

Our unfortunate evidence: 

Now we have to find a new actor, when we have to film in less than a week! I don't know where were going to find someone, because they actually need to be good at acting. I'd ask my friends and people I know, but they definitely wouldn't deliver (no offense.) Guys keep me in your prayers and thoughts because we desperately need an actor...

Foley sounds

Hey there blog! We're really excited to incorporate foley sounds. Foley sounds are sound effects created off screen to match what's happening on screen. For example, when recording a fireplace, to exaggerate the sound of fire burning, you can crinkle a plastic garbage bag and record the sound. Overall, I think its a really fun thing to do, I've done it before for a film class in middle school! You can be creative and still come out with a really good outcome :)

Benji jogging in the forest

When Veronica runs off into the forest, teasing Benji to run after her, Benji follows. The camera follows him running in the forest at night, when he suddenly trips and falls, hitting his head in the process. We wanted to exaggerate the sounds in this scene to truly get the fact that he's running and hitting his head. The actual audio of our actor running might not be loud enough to hear. 

So, how do we plan on creating this audio? For the footsteps of Benji running after Veronica I planned on getting some shoes and stomping them on concrete against leaves. I need to get the pace right so I'm going to do multiple takes of different speeds of the footsteps to see what matches. The leaves add to the forest effect, making it seem like that audio also matches with the scenery. 

Veronica essentially mauling Benji

Veronica is seen lunging at Benji, as both characters go off screen. When the characters are offscreen, we can see shadows cast of Veronica on top of Benji, biting him and feasting on his blood. But, gruesome audio can also be heard to expand the element of horror. 

For the sound of biting and gnawing (our base sound) I would use chicken breast. I would sink my nails in it and move it around and lightly tear it apart. Then, I would layer it peeling of an orange to really sell the effect of skin being ripped off. Maybe another layer of celery snapping to mimic bone crunching. And finally for some of the mouth sounds, I would record chewing gum. 

All of this layering, although disturbing, is going to be my favorite part! It's complex and the end result can turn out really gross, just what we were looking for!

I cant wait to show you guys my foley sounds eventually!!!

Props!!

 Hey there blog! Props can make or break a film. If you're going for a realistic look, having paper made props that are falling apart will make your film turn into a comedy... Marissa and I want our horror film to have realistic props to add to the realism of our horror film. But how are we going to do that? Well we had some ideas and this is what we came up with: 

Fake blood

I really wanted to DIY the fake blood, because I've seen videos online and it looks actually pretty fun to make (lol.) So, I tried to do it at home. I mixed corn syrup, cornstarch, red food coloring, and some blue coloring together. One problem... it stained EVERYWHERE. It took forever to come off and I refuse to let Marissa put that on her face and mouth. 

We found some fake blood online and decided to order from there, we made sure it didn't stain by looking at some reviews. And it was super cheap and gets here on time to film! Problem solved :)

Cigarettes

One of our characters, Benji pulls out a pack of cigarettes to add to his cocky/rebellious persona. He's a clueless smoker with money. Marissa and I didn't only want to find fake cigarettes, we wanted one that could release smoke. 

We knew this would  be too much work to make by hand, so we found a website that sells herbal cigarettes called Honey Rose USA! Their cigarettes look super realistic, and honestly $26 isn't that bad for a pack of real looking cigarettes. I bet you've noticed we've been mostly buying our props than creating them, but were still trying to find alternative ways and creative ways to enhance our film!

'

Jewelry! 

Benji is obviously wealthy, so we wanted to give him gold jewelry and items. Something Marissa wanted was for him to wear a gold chain, and I was thinking of a gold watch. I didn't have either and neither did Marissa. So, we asked a friend in our math class to lend us some. He said he has them and wouldn't have a problem letting us borrow them. Thank you Jordan!! 

Vampire teeth

For Veronica's vampire teeth, I tried to make a DIY version too... Similar to the blood, it failed. I used white wax to shape the teeth but as soon as you try to stick them onto your teeth they wouldn't stick! We also ended up buying the teeth online, but to stick them Marissa bought proper wax to melt (smart.) 

Even though we've had a lot of issues with the props, we ended up finding solutions, even if it meant spending some money here and there. 

Target Audience

 Hey there blog! Today I wanted to talk to you about our target audience. This is a crucial aspect in the development of filmmaking. But first, what is a target audience?

A target audience is a group of people you want to view or buy your service, in this case, a film. Certain behaviors and statistics gathered over time can help identify what your target audience is. Different film techniques and genres must be evaluated based on a target audience. For example, if you're trying to cater towards adults, you wouldn't make an animated children's show that teaches you how to spell (lol.) 

Horror and its target audience

Since our film is composed of horror, I did some research on the average target audience of horror movies as a whole. Here's what I found:

-Women and men both watch horror films, but there tend to be slightly more numbers for female viewers.

-The average age group for horror films is ages 18-24, but 20% of people slightly older and younger still watch horror films. As age increases, percentages for viewings decrease. Horror films increase a viewer's heart rate, providing a sense of thrill and panic without danger. Younger audiences usually seek this, older audiences usually don't. 

What about vampires?

I conducted my own research on the target audience of vampire films by going through fan forums, my prior knowledge of movies, and what I've heard people talk about. 

Vampire films are primarily watched by the teenage girl audience. Not only is there thrill, but there is the romanticization of vampiric elements. For example, in Twilight, many teenage girls find the love story element in the film their main reason for watching. Btw, are you team Edward or Jacob? (If you get it, you get)

How are we going to use this for our own project?

Using the research on horror and vampire films, we've established our target audience and things we will do to attract them. 

Marissa and I agreed our target audience would probably fall under the teenage category, maybe skewed more towards girls but not necessarily on purpose. 

First of all, our film already establishes a sense of romance and the mild sexualization of Veronica, a vampire on a date with a human. She's the female lead role, who is attractive and uses her looks to find victims to prey upon. Many teenage girls might find this almost empowering or slightly comedic, yet still scary with the aspects of horror. 

We take heavy inspiration from Jennifer's Body, which also has a large teenage audience. 

Although we aren't focused on a specific gender, we are definitely focused on catering towards teenagers. :)

Author. (n.d.). Horror film research. Weebly. Retrieved March 2, 2025, from https://cmpalexgilbey.weebly.com/uploads/3/8/8/7/38878453/horror_film_research.pdf

O'Grady, N. (2024, March 27). Target audience: What it is and how to find yours. Sprout Social. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/target-audience/