Film Name And Updates!

 Welcome back!

    To update you, we ended up filming on the weekend, finishing the first portion, when the subject is shown young. Over these shots, there will be a narration, as I discussed previously. Though, we will be further planning the narration on Wednesday. Going back to filming, there were some changes to the subject’s room and costume. There were little to no dark colors in her room, and she was wearing a dress rather than leggings and a shirt. These changes were made in order to show the change in personality more drastically. This also appeals to the audience more, making them feel bad for the girl having to go through so much at a young, innocent age.

    This week we are starting with planning our film name. We researched some films within our genre, but could not find much inspiration. After taking a different approach, we came up with the name, Don't Look Back. Nati and I focused on what happens in the plot and the deeper meaning behind what the subject goes through. In the film opening, we show the subject never looking back on her house when she leaves. This signifies a new chapter in her life, yet she never fully found closure for her past. Through this, Nati and I are striving to raise awareness for people who did not get the proper counseling for their past.

Shot List & Scheduling

 For the final blog post of the week, I decided to write about the shot list and scheduling. 

Below is the shot list for just the first portion of the filming. This will be young Claire (7 year old), since that is what will be filmed first. The following two weeks we will continue to film on the weekends, and will be for the different ages of Claire (14 and 18 year old).

Shot list:

1. Long shot of Claire walking into house 

2. Over the shoulder shot of Claire grasping/opening the doorknob to enter the house

3. POV shot of parents fighting (first thing she sees as she enters house)

4. Mid shot of Claire walking into her room

5. Mid shot of Claire inside her room, slamming the door

6. Mid shot of Claire walking to sit on her bed

7. Close up of Claire’s hands as she fidgets with her fingers (anxiety), tilt to her face which shows her anxious, sad face

8. Mid shot pan from Claire’s face to calendar next to desk

The following table is for the schedule in which we will film, and what we will do during that time. This includes all filming weeks, not just the first portion.

Shot scheduling table:

Week #	Weekend Work:	Week Work:
Week 4	Film first portion of film (7-year old Claire)	-research name/figure it out, reflection of filming  -research of narration, have idea clear, add clips to project -lighting planning for older subject, shot list for second portion, prop, costume design, etc. planning
Week 5	Film second portion of film (14-year old Claire)	-font, logo etc. planning/research research of sound, have music known, reflection of filming, add clips to video -lighting planning for oldest subject, shot list for second portion, prop, costume design, etc. planning
Week 6	Film last portion of film (18-year old Claire)	-location of credits on video, add clips to video -research of sound, have music known, reflection of filming -begin editing (sounds, transition, etc.)

I am so excited to film this upcoming week! We have researched a lot of important information to help guide us through this process, and I am confident it will turn out well. 

See you next week!

Costume and Prop Design

 Nati and I completed the costume and prop design in class today!

We only planned the costumes and props for the subject and her home when she was young though, since that is what we are filming first. 

The younger subject is not completely dull, as she is still just a child, but she is not completely radiant with colors either. As for her costume, we planned a purple shirt with some black leggings (example below). Her room includes colored decor, lots of dolls, and pencils/crayons. For the most part her room is neat, but there are still some toys and other props laying around her room to maintain the vibe of a child’s room. Pillows and bed covers are brightly colored, as well as some stuffed animals on top of it. Overall, we are trying to keep her room looking like a normal room, but with some minor imperfections to go along with not only a normal kid's room, but also the sad emotions she feels when her parents fight.

As for her house, not much of it shows in the beginning scenes, except for the living room. In the living room, there is a couch and table. On the table there will be some food or crumbs, and papers. This will give off a messy vibe, to represent the parents' laziness. On the couch, pillows and a blanket will be thrown lazily as well. The curtains will be closed to make the area appear darker. For her parents' costume design, the mother will be wearing a V-neck, with jeans, while the father will be wearing a simple black tee, with jeans. In order to keep up how the parents are portrayed as lazy, we wanted to keep their clothing very simple, and non formal.

That’s all for today! Next blog post I will be writing about our schedule for filming, and shot list. Stay tuned!

Mood Boards!

 Mood boards are done!

Through Canva, Nati and I created two mood boards for our character, Claire. One of the mood boards is for the subject’s younger self, while the other one is for her present self. 

In the younger mood board, there are a lot of colors within the photos and background, representing her being a child. The crayons photo, Monster High photo, and Barbie photo symbolize her youth, along with the year 2012. The photo in the top right, shows a girl laying in her bed with a sad face, which represents how Claire felt during that time in her life due to her parents' constant fighting.

In the middle mood board, the background becomes slightly darker as donthe photos, showing the beginning stages of the subject being more dull. During this time, she starts to be more sad, listening to sad songs too. Despite all the darkness, she still manages to do her homework and does well in school, symbolized by the A+ and pencil photos.

In the older mood board, the vibe is completely different, since the photos and background are much darker. The photo with the horns, the photo of the place that was vandalized, and the symbols of the skull and hammer all represent her tendency to be rebellious. The black square and mirror picture on the right show her dark clothing or aesthetic. Lastly, the picture with the girl sitting on her bed represents how she still feels anxious whenever her parents fight, but now she uses that feeling and turns to rebelling.

I’m excited for the rest of the week because soon we will be planning the costume and prop design, and how the background will appear on screen!

Storyboard!

 Ahh today we were finally able to start the storyboard!

In class, Nati and I had some trouble figuring out what we wanted to start off the week with, choosing between the storyboard, developing our main character more with a mood board, or noting who we thought could be casted for our film opening. After discussing our thoughts, we decided to do the storyboard today, while tomorrow after school we would create the mood board. Since the mood board is digital, it is best to do it tomorrow since we would not have to be together for it. The storyboard though, is on paper and we still had to sort some ideas out for the film opening. Below I will provide photos of our storyboard, including short descriptions of what we plan to do in each shot.

    Some parts we were unsure of earlier were how we would show the subject getting older and personality changes. Together, Nati and I came up with a calendar transition, showing different years. We also decided what type of sounds we would include when filming/editing, though not specifically. For instance, for when the subject is younger, I mentioned in the previous blog post that we would have a narration in the background. When the subject is slightly older, we would have sad music, describing her emotions during that time. Once the subject reaches the age of 18, the music playing is sort of like a heavy metal/rock vibe. The change in music symbolizes her sadness being expressed through anger, explaining her rebellious tendencies after. 

I know our idea is hard to produce in around 2 minutes, but I think this challenge is good. I trust that Nati and I will pull this off well, while following all requirements for a film opening.

Portfolio Project: Technical Elements

    Welcome back to my blog! This week Nati and I focused mainly on research and figuring out our general plan. To end the week off, I will be focusing on technical elements, and research other tragedy drama film openings. By seeing these films within the same genre, I am able to see how they achieved success and produced their film opening.

    The two films I looked at were American Beauty and The Great Gatsby. In American Beauty, viewers get an insight on what is happening through narration. The plot is similar to ours, since the father in the film causes the family distress. In The Great Gatsby, the main character looks for wealth after moving, focusing on internal conflicts of characters. This film uses narrations as well in the beginning. Therefore, a narration seems like a great addition to our film opening. The narration would not play throughout the entirety of the time, but for enough time to provide viewers with a better understanding of our main characters' childhood. Once she is out of her childhood home, the narration will stop.

    As for shots and angles, both films used close-ups to introduce the characters and focus on their thoughts, showing the internal conflict present. For our film opening, we will also include close-up shots when introducing our character. Both the close-up and narration will work well together to allow viewers to understand our character best.

    After viewing these film openings closely, we were able to make some changes to our plans. Can’t wait for next week to keep planning and continue developing our project!!

Link to the films:

American Beauty: 

The Great Gatsby:

Portfolio Project: Target Audience (and genre continued)

 After discussing our plans, Nati and I decided on our target audience!

    Considering our plot, we decided that showing the girl growing up in a toxic environment and becoming a rebellious person is definitely not for younger viewers. We have also decided to portray substance abuse towards the end of the film opening after the girl leaves her home. This is why for our target audience we are going with young adults or older adults, ages 18-45. The content appeals to those who are mature enough to understand what we are showing. 

    Our goal is to raise awareness for people living in harsh and toxic homes, and to those that turn to drugs as an escape. I am fortunate enough to not have issues with these topics, but I know many people are not. 

    Additionally to the previous post I made, within the drama genre, the films rely on emotional and relational development for characters. More specifically, in tragedy dramas, the character experiences their downfall due to flaws within themselves. For this, we took inspiration from the TV show This Is Us which has part of the plot the same as ours. The characters Jack and Nick dealt with family problems, causing them to leave their home as well. Our plot would play out similarly, but we still need to decide on the subject’s name and other details like that. I believe we will plan this out during the weekend or next class on Tuesday.

Link to genre information above:

https://thescriptlab.com/screenplay/genre/952-drama/

Portfolio Project: Genre

We have decided on the genre being a tragedy/crime drama!

    We met privately with Mrs. Stoklosa in class today to discuss our plans and receive feedback on it. Originally, we were going to have a male as our subject, but after discussing potential casting issues, we decided to switch to a female subject. This would also help us achieve representation, since most film subjects are males. For the younger girl, Nati’s cousin will take the role. As for older versions of the subject, we are still planning the cast.

    The plot will remain the same for the most part, but we made some changes to the ending. After the girl reaches the age of 18, she will leave her home and never return, which will be shown when she leaves with a few rebellious friends who act like her. We are aware of the difficulty of filming and showing these ideas we have with little time, but with more and more planning, we are figuring out alternatives and solutions to possible issues.

   

    After doing some research, we noted that dramas consist of conflicts, which in our film opening would be character vs self. Dramas also have real-life scenarios with emotionally-driven characters. These real-life scenarios would be toxic households, substance abuse, and rebelling actions. The emotionally-driven character would be our female subject who will act off of built up emotions from the toxic household.

Lastly for today, Nati and I created a google document to keep our ideas together and plan everything in an organized way. (Above is a screenshot of the document). We will be adding onto it with more schedules and research, and trying to stay on schedule.

Portfolio Project: Brainstorming

Brainstorming

Nati and I have started brainstorming ideas for our film opening in class and through texting. Throwing ideas at each other, seeing which made more sense and what would work best for what we are trying to achieve with this project. We decided on having conflict in our film opening, of character vs self. Through some research, we found a shot that we took inspiration from that focuses on the subject’s head to demonstrate internal conflict. For our project, we thought about focusing on the subject’s hands, to show anxiety.

So far, our main idea for the film opening was to have the subject’s parents arguing constantly, causing the subject to always be anxious. Over time, the subject’s room gets darker and darker, which we would show using dark decorations, and at one point the subject snaps and starts to rebel. With the subject’s parents arguing we thought of cool sound technique ideas using diegetic sounds. 

Next class our goal is to focus on further developing the story, and coming to final ideas. We are definitely on the right track and will continue to keep up with our recommended schedules.

Link to article used for research:

https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/how-to-create-powerful-opening-shots-its-easier-than-you-think/

Portfolio Project: Introduction

 I am starting the portfolio project this upcoming week! 

    After working on the music video project, I feel so prepared for this project. I am working with Natalia, since we have worked well together before for the foley sound project. 

    The portfolio project requires filming, which we have already discussed who could be in it since we have multiple mutual friends who would be able to help. Along with this, we both have free schedules for the most part, so finding time to work together will not be an obstacle. 

    However, we have not discussed ideas for the project yet, but we will next class. We will start with choosing a project genre, and researching it. This is included in the recommended project schedule, in which we will follow.

    Overall, like I said before, I am really excited and feel very prepared for this, and I feel like it will be a fun project.

Music Video Production and Presentation

Tuesday, February 8, 2022

-

After meeting with my group to film, edit, and present, I can say that the whole process went extremely well. 

Filming went smooth, as we had no issues with equipment, locations, or group members. We went to Weston Town Center to do most of the recording, but also went to Weston Regional Park to film the last part of the music video. My group and I talked to two different restaurants to ask if we could film in them, which they both allowed us. Whenever we realized people were in any shots, we asked for permission. We were able to talk to many different people and explain our project to them. It was a fun and refreshing experience since none of my classes give us the opportunity to do things like this.

Once we finished filming (which consisted of two days), then came the editing process which was done by one of my group members. He sent us the video once it was done, and we all agreed it looks good. Throughout the next few days after filming, we touched up the presentation some more and began practicing our slides privately.

My group presented on the 6th, so we had many days to practice and learn our information well after filming. With confidence, we presented our presentation and music video to the class. I believe it went well since my group and I said all the information we wanted to, and most of the feedback from my peers was positive. During presentations, we also got to see and critique our peer’s presentations which was interesting to see the different approaches people took to do their music videos and slideshows within other genres.

Overall, I learned a lot about doing long term projects. For instance, timing and getting work done before due dates or recommended dates was extremely important in finishing all the different parts that went into this project. I know that the Cambridge portfolio is also a long term project, if anything even longer, so this project definitely will help me with getting work done for it in a good time span so I am not overwhelmed with work towards the end. I was already excited to start my Cambridge portfolio, but now I also feel well prepared.