AICE Media Studies

  “Time For Dinner” the short film portrays imagination through a young child's eyes. Toys may just look like plastic things with no life to them to us now, but we did not always think that way. Adults once too would sit for hours at a time playing with those ‘plastic things’. Somehow, our brain was able to create a whole new world with characters we created, and sometimes we would forget the real world for a second. It seems as though no one truly recognizes or appreciates imagination, and that is exactly what I wanted to show with this short film.  My movie represents children's imagination and how things children see in everyday life can affect their mind. Society has become a scary world to live in and sometimes it is hard to shield the young generation from it. A parent could innocently be watching the news and a storyline of a dangerous crime can come on while their child is near. This new concept of crimes like theft, killing, and other things can cause a child to thi...

 website ht tps://violetroberts8.wixsite.com/my - site - 6 Post Card https://www.canva.com/design/DAFegGUc55c/hYAChygukZYqrIz5I-ES2Q/view?utm_content=DAFegGUc55c&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=publishsharelink Short Film              https://youtu.be/nxtKtPT2t6w           

 Since we have the last scene we are done. Mila filmed the last scene at her friends house yesterday. Since we have most of it, we weren’t in a rush. We didn’t need to edit it immediately. Today in class we edited it. All we did in class was add the clip. It was the last clip. It was easy to add in class since it was the last scene. We still need to add music. We didn’t want to do it in class. Like i said in the music blog before, it needs to be quiet. We are using iMovie so we just hit record and add music to the sound. Addie still has the whole movie in iMovie. We decided to just let her add the music when she gets home. We are not sure what music to add. We could add happy music since its a little girl. We could also do the suspenseful music we have been using this whole time. When Addie adds the two different os we will choose. I think we should maybe not add any music at all. It will make it sound like we are out of a dream. I am really proud of my group and how well we have d...

 We finished filming! At first i thought we were behind everyone else. I spoke to a few of my friends in the class. Turns out, we are not behind at all. Most people just have the scenes. We have the scenes and are almost done with editing. Today, mila went to her friends house. Like i said previously, her friend has a younger sister. Mila was supposed to go Monday. It really doesn’t’t matter that she misunderstood. She was texting in the group chat. First she didn’t know what to add. She asked if she should add toy cay and plates. I said that would be a good idea to make it look like it was played with. It is also in the story board. Mila also asked if sh should add the bin of toys. We said yes. She sent a few different angles. I think the one where the girls face is showing looks best. There are other scenes where you just see the girl playing with the dolls. I really like this scene because it finishes the movie perfectly. Last thing to do is finish editing!

 Even though we have most of it there is still a small scene we need. The scene of the little girl. This is such a vital role in the short film. It shows that the whole thing was just the girls imagination. I said before in the previous blogs that Mila’s friends sister would do it. Today, Addie asked in the group chat if she should just get her older sister to do it. We talked about her older sister doing it before we found out Mila’s friend had a younger sister. I replied saying in thought Mila was going to film her friends sister. Mila said she didn’t know that was still the plan. This made me a little frustrated because everyone knew that was still the plan. As a group, we said our new plan. Our number one plan is mila going to her friends house. If she cannot go she will get her friend to film her sister. Our back up plan is just dressing addies sister up as a little girl and using her. I really hope mila can find time to do this for our group. This is an important step and wou...

 Copyright is a scary thing. Even if i don’t mean to copyright, it still might happen. The problem can occur when i am on a royalty free website and they mistake a song for royalty free. When we were looking for music we found it on YouTube. We didn’t just search anything though. It would’ve been our mistake if we just searched up some background music. Luckily we remembered to make it royalty free. So, we searched up royalty free music on YouTube. Finding music on YouTube is much easier than having to download it. When we were editing in class, we also looked for the music. Once we found the music we couldn’t add it to the video. It needed to be quiet. So addie added it when she got home. I was still nervous about the music not actually being royalty free. I asked addie to upload the video to YouTube. If the music is copyrighted YouTube takes down the video. Addie was 99% sure it wouldn’t get copy righted because she also slowed it down. She uploaded the video and YouTube didn’t t...

Surprisingly, the hardest part about this project has been finding a young actress. We need a young girl for one of the characters. Although the scene is short, it’s the most important part.  This scene shows that all of it was just imagination. That’s why I like this movie idea so much. When I was little my imagination would run wild. And that is what we are showing. Sadly, none of us has a little sister. All of our friends only has younger brothers. Violet has an older brother. Addie and I have an older sister. Mila has a younger sister but she is in middle school and looks too old for the part. At first we were going to use Addie’s sister. If we dress her up like a little girl it would’ve worked. Mila remembered her friend has a younger sister. On Friday she was at her friends house but sadly her sister wasn’t home. Next time mila goes over she will film the little girl. Using an actual child for this scene will make our movie look more professional. It’s also better because she...

Today we added music. We don’t have all the clips for our movie yet. That doesn’t mean we can’t still add music. A few blogs ago I talked about how violet and I emailed two famous music artists. They did not respond which was slightly expected. The next resort is royalty free music. After stalking about which music we think would fit best we came to a conclusion. For the intro we decided to make it a bit more up beat. For the scary parts the music should be a little suspenseful. Addie had a good idea for the part where the girls are watching the scary movie. I went on royalty free music websites on line and the others found some on YouTube. Since we used iMovie it’s very easy to add. You can just click record and put a phone up to the one recording and it transfers. My favorite part is the music over the movie scene. It sounds pretty scary and like it’s an actual movie. I also like the part where violet and Addie look up towards the end. Music really adds to the short film. Even though...

 Today is editing day. Since we finished most scenes we want to put them together. The editing website we are using is iMovie. We are all very familiar with this app. iMovie allows us to combine different videos without making it look like it has many cuts. We can also edit the coloring on it. My favorite thing about iMovie is that it is very easy to add music to the videos. We filmed all of the clips on Addies phone. This worked out well because she wanted to edit it. It is usually annoying to have to send the videos to the person editing so this was very convenient. We were watching the videos during class and decided to make some clips shorter and other things. Since it was easier to just let one person do it we let Addie take over. This was nice for me because usually i do all the editing and it’s quite exhausting. Since we decided to make very little cuts throughout filming it made it a lot easier for her to edit. Addie finished pretty quickly and we watched it. For what we ha...

 Today was our second day of filming. Since we were rushed yesterday, we still needed to film some. After school violet took us all to addies house again. Since we came from school, the two actors, violet and Addie needed to get in characters. They both did their make up and got changed. It was much nicer filming today because we weren’t rushed. Looking back at yesterday, we barley did any retakes because we knew we were on limited time. Once the actresses got in character we got to filming. Todays scenes ere the rest of theta room scenes and the bedroom scenes/ the ending scenes. We needed to take a few tries on these scenes today because we were less focused. As i was filming, i noticed the story board wasn’t totally on track with the script so we needed to tweak a few scenes here and there. We filmed the scene where addies character is giving violets character water a few times. I was telling Addie to make sure her back was facing the camera because she was holding the rope and ...

 Today was filming day. We were originally going to film yesterday however mila nor violet would be able to go and violet was one of the characters. After school today, Violet drove mila and i to target then to addies house. We went to target to buy the cake for a scene. We got to addies house at around 4:00 pm. When we got to her house she was already in costume. She needed to finish her make up. Like i said in the last blog, Addie has the perfect clothes o represent dolls. Addie was dressed in all pink and had an outfit for violet when we got there. Violet changed into her all blue, doll looking costume. Once Addie finished her own make up she did violets. Since they are dolls, they needed to have a lot of blush and eye shadow. Personally i think the looks were perfect. Once they were both in costume, we began to film. I filmed half and mila filmed the other half. Using the story board really helped. Mila, violet and i needed o go to our Cambridge diploma award t six. Because of ...

One main reason we went along with our Barbie theme movie is because of one of our group me members, Addison. Addison has very good style and most of her clothes are pink or Barbie like. This is good for us. We want to dress the characters sort of like Barbie’s. We don’t want to make it too obvious that they are dolls but a little. For clothes, we are just using addison’s. At first we said we can go to this thrift store called “out of the closet” because they have good clothes. Instead of wasting money we decided on addies clothes. There are other things we need other than clothes though.  We want to get a cute chocolate cake for the part where she cuts one. Some lemonade for that part as well. Other things we might need are fake weapons. She uses a knife and other weapons in the short film. For the poison she uses, we will make a little poison bottle. Since the girls eat a lot of food in the short film, we will need to by that as well. We obviously won’t need to buy furniture. We ...

Before we start filming, we want choose music. Usually it would be the other way around but since we haven’t been able to film we want to make sue we wont be behind on anything. For the music, we figured it would be best to have happy and suspenseful music in the background. Happy music would be played will the two girls are talking and more in the begins when everything seems normal. Suspenseful would be played when Sarah is trying to kill Lynn. There will also be diegetic noise when the two girls put on some music to play. We all decided to email one music artist for each of us. I chose harry styles. I figured since they are young girls it would make sense that they would be playing his music. I don’t expect his team to answer but it was worth a try. I simply told them that i am making a short film in one of my classes. I told them the idea and where i would insert the music. Violet emailed the music artists called Childish Gambino. She has an idea of using the beginning of the song ...

 Last week, my group and i planned on filming Friday at addison’s house and have a sleepover so we could film Saturday too. That plan did not work. Violet and i had plans for our friends birthday therefore we were unable to film on that day. We also felt bad making addison and mila do it on their own especially since they would need someone to film. Although we realized we were unable to film Friday, our members were really supportive about it. I was worried addison and mila would be mad but they were fine. We really do need to film however so we talked about a day to film. The SAT is this upcoming week and we all need to study for it. We might need to film on a weekday or maybe just one day this weekend. We will probably film Thursday after school or next weekend. It is very hard to find time to film with our school schedule and upcoming tests. We are all juniors so we understand the struggles of finding time. Since we need to film asap, it might be best to find time this wee...

Scene 1: The first five seconds will show clouds going down with "...Presents" and "...Production Company." Scene 2: The next scene is a tracking shot of a very vibrant neighborhood with the actors' names. Scene 3: The camera gets closer to a house and shows the film's name. Scene 4: The camera goes into the house slowly. Scene 5: The camera continues throughout the house that looks very put together. Scene 6: The kitchen is a little messy-looking and says "The Music by..." Scene 7: Two girls are shown talking muted as the "Directed by.." is displayed. They are stiff. Scene 8: Sara grabs a chair and sits as she says her first line stiffly. Scene 9: This is a close-up shot of Lynn and she says her first line very smiley. She has a lot of makeup on. Scene 10: The camera turns to Sara as she says her next line wearing a lot of makeup. Scene 11: The camera watches closely as Sara gets out of her chair stiffly and asks Lynn if she wants...

 The participants include Mila Rakic, Addison Walker, Violet Roberts, and Dara Sedaka. The location will be Addison Walker's house. Our back up plan in case Addison's house doesn't work out will be to film at Violet's house. We will have Addison's parents home during the filming. This will be to ensure health and safety. They will watch over us to ensure nothing goes wrong and help us if something goes wrong. This is especially important since we have dangerous props, like a knife. For the props we will need as follows: two barbie dolls, a rope, a cup of lemonade, and a chocolate cake. We will also need a plate for the cake, a knife to slice the cake, a small vile of green liquid, and a T.V. remote. Finally, we will need a bowl of popcorn, a glass of water, and a knife. The costumes will be regular clothes that a teenage girl would wear. This works so the audience doesn't get suspicious. It will also slightly reassemble a barbie, so things like the color pink an...

  INT. KITCHEN - DAY This is the home of SARA. The two girls are talking casually, LYNN is sitting at the kitchen table, SARA is standing beside her. SARA I seriously can’t believe we don’t hangout more often. Everytime we’re together we have the most fun! LYNN I was thinking the same thing. Maybe this time we could even stay up super late, like until 12 o’clock at night! SARA Yes yes we should! By the way, are you hungry? I’m so hungry. LYNN Oh, yeah, I am. What should we eat? SARA Oh! I have some leftover cake in the fridge! A chocolate cake. LYNN gasps. LYNN Oh my gosh yes! SARA Ok I’ll go get it for us. SARA walks to the fridge and removes a cake from inside. She places it on the counter and begins slicing two slices. SARA Do you want a drink with your slice? LYNN Sure! Can I have a lemonade please? SARA Of course! SARA opens the cabinet and pulls out a comically large cup. She then secretly removes a mysterious vial from her pocket and pours its contents into the drink. She w...

  This short film is one of the oddest we've ever seen. None of us can seem to discern the message. We are between thinking the message is that the media vilifies marijuana too much, or that marijuana is genuinely bad. If it is a parody of an anti drug campaign though it is genius. If it is an actual anti drug campaign, its still kinda genius. The plot is literally a girl smokes weed in the car with her friends. As a result she gets in a horrible fatal car crash. The visuals are very vivid and colorful. The shots, wide, long, close ups, are amazing. The puppets are used very effectively as props. The dialogue is extremely weird though. It is fake conversations. Nobody talks like that. However that's the point of it. It is very goofy for the most part until the grotesque puppet violence near the end. Even that is goofy, with the stupid non-diegetic music in the background and the dead bodies still moving and flailing about. Everything in this film is making fun of something, we ...

  The film follows the main character who just returned from studying away from home to meet with her father before he goes to prison. Her day is filled with loads of inconveniences and negatives. She wakes up  ravaged by the ocean. She recovers from a night of drugs and drinks. She picks up a cake that is too big. Her boyfriend acts weird on the phone. She drops the cake all in her car. Her conversation with her father turns sour as she questions his reluctance to appeal his court decision. Eventually she goes partying and gets high and wasted. She discovers a camera in a room of a man she almost sleeps with. All of this leads her to question her life and have a more meaningful conversation with her father the following day. He confronts her on her recent behavior and she truly has a change in ideals in that split second. Her bond with her father is drawn tighter and she will wait for him until he gets out of prison. This film was very good. The close up camera work was very ...

   Music is important in this film. From the beginning we noticed the nice classical music to accompany the thematic camera shots. It accompanies the film for nearly the entire duration. The music picks up at appropriate times and settles at others. The main character owns his restaurant trying to bring customers in during a pandemic. It addresses the lives of immigrants in America. It covers the expectations saddled upon immigrant children. It also discusses the prejudices that minorities deal with in America. It covers the current events that influence these. The lighting and camera work is very effective. The action matches and eyeline shots are frequent and exciting. The lighting is very dark to fit the gloomy mood of the piece. But all the characters are fully illuminated to keep the film character driven. This film is very interesting and thought provoking. The statistic about half of Chinese restaurants closing during covid is very sad. It is disheartening. This film is...