Vivian's Blog!

Towards the beginning of the film, I used bright artificial lighting to try to convey a sense of false security while the main character was in the bathroom. After the first beginning scenes, I used dim artificial lighting to make the house seem more eerie and mysterious, particularly in a scene where the character is walking down an eerie hallway. In certain scenes, I barely used lighting at all, only letting a small amount of natural light through closed blinds in the film. During post-production, I added more saturation to the scenes to make the colors like red seem brighter, adding a sense of danger. 

 The group I have been working with consists of myself, my Father, my Mother, and my stepfather. My stepfather has been primarily helping me learn how to navigate the editing software because of his experience in making advertisements and being in short films himself. I go through the process of editing the footage and letting him view it and add constructive criticism to make final touches to the film. During the filming process, I felt the most challenged by stringing together scenes and ideas. Having numerous ideas for the horror aspect is helpful, but not knowing how to construct them cohesively was a large challenge for me.    (Picture of my Stepfather and me filming the opening scene.)

Sound added to film I added all the sounds and edited the film. For all the music and sound effects, I used a royalty-free music website called Pixabay.com. I mainly used soundtrack and non-dietetic sounds to add suspense to the film. Having no background music made the scenes seem awkward, with no suspenseful aspect to them. The ambience alone in the house which I filmed in was not enough to drive the thriller and drama aspect to the film. Hence, I decided to mainly use non-diegetic sounds. The one song I decided to use that is not from a Royalty-free website is the song Prison Walls by Christian Vasslebring. It is from a horror video game called Little Nightmares. This song adds the perfect amount of subtle, unnerving ambience to the film that it needed.   

Screenflow Editing Software I am using two different editing software: CapCut and Screenflow. The video effects I have decided to use are mainly diegetic sounds like footsteps, small dialogue, and natural ambience. The non-diegetic sounds I decided to use are horror stinger sound effects and a soundtrack of several different songs. During the transitions of scenes, I used Dissolve, which seamlessly blends two scenes into each other, as well as a fade in/ out transition. During editing, I have found the issue of having too much footage. After I added all my footage to the editing software, I had over five minutes of footage. To shave it down to two minutes, I had to remove scenes and make most of them shorter. Another issue I encountered was pairing all the footage together because I filmed most of the shots out of order. Some of the scenes fit together perfectly, while others are a bit choppy. I used several dissolving transitions between these scenes to ensure they went together and w...

 The biggest challenges I faced while filming this project are working alone and being on a time crunch. Due to the fact that I am not working in a group, I have to carry most of the weight of filming and planning myself. Trying to recruit actors that can work for multiple days is difficult because of different people's busy schedules. Thankfully, I am using my parents as back-up and support throughout this project, and they are very supportive of doing so even throughout their own busy worklives. My father, my mother, my step-father, and I are working quickly on the filming process so we can get it done without taking too much time. My team and I are all working hard to help each other bond different scenes and ideas throughout the filming process. 

In my film Paranoia, there are several contrasting colors. The villain in Paranoia is seen with dark clothing that hides his identity from the audience. His dark and intimidating clothing represents the eerieness of his character and proposes a possible threat to the main character. The coloring is warm but bare and dull inside the main character's home. The warm beige colors of the house represent the feeling of safety the character is supposed to feel; however, the dullness of the home represents the emptiness and uneasiness she feels in her own home.  Though the house itself is dull, the small pops of red throughout the house add a sense of danger because red is often associated with danger.

 The supporting character in my story would be classified as the villain under Vladimir Propp's theory. The supporting character is very mysterious with his clothing and characteristics. He wears a face covering, dark clothing, and black gloves to keep his identity hidden while having no props to use. The character's personality is eerie and intimidating with the purpose of making the main character scared and paranoid without a single line of dialogue. Due to his mysterious nature his character makes the audience believe that he is a hallucination however in reality he is actually real and a threat to the main character.