For my CCR, I decided to do a fun twist and make it a mock of the WIRED interview, where celebrities answer their most searched questions. Instead of answering my most searched questions, I answered the questions about my film opening! I hope you enjoy watching this, the script is down below!
SCRIPT:
Hello everyone! My name is Amaya Beauvoir, I am the executive producer, writer, and actress in the film opening “Mafia” and today (lifts up poster) I will be answering the most searched questions about the movie.
1st question: How does Mafia fit into the standard ‘horror’ and ‘thriller’ genre?
Well, I’ll start with the horror genre. one of the most obvious ways the film fits into the horror genre is the lighting and atmosphere. The film has lowkey lighting through its entirety, and the atmosphere of the film opening is very dark as its nighttime when the girls are playing the Mafia game at the sleepover. T Another convention of the horror genre is the intense and suspenseful music. Right at the beginning of the opening, after the candles are lit, you can hear the intense music. This gets a feeling of unease from the viewers right from the start. The location is also a big part of the genre. Most horror genre movies have a dark and isolated location, such as a dark street or a isolated house. And while our film doesn’t necessarily take place in an isolated location, as the sleepover is in a regular location – a house in a neighborhood, when Madison gets killed, she is all alone. All the girls are sleeping, and she’s outside in a dark, quiet, and isolated backyard. That scene alone I feel embodies the horror aspect of our film opening.
As for the thriller genre, the horror genre overlaps with this genre ALOT. But there are some differences. While horror seeks to get shock and fear out of the audience, thrillers tend to have suspense and excitement induced scenes. This is the reason why our film is a horror and a thriller. We gain suspense AND fear during our film opening. So, for the question about how our movie fits into the thriller genre – the suspense is the easiest thing to point out. We gain suspense through the music and the lighting, and just the overall plot of the movie! Another way we fit into the thriller genre is the cliffhangers and plot twists. The audiences are left with a major cliffhanger right before the title sequence – the cards are deciding the girl’s fate. And the plot twist that the killer is one of the girls is a major plot twist. These scenes all create the main feelings of the thriller genre and contain the main conventions.
With all the conventions the film and the two genres share, it might seem easy to tell why it fits into those two genres. But there are a few differences – for one, most murderers in horror and thrillers bring a weapon for their killings. However, in our movie, the murderer’s weapon is themselves. As in they use their own body parts, like their hands in Maddie’s murder.
2nd question: How does ‘Mafia’ represent social groups or issues?
Well, one of the main issues it tackles is murder and death. Most people tackle the fear of death everyday- the fear of loved ones dying, the fear of themselves dying. Because death is scary! You don’t have a clock telling you when you’re going to die or know when your loved ones will die. It’s very sudden and unprepared. And we use that in our film when Maddie dies. She went into the pool unprepared and unknowing that she was going to die. This represents the idea of death and how unexpected it is. We also represent various races and ethnicities through our actors, such as the Black, Hispanic, and Asian communities. However, we do use stereotypes in our film. Our accessories for the characters such as Zara and Lily, are very typecasted based off of their personality. For example, Zara is the artistic friend, and to show this we had her wear colorful clips in her hair and have a sketchbook with her during the sleepover. For Lily, the smart friend, we had her have a book with her during the sleepover. These are obvious stereotypes – not all artistic people wear clips in their hair to show creativity, and not all smart people have a book with them at all times!
3rd question is: How does ‘Mafia’ get the audience’s attention?
The cliffhanger is an attention grabber for sure. Madison dying is really unexpected. It grabs the audience’s attention right when they think everything is going normal. The suspenseful music is also an attention grabber. Right from the start you hear the music... which makes you know something is going to happen. You just don’t know WHEN. And that’s definitely my favorite part about this film opening. One of the scenes that I will once again point to is the death of Maddie. When she dies, the audiences are left shocked and excited: what’s going to happen next? Who killed Maddie? And then they see the bracelet. Plot twist – the audiences are shocked again. The killer is one of the friends that played the game. The audiences are excited and afraid to see what happens next, but the fade to black leaves them left to picture the rest in their head.
4th question: How would Mafia be distributed, marketed, and get out in theaters?
This is my FAVORITE question for sure. The first thing I would do is distribute the film and request for the movie to be published in theaters during the fall season- Halloween is the perfect time for horror movies! Not only would this be great because audiences are ready for horror at this time, but I could easily get the film to show at a horror festival and gain publicity. Then, I would create a poster for the Mafia opening. A poster grabs people’s attention – and it will help us grab a big audience who understands what the movie will be about. Then, I would create a trailer and get it posted on social media through the cast members and crew to get it marketed. To reach a bigger audience and market more, I would have the cast go on a press tour answering questions and doing interviews.
5th question, How did Amaya’s production skills develop throughout this project?
I’ll start this question by saying I was not familiar about the filming or editing process before this film. But now, I’ve grown in many different areas. For one, I learned how to do a rack focus on a camera. The first scene in the film is a rack focus from the candles being lit to the girls talking amongst each other in the back. This was a struggle for me – I never touched a camera before in my life and had only filmed with my phone! I needed to stabilize the camera as I did it and made sure the focus was right after the candles were lit. It too many tries, and I remember looking at one of the takes that we didn’t take and kept on noticing the smallest details that frustrated me. However, after many, MANY tries and a quick google search of how to rack focus, the scene was complete! And honestly, it’s my favorite scene in the film, I just get so proud when I see that clip. Another place that I improved in was downloading music. I was in charge of finding music, and in order to get the music to the editors Samantha and Sofia, I had to learn where to download music. Before this film, I had only used Videostar to edit, and for that editing app, you can add audio easily without downloading – as long as you had a screen recording of it. But for this film, we needed the music to be downloaded and imported. So, I found a website to converts links to an MP4, making the audio importable. Another aspect I learned how to work lighting. Before filming, I knew we had to use dark lighting – it’s a horror film of course! But filming in the complete dark was an obvious issue, and we needed to have light so that we can see all the characters! This was one of the biggest obstacles in the filming process. We had to alternate between lightings, and we spent a lot of time working out which lighting looked the best. I have definitely grown in my lighting knowledge and for future film projects I will have a clearer understanding of how to work the lighting and what specific equipment to use. The last aspect that I have learned is how to control sound to the maximum. As I was in charge of determining sound after filming and during editing, I also took a major role in working the audio DURING filming. Many times, I wore the headphones and held the boom mic listening to the audio and determining if its good enough for the film. Just like with the rack focus, I could always see minor details that made me frustrated. For example, the scene where Maddie walks out of the house into the backyard? Almost every time we filmed, I said “Nope-Again” for many sound issues, such as hearing Samantha’s nails tap on the back of the door, hearing the door vibrate, and even hearing the crew breathe! I learned how to work with the controllable noise and make the sound great to the best of my abilities. I have definitely learned patience as well, as filming is a slow and tough process. It will leave you annoyed and frustrated all the time.
Final question! ‘How did Amaya Beauvoir integrate technologies in this project?’
The first technology that I learned to use was the camera. We used a Canon EOS R6 camera, which is super expensive – thank you BECON-TV for letting us rent it by the way! When we first rented this camera, I was explained on how to use the main functions such as recording, changing the exposure, attaching the camera to a tripod, all those exercises. It was honestly very confusing at first, but by the 2nd day of filming, I understood how to use it very well! Another technology I used was blogger.com. A huge part of this project was to record the process of filming – from the research and the starting idea to finish. I had no idea what blogger.com was before this class, I never intended to blog during my life ha-ha. Like the camera, this website was confusing at first as well. Publishing the blogs, adding YouTube videos and pictures to it was super confusing. Now? I can navigate that website like a pro. The final technology I’d like to point out that I integrated was the app Premier Pro. This was the main app for editing, and although I was not the main editor, I learned a few tricks through Samantha and Sofia of how to edit the film opening, which helped our film build further beyond greatness.
That’s it! Thank you all for watching, all my love to you guys! And thank you so so much to everyone who helped me and my group through the journey of making this incredible film. You guys are the best! BYE!
