Creative Critical Reflection

After long anticipation, I've finally finished my CCRs. They took lots of work, but I'm very pleased with the way they all came out!

CCR#1

CCR#2​

CCR# 3

CCR#4

CCR Planning- Part 1

 Now that I have finished my film, I have to start planning out my response to the CCRs. I have about a week to get them done, and ironically, I just now checked to see what the questions are. My mom gave me the idea of first starting out by answering each question in a brief paragraph or 2 first, and then figuring out what creative approach I want to use to answer them. 

The questions for the CCRs are 

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

• How does your product engage with audiences, and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
• How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
• How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware, and online – in this project?

Now im going to roughly answer these questions before creating the actual scripts.

For the first question: My film represents the social group of dysfunctional families. I tried to use the absence of the parents to show how the brother has developed his overprotectiveness of his little sister. Also, mental illness is another thing I've represented in this film. Ethan has Antisocial Personality Disorder, which can be seen in him disregarding the bullies' rights as a person, and having no remorse over killing them. This is paired up with his pathological attachment coming from trauma of having a dysfunctional family, creating an altogether unstable personality.

My film challenges conventions by using very unique camera techniques. At the beginning of my film, I basically made my camera into a pair of eyes. I set the camera to first-person view, positioning it at eye level as I walked into the school. Doing so gave the impression that the audience was walking through the hallways.  This being the opening to my film may be startling or even confusing at first, which I feel isn't very conventional. 

For the second question: My product engages with the audience by using visual techniques with the camera, the sound, and the lighting. 

-first-person camera angle

- sound pops and setting appropriate music to give horror vibes

-lighting set low and pale to give the audience that suspenseful feeling

- transitioning titles

As a media text, trailers would be promoted on YouTube, social media like TikTok and Instagram. The actors would promote on their personal accounts, and our actual production company would have their own social media accounts where they also post trailers and things like polls about their favorite characters in the movie, which ties into interacting with the audience.  

I would then put the actual production out on a special premiere, about 3 months later, release it in theatres, and a month later, have it available for streaming.

For the third question, my production skills improved a lot. I didn't have time to film during the brief, so I couldn't make any immediate improvements. But thanks to this project, I was able to identify major ways in my filming part of the production can be improved. 

I noticed that many of my clips were very short and rushed. This was because, during the conversation, I would immediately shut the camera off right after one person said their part, instead of having a gap in between responses to make the conversation seem more natural. 

Also, I learned just how important the ISO feature and the white balance can be in how a film is. When I first began recording, the iso was off, and the film came out very grainy and had black lines running laterally across the screen. I was confused as to why that only showed up in clips filmed in a certain location in the house, but I soon realized it was because the ISO wasn't correctly set to accommodate that area's lighting. 

When using Premiere Pro I learned a few things about how to animate titles and make my productions seem more professional. This included using color corrections. I learned how to match my films visuals with the actual content. Specifically, how to make my scene have a more horror look to it by almost completely draining the color from it and adding dark vignettes to the sides of my film. I could use these skills in future projects; not only in those of horror but also those that are not. This is becuase if im trying to create a film thats very happy and gleeful, which is the opposite of my psychological film, I could just do the opposite of what I did. in this project, giving more life and vibrance to my film, without overdoing it. 

Time management was also key to this prject as when I did sumbmitt it, I did so 5 minutes before it was due. this cuased mounds of unnecessary stress that I definetely have learned from.

I also learned how to correctly export my projects. I have to make sure that I have a folder organized in my files specifically for the film so that it has enough room in the destination to fully save. Also, I must make sure that I save it regularly throughout my project to ensure that if the computer malfunctions, all my work will be saved. I learned this the hard way, as I had multiple times where almost all my work would be deleted, and I would have to start from scratch. Another thing that this project taught me was to make sure that my film is saved as an MP4. I could make sure that it is saved this way if, before I save it, it says that it is being saved as an H.264. If it is not saved this way, then I won't be able to access my project as a file to share with Blogger or any platform.

For the fourth question, • How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware, and online – in this project?

 I used multiple different pieces of hardware to create this film's opening. The first and most obvious would be the camera and the mic that I used. I used a professional camera from my TV production class and a mic that came with a muffler. I also used a phone to film the first minute of the film due to a lack of time to get a camera. 

Though not intentionally, I used a close-up lens on my camera for the scene that follows the title sequence. To use this to my advantage, I used a variety of close-up shots, and it helped the film come out very clear and polished-looking. 

I used Premiere Pro to edit my full brief and used external features, like Adobe fonts for the title sequence. Though not directly linked to my film, I used YouTube to further my knowledge on how to edit on the Premiere Pro software. 

The Final Brief

 After many complications, I've finished my final film opening sequence. I'm not as proud of it as I could've been, but it was the best I could do with the schedules I had to work around.

The Blood Between Us

Editing- Slowing down clips

 After doing all the color corrections that I wanted, I had an idea on how to get more time for brief: Slowing down each clip. 

I did this by double-clicking on the clip and selecting speed/duration.

After that, I changed the speed from 100% to either 95% or 90%. I made it 95% when there was talking involved. This is because when I made it 90%, it distorted the voices of the actors, making them sound very unnaturally deep. 

This only added about 8 seconds to my film however but something is better than nothing.

Production- Editing- Color Correction

After doing all of the basic editing (which did take a lot longer than I expected), I moved on to making my film seem as "horror coded" as possible.

To do this, I modified the overall coloring and vibrancy of my film. I changed my Premiere Pro layout from Editing to Color- that means that instead of my screen looking like this:

It instead looks like this: 

This allowed me to see the highs and lows of my scene's brightness, adjust the hues, alter the contrast, etc.

Since I didn't have much experience in color correction, I mostly played around with all the different functions and controls until I got the look I wanted. I did have to change the setting based on the general brightness of the scene that was shot, but most of them were the same.

 The setting that I used most frequently was faded film bar to 43, sharpen to 100, vibrance to -63, the saturation to 93.3, then I set the vignance to -1.3. These controls made the scene go from this:

To this:

As you can see, the liveliness of the film was almost completely stripped away from it, giving a very monotone/ slightly eerie feeling to it. The dark edges of the screen gave the scene a traditional spooky look, while also insinuating that this happened in the past.

I only applied these setting to the first section of the film( right before the title sequence) because the rest of the opening was meant to seem like a regular day for the siblings. Contrasting with the scene that just took place.

Production- Editing -Times

 After I came to the conclusion that I only had enough raw film to get about a 45-second opening, I was very anxious. I thought that there was absolutely no way for me to turn a less-than-a-minute film into a 2-minute one without adding more clips. And unfortunately, I already knew that none of my actors were going to be able to help me get the rest of the time I needed for my brief, meaning that I had to work with what I had.

After putting all my clips in the order that I desired, I started to cut some clips shorter. I hated that I had to do this; however, some clips had my voice in them, saying "1, 2, 3, go", and obviously, I can't have that in my film, so that action I took was definitely necessary. 

Production- Editing

To edit, I used Premiere Pro since that's the platform that I have the most experience with. When I first started editing, I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time because that same day I had to catch a flight out of state, and I wasn't able to bring the device I edit on because it's my mom's. 

However, when I imported the clips onto Premiere Pro I instantly knew: I didnt have enough film to reach the 2 minute mark. I talked with my mom about what I should do and the only thing she could come up with at the time was to try and get more film. Seeing as this was my last resort, I asked my actors if they were able to act once more and waited for their response.

Production- Day Two

Other problems that occurred during filming is that the crowded environment of the classroom couldn't be controlled, and therefore, there was a LOT of background noise. I plan to fix this somehow during the editing because when I played back the recording of the scenes on the camera, the actors' voices were nearly drowned out by the other students in the class. 

Also, I got constantly interrupted throughout the process of filming, making it difficult to keep the rule of continuous pros and maintain the actors' flow from scene to scene. Thankfully, I had enough time to film in that class since it was a very easy day that day and I had about an hour or so to get everything done.

Production- Day two

 During my second day of filming, many things were changed. 

The actor who was supposed to be the victim of Ethan was not very good at acting. She messed up many, many times, and I just couldn't take it anymore, so I asked one of my friends, Amaya, to act for me. She did a pretty decent job at acting; however, she talked briefly and fast, which is one of the reasons why I had a little amount of film. My other actor, Deklan, was very bland and didn't really give me an "obsessed-crazy-killer brother" vibes. Nevertheless, since he already acted in day one of filming, I had no other choice than to just use him. 

Production- Day Two Filming

 Today was the second day of filming. This day was definitely a bit chaotic. My main concern is whether or not I got enough footage to have a two minute brief. I was trying to make sure that I didnt go over the limit but I might have not got enough film. 

Production- Day Two Plan

For my second day of filming, I had to change a good amount of the opening scene. This is because the girl, Elyssa, who was supposed to play the sister (Zoe) in the film wasn't able to come to the Day 1 of filming. The resulted in me and the rest of the actors having to film "The Brother" scene on Monday. I was stressing out a LOT about doing this because I didn't know when I would have time to film the "The Murder" scene because I had no time after school this entire week. 

Elyssa and I talked about it and figured out that we should just film in school on Tuesday. This was a perfect plan as I had TV production on that day and so did all of my actors I needed for the Opening film.

However, because this scene was originally supposed to be filmed in my house in a garage or something of the sort, I had to find out how to change my script so that it would fit with the being in a classroom. I knew that when I actually did start to film, I was going to film the actual murder scene in one of the smaller, dark rooms inside the classroom. 

Production- Day 1

 Yesterday was my first day filming. My group and I decided to do it right after school, so no time is wasted. We filmed at my house, next to my bathroom.

The process of filming this wasn't as smooth as I would've wanted it to be, however. After I got my camera from my TV production class, I realized that the lens on the camera was made specifically for close-up shots. Nevertheless, I only had that day to film

Production- Day 1 Filming Plan

 Today is supposed to be the first day of filming and I was able to get people to act at the last minute, thankfully. One of my good friends, Deklan, decided to act as the older brother in my film after schools. My other friend, Elyssa Orozco will act as the younger sister and Taeya stays as the victim in the opening scene.

Today after school I have to make sure I get the camera from my TV production class in order for my film to have to visual quality I desire. Because this week is very hectic for me, I might have to move the editing dates until the 18th because I come back from a trip on the 17th.  I plan to film every scene In order and in one day would be the ultimate goal. 

Production- Actors

 So I still have not gotten actors to work with. I've asked many people, and a lot of them either couldn't make it or didn't want to act. Because of this, if I don't get actors by Friday, I will have to settle with using my family members. That may cause a change in the script, but I'm not adamant on it staying the same. I've already made changes to the gender of the supposed boy getting murdered because my closest friend is able to play that part, but she's a girl.

I've talked it over with my parents, and they said to just call and ask family members to do it so that I'm not doing everything so late minute. Though this project is due AFTER we come back from spring break, I'm not going to be in-state the whole week, so I won't be able to work on it then.

Production- Actors/ Location

I've been having a problem with finding the actors I need. I asked my friends Maddison if her and her brother could act and initially she said yes but then backtracked and said they couldn't in the last minute. The set recoding day was supposed to be this weekend (specifically starting today)n but things may not work out that way. One of my good friends, Taeya, agreed to act as the victim who gets murdered. However, in my original script, the victim was supposed to be a man, so a few lines will have to be tweaked to suit her gender. 

I do have a backup plan for actors if I cant get anyone from school to do it. This would be to ask my God siblings to act. Only problem with that is that the girl (Nyla) is a few years older than the boy (Desmond); this conflicts with how my two main characters are supposed to be an older brother and younger sister. 

Me and my dad talked over the location of the filming and I decided to do it  at my house. For the murder, I'll do it in my garage for the dark and secluded scenery.

Planning- Creating Title Cards

In this blog, I will explain my process of how I created my rough draft for my title card. The reason I call it a rough draft is that it is open for revisions at any time from now till the due date. This blog was originally supposed to be about my actors and the set location, but because I still haven't found people who are willing to act, I decided to jump ahead on my schedule so I'm not set too far back. 

So first, I had to go on YouTube and figure out how to do a title. I went to a variety of different channels, trying to find a video that will really benifit me. The video linked below is was actually got me to create my title sequence.

Font

Before getting into animating the title and all of that, I had to find a font for my title. I already knew I didn't want a very thick or decadent font for the title, but rather something simplistic that can still send creepy vibes to the audience. The resononing being becasue I feel like titles that are very bold and big go with very supernatural (monsters, ghost) kinds of productions like "Goosebumps". 

To get my fonts, I just went to Adobe Fonts and typed in horror. It took me a while to really decide on which one to do, but after some trial and error, I found the perfect one.

The font Democratica OT automatically gives my horror/ creepy vibes. My only setback with this font is that it doesn't necessarily go with the "theme" of the film itself. The font reminds me of a religious or spiritually focused horror movie, such as "The Nun", while my film is more realistic fiction. 

Nonetheless, it oddly felt like a perfect fit with the aura my film was going to give off, and at the end of the day, when I'm finished filming, and the font doesn't look good with my finished product, I can easily change it.

Color and Masking

So after getting the font, I wanted to start with creating the actual title before the producer company, because I knew that the title would be the hardest part. 

The YouTube video pretty much took me through the process of aligning the title to the screen so it's centered, it taught me how to add color to the text and make it gradient. When I chose the coloring of my title, I wanted to highlight the word blood in the title by making it red and the rest a neutral color. Since the background of the scene was black, I decided to make all the other words white. I made the red coloring have a tiny bit of gradience, going from a darkish red to a brighter one vertically. Though the audience may not notice it, it does make a big difference compared to just a plain red text. It makes it look a bit realistic, as if the word was actually typed out in blood.

This is how my title would come in the frame . As you can see it isn't all displayed at once, but it gradually

appears. 

 However, when it came to editing, I wanted a very simplistic title, and the title that the person on the video was making was very big and bold. This meant that his process was a bit more complicated than mine was. But his showing me things like masking the title so it could come in smoothly, rather than just appearing on the screen, was one of the things that I applied to my title sequence. 

After finishing my title animation, I made the producer company name and placed it right before the title. I used the same masking technique to have my producer comp to come into frame and just had it in the same font was my title and white. I will most likely change the font later on, but for right now, its the Demoncratica OT.

 font. https://fonts.adobe.com/search?query=horror

https://fonts.adobe.com/search?query=horro

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ld7aAnG7O0

Planning- Check list

 Now that I only have about a month till the brief is due, I have to put myself on a tight schedule in order to make sure I get everything done in time.

What I Have Done

Below is a basic list of some things I've already done that really helped me in my process so far.

Research

• Research genre - I explored movies from different genres to understand what kinds of feelings they tend to bring out in audiences. By looking at the emotional responses each genre usually evokes and how that ties into how they tell a story, I got a better overall sense of how different genres work.

• Research Subgenre- after picking my genre, I did research on different subgenres within that genre (Horror) 

• Research Title cards -I looked into how title cards are used in psychological slasher films, focusing on the common conventions and how they help set up the story and mood. In this subgenre, title cards and opening sequences often use eerie fonts, suspenseful pacing, and thematic visuals to hint at the psychological tension and horror to come. This is helping me to plan out a font and color for my chosen title.

• Research Mise-en-scène- I researched the mise-en-scene that is affiliated with my genre and found how it can participate in how the audience views the story or how well they understand the characters. Lighting, costume, and cinematography all work together to build the storyline of a film. This research helps me to think critically about every choice I make in planning, moving forward.

This research collectively helped me to come up with an idea for my film opening and how to execute it. Watching other movies in my subgenre over the weekend also helped me to develop some ideas on how to organize my brief. 

Planning

• Title name- I chose my name to be "The Blood Between Us", linking the name with the siblings.

• Opening layout- I chose my overall plan for the opening and how I will organize it.

• Character names- The two siblings' names were Zoe and Ethan. 

These three things that I already have planned out are obviously NOT enough for me to do my film. I wasn't very organized with my time so I now need to put myself on a time stamp ensuring I get everything done that I need to.

Left To Do

• Feb 21 - Get/set a location for film

• Feb 22-  Make character description and finalize actors for the film: make sure they fit the character description.

• Feb 28- Make a title sequence for the films so it will be done before hand and wont add pressure when editing the actual recordings takes place

• March 6- FILMING DAY!!!

• March 7-14 - edit edit edit!!

Planning

​In this post, I will discuss how I want my film to be organized. I wrote it down on paper because that's what feels most natural to me, but I will also explain it in text form in more depth.

So to break down my opening, I labeled it into four main parts: the murder, the title sequence, and the brother. The paper shows four different sections but after really thinking on having a time contrint of only about 2 minutes, I had to cut out a section.

The Murder 

This section consists of the foreshadowing that I stressed my film will have. In this scene, a static shot close-up of a knife in a dark room will be shown being picked up from a countertop. Then you will hear heavy breathing and groaning from what sounds like a gagged man. Following this, you will hear stabbing sounds and screaming coming from that man. After 5 seconds, the screaming will stop, and a different voice will whisper "filthy" whilst breathing heavily. This scene will then cut to black.

Title Sequence

After cutting to black, suspenseful/eerie music will begin to play, and the production company's name will appear. I want my production name to be "Elysian Productions." There's no specific reason as to why I picked this to be the production name other than I like the word elysian, meaning heavenly or qualities of paradise. After that, the title will appear on the screen. I want my title to be "Blood Between Us". Referencing the relationship that the siblings have in the title was a big thing for me because I didn't want it to be a secret that the brother was the killer in the film.

The Brother

After that seen, the camera track behind the Ethan, the kelder brother walking to a bathrrom door, as he knocks it will cut to a scene of the sister brushing her teeth. The brother then says"Hey, is that boy from earlier still bothering you?" Zoe will respond, "No, he hasnt been to school in weeks actually" He walks off, and a very SLIGHT smirk appears on his face, and the scene ends. As the characters are shown on screen, their names will appearrespectively on the corner of the screen.

Planning/Research- Evoking feeling from the audience

In this blog post, I will focus specifically on the feeling that my audience should feel in the first 4 minutes of my film. I’m not exactly sure how many minutes that my film's opening actually needs to be, but for the plan of my film, it would probably have to be at least 4 minutes.

I discovered that in the first minute, you don’t want to shock the audience, but you want to make them curious and slightly uncomfortable. This could be done with normal everyday actions that feel off, strange backgrounds, subtle camera movement, or odd sounds.

For example, many horror openings start with normal people in normal places, but the little touches- weird lighting, silent sounds, or unsettling camera movement- make you feel something isn’t quite right yet. These kinds of tricks are talked about in filmmaking guides, which explain how lighting and framing can make viewers feel “on edge” before anything scary happens.

This early tension works because it makes the audience’s imagination start filling in the blanks and the imagination is one of the scariest tools in a slasher movie. 

Despite this fact, I might want to challenge this convention simply because I want my film's opening to transition from scary right off the bat, to what seems like a " day in the life" kind of film- building tension and keeping the audience puzzled on how the initial scary scene's foreshadowing will be revealed in the rest of the film. My mindset for this brief is to think about if I were making a full film, even thought im not. This helps me to make meaningful decisions on how to start my film.

Increasing Anxiety Without Full Scares

By the end of the first four minutes, the audience should feel anxiety and suspense, even if they haven’t seen anything truly terrifying yet.

A lot of the best psychological horror films build up tension through pacing, slow, quiet moments that make viewers wait for something to happen. That stretch between “nothing scary yet” and “something scary might happen any second” builds fear in the audience. Websites that discuss horror filming techniques explain that filmmakers use lighting, sound, and camera angles to play with the audience’s nervous system and make them feel tension without showing grotesque images right away.

Also, movie discussions and fan threads show that part of what makes an intro feel scary isn’t the monster, but it’s the suspense, silence, and the feeling of not knowing what’s going on. Viewers often say that the best intro scenes are ones that just make them tense and on edge.

Sources

https://raindance.org/crafting-fear-filming-techniques-to-evoke-emotion-in-horror-movies/

https://raindance.org/crafting-fear-filming-techniques-to-evoke-emotion-in-horror-movies/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagged_Mind?utm_source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagged_Mind?utm_source

Planning/Research- Title Cards

For this blog, I will be planning out the title bit of my film opening. First, I started with the basic traits of a horror film title.

 Typography

 Most horror title cards lean on fonts that feel off, distorted, or eerie to set the vibe right away. Fonts that look old-fashioned, narrow, or weirdly spaced immediately feel spooky. Even in newer films like Barbarian, designers chose narrow, slightly stretched letterforms to make the title feel strange and uneasy; horror audiences expect something unusual right from the text itself. You also see this in horror like Skinamarink: its title uses a retro, blocky style that seems harmless at first but feels unsettling because it reminds viewers of kids’ toys or old VHS tapes, which, in horror, suddenly feels creepy. 

Color & Background 

Black, deep red, and washed-out tones are basically the go-to palette because they hit your brain with danger and darkness fast. That’s not just a design myth; color psychology in horror design is all about red=warning, black=unknown, unsettling tones=sickness/decay. For example, big recent horror movies often drop their title on solid dark backgrounds with high-contrast text. That sharp black vs red or white popping on screen immediately signals we’re not in a feel-good genre. It’s simple but effective, and it can be seen in titles like Smile 2, Longlegs, and First Omen.

Representaion 

Letters that look scratched or unstable can suggest violence or mental breakdown. In Smile, the title looks clean at first glance — but the bright, almost playful font feels wrong compared to the creepy tone. That contrast foreshadows the movie’s theme: something that looks normal (a smile) is actually disturbing. In Barbarian, the narrow, stretched letters feel tight and uncomfortable. That design quietly mirrors the claustrophobic setting of the house and basement. Even if you don’t consciously notice it, your brain identifies that cramped feeling early on. 

This kind of representation is what I want to be featured in my film opening. I want my film to focus on how the older brothers overprotection of his sister spirals into something thats no longer innocent. I want to somehow incorporate this idea into my title card.

Because of this, I want my film to