My Soul to Keep

Story line: A group of friends go camping in the woods that are known to be haunted around this time of year. They go to disprove the idea of the woods being haunted but in the end no one makes it out.

Genre, Mood, and Tone: Horror/thriller genre. Restless, paranoid, and frightened mood. Suspenseful tone.

Visual Style: The film will be shot from morning to night.

Morning: The group will drive to the location, arrive at the location, and set up their camping equipment.

Noon: The group continue to set up and explore the woods before night falls. Group head back to camp site and wait for night to fall.

Night: The group begin to summon or call on the demon that reside the woods. All major dramatic events start to occur.

Special Needs: We will need: (Camping equipment)

Sleeping bags/tents

Group of 5 friends (Not including our crew of 3)

Equipment to start a fire

S’mores

Wooded area to set up and use for our setting

2 to 3 cameras

Synopsis: 

 

Short Film Author’s Statement

When deciding which short film project to work on, I chose to list, “One-Night Stand”, as one of my top choices because I thought that it would be interesting to produce or direct a film.  The story did not speak to me on a personal level but I am certain that there are other college students that have experienced an event such as the one that we’re presenting. Though I have not experienced this situation before, it does not mean that it will never apply to me in the near future. Just as the others in my group, I wanted to capture a moment of fun, excitement, and the confused feelings that come from a one-night stand.

The audio and image tracks that were used together helped amplify the humor and suspense in our shirt film.  For example, in one scene our main actor tries to sneak out of the room quietly but accidentally steps on a loud pet toy. The audio and image tracks were recorded separately so that there could be more emphasis on that particular scene.  In addition, when the main actor is reflecting on his actions from the previous night, we put his voice-overs and facial expressions together to create a much more humorous effect. The voice-over allowed us to disclose his thoughts while his facial expressions supported that by showing his feelings.

I believe our short film was a major success. We were able to explicitly recreate events that we wrote about prior to filming. Our short film turned out the way it did because we put a lot of time and effort into getting perfect shots and putting those shots with the right audio tracks. However, we did run into a few challenges when it came to lighting but editing with Final Cut allowed us to keep the continuity flow throughout the short movie. We spent many days shooting the film as a group and everyone was able to take the role of the director, camera operator, and audio recorder. This allowed us to experience different roles and also contribute to the group in different ways.

I would have to say this was by far the most exciting and time consuming project this semester for this course, and I would love to continue this work in the future.

Short Film Pitch

God is Near, the Devil is Here

CATHERINE stands outside the BRADING’S mansion. She takes pictures of her surrounding area.  MRS. BRADING walks up to Catherine, she thanks Catherine for taking care of everything while she goes off to her trip. She tells Catherine to keep a close eye on BLAIR. Mrs. Brading drives off. Catherine enters the house, and yells hello.  She closes the door and turns around to find Blair. Blair says boo. Catherine gasps and tells Blair not to do that again.  Blair apologizes and hugs Catherine. She says she misses her. Catherine hugs her back and they talk briefly about recent events.  Blair excuses herself, claiming she has a lot of studying to do.  Catherine yells after her, expecting to finish the conversation with her cousin.

Catherine runs outside to tell her aunt a final goodbye.  As she reaches the drive way her aunt is pulling off and yells to Catherine to have a great time with her cousin.  Catherine asks for her aunt to wait but she’s too late.  Catherine turns back at the house with excitement.  She walks back in to unpack and get settled. Catherine whispers to herself that this is going to be a good weekend with her long lost cousin.

Day 2: Catherine awakes to Blair standing beside the bed. Blair whispers she’s hungry and Catherine offers to fix her breakfast. Blair just smiles and run down the long hallway of the mansion. Catherine walks into the kitchen and begin to prepare breakfast.  She hear a loud boom and walk toward the hallway to see what it was. She looks toward Blair’s room and Blair is just standing at the end of the hallway with her back facing Catherine.  Catherine walks up to Blair and asks her what’s wrong.

Cut to Day 3: Catherine awakes at 3 am, she’s sweating heavily.  She rises up and jumps out of bed to get a glass of water. On her way to the kitchen she hear a mumbling sound. She ignores it.  Catherine then proceeds to the kitchen. She pours a glass of water while she’s gulping down the water then she hear singing.  She calls out Blair’s name.  Then the singing turns to laughing.  As she puts back the water container and close the refrigerator, Blair is standing there.  Blair screams in agony.

Cut to Day 4: MORNING

Catherine is sitting in the living room having a conversation about Blair on her cell phone. The friends advise her to reach out to Blair’s mother and tell her about the odd behavior that has been going on.  Catherine hangs up with her friends and tries to call Blair’s mom. The phone is disconnected… Catherine panics, and calls over and over again.  Fortunately, Catherine receives a call from her boyfriend and he asks if he can come over.  Catherine agrees and begs him to keep his promise about coming over to visit her.

Day 4: NIGHT

Dylan pulls in the driveway, he gets out, and ring the doorbell. He rings the doorbell again… He rings the doorbell again. Finally, Catherine comes to the door exasperated.  She pulls Dylan in and asks him silently for help.  He then asks what’s wrong. She begs him not to speak out of fear that Blair is going to hear them. Not only Blair, but HAYTEE. Catherine asks Dylan to follow her to Blair’s room. He stops midway when he hear Blair scream out with a masculine voice. Catherine begs him to follow her, and he does. They enter the room and it is pitch black. The temperature is below freezing. They follow closely behind each other, and pause midway into the room. Blair is standing there with her white gown and blood all over it. She’s holding a kitchen knife chanting demonic words. Blair begins to laugh and Catherine and Dylan run out of the room headed for the front door. Objects are now moving in the house, Blair is chasing after them. They stop to hide, scared and panicking. Blair is no longer loud. The house goes quiet. Dylan gets up and something pulls him away quickly. He calls for Catherine. Catherine gets up and heads for the door. Blair is standing there at the door. Waiting…

Cut to darkness.

Profile Interview Author’s Statement

We chose to interview the Drakes because their fraternity exemplified the true meaning of brotherhood. We hoped to convey to the viewers that there’s more to a fraternity than parties and “looking” cool.  A fraternity is centered around brotherhood and the uplifting of others in your community.  Choosing to interview such an influential person on the Austin College campus was the best decision we as the interviewers could have made due to the fact that we were able to get out a message to the public.

When editing the project we had to take into consideration how the audience would feel and how the interviewees would feel about our editing process. So we chose images and music that would support our message rather than stray the audience from the true meaning of the film.  Images and music that are incorporated are solely of the house and the fraternity brothers because we wanted to keep our central theme of brotherhood. In order to keep Austin front and center, majority of the video is of him.  Also to keep our central theme prevalent majority of editing techniques are based on brotherhood.

Our interview was a huge success because we were able to get all of our interview questions answered and also additional information.  We don’t believe our interview could have gone any smoother, it was what we wanted and more.  The setting was perfect and the attitudes of the interviewees were perfect.  The Drake Fraternity was the best choice for us because we wanted to get the message out about the importance of brotherhood.

Screencast Project

Script: 

Hello, I am Mariah Steward and today I will be explaining how to edit a clip to your liking.

By that I mean manipulating color, lighting, saturation, brightness, and exposure.

These are the different tools that allow you to manipulate each thing.

Here I am changing exposure, you can match color, you can change the white balance by turning it on here.

If you would like to crop the visual, you will click here. Once framed, click yes to crop your video.

Here is a filter tool that you can use to change the filter of your video.  There are different options. I chose vintage.

Here is your audio tool that will allow you to change volume, pitch, and add effects to your audio.

Now I am just clicking through the tools one last time for you guys.

You can change the exposure, brightness, and saturation.

Well guys, that is how you modify your video by using these tools to enhance color/lighting.

Thank you, goodbye.

 

 

Profile Outline

Profile Outline:

Shooting Dates– Week of 10/1/16-10/2/16

Shooting area– Drake Fraternity house

Subject– Austin, the president of the Drake organization.

Interviewees– Drake brothers

Time of shooting– Day time

Shots– High angle, close-up, extreme close-up, establishing, low angle, and a cowboy shot will be best for this particular documentary.

Theme– Brotherhood

 Our vision– We would like to create a documentary that emphasizes the importance of brotherhood and shows how college organizations serve a greater purpose than what stereotypes tend to depict. In order to portray this we plan to ask questions that are central to our theme. Also, while editing it is important for us to include images and sound effects that will enhance our scenes and allow the audience to experience what it feels like to be a Drake brother.

I Still Love Him

Hello, I am Mariah.  An artist and blogger who just so happens to be obsessed with the darker and softer parts of life.  Death and love interest me for reasons that I am mildly unsure of. I try to incorporate both when creating new art or blogging about the wonders of life. I hope that you feel the same emotions that crossed over my heart when crafting and watching this piece. In the short digital story you will see a situation involving images of love and death.  I am trying to show my audience how death not only kills us physically, but spiritually as well.  While grieving, there is only one reason that an individual would cry consistently. There is only one reason why an individual would allow themselves to feel pain, not just in their hearts/soul — but pain physically from all of the emotional distress. There is only one reason that an individual will allow themselves to be stuck in one place, thinking about one particular person. I am here to tell you, that reason is love.  When you are deeply in love, losing your partner is like losing yourself.  You have to start over again, and it is never easy.  People will often say that the pain will eventually go away — but is that true?  Just because one part of you died yesterday does not mean you will not be able to continue on with life? Or does it?

The conflict here is being married to a very famous man, and eventually losing him to the fame.

The problem for the narrator is accurately reflecting on fame and sadness. She never states that she was unhappy in her marriage. Instead, she focuses on the good aspects rarely giving insight on her husbands infidelity and imperfections. She’s hesitant in the beginning to take on this new endeavor but she’s also extremely captivated by his presence — which makes it hard for her to turn away. Was it a mistake to ignore the possibilities that this marriage was headed for an emotional disaster? Or did love force her to be oblivious?

My main focus as the creator was to show how Jacqueline Kennedy was well aware of John’s magnificence — and his shortcomings. It’s like choosing to see the good in someone rather than the bad. The digital story isn’t just about John though, it is primarily focused on Jacqueline’s inner thoughts and feelings towards her husband and the love she had for her husband. This isn’t the story of your typical married couple.  This is love, fame, and tragedy.  Though John received a lot of attention from men and women.  Jacqueline understood that he was married to her and thankful for them. So take some time to think about this imperfect relationship and how it ended in tragedy.  A mixture of love and pain– but then finally death.

I hope you enjoy!

True love does not come by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly. -Jason Jordan

Link:

Dubai Reflection

I am very pleased with my final product because it is better than my initial product. In the beginning I had problems with the aesthetics but eventually I learned how to manage Dreamweaver. I would say that the pictures and colors do correlate well and they bring life to the site.

So far almost everything has worked for me during this project. There were a couple of things I got hung up on but I managed to pull through. Dreamweaver alone is a very challenging application to use and a lot of time had to be put in in order for me to succeed at this project.

Unfortunately, the video links that I planned on using for my site did not work very well. I tried different methods to place a working video or a working link on my video page but it just did not work. In the end I decided to settle for gifs.

I wouldn’t change anything. I am very pleased with the work I’ve done so far and I don’t plan on making any big modifications.

Lastly, I learned how to navigate Dreamweaver on a much larger scale. I am now capable of creating any kind of website all because of this application.

Dubai, Barbados, and Costa Rica :)

Costa Rico

Dubai

Barbados

I’ve chosen these three countries because they are three of the most popular tourist sites. I personally would love to one day visit the country of Barbados, Dubai, and Costa Rico. This is solely because of the good weather and lively feel of the countries.

Greetings from…Barbados!