iMovie Project

Date Night

For our iMovie project, we wanted to incorporate a dark comedy with a silent film theme. We enjoyed the look of having an old fashioned film contrasting with present day fashion and cell phones. We began our story with a man inside a grocery store, bumping into a woman accidentally. Sweet, silly music plays in the background while the two characters smile and converse. Text conversation follows, showing that they knew and loved each other from high school years. As the day goes on, the man is setting the dining room table with silverware and plates, taking a heavy chain off the table, while cutting to scenes of the woman walking down the road. The man begins to slowly stroke the wine bottle, smelling it even, in a sinister manner. The music changes at this point to a dark, eerie tune. The man then grooms himself, spraying on cologne. There is a look in his eyes that hints to something wicked. When the woman arrives, she is accompanied by the smiling man opening the door. The woman sees something strange in the background, moves the man over to get a better view, and lets out a shriek. Her eyes, wide, takes in the horrifying view of two women, captive. The women are tied together, mouths taped shut, squirming. One of the women has a severed leg, the other has a gash atop her head. The scene then cuts to the man, realizing he has been caught, so he frowns a disgusting frown.

For filming, we decided to use the classroom, and also the sidewalk outside of calder. We used a table in the classroom for the dining room, and props from the drawing rooms for the dinner food. Leticia brought in some props, Lan and Zach brought in their cameras, and Taylor helped lead the production significantly.

We divided our editing to 1 minute each person, or a little more than a minute.. Making our film black and white was a must for the theme, and adjusted one scene to an x-ray filter to make it even scarier. We spent time looking for a good soundtrack that would fit the old style mood of silent films, and also a spooky yet subtle track for the scary scenes. We added in transitions that would be scene in silent films, and also sped up necessary parts so our film wasn’t excessively long.

Overall, as a group, we all got along very well. We were laughing a lot, so filming took a little while, but it was a lot of fun because of that. We also got our parts edited very fast, which was relieving. It was also helpful that Lan and Zach really knew how to adjust the cameras. Taylor was great with helping us combine all of our edited clips, adding in transitions, and the music. Leticia helped with the facial expressions and body language to enhance the mood of the scenes. We searched the internet for a while to find the perfect green screen picture, too. All in all, this project was very enjoyable because iMovie was easy to understand and my group made it engaging.