04/11/17 - My CCR Pt.3

This is the link to my CCR (The real one, it uploaded, finally), and I am actually really glad that this was a requirement because it gave me a chance to explain everything I wanted to explain but the time was definitely a huge hit, I cut out so much it sounds a tad choppy at times but all in all it came out well. Hope you enjoy.

 Bonus Extended Edition in the description of the video

Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of Mother Oh Mine, A Beauty in the making, signing off. (TBH, still not convinced on the name, see you next year!)

04/11/17 - My CCR Pt. 2

This is simply part one of the CCR that I cut and added part two at the end of the final CCR, but because my computer refuses to upload I'm posting this as a backup, so as explanation, this is what I filmed on my phone, so I just directly uploaded it to youtube through my Data, and had everyone in my house turn off WiFi.

Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of Mother Oh Mine, A Beauty in the making, signing off. (TBH, still not convinced on the name, see you next year!)

04/11/17 - My CCR

It's currently 10:54 and my computer is telling me ITS GOING TO TAKE NINE HOURS TO UPLOAD?!?!?!?!?! I really don't know what to do, I pray it uploads before then.

Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of Mother Oh Mine, A Beauty in the making, signing off.

04/11/17 - Movie Done

This was a super long, super painful, super emotional, super patience-testing, and super fun project. And I'm glad I got to work with my amazing friends on this project, and to be honest, as excited I am that it is over,  I'm kind of sad I won't spend another sleepless night with them huddled in lame office. Yeah they are my partners but more importantly they're my friends and I'm super glad I got to do this with them and grow closer. Here's to them, Ale and Bella.

Hope you enjoy. Movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTL4fumNhq4&feature=youtu.be (In case it doesn't work.)

Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of Mother Oh Mine, A Beauty in the making, signing off.

04/11/17 - SUPER MEGA STRESSED OUT

SO MY IMOVIE ISN'T LETTING ME PUT THE CCR INTO IT AND ITS SAYING THAT MY DISK SPACE IS TOO BIG OR SOMETHING AND I ALREADY ERASED EVERYTHING FROM MY COMPUTER, I HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO GIVE YOU IMOVIE!!! TAKE MY SOUL OK BUT LET ME SUBMIT THIS PROJECT!

Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of Mother Oh Mine, A Beauty in the making, signing off.

04/11/17 - Almost Done

So I have a lot to say today because I hadn't been blogging as much as I would have liked but essentially we filmed all of her movie film the scenes with Isabella talking to the camera confessing her murder from the low angle so that we could give her that very scary dominant villain type of look I had her talk and a lover voice and with vocal fry because we figured that wouldn't make her sound more villainous and we also begin editing it all together we discussed having music in the video and ultimately chose not to because we felt that when we added the music  it made the scene seem less realistic it it detracted from the emotions we were trying to convey in the fear of your trying to instill so we left that out but what we did do was I change the white balance using After Effects so that the light would it make it look like the camera was focusing on our main character.  I am currently stitching everything together to make it clean and done and then I will continue on my CCR which I'm terrified of because I only have four minutes of speaking when I should be heading 12 or rather maxing out at 12 minutes.


Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of Mother Oh Mine, A Beauty in the making, signing off.

04/09/17 - Forgot something

I also forgot to mention that we have been stressing the heck out because we unfortunately can not seem to stick to a plan. We really should have started this earlier.


Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of Mother Oh Mine, A Beauty in the making, signing off.

04/09/17 - Changing Our Minds Again

So we decided to change our minds again and we went with a new idea about a girl who kills her mother. It's still in the thriller category so we seem good. Isabella will play the main character and I will edit.


Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of Mother Oh Mine, A Beauty in the making, signing off.

04/08/17 - Getting Serious

Today, our group got together and we discussed what we should do with our project, I had already started editing the scenes with Gabriel and Gabi, but we ultimately decided it was best to start over because Gabe was leaving and we couldn't film the rest of the scenes without him. Instead we got Ana Stalhuth to come and we began filming for a new idea about this very religious family who hates homosexuals, it's supposed to be a very serious, horror type, possibly cult like movie.


Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of Red in the Face, A Beauty in the making, signing off.

04/02/17 - Accomplishing Nothing Today

We accomplished nothing today.
On top of that, everything I had edited in sequence on iMovie (After Effects trial ended, huge bummer) was lost due to the fact that my computer froze so I had to reset it. To be honest, I'm not super fond of all of the shots. Some seem shaky, and/or off.

Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of Red in the Face, A Beauty in the making, signing off.

04/01/16 - Filming

Today we filmed a whole bunch, we had this really nice girl Gabriela I believe?, Ale's friend, and Gabe, my friend as the main characters for our story.
We filmed the montage, and the heaven sequence but we still need the parts where Gabe wakes up on the road, crashes and when he wakes up in the hospital.

Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of Red in the Face, A Beauty in the making, signing off.

03/29/17 - Originality level 4%

Aw man, so there's obviously going to be a bunch of videos for the red string of fate, but I feel like I'm ripping off not one, not two, but three people and I just put their ideas together and called it my own.

The Red String is understandable, it's a myth, so like public and I don't feel bad using it
I do, however feel bad for ripping off that reddit post almost entirely, down to the lamp and also ripping off Christopher Nolan's inception, I feel like that's something I'm "copying," but I don't know, I'll keep the blog updated.

Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of String Bean, A Beauty in the Making, signing off.

03/29/17 - String Cheesy

So I've been thinking, Alessia's idea is actually not so bad. It has potential, lots of it. It might be hard to execute but it can be done. I texted and apologized and so did she and honestly she's not a bad kid. It's the stress. But back to the actual film, I would still love to do my idea, I'm going to write plots and semi-scripts, or rough drafts for both and I'll upload them later tonight or tomorrow.

I've been toying with Alessia's idea and how to do it, I looked up the myth, and here's what I'm thinking, I threw in something a lot based of this reddit post I had seen.

Video opens on kids driving in a car, laughing being reckless
Voiceover describing the red string of fate
Speedometer shows above 90
Girl in back, points looking worried and mouths "Watch out"
We've only heard laughs and the voice over so far, 
Screams are heard
Shot gets darker
Slow motion
Drivers head hits the wheel
Everybody lurches forward in unison with driver
They crashed btw
Piercing noise, like when grenades go off in movies/End of voiceover
Wakes up in hospital
We could go to Broward Health and borrow a flappy dress/gown thing with the slits on the back
Gets up
Sees clothes
Walks out of room
Now we see the protagonist in the empty lobby of the Broward Health building
He walks outside
Car is waiting there for him
Looks down, sees keys, unlocks car, gets in
Now we see his/her life progress
Notices red ring made of string around his finger, red nylon tied to his finger
Falls in love, she has ring as well
The strings begin to come closer, tie them together with nylon and every other scene make the nylon less and red string more to show their love is getting closer and closer. Or already start out with red nylon and slowly increase the thickness, moving onto cotton, then yarn as scenes progress.
Move in together
So and so forth
Btw I apologize for the formatting of my description of this scene but it's how I think and how I believe I can best communicate this idea.
Life carries on
One day he looks over to the corner, a lamp looks out of place
Looks like a normal lamp but the lighting is off, looks like CGI
He begins to eat dinner staring at the lamp, goes on for a few meals
Begins to simply stare at the lamp
Wife comes crying trying to take his attention off of the lamp, red string is noticeably thinner now
Becomes engrossed with the lamp
In the background, shallow focus but the wife can be seen screaming and leaving with a suitcase.
Lamp Glitches, begins to float.
Man runs out, goes up a building, kills himself.
Wakes up on the ground next to the car and strobing police lights,
goes back unconscious
Wakes up and wishes he could go back, regrets leaving his wife.
Life goes on,
Eventually he comes across a lamp in a store.
The lamp.
He runs in and grabs it, he's touching it all over ensuring it is real
He falls and cries happy or sad, not sure yet, I'll talk to my group
Looks down sees red nylon
The intro could does end here, but so far it's veeeerrry long or it could continue showing him chasing the string, ending at a pier

Once again, based heavily off of this post I saw a while back on reddit

The more I think about it, the more I want to do it. Welp, can't tell Ale, and Ale if you're reading this, well ya I still like my idea, but I'll admit this might be really cool too, Let's do it.


Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of String Cheesy (because I can't think of a non cheesy title), A Beauty in the Making, signing off.

*Also I feel like I can promise the audience something from the get-go here too*

Temptotosssoon. (2012). Have you ever felt a deep personal connection to a person you met in a dream only to wake up feeling terrible because you realize they never existed? • r/AskReddit. Retrieved March 29, 2017, from https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/oc7rc/have_you_ever_felt_a_deep_personal_connection_to/c3g4ot3/

03/29/17 - Wow....

So today we met with our constructive peers. We did this once before but I completely forgot to write about it. But anyways, today we met with them. I was with Miguel and Camy Orr. Both of their projects are stellar. I knew Camy's movie was going to be great right from the get-go. Her script is really well made, her dialogue is going to be on-point, and her idea is relatively easy to shoot. The last line "Hi my name is Shawn Rivers, ..." Well I don't want to spoil it, but the ending of her Intro will really capt the essence of her movie. And Miguel's magazine is coming out great, wether he decides to go with androgyny or street style, it'll be an A+. On top of laughing for the majority of our meet, I got some really helpful suggestions; Camy said it might be easier to  throw the flashbacks into our film during the dialogue, and try to reduce the dialogue as much as we can. I thought about it for a while but I feel like the best way to promise suspense and have it peak at the end is how we had it originally. I asked if they had tips for the second part of our intro, and Miguel pointed out the fact that it would be so much easier to fill part two if I knew the full story arc of our film. Our group had been toying with a couple ideas but we turned them down, or rather, I turned them down.  I told my constructive group that (and this will come back later in the blog) I would like to promise the audience something during the intro and then during the actual film I'll over-deliver, i.e. "Hey audience you're in for a treat" with the buildup of suspense and the climax of the intro and then during the actual film we'd completely destroy their expectations and show them something even better. Like in the sixth sense when we discover what Dr. Malcolm Crows (Bruce Willis) is just finding out. Throughout the duration of the film the movie the movie is constantly telling the audience, "Just wait, something big is coming" and then when we find out what the big thing is at the end, we are shocked. I would like to have something similar, where in the intro we hook the audience and almost flat-out say "You're gonna want to wait" and then if our film were to be produced, the actual climax would throw the audience back in amazement. This idea means quite a lot to me for some personal reasons, but I honestly thought we would have had quite possibly the best project our teacher had ever seen. I wanted to create the same sense of "What?!?! No way!!" that my friend Daniel Cooke did last year. Perhaps I was aiming a bit too high, because our group had, well, difficulties today. It was pointed out that my ideas were "absolute trash, garbage" weren't the best , and while maybe it could've been said in a nicer way, I also maybe was resenting this person for sometimes not staying quite on task. I thought our, or as it was pointed out to me, my, idea was good. Apparently not everyone did. I was told I don't work well with others which, being honest, might be true. I really wanted to go with the original idea we had, the promise and the over-deliver. But maybe I was caught up too much in my own world. Maybe it just wasn't explained as well as I could've done. I felt bad for the third member of our group during the, erm, altercation between unnamed group member and I, because this third member said she felt like a child who must choose between his/her divorcing parents.
     Alessia proposed we do a film about some girl who follows her "heart" that's basically a string wrapped around her finger and it'll lead her to her soul-mate? or every person she'll ever encounter in her  life? I don't remember, but it was based on a Japanese myth and I thought, and pointed out that it was a really good idea, I'm really not doing it justice the way I'm explaining it. And although I would still like to stick with the original idea, I told her that if, if we decided to do that as our project (we are a group after all, democracy reigns - majority rules) it would be a really cool way to end the intro with her following the string to a pier of sorts, seeing the string leads straight down and having the audience question wether or not she jumps down into it. Obviously building up her desperation to follow it through the duration of the film. So basically, she had no idea what she wanted to do with it, I feel like maybe she was just proposing an alternative so as not to say my idea was bad, instead she could sort of replace it, but I asked if she could make an outline - just like a first half of the intro and second half and after her several refusals to do so, and my several perhaps not so nice pleas to get her to do one, we fought and left things on pretty rough terms. I'm obviously going to text and apologize, I tried to see her during lunch, (I'm writing this eight period after I finished my work) but she couldn't. But anyways...

Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of (Once Again Unnamed), A Beauty in the Making, signing off.

03/26/17 - I'm as sick as my project eyyy lmao

So this past weekend I haven't been feeling so swell, so a lot of time spent in my house or on the couch with my computer near me. And what better way to spend my time on something than to advance my homework? Just kidding. I procrastinated so much. Like calculus homework plus APUSH study plus english essay all on the last day procrastinate. But here's the thing about my procrastination habits, I always do something useful, or rather something I think will be useful to me. So instead of doing all that's boring and unimportant not a priority to me right now, I decided to work a bit on my project. Bella pointed out the fact that since I've edited the past couple projects we've worked on together, (pretty standard iMovie editing) I should edit the final project, 😑👍. So I downloaded after effects and I've been fooling around with it since. Here's some work I've done, (also  these were the only pictures on my computer from a couple months back used for a friend's project, so if you could not think I'm a tool for posing this way, that'd be great.) All the following are created using tutorials for double exposure and for a watercolor reveal. 

I call this one Tie Dyed on the Inside

This one is My Acne Looks like Mountains

And since this is just stills, so I would most likely use this to make a poster for the film at the end or maybe during the aerial shot when he is in the middle of the ocean, (Still haven't really figured that out) and I also edited some footage to make an credits scene, but ended up just making a cool intro I guess?

     For the aerial shot I had thoughts of doing a GoPro Drone hybrid, but the wind is a huge problem here, then I figured doing a GoPro tied to ballons with a quick release incase it gets windy and nylon strings to hold it stable like a tripod (Shown in the poorly drawn comic below) but I did the math and it would take around 15 balloons to hold it up, assuming the weight is 0.45 pounds (200 grams), one liter of helium in a ballon can lift one gram (1 pound = 453.6 grams), one balloon has a radius of 6 inches (based on the ones I'd buy) the volume of a balloon would be 905 inches cubed {V=(4/3)πr^3}, 905 cubic inches is 14 liters, and if it takes about 205 liters to lift 0.45 pounds, then 205 liters dived by 14 liters leaves us with 14.6 or ≈ 15 balloons. 

But ya know, wind...

So you know I was pretty glum thinking the most killer (coolest for our vernacularly impaired readers) shot in our film would be absent. But today I went to the beach, to be honest I don't really know which one, it was near my cousins house in Miami but we got lost like six times on the way there, anyway, we went and there was this one spot we found that was like a small lake, but big enough to swim out into the middle and get a nice aerial shot, and the best part, no wind. So hopefully we will head out there next weekend when we film.

On top of this I've been thinking about the songs we will use during the film, last night I talked about the song Love is Mystical by Cold War Kids, but now I'm thinking how cool it'd be to have some music composed specifically for this. I know it's a lot of work and maybe not worth it but I was just toying with the idea, I thought of a simple chord progression and then I figured I'd get someone who knows music theory to polish it a bit. This would be me playing the Cuatro (Venezuelan Guitar) it's not the best because it's late and I'm tired but still. Also I'm trying to go for an Old Western/Thriller vibe.  This would be the chord progression I'd place underneath

And this is me fooling around trying to think of something cool to throw in. 

By the way this was a pain to submit audio into blogger and I didn't even get to show it how I wanted, neat in an audio bar.

Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of Diving Deep, A Beauty in the Making, signing off.

P.S. I'm really not entirely sure what we need to cite and what can go un-cited, so...

SonduckFilm. "After Effects Tutorial: Double Exposure Animation." YouTube. YouTube, 03 June 2016. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.

"GoPro." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Mar. 2017. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.

"How Many Balloons Would It Take to Lift You Off The Ground, Answered." Stuff You Should Know. N.p., 18 June 2013. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.

"MESHA 12 Inches Assorted Color Party Balloons (144 Pcs) - USA SELLER: Toys & Games." Amazon.com: MESHA 12 Inches Assorted Color Party Balloons (144 Pcs) - USA SELLER: Toys & Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.

GraphicINmotion. "Watercolor Footage Reveal - After Effects Tutorial." YouTube. YouTube, 31 May 2016. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.

03/25/17 - AGHJHJFHGJJHJHGHHGH

SO WE NEED TO TURN THIS IN SUPER SOON BUT WE DON'T HAVE A SOLID PLOT DOWN AND FILMING IN THE OCEAN IS GOING TO BE A PAIN IN THE POSTERIOR AND THIS PROJECT IS WORTH SO MUCH AND EVERYBODY ELSE'S IS LOOKING FANTASTIC AND MY FRIENDS ARE ALREADY FILMING AND AGHHHIHFJFHDJH I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I A M GOING TO DO!!!

In other news after effects is coming out fantastic, I edited some guy hover boarding and made a soul come out of a body after being punched a-la Doctor Strange. Also I've been thinking and the song Love is Mystical by Cold War Kids would sound great after the "Where is she?" line because the intense/laid back loose part of the song would be a great way to end the aerial  shot at the end because it has a very nice loose but like woah vibe. I don't know if I'm explaining it the best I can but oh well hopefully we'll see when the intro is done.

Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of Diving Deep, A Beauty in the Making, signing off.

03/24/17 In Bruges and In Trouble

So I after a conversation with Mrs. Stoklosa following my burst of creativity with regards to the plot, we discussed how I needed to watch some dialogue heavy films, along the likes of In Bruges, The Big Chill, Quentin Tarantino Films, and The Coen Brothers films. This is my plot line so far, this was the original draft.

Scene Opens:
Aerial shot of man in ocean alone
Man looks out, no one and nothing
In the distance another man is seen on a paddle board
as the man approaches he asks
   "How'd you get here?"
   "Man I have no idea, where am I?"
   Paddle man smiles,  "Need a ride back to the mainland?"
   "Oh my God yes please"
   "What's your name?"
    "Constantine."
     "-_-_-__-----_-___--_-_--_-(Dialogue)"
     "--___--_-_-_-___----___-_-(More Dialogue)"
    C: "Can I ask you something?"
     "Depends,"
     "How'd you find me?"
Scene here is meant to add tension and suspicion to the man driving the paddle board.
      "Oh my wife saw you from shore, she told me to come get you"
        *silence*
       "Where is she then?"

Insert Part Two of the movie here.

Part Three
boy comes home he's either with friends, at a party or alone, scene is meant to introduce the main character

He goes out back to the pool, runs up and dives, some shots are shown of him underwater.
When he surfaces he is in the middle of the ocean and the scene ends with the same aerial shot that started the film.

I still need to add part two of the intro and I've been toying with Ale's suggestion of being marked, like a tattoo, maybe he surfaces with a tattoo on his arm and the same symbol is on the paddle board but I don't know.

So I decided to watch In Bruges first. It was a really well made movie,  the  shots were nice, sometimes there was no head space, but what really set this film apart was the dialogue and humor. The base of the movie is kinda dark; Spoiler Alert, a child gets killed and the film centers around the effects of that murder on the killer. The humor was quick-witted, blunt, and dark, constantly making fun of dwarves. There was one particular instance where I remembered my research. I had seen several times over that to create suspense one needs to show different perspectives. This was proven true when the main characters all pass near each other. Harry is looking for Ray to kill him. Ken tells him Ray's left. Harry then tells Ken, that Harry will have to kill Ken. Ken points to the top of a bell tower saying it should be quiet there, the pair get up to walk to the tower and are about to pass Ray when this girl, Chloe, Ray's girlfriend of sorts kisses him, unknowingly obstructing his view of Ken and Harry and the Ken and Harry's view of Ray. I found myself audibly saying "Nooooooooooo," because as a viewer I knew what could have happened had they seen each other and I could reasonably predict what was about to happen. All in all it was very very well done.
Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of Diving Deep, A Beauty in the Making, signing off.

03/19/17 - The Call For Research

Today I decided to do some more research on the subject of thrillers. A lot of the articles talk about how to make a great story you need to have different perspectives.  Showing how different characters approach the same situation can add a whole extra level of depth as well as provide basis for irony. I think the way we will apply this to our story will be to not only show how our main character sees the world and what he'll do but we've been playing with the idea of a villain hypnotizing our character so perhaps showing his intentions and thought processes can help out here.  By having the audience know that, for example, our main character will be forced to kill his neighbor we can elevate the suspense level in the audience whenever the main character and neighbor interact.  Another big thing the websites said throughout was the importance of subplots.  The introduction of the protagonist is the primary focus of the first act, as well as introducing the antagonist, and first subplot.  The midpoint of the film should introduce some chaos, be it a new character or someone's death. In the final act, our hero resolves the main plot as some turns, or twists are introduced. I am definitely going to introduce the protagonist in the beginning but because we'd like to capitalize on the mystery of the intro, I'd like to not name him or give too much detail about his life, as well as have the antagonist be introduced to the audience much later on in the film; we won't see the antagonist in the two-minute intro. Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of The Pool, A Beauty in the Making, signing off.

10 Basic Ingredients of a Successful Thriller. (2011, July 12). Retrieved March 19, 2017, from http://www.writersdigest.com/qp7-migration-conferencesevents/qp7-migration-maui/10-basic-ingredients-of-a-successful-thriller

Feldman, L. (2016, July 21). How to Write a Thriller. Retrieved March 19, 2017, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-write-a-thriller-1469122630

Plot a thriller with this diagram - Writing tips. (2016, October 26). Retrieved March 19, 2017, from http://www.mattrees.net/2014/02/20/plot-a-thriller-with-this-diagram/

How to Write a Thriller - Types of Novels. (n.d.). Retrieved March 19, 2017, from http://www.creative-writing-now.com/how-to-write-a-thriller.html

Harris, C. (2014, October 20). Posts about how to write a thriller screenplay on Scriptangel's Blog. Retrieved March 19, 2017, from https://scriptangel.wordpress.com/tag/how-to-write-a-thriller-screenplay/

03/18/17 - Watching Movies as Homework, :D

Yesterday and Today I was watching suspenseful horror and thriller movies. The first one we watched was Tucker and Dale vs Evil, and the biggest thing I noticed with that movie was how suspense fluctuated because the characters intentions are known. SPOILERS when Tucker runs out with a chainsaw and Mitch begins to run from him, the audience is aware that the reason Tucker looks like a mad man is because he is being chased by Wasps. Given, this movie was intended to be a Comedy, but there were occasions where the intentions amped up the suspense. The best example I can provide of this is when Chad refuses to go the police when everyone else does, and claims this is a once in a lifetime chance to fight, to be free of all societal limitations, to show people what he is made of. He later goes on to kidnap Allie, another main character, and threatens to kill her as well as Tucker and Dale. In the begging we see Chad as someone who is just sticking up for his friends, then someone who wants to prove himself, and lastly we see him as a deranged lunatic intent on killing "Hillbillies." Despite all the plot holes I still highly recommend this movie because either it is so dumb it is funny, or the dumb parts were so well planned out to be funny. The dialogue was phenomenal and Alan Tudyk played his part fantastically. Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of The Pool, A Beauty in the Making, signing off.


Tucker and Dale vs Evil. Dir. Eli Craig. By Eli Craig and Morgan Jurgensen. Perf. Alan Tudyk, Tyler Labine, Katrina Bowden. 2010. Film.

03/17/17 - The Search for a Plot

Last class we discussed our ideas for the movie. We decided to continue with the idea of a guy jumping into a pool and coming out alone in a lake, Austin from the adjacent group overheard us and asked me if I had a drone, which I do, and said that that would be a great shot when we film our main character coming up for air. The biggest issue I can see with this would be the resolution. It's a fairly old drone and I don't think the quality of the shot would come out great. A possible solution to this might be attaching a Go-Pro or some other personal camera to the drone but then the shots wouldn't be viewable until after they are recorded. One thing we were clear on was we wanted to do a thriller. Ale had some pretty good ideas about some alternate universe but I felt that would have been hard to convey. Bella said some stuff about a cult but I felt that was too off, it would't have flowed with my original idea. I feel bad for shooting down so many of their contributions, and I understand my group doesn't want to something too hard, but I don't want to do something mediocre. I feel like Ale's idea would have required way too much work for the mise-en-scene, and Bella's idea would be too predictable. All in all we took very small steps today but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of The Pool, A Beauty in the Making, signing off.

03/12/17 - About Me, Our Group, and Our Movie

Today I spoke with my group about how they are doing their blogs and they (Alessia Buitano and Isabella Tolkov) about how they are doing their blogs and they both had a blog entry about who they were and introduced themselves. Guess that means I need to do it as well, 👍 I am currently a junior at Cypress Bay High School, and this blog is me letting my audience know the process my team and I went through to create the intro for a film we haven't titled yet. This is for Mrs. Stoklosa's AICE Media Studies Class. We are definitely going to do a thriller film, and we know we want to capture the viewers' attention right from the start but at the end of the intro we want to leave them on the edge of their seats. My group (Ale, Bella, and I) are pretty close and we've worked together before and I really think this project is going to come out looking stellar. One thing I hope we can work on as a team is our time management, because every time we have worked together we've managed to get our project submitted on time but as far as the daily work goes we always find either the funniest cat videos or the cutest puppy videos but despite all the distractions one of us is always one task, and it always rotates so its not like we are all irresponsible, we just have bursts of responsibility. All in all I know we will end up with an A+. Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of (How Do We Still Not Have a Title), A Beauty in the Making, signing off.

03/11/17 - Some light research

Today I looked over the genres and sub-genres we were talking about yesterday. We predominantly spoke about horror and thriller so I looked that over today, mainly the theories behind suspense. I found an article that I particularly liked and believe we will use in our movie. According to Writer's Digest these are some tips that will elevate suspense: Give the reader a lofty viewpoint. Let the audience know something the characters don't. Maybe it is showing the viewer the thoughts and intentions of all the characters, or perhaps foreshadowing something, letting the viewer know something will happen without the character being aware.Use time constraints.  Basically set deadlines, "The bomb will detonate in three hours!" Keep the stakes high. "If I don;t give them the money, they'll kill my wife." Apply pressure, make sure the main character bends but never buckles <- lifted right from the article. Be unpredictable add in factors you would not expect to see in the narrative world, perhaps a twister. Create a really good villain and really good hero, the protagonist and antagonist need to be matched so it provides a fair fight, a story where a robot policeman made of metal goes against a super villain who can  control metal would make for a pretty uneventful story. The article has more tips that can be found here. Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of (Still Unnamed Movie), A Beauty in the Making, signing off.


Wood, Simon. "9 Tricks to Writing Suspense Fiction." WritersDigest.com. Writers Digest, 12 July 2011. Web. 10 Mar. 2017.

03/10/17 - The Beginning

Today I spoke with my group about what we should do for the actual two minute scene. Bella had a pretty cool idea about some boyfriend/murderer thriller that we decided mirrored two closely a 1996 film we won't name for copyright reasons but rhymes with CREAM. I proposed something based on an idea that my uncle gave me; a guy dives into a pool surrounded by people and comes  up for air in the middle of the Ocean, surrounded by absolutely nothing, just water. Our classmate and friend, Austin noted that an aerial shot would look fantastic for showing the isolation, and I do have a drone, but a pretty big concern was the definition. I wouldn't want our final project to look like it was filmed with a potato of a camera. (Actually potatoes are very versatile vegetables: fries, tater tots, mashed potatoes, potato pancakes so I probably should not disrespect them.) We're still not super clear as to what we would like our final project to be but I know it will come out fantastic. Some other ideas I had include a documentary on the prison system, a story based off of Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg, who made passports for the Jewish people emigrating for German seized countries, Wallenberg was taken by the Russian Government for questions, accused of being a spy, and now  72 years after his disappearance, he has been named honorary citizen of several countries including the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Israel. The main issue here would be the difficulty of portraying World War II accurately. But this is only the first step of a thousand mile journey, and although we may have a long way to go, I feel like by the end of this weekend we will have made great progress. Until next time, this has been your tour guide to the wonderful journey of (Insert Movie Title Here), A Beauty in the making, signing off.

Raoul Wallenberg