Aice Media Studies

Towards the end of our production, the only scenes we had left to film were the most important. Finally, when putting all the scenes together, we realized there were some we wanted to recreate. We always do this. once we finish we go back and make sure there isn't something we want to recreate. The next step in this production project was the marking perspective. We're required to create a postcard and a website advertising our film. As well as social media accounts of our film. We created the postcard easily first off. It didn't even take us 45mins. We put all the necessary elements in and we worked with our creativity. The next step was creating social media accounts. Some we're a bit hard for me to figure out because I've never used the platform before. It just turned into something you just have to figure out. Facebook and Twitter turned out to be the hardest for me. I believe facebook just kept my actual name somewhere on the account because it wouldn't let...

After every filming day, we put all our shots together to see what we need. And how long all our other things need to take. Alexa owns a MacBook and uses it to edit. She is very talented at editing. She is a very motivated person. She genuinely enjoys editing on her own time. We'll have little study dates on days we're not filming. We'll just sit and work on the project. Bouncing ideas back fourth during editing. During school, we'd occasionally meet up to work on the project together. I would go to her study hall and help her edit. When filming, I struggled with laughing on important takes. Like the ambulance and throwing up scene. They were both scenes that we couldn't re-shoot. The ambulance scene was very long and the bell was about to ring for the next period. And during the throwing up scene, there was no way we were going to do that again. After that scene everything was full of fake vomit so we'd have to clean everything up and do it all over again. And ...

 This project was honestly so fun! Alexa and I always end up enjoying ourselves throughout it. Alexa loves to film and edit. She's very talented as well! So we already knew that I was going to be acting in it. When deciding our pitch, we wanted it to be a girl our age with scenes we could actually execute. So we were thinking were thinking very realistically. I've always enjoyed acting, but I don't think I'd ever pursue it. I want the effort to really be shown, rather than barely try and have it come out sloppy and childish. We both came up with idea. I researched the symptoms and withdrawal of opioids and that epidemic in general. Since I'm in Mr. Evans class he assisted me in researching the protocol to administering any type of pain medicine. I organized the the ambulance scene with Mr. Evans at least 3 weeks in advance. Doing the markup for that scene was definitely a learning process. I never worked with the skin wax before. I took on the task of the storyboard...

When filming there were so many little things we needed to keep note of. Such as what outfits I was wearing the other day of filming. Making sure my makeup was always on the same way. As well as having the makeup fade throughout the time of the film, to portray the physical damage healing, but the psychological and mental impact still weighing heavy. In the scene where the nurse is rolling me out of the hospital, we made sure we were perfect. From the location, the costumes, the props, the background, and the angles. As well as the ambulance scene, our attention to detail was honestly impeccable. Our paramedic 2 Alexander Cabrera was wearing slides during the ambulance scene. The first take we did was perfect and we loved it so much, but you could slightly see them when we looked back on it. Even though it was a long shot and it was executed well, we didn't want that in our film at all. So we shot it again and thankfully it came out well. We had so many important props in our film....

On our filming days, we were always worrying about the outside lighting. Alexa and I would try to film after school mostly because I have work on the weekends and we were both always busy. But by the time we get home and situate ourselves the lighting outside would start to dim. We would spend our first couple of days starting our production, just going out and shopping or picking up whatever we needed. Then it would be spent trying to plan out everything we needed to film on later days. Alexa was our cinematographer and I was the main actress. We would always look back on what we filmed to make sure it was done correctly. We wouldn't move on until we loved it. No matte how many takes it took. In some scenes it was hard not to laugh. Especially since Alexa and I are such good friends. Our friends Diego and Sonali also helped us to as well as act in our film. In the scene where I have a panic attack because I couldn't find my pills and my mom runs from where she was sitting into...

 This scene was monumental in understanding the plot. Since it's the first scene in our film it set the pace and atmosphere of the film. We honestly couldn't have done it without Mr. Evans my EMS teacher. Thankfully, our school allows him to have an actual ambulance in his classroom. Functioning and all. The equipment as well was all real. We took a whole class period to put on my makeup and costumes, as well as set up the scene. Mr. Evans had such great ideas we hadn't even thought about until he mentioned them. Looking back without it, it wouldn't have been as good or realistic. Some were the fake IV and needle he inserted into my "arm" which actually was a fake vein and skin prosthetic. He also had a makeup kit for wounds. I was doing my own make-up, Alexa was trying to put red dye all over our brown shirt, and Mr. Evans was setting up the IV tool. We then remembered that there need to be two paramedics in an ambulance Our friend Alexander Cabrera stepped i...

 In this scene, our storyboard depicted Paola seeing an ad for pills on snapchat. She would then swipe up to the story asking about prices. He'd tell her where to meet (at a parking lot) and then to just get in the car. Even thought this was our ideal scenario, there were too many setbacks. It started when we were trying to post the pic of the powder on the scale. Snapchat wouldn't allow us to post it. It locked both Alexa and I out of our own personal snapchats. And even now, as I type this they're still locked. So we then tried to make an ad for it on discord, but we're both not experienced with the app. It was hard trying to work out that situation. We ended up deciding on using messages, sent from Alexa's computer. When it actually came down to the filming there were a few more bumps in the road. It was pouring, we thought maybe it would help with the atmosphere of the film. But when trying it out we couldn't see anything. So we just decided to start it with...

Even though this scene isn't very long, we felt that it was important in moving the storyline along. It depicts our nurse, being played by Sonali Castanon, wheeling me, the main character out of the hospital. We wanted it to be somewhat dark during this scene so we waited till later in the day to shoot. Alexa has an aunt who has a wheel chair. So earlier that day we went to pick that up. Then we picked up our other actress Sonali, and we made sure We wanted to use my mom's car in the film so we took that to a hospital near by. Holy Cross is the closest to my house. We had pictured rolling me out of the ER parking lot, but when we got there, there were too many around. So we kept driving around the area looking for a place that would fit our vision. We then stumbled upon the Outpatient area. It was perfect. There was no one there and it was nicely lit. In the scene my mom is supposed to be in the car when I get wheeled out. But when we were shooting the scene she was not present...

Since I'm the main actress my costumes really needed to exemplify my character. All of the clothes I wore in this short film were very comfy. Although they were not put together and were kind of messy. I wanted to give a very lazy and unproductive look. I'm very depressed in my film so I needed to emphasize how I've given up. The main character's costumes consisted of hoodies, sweat pants, baggy shirts and lounge wear. Most of the settings where I'm acting in will take place in my house. The only times you don't see her wearing those specific outfits will be during one of the bathroom scenes. This is where we want me to wear a tank top. This is so you can see the fake bruising all down my arm while I take my prescription pills. My friend Sonali who will be playing the nurse, will be wearing scrubs. My mom is going to always be in the house as well, but she looks more put together. She'll just be wearing lounge wear. Mr. Evans and Alexander Cabrera will be we...

 We thankfully have friends who are willing to make room on their schedule to film with us. My mom Alejandra D'Orazio, also played my mother in the film. She honestly was a bit hesitant to play this role. She is an immigrant from Venezuela and she has a thick accent. She can speak English, but sometimes it's hard for her to pronounce words. We didn't want to get one of our friends to play my mom because it wouldn't have looked realistic. We also really wanted our film to take place in my house specifically, so we weren't going to have someone else's mom come over to film all these scenes. Her role was super important to the film so we needed someone who would put a lot of effort into our film. She agreed and we love the way she preforms in it. My EMS teacher Mr. Evans was a huge help in all of this. I asked close to the start of this project if he was okay with letting us use the equipment and his room. The ambulance in his classroom was honestly the key to maki...

 Before really getting into starting this project we wanted our scenes depicting opioids and drug addiction to be as accurate as possible. I'm in Mr. Evan's EMR and Health Science 2 class. So I see him quite often. I was discussing with him which drugs I should be given in the ambulance. As well as the ones I should be prescribed. Mr. Evans was a great help in giving me resources and insight into such a complex situation. We looked up the protocol for such an accident like the one that'll happen to me. It stated that even though it's not common to administer morphine it's still acceptable. He even printed out the sheet for me. We also found an opioid crisis pamphlet. It talked about some facts and common occurrences during the epidemic. He let us keep it. We highlighted and circled the facts that we could use for our film. We looked up the symptoms of withdrawal to really accurately depict this scenario in our film. Since opioids are a depressant, we made our charac...

My partner Alexa, my friend Sonali and I all went to Goodwill to thrift some costumes for our film. Sonali is going to be playing our nurse. She'll be wheeling me out of the hospital to my mom's car. We want all of our costumes and scenes to be as accurate as possible. We were looking for so long. We thought finding the scrubs would be easier. We went to one goodwill but none of the scrubs in that on fir our actress and friend Sonali. Finally at the second location we found like 3 we were interested in. We found a pair that fit Sonali perfectly. And this big brown shirt that we were okay with getting dirty. We also helped Sonali also look for items for her film. She is also in AICE media studies. We love thrifting. So we easily took this opportunity to look for other things we wanted in our closet. We were only going to use the items once so we didn't want to spend a lot of money on them.  Plus we can bring a new use to old clothes. We love the costumes we chose for those o...