The project that made me want to RUN away

Well, we just finished another project, and as always, we had to write a blog post on it! So, this project was called running a remake because we had to remake a short film, in the hopes of answering the driving question, What technologies, tools, and strategies can we utilize to create short films? The short film in question was RUN, an award winning, one minute long horror short film.

Our final video was supposed to be a carbon copy of this film, and there were a lot of steps involved. The first milestone didn’t actually have much to do with RUN, or the filming in general, but since this was a group project, we did it to see who we might work well in a group with. We did an online personality test, and then we had to write how some of the advantages and disadvantages of that personality in a group scenario would affect us in a group:

This ultimately helped decide who would be in our group, and it was pretty interesting to see what you got on the test. I would recommend you give it a try if you have a bit of free time. When it came time to be assigned our group members, I got Liam and Thomas. The first step in actually making the film was a screenplay. This is kind of like a script, but there isn’t any talking in RUN, so ours was a little different. We read a screenplay from an actual tv show to give us an idea of what it looked like, and this was our first draft:

Yeah, I know, it kinda sucks. We didn’t really have much time to do it because we couldn’t share the document with each other, so that was the best we could do. However, we did get a chance to revise it soon after, so here is our revised version:

It’s definitely an improvement, and although I think we could have done a little better, with all the things we had to do later we just left it as it was, so it was good enough for us. The next milestone was a also a planning thing, it was a moving storyboard. A storyboard is basically a series of pictures that show the main events of the story, except ours was different because it had to be animated, and I used keynote for all the animations that you see. Story boards also don’t have to be immaculately drawn, they just have to show the basic concept, so keep that in mind while you watch it. The one you see is the second draft I did, because I built on top of the first draft when making it, but the first draft had less slides and no time stamps, so don’t really worry about it.

When you hear me mention second draft, I take it you figured out that we had to revise our first draft, for the reasons I stated above, and same as the storyboard, I think if there was more time it would be better, but it did it’s job for what it was. Anyways, the next milestone was a call sheet, which basically says when and where you’re filming, and what you need to bring. The callsheet wasn’t really that hard to do, as we had already planned everything out and just had to write it down, so it was a mainly just to keep track of our plans. The callsheet, and everything we had done so far, was mainly planning, but we finally got to actually filming, the only problem we really had was that it was raining a bit, so we had to wait for it to clear over. The hardest part was editing, and it took a while for me to actually put it all the clips together, but I finished it and here is the first draft:

https://youtu.be/s0b1uA9kXcw

It looks alright, and I think our group thought that, but when it came time to revise, boy did we have a lot to do. We had another group give feedback on our video, and this is what we got:

So yeah, the main problems were the costume of the characters, the music was supposed to be made by us (we didn’t know then), and the timing and angles of the shots were off, among other small details you see in the picture above. So we went to reshoot it, and this time we brought the correct costume, and got the correct angles. That was the easy part. The video editing wasn’t that bad, but the music editing was a nightmare, and where the title of this post comes from. Getting the birdsong and footsteps in was pretty easy, as Liam had recorded footsteps, and there is free bird song in iMovie and GarageBand. The real challenge was making the music. It was really hard do get the jarring drum noise, plus when I put the video in YouTube the drum noise turned into this, so I had to remove it all together. At least I got the rising and falling music done, but it took me a really long time. After all that, we had our final product:

https://youtu.be/kvyOztzKUfY

As you can see, there is obvious improvement in the costumes and camera angles, as well as the timing. However, since we had to make our own sound, the music was a definite downgrade. In my opinion, the second draft was better in every way except the sound, and even if we had more time I still think the sound wouldn’t have been as good as the original short film. Overall, I think we did pretty good for the time and resources that we had, but if we had a bit more time I might have been able to slightly improve the sound. So, now that we’ve covered the project, what technologies, tools, and strategies can we utilize to create short films? Well, we can use screenplays, storyboards, and callsheets to plan and prepare, if you have that you will be able to get all the footage you need, and then apps like iMovie and GarageBand can be used to edit and polish the shots, as well as add music and sound effects. I should also reflect on the ISTE standards for this project, as they are what I’m being marked on.

For computational thinker, I think I have fit the standard, because I have used strategies such as all the pre planning we did, and used technology to develop and test solutions when I was making the music and editing. For knowledge creator, I definitely think I have met the standard, as me and my group have created the various preparation documents like the callsheet or screenplay, which culminated in the final video, and it has definitely been a meaningful learning experience for me and my group. For the final standard, the innovative designer, I think I met this one as well, because I used many creative solutions to problems I had with creating the music, and I used a variety of technologies to do so. So, in conclusion, I learned a lot about filming, especially pre-production and that it is just as if not more important then the filming itself, and I was also able to gain more experience using video editing and music creating skills.

3 comments

  1. jakubh

    THE original movie scared me and your re-make might have scared me if it weren’t for me knowing the location, actors and having watched the original already.

  2. Ninna Gomarteli

    My Lover is came back to me and my life got back just like a completed puzzle… am so happy.. thanks to Robinson.buckler @ {yahoo }. com…………………….✨♊️♋️🦀🌙

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