First Group Meeting!

 

        Last class we had the opportunity to share our progress with our classmates and get some feedback from them. In this meeting I shared what I have so far for the plot of my movie and some of the logistical aspects related to it, like how I plan to execute a funeral scene. I also shared some concerns that I have related to time and sound, as well as screenwriting. 

        So, regarding my plot, I told my group to go ahead and access my "brainstorming" blog post where they could read the overall idea of my plot and some of the movies I was looking at for inspiration. After that I gave them a more detailed explanation behind what drives my character (being over everyone expecting perfection from her) and talked about the order of my story boards. When I told them about my idea to do parallel editing between the gas station bathroom and funeral, they were concerned that maybe it would be confusing for viewers; however, they encouraged me to try it because they thought if I executed it well, it would work very nicely. I am glad to have gotten this point of view because I'm not a very experienced editor, so this tells me that for this part of the opening I should probably ask for some extra help to make sure it comes out very smoothly. I also got some interesting feedback from my friend Veronica, who brought to my attention that maybe bleaching my character's hair might not be the smartest choice because it wouldn't be realistic, since bleaching takes a while to do, and my character wouldn't have that type of time. She suggested I should dye my character's hair darker (ex. using purple shampoo and a purple wig to make it seem like she dyed her hair purple). Even though this is not a main element of my opening, it is interesting that she got that detail, so it might mean that other audiences would too; I want to make this opening as realistic as possible, so I will be considering this. 

     Another point that one of the people in my group made was that maybe I should end my opening on the close up of my main character's picture at the funeral instead of her going away in the car. I really like this idea because I think that it would really end the opening on a shocking note, which is ultimately my goal for establishing purpose. However, I also really love the car scene, so I think I'll record both and try them out when editing. They also suggested that instead of a funeral I could make my character glance at a newspaper article reporting her "death" as a way to make the audience see that she's faked her death and is on the run. However, I think I still like the effect the funeral would add to the overall tone of the opening. I'm definitely keeping their idea in mind though (in case the funeral becomes too hard). 

        Lastly, my group really liked my idea of including a voice over as the background sound. I told them about my worry of how long I should make it and they thought I should keep it going for the majority of the opening with scattered pauses in between and then stop it when my character plays music in the car at the very end.

        I really enjoyed listening to the other's ideas and plans; they are all so creative and I can't wait to see how their projects turn out (and to see if any of the feedback I gave was considered) I would like to shout out some of my group member's ideas that I liked the most and that inspired me: Veronica's story takes on a fresh approach of the coming-of-age genre, Daniela showed us some of her trials for lighting and they looked stunning, Francisco had a very original story in which is evident that he cares and knows about the topic, and Reese had a very exciting plot.

        Looking forward to more group meetings!!

        Here’s some notes I took during the meeting: