In this video, I will be answering some questions about this project as a whole. Enjoy!
Transcript:
Hello everyone, my name is Grace VanBuren and this is my creative critical reflection on our opening scene of “The Vanished”. Before I begin to answer my questions, I would like to quickly thank you for keeping up with this film-making journey Jackie and I have worked so hard on. We are so happy with how our film is turning out and are so excited to share it with you. First off, I would like to refresh you on whatour film is about. The Vanished is a dramatic thriller that takes place at Zephyr Park in Zephyrhills Florida. On one bright and sunny day, a mom and her three year old daughter are at the park and the toddler is playing on the playground. The mother gets sidetracked by her phone and loses attention of the child. Sawyer, who is the three year old girl, is just happily playing on the playground by herself having a good time. Grace, her mother, is still on her phone not paying attention to Sawyer. Moments pass by and a large white truck pulls into the parking lot. A suspicious man gets out of the truck and slowly walks towards the playground that Sawyer is playing on. The film goes on with Grace still being on her phone and the suspicious man eventually walking away, with Sawyers hand in his. The mother then looks up to check on her daughter, and she is no where to be found.
Now that I have explained to you what takes place in this opening scene, I would like to answer the first question which is- “How do your products use or challenge conventions and how do they represent social groups or issues?” Starting off with mise-en-scene, the main character, Sawyer, was dressed in a simple playtime dress. This is an outfit most three year old girls would wear. The mother, Grace, was dressed in a casual mom-like outfit, wearing a simple white blouse paired with jeans and sandals. The kidnapper was dressed in all black, wearing a black longsleeve shirt, jeans, boots, a baseball cap, and dark sunglasses to blur his identity. We made his character wear black in order for him to stand out and set off more of a suspicious vibe for the audience. As seen in many other dramatic thrillers about kidnappings, the kidnapper almost always has darker clothes on and accessories like a baseball cap and dark sunglasses to hide his/her face. The person being kidnapped in other movies as well is almsot always wearing something casual, like what people would wear on a daily basis. As for lighting, Jackie and I kept it natural lighting just to give the ‘taken out of broad daylight’ cliche theme that most kidnapping films portray. We wanted to keep this film as realistic as possible to show our audience how it is so common for these types of tragedies to take place in the real world. Jackie and I pretty much used the objects that were already at the park as props such as the playground being used so the toddler could play on it. However, the one prop that really created a deep meaning in our film was Grace’s cell phone. We want our audience to see how distracting it can be and what can happen if we get distracted while being on it. Moving on to cinematography, we kept it pretty simple throughout the whole opening. Jackie and I used a lot of wide angle shots to capture the whole setting. We wanted to get Sawyer playing on the playground and Grace being on her phone in one whole shot. We did however have some zoom-ins of Sawyer playing on the playground to show her actions. Since Jackie was the director and camera operator, she wanted to follow Sawyer around in some shots to almsot get her point of view as she was playing. Another important shot we took was the over-the-shoulder shot of the kidnapper which showed him stalking Sawyer. It is typical in many dramatic thrillers about kidnappings to have an over-the-shoulder shot taken behind the kidnappers to show the audience what they are looking at and their point of view. For editing, Jackie and I both worked on this together. We included cut and fade-out transitions to help us establish a change in setting. We kept the sound simple and decided to not include dialogue because we felt that it was not very necessary to include in the shots that we used. In the first half of the film, we used a calm and peaceful song and I slowed it down a little just to make it even more calmer. For the second half of the film when the truck pulls up, thats when we used suspensful sound effects to change the mood. As for titles, we wanted to keep them simple because the film starts off calm and chill. Moving on to social groups and gender representation, we had two females as the everyday normal characters to show their delicacy and innocence. As for the kidnapper who was a male, we wanted to have his character as stronger and overpowering the small toddler. This can be represented in other kidnapping movies such as the 2013 dramatic thriller The Call.
The next question is- “How do your products engage with the audience and how would they be distributed as real media products?” We chose the production company WWE Studios to produce our film. This company has produced dramatic thrillers such as The Call. Jackie and I wanted to choose a production company that has produced other dramatic thrillers so we would receive our desired quality content. We would advertise our film in movie theaters by putting up posters, or even creating a series of trailers to show our audience what would take place in our film. Speaking of audience, we made our movie PG-13 so it would be 13 years old and up. We made it for this younger audience as well because we want to show everyone these scary events that can really take place in our world today.
Question number three is- “How did your production skills develop throughout this project?” At the beginning of class, I did not know really any terms concerning film and media. However, with the help of my teacher Mr. Engle and all of the assignments he gave us to improve our knowledge I was definitely able to grasp this information better. When it came to this project, I had known most of the terms needed to complete it so it was pretty much a fun activity for me. Through completing this whole project, I learned that preparing for a film like gathering your knowledge on the media terms and the technology needed can be a little tricky just because it is a lot to have at once. During the process, it was fun to blog and be able to film somewhere we were familiar with. In the end, putting together all of this information and final touches of production and shooting was the best part because we felt so accomplshed. Planning this film was simple due to the fact that Jackie and I like the same genre which is obviously dramatic thrillers. Drafting was simple because we already had in our minds what we wanted to do. Directing and shooting was also pretty simple because we wrote our script exactly how we were going to shoot and everything worked out perfectly. As for revising, editing and sound this was the trickiest part for us. Because I am a perfectionist, editing had to be on point with the transitions and the sound had to fit perfectly. Jackie had picked the beginning song in the film and I at first did not like it. However it grew on me and I had the idea of including the suspenseful sound effects which enhanced the eerie mood.
The final question is- “How did you integrate technologies in this project?” Jackie and I used her iPhone 11 Pro Max to film the whole opening scene which allowed crisp quality and smooth movements. We used my MacBook Pro to edit the film on the iMovie software that is downloaded on my computer. We both have had experience with iMovie so it was not a huge struggle to edit the film as a whole. To use iMovie, all we had to do was take the clips we shot from filming and place them in order on the iMovie movie maker. From there, we were able to add transitions, sound, and mess with the coloring. After using all of this technology, I learned that it takes time and patience to be able to achieve a nice quality film. All in all, completing this whole project was a great learning experience and really expanded my knowledge on media and film.
The Vanished 