Maya's Blog

It was hard to schedule a day where all the actors were free. We decided to shoot on Friday but we're running a tight schedule since four of the actors and I had to be somewhere which only gave us about three hours to shoot. Filming actually only took about an hour and a half and we ended up only having 42 takes in total. It was helpful since the scenes were all in one location so it saved us a lot of time. We ended up improvising a lot of the scenes and camera shots, but I think it turned out better than our original plan. For example, instead of having a wide shot for the Easter Bunny's scene, we ended up having a high angle camera shot and zoomed in. We did this so we could capture the chaos in the room as well as the Easter Bunny's reaction.  Although we didn't have that many takes, most of them worked put in the final product. Some parts of the filming it was hard because some of the actors were laughing or goofing off in the background. On top of that most of our ...

Santa  -  Caleb  Irwin   We decided to cast Caleb as Santa because we felt that had the best reaction faces, and he was good at improvising scenes.  Easter Bunny -  Abby  Alcock   Since Abby is Katie's sister it was very  convenient for her to play a role. This role doesn't require and lines and we thought Abby had the most convincing confused face so it was an easy decision to make.  Elf #1  -  Evan  Phillips We wanted Evan to play this role because he is very  eccentric and good at improvising. This role also includes a lot of funny comments and since Evan is a naturally happy person we thought he would fit this role the best. Elf #2 -  Nick Hallisey  Nick's character is one of the more serious characters and we thought Nick could pull it off since he can act serious at times.  Elf #3 -  Genesis Rodriguez- Rodriguez We decided to cast Genesis because her role requ...

For our film, it's all done shot in one location so we only needed to look for one place to shoot. We looked at several different offices but finally decided on filming in the conference room at the main office. I liked this location because there was no echo and it has the type of table I had visioned. The one issue I had with the main office conference room was the Sarasota High School mascot and letters on the wall. Also, when I asked the main office, they gave me permission to film there but only if it wasn't being used and it's used quite often. This was another potential location. This is the AICE office and I had some issues with this one. For one it echoed a little and it didn't have a normal looking table. This location was kind of a last resort because it wasn't used often so we would have a better chance getting to film here than anywhere else. My partner Katie suggested that we could use a conference room at New College since her parents work t...

In the first frame we have an insert of someone walking down a hallway. We wanted to intrigue the audience and make them wonder where he is walking. In the second frame we have a mid-shot using the rule of thirds. This is to show the members of the board and gives the audience context, that this is a meeting. In the third frame we have a close up of a missing poster. In the fourth frame, we have a wide shot of the Easter Bunny passing by. This is for comical effect and also tells the audience that maybe other holiday characters work in that building. In the fifth frame it shows a mid-shot of the president of the board holding papers. In the last frame we have a close-up of Santa's reaction after getting fired.

We wanted to use a lot of close-ups since we wanted to emphasize the characters' expressions. I wanted to include a mid-shot using the rule of thirds to show all of the members of the board.

After many mistakes Santa has made, the Board of the North Pole finally made the decision to fire him. The rest of the movie is about Santa trying to find a new job.

The opening credits include many long takes with some freeze frames centering around Austin Powers. Not much of the plot is told in the opening credits but we know he is famous because of the crowds chasing him and the mid shot of his face on a magazine. The whole time there was background music that set the happy, upbeat tone of the scene. They include the title of the movie, the names of some of the main actors, the casting director, the person in charge of music, the costume designer, and the editor. This comedy's budget was $16.5 million and made $53 million in domestic box office.

The opening credits are mainly time lapses of clouds and then transitions to a weather man then transitions to their drive to Punxsutawney. In the opening credits, you can tell the story will revolve around this weather man and he's covering a story for groundhog day. After the time lapses of the clouds, they have long takes of the weather channel changing between mid shots and wide shots. The budget for this comedy was $14.6 million and made $70 million in box office.

From the opening credits, you can tell that these two men have been driving for a while and make a stop at some sort of drug store. The whole opening credits use many different shots of the car going down the road. Some from the car's P.O.V., some long shots, some wide shots, there's a close up on the license plate and it tilts up to a two-shot of the men driving. They included a bunch of names but they didn't specify what their jobs were but I'm assuming they're other actors. They also include the name of the director. This comedy's budget was $11 million and it made $53 million in domestic box office.

In the opening credits, you can understand the characters personality right away. The viewer doesn't exactly know the plot, but you can understand he's a not very bright but very famous model. In the first two minutes they use many quick inserts. For example, someone grabbing hair styling equipment, someone taking notes on a pad, someone tightening a bandana. I really liked the use of close-ups in this opening so I think I will probably use similar shots in my film. They also include short cuts of high profile celebrities talking highly of this model. This comedy's film budget was $28 million and made $45 million from domestic box office.