9/26 - First Short Film (editing) / Final

   This week, 9/22 - 9/26, was spent editing. Now that we had all of our scenes filmed, we had to use Adobe Premiere Pro to edit our film and turn in the final product. 

    The first day we started editing, it was me and one of the other members, Samantha. We tried to edit the first four scenes. This was a bit challenging because we’ve never used Adobe Premiere Pro before. Despite watching the tutorials, we were still a little lost and confused. This is when we really had to put our computer knowledge in use. We figured out how to download videos from our phones to the computer, how to add the videos into Adobe, how to cut the clips, how to fit them into the frame, and how to make sure it saves. 

    The second day, we were pretty much able to finish our film. However, it accidentally got deleted. The whole thing. We felt panic and fear because that meant that we would have to repeat the whole process, again. We tried figuring out how to get our film back, but it was no use because when we found our film, all the scenes were jumbled up or missing. It was a mess. So, that meant we had to start from the bottom, and rebuild. I got to working and was able to re-edit the first few scenes. It actually didn’t take that long, but the class time ran out. So, we had to save the rest of the editing for next class. 

   When next class rolled around, we felt confident in finishing our film. We worked together to gather each scene, put them in order, edit them, and add effect. We were able to finish putting together our film, however, we forgot to pay attention to the audio!!! We had 20 minuted left of class, so we rushed to add scary audios and understand how to control the volume of the sound and figure out how to have it fade in and out. The audio from some of our videos wasn’t that great, so we resorted to muting them and putting sound over it. But, there were two or three clips that had good audios and significant lines, so they were used. Really, my partner Alana was the one that was able to quickly figure out how to edit the audio. She did such a great job in the little time that we had left. 

    Overall, the editing process was probably my favorite. Despite the challenges we faced, the rush and the creativity behind it made me really enjoy editing our film. I liked putting together the scenes and decided how they should go. Upon the end, watching the final product made me smile. Our hard work was worth it. Watching the finished film was so rewarding, especially knowing the difficulties we ran into and the little time we had left to fix them. I look forward to doing this again!

9/19 - Short Film Filming

    This week of 9/15 - 9/19 was spent on filming the scenes for our first short film. The first day I was absent from school, so one of the people in my group, Alana, filmed all the scenes for that day. They turned out very good, and I was very pleased with how well the scenes were shot. The camera work was very unique and satisfying to watch. 

   Then, the next class, the whole group was together again. We went out in our school and filmed the rest of the scenes. We faced some creative differences, but it was handled with respect and kindness. Everyone did their part, and they did it well. We focused on trying to film our scenes in one go, without many cuts or shots. It kind of reminded me of the camera work in Old Hollywood films, where the camera mostly stayed in one place. One of my favorite scenes, is the one where we had to make one of the character disappear, because she is a ghost, while the other character had to stay in the scene still talking to her because she is the only one that can see this ghost. So, what we did was keep the camera forward and then tilt it towards the (not ghost) girl, while the ghost girl actress moved out of the scene. Then, we tilted the camera back to where the ghost girl was supposed to be, except she is gone, and the normal girl looks like she is talking to herself. This scene was filmed without any cuts, however, there were many tries. 

Overall, the filming process was fun and filled with laughs as well as determination. We wanted our plan to be executed well. We made sure to include everyone’s ideas and give it a try. We mostly filmed on our phones, yet the quality was still good! I enjoyed this process, but I knew the next step was editing, which is a whole challenge in its own that we were ready to take on!

9/4/2025 Adobe Premier Tutorial & Movie Poster

     This past week, my group and I worked on making our movie poster. Our film is a mystery horror, so we planned to make the poster creepy. We added a ghost figure and worked with the fonts to make the poster look good. We used Canvas as it was the easiest app to work with. 

    Today (9/4), we watched a tutorial on how to use adobe premiere pro. We learned how to drop videos, how to add audios and edit the audio to synch with our scenes, and we learned how to add effects. 

9/12/2025 Guest Speaker + Movie Poster

    This week, we worked on our movie poster and we had a guest speaker come and talk about the program he works for. 

   For our movie poster, we decided to have something simple, yet still give that horror effect. We titled our movie Let’s Be Friends. We included who does what, like who is starring in it, who is directing it, and who edits it. This is our movie poster: 

    Later in the week, we had a guest speaker, Jim Guarasci, from ShortCutsTV. He talked about this program that is dedicated for high school students who are interested in further pursuing a career in film. This program allows for aspiring student filmmakers so have access to equipment that allows for better production for their films. Jim also talked about ways to make good films. 

Story Arc: the introduction and the set up is where we get to know the characters, the conflict is where a change/conflict occurs, and the resolution is where that problem is solved. 

Story: the needs to be clear, show don’t tell, the story should have a moral that you believe in and makes the story powerful, strong ending, and create an emotional attachment for the audience. 

Writing: writing is re-writing, it is how you make your films good, get the audience to know your characters, identify your characters so you know how to write them. 

Camera Work: framing needs to be purposeful, the rule of thirds, camera placement, having a tripod is important, “if it’s in the shot, it meant to be there”.

Audio: the most important to make your film be perceived as less amateur, puts the audience IN the film.

Shot Sequencing: 25:25:50, 25% wide shots, 25% medium shots, 50% close shots-ups.

Honorable Mentions (quotes Jim said):

“There is no failure in art.”

“You will regret the effort you don’t give.”

“Writing is hard.”

“Focus on pre-production to make a good films.”

“It’s always about emotion.”

Quote from Kendra Hall about story arc: normal —-> explosion —-> new normal