PIVOT 📢

Hello everyone and welcome back to another blog post! This is actually covering the first project we did this year. Yes. You heard that right. A project that started 5 whole months ago. This project has been an ongoing problem in my life that is still, somehow, not resolved! Throughout this blog post, I’ll take you on the ups, the downs, the twists, the turns, and the unexpected plot twists that this project threw at my group. Enjoy!

Starting off in September, we read Frankenstein—the original writing by Marry Shelly. Reading the first few chapters, I was utterly lost in the language and context. Eventually and I moved through the chapters, I started to understand the writing style and was able to fully comprehend and apply the book to past knowledge. It was this switch in my ability to read the book that led me to take my in-depth and insightful notes. For every Socratic seminar, I came readily prepared with complete notes and a full understanding of the chapters of the book we read. This means that I was able to meaningfully contribute to the Socratic Seminars in a way that helped share knowledge and gain deeper understandings. It was interesting to see how my classmates viewed Victor’s journey differently—some seeing him as a tragic hero, while others critiqued him as a reckless villain (I was the latter). After reading this novel, I can confidently say that this is my favourite book of all time. 

This set of notes is probably the most proud I’ve ever been over my notes and have set the basis for how I take notes in all other reading assignments. Check them out below ⬇️ 

During this first month of reading, we were also watching, taking notes, and analyzing different horror movies. The three that we watched were Halloween, 28 Days Later, and Get Out. Halloween, hands down, was and is the best horror movie ever created. 28 Days Later was mid. Get Out was amazing. All of these movies helped me understand the lighting, angles, and cinematography needed in order to create a successful horror film. As well, they showed my different way societal issues could be portrayed through film. For example, Get Out reflected the of race relations and the subtle ways in which societal fears can come to light. 

To reflect on these different movies, we did a viewing guide. Basically, we answered different questions and did some research to be able to fully understand the different concepts and cinematography that ear movie had. I’m super proud of the work that I did for this assignment because I made sure to have thorough research as well as strong connections that I would be able to take to my horror movie. 

You can check out my guided viewing below ⬇️ 

And now, for the best part: we made (sorry, still making), a horror movie!!!!

I got assigned director, which means I was responsible for shaping the vision of our horror movie from the ground up. No pressure. As the director, I had to juggle a million different ideas, coordinate with my group, and ensure that we were all on the same page. Let me tell you, this has probably been the most stressful project I’ve ever completed.

We began our brainstorming sessions. Some brilliant and some, well, absurd ideas came to light. After much debate, we finally settled on a concept showed the parallels of the past and the present.

Our plot followed a group of present day teens who found a cam corder. In the videos on the cam corder, mysterious things started happening to a group of teams form the 90s. Instead of taking the warning signs, the present day teens ignore the situation and get picked off one by one. As we flushed out the script, I found myself looking to the themes we discussed in both Frankenstein and our selected films: the consequences of the past coming back to haunt you.

Throughout the 2 months we spent actually doing prep for the movie, we worked on so many different things in and outside the classroom it was almost hard to keep track. Just kidding! I kept a daily log of everything that I did. From shot lists, to costume design, to editing scripts, to filming locations, to research, to gathering equipment, to editing I dabbled in a little bit of everything. The reason why it was so important that I had a view of everything is that it was my job to make sure that the vision and the message of our film came through with everything that we did. This meant that I had to be overseeing all different parts in order to make sure the vision came to light. You can check out my daily log files below ⬇️

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⚠️ This blog post is going to be split in two. The before, and the after. What you just read was before filming. You are about to read what happened after filming. Trigger warning.

Everything. That. Could. Go. Wrong. Went. Wrong. 

From equipment malfunctions to last-minute cast changes, the road to completing our horror movie was more like off roading through Mount Everest. 

During this project, we had the delight to visit Loon Lake (for the 3rd time), a place where many other traumatic events had gone down. To make sure we had enough time for everything, we scheduled our shoot days in depth, making sure that we had enough time to get each scene just right. However our cam corder ran out of battery and could continue to consistently die every hour or so through out the rest of filming. This led to a very delayed shooting schedule. Eventually, panic set in,—how could I salvage this? The answer lied in pivoting. Thankfully one of my team members had brought an extra one and we switched between the two for filming. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked.

Once we got rolling (literally and figuratively), I was hopeful that the worst was behind us. But, Murphy Law holds true in the world of filmmaking. On our second shooting day, we discovered that half of the sound on the footage we captured the day before the wasn’t clear. Unfortunately I realized that some of our best takes were gone was nothing short of a horror movie in itself. We came together as a team, and after a bit of crying and brainstorming on very little sleep, we tried to reshoot those scenes. However, it set us back significantly and they were majority unsuccessful.

After leaving Loon Lake, our filming was far from over. We still had 1/3 of our movie left to film at different locations! To sum this experience of filming at other locations up, we had once scene take 62 shots. Enough said. After this gruelling time commitment outside of school time, we were finally ready to assemble our footage.

But wait!

Right when I thought I could finally breathe, I came to learn our main editor hadn’t done anything over winter break when our rough cut was due the week back. Uh oh. So what did we have to do? Pivot! Imagine hours of hard work having to be crammed together using iMovie because we didn’t have time to learn how to use anything else. Anyway, Alicia, Dylan, Zach and I ended up editing our entire movie together. And let me tell you, nothing screams teamwork like the four of us frantically trying to make sense of a chaotic plot thorough late night laggy FaceTime calls. After many late nights, we finally had a Final Cut put together, but not without some sleepless nights and a few exasperated sighs.

Remember how I said I was proud of the ideas we came up with? Yeah, well, half of them didn’t make it into the film because, apparently, “sound quality” isn’t just a fancy term for “the microphone is actually broken.” It’s almost like having good sound is crucial for a horror film, who knew? But here we were, on the brink of despair, desperately trying to salvage dialogue that sounded like it was recorded underwater. Maybe we should have gone with a silent film format.

Despite the setbacks, I was determined to make sure our film captured the essence of our vision. I spent hours cutting, splicing, and rearranging clips to create try and create suspense—a crucial element in any horror film. I left sound and colour grading up to Cooper and Mateo ensuring our story was at it’s full potential. As I watched the movie begin to take shape, I began to see all of the months of hard work come together in a way that I was and still am proud of.

As of right now, Jan 25 at 2:17PM, our film is still not 100% completed. Everything is done other than the audio which is being workshopped as I’m writing this (or so I hope) as it sounds like all of the audio was captured at the bottom of the Mariana Trench 🙂 

And here we are, at the end of this epic saga of dread and despair. Who would have thought that making a horror movie could turn into a real life horror story? I mean, who doesn’t love the thrill of equipment malfunctions and sound issues that rival underwater adventures?

In all seriousness, this project has been nothing short of a transformative journey—though perhaps not one I want to do again. From reading Mary Shelley’s book to dissecting cinematic techniques, I feel like I discovered the importance of resilience, teamwork, and, regrettably, the necessity of a backup plan for everything. Who knew that sound quality was so crucial? Apparently, our film wasn’t destined for the Academy Awards after all, but hey, at least we proved that we can pull off an impressive feat of collaborative time management (or the lack thereof)!

Below you can check out our final product ⬇️ 

[Insert final product]

So, while I may still be laughing (or crying) at the absurdity of it all, I’m also proud of what we managed to create out of utter chaos. Our horror film may not be perfect, but it certainly shows the spirit of all those hours spent navigating disaster. Here’s to all the lessons learned—like always carrying spare batteries and knowing when to pivot.

Thanks for reading this tragedy of a project,

Best wishes,

Dana

P.S. I forgot to mention the part where we almost lost all of our footage due to corrupted files!

Here’s some fun pics of Loon Lake!