Thinking About the Creative Critical Reflection

  I've reached the point of reflection... I'm finally coming up with my answers for the Creative Critical Reflection!! I will attach some pictures of the answers I have so far and then instead talk about my ideas on how I will execute the actual videos (the creative side of it).      

        Our teacher advised we should do two pieces of media where we divide the questions into. We can divide them any way we want we I have decided i will do 2 and 2. So, I will be putting the first and second questions with one of the two lasts just because the first one are much longer than the others. 

        I have a couple of ideas for the videos, starting with a visual podcast. A lot of the podcasts I've been listening to lately have added visuals of the hosts talking during the episode on YouTube, and I find this to be highly entertaining because I get to watch reactions in real time, not only hear them. If I take this approach I would also add a screen in the back  that shows images related to what I'm talking about, including snippets from the opening, which will keep the audience engaged. The podcast by Noel Miller and Cody Co, TMG, is a great example of this. They have built a studio that is decorated according to their podcast's theme and sometime project pictures and videos of what they are talking about in the back. They also have guests come on their podcasts and run a type of interview with them, this is exactly what i would like to do. Another example of this is Brittany Broski's The Broski Report podcast, where she also goes on to publish visual podcast episodes on YouTube and talks about various topics, using a TV screen behind her to project things she talks about. In my Creative Critical Reflection I would come on a podcast like this that invites small directors on to discuss their project and there I would answer the Critical reflection questions as if they were being asked by this host.

        An idea for the second video would be a sort of documentary of the production of the opening. It would follow, of course, the production of Golden Escape and me as the director. The questions would be asked and I would answer them as if it was a director interview like the one bellow. I would also incorporate research throughout just like they do in documentaries. 

        Lastly, another option would be to mimics a press tour interview. Its not much different than the podcast approach, but it would represent a more traditional way to interview directors. 

Title and Credits

         As soon as we finished the final details regarding sound, me and Violette took advantage of being together to get to work on our title, credits and everything that has to do with fonts. 

        Thankfully, we had done some experimenting towards the beginning of the project with the type of font we would like to use for our title based on the research we made on the genre, so we had somewhat of a clear vision of what we were looking for regarding that. However, we had not visited the idea of credits yet. This is the font we had chosen for our title many weeks ago. 

        Using what we already knew, we got to work on finding a font that looked similar to the one above (which was created on Canva) on iMovie. After trying countless fonts we settled on one named "Georgia." It is simplistic but elegant, and doesn't let itself reveal a lot, just like we wanted for the suspenseful side of our production. This is when the choice of where and at what point of the opening our title would be placed. We knew we didn't want to put our title at the end of the opening because of our teacher's advice against that, but also because we thought it would take away from the suspense we wanted to leave the viewer with. This is why we decided to put it at the beginning instead; in fact, it is the very first thing the viewer will see. Another choice that was not foreseen for us was starting the opening with a black screen with the title. After showing what we had of the opening to our families after finishing sound they manifested that it was kind of hard to understand from the funeral scenes that it was happening at the same time as the change of appearance. This was a huge problem for us because it really was important for the narrative and the thriller side of the opening, so we got to think of solutions to this issue. We decided on the black screen so then we could put a date and time on the establishing shot that followed (stating that this change of appearance was taking place the same date as the date that appears on Grace's funeral card). We could technically have put both the title and date on the establishing shot, but we thought this looked too crowded and rushed. Then the only thing left to do was choosing the color of the title which naturally took the form of a goldish brown to go with the title and heart necklace. 

        This is how it ended up looking!

        Much less work went into choosing the credits' font. Although we hadn't discussed it before, when we did we were on the same page: they have to be as simplistic as possible. We chose a very straight lined, uncomplicated font and made it white. Our choice was simply based on the fact that we wanted the viewer to not be so distracted by the credits as what was happening on screen was important to the rest of the opening. We also chose to keep credits rolling only until the voice over started, so nothing took away from that. Since both me and Violette divided the production jobs pretty much in the middle we just alternated between our names because we didn't want to put both of our names for every one; and then of course we credited our actress. Keeping it simple, as I said before, we just have the credits slide in and out of the screen.

Here are some examples:

        I'm so very proud of how close we are to the end. This has genuinely been one of the most challenging but also rewarding projects I've worked on so far. See you next blog to talk Creative Critical Reflection ideas and answers!!

        

Finalizing details!!

         Andddd we are live from the Florida Keys!! 

        Now that our much-needed spring break has begun we had plenty of time to work on the last details of our opening. Remember when I said that we were almost done editing the sounds in? Well...we weren't :/ We were apart for the first half of spring break and I hadn't been able to get Violette's feedback on the sound editing, so lets say we had a lot of catching up when we met up two days ago. I showed her what I had so far and after sharing our opinions we decided we wanted to scratch a lot of it off. For example, we both HATED the way the prayer sounded, so we got to work on finding something else we could use for the background of the funeral; we ended up using a sort of sung-prayer sound instead which wouldn't clash with the voice-over we still had to add. We also added chatter to the gas station store's background for it to sound more realistic and adjusted the volume of some sounds; so yeah little details like those really added up and forced us to spend more time than planned fixing these issues. 

        I think that sound editing was definitely the most challenging aspect of this whole project so far, not only because of how tedious it was to sync the sound to the video itself, but also choosing sounds that create the most realistic atmosphere and effect. For example, using footstep sounds that sound as they would on concrete floors when Grace is walking on the parking lot with her heels. Another huge part of this was volume and sound perspective; lowering and increasing the volume of some sounds was necessary to create the desired effect and put focus on vital points like the voice-over and making these decisions not only required my perspective but also other's opinions, as my ears had gotten so used to the sounds that I couldn't tell the difference anymore. This also depended on sound perspective; depending on where the shot was pointed and focused we had to alter sound volumes to make it as realistic as possible, like lowering the sound of outside atmosphere when entering the shop.

        Overall, it was a great experience. I practiced patience and attention to detail and I think that it was definitely a skill I got to improve. After fixing the general sound we got to work on the voice-over, our main sound. Once I arrived at the Keys we got Sienna to record her lines for the voice-over. We did this in the bathroom to avoid having any unwanted background noise and then used wired headphones with a little microphone to enhance the sound. After we inputted the recording into CapCut and then I got to cutting the long Voice-over into smaller sections in order to spread it out through the opening in the way we wanted. We decided where, when, and at what volume the voice over would be and experimented with all of these factors to choose what we liked best. 

        Lastly, we just just fixed the minor detail of bird sounds at the beginning of the opening when Grace was outside. After showing the rough draft to Violette's mom she gave us the feedback that the bird sounds we had added prior sounded happy and optimistic, which didn't match the piece's tone. So, we decided to scratch that and use crow sounds instead, making it more eerie. 

        All that's left now is to transfer the finished product to iMovie ( again...) and add the title and credits. We chose to use this app instead of CapCut because it already had templates for the titles which were easier to use than CapCut's and we were more familiar with the font choices. 

This was our recording session in the bathroom!!

Some Research on VOs

 

        As I've mentioned multiple times now, we are planning to incorporate a voice-over as a main aspect of our opening's audio. A voice-over is a non-diegetic sound, meaning it doesn't come from the narrative world, and it is often used to "provide more context and enhance an existing narrative." (What is a Voice Over?) In the case of our opening, a voice over would work to provide insight on the thoughts behind our character. We want to give the audience a taste of what is driving our character without giving them the full story. This is the concept of 2+2 that we learned about in our storytelling lesson. One of the 2s being what the audience is watching and the other one being the message the voice over is providing, which isn't transparent enough to be redundant but it does the job at making the audience imply what Grace's reasoning is. 

        When adding the other sounds to the opening, such as environmental and synchronized sound, we were struggling to figure out how we would incorporate this voice over. We had pitched the idea of a voice over to our teacher a few weeks ago and she had given us the green light but warned us about making it last continuously throughout the whole opening, which might've ended up sounding lazy; so, apart from some of the research I've already made that included voice-overs, we decided to look at a few other movies that use voice-overs to see how they did it.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

        In this film, the voice-over is giving insight on the character's feelings on his friend's loss. What caught my attention in this voice-over, though, is the way in which you can hear some synchronized and environmental sounds in the back of the voice-over. For example, toward the end we see the main character on a cemetery working with other prisoners. At this point the voice-over is going on but the work of the men on the grass can be heard faintly in the back. Another example, is at the start when a man is seen driving a car, the voice-over is heard but so is the environmental sound of wind in the background. Another aspect that caught my attention was the fact that the voice over paused throughout the scene and diegetic sound could be heard in between. When the men were eating, the voice over paused and you could see the character's expression and the diegetic sound of men talking and laughing to each other. I think that this works to make the voice over feel more natural and like you're truly inside this character's mind, since you're also listening to the environment around them. 

The Goodfellas (1990)

        I really like this example because it is also the opening of the movie, so I feel like it can be applied better. Although this voice over is far more clear at depicting the character's thoughts, I think that the way it is structured is useful for my own.  Regarding credits, I like how the voice over paused to allow some credits to roll before continuing with it, so I'll definitely keep that in mind. But, before that, when the voice over had just started and the main statement of "I always wanted to be a gangster" was made, it was followed by the synchronized, loud sound of the car's trunk closing in order to add drama to the statement. The idea of using other types of sound to enhance the voice over is something that interests me, as I could maybe try to do that with the prayer that I've included in different parts of the opening; this could add a sense of eeriness and suspense to the voice over itself. Just as the other example, the sounds of the environment can also be heard under the voice over, like the honk and ignition of a car driving past.

        These examples gave me some type of idea on how to structure my voice-over. I think that the way it is included into the opening is just as important as what it's saying. I will experiment with this to find the way in which the voice-over sounds the best and adds the most to the narrative. Until the next, bye bye!! 

Sound Effects

 

        Ok so, now that we've put the video together it is time to add sounds to it. As we've mentioned in prior posts, my partner and I want to have a voice over as our main sound during the opening; however, we don't want it to last continuously throughout the whole thing; we would like to scatter it throughout so it doesn't get boring and repetitive. That means we will need to add other sounds like diegetic, synchronized, and environmental sounds. 

        This is very similar to what we did for our sound project a few months ago, so I decided to use the same sound library I used for that, as well as the editing platform to input them. Since I don't use a Mac book I couldn't keep using iMovie for this part of editing, so I decided to use CapCut which has worked well for me in the past. I'm using the sound library called Pixabay which was recommended by our teacher when we did our soundscape projects, but we will be doing Foley for some sounds that are more specific and niche. I consider this process to be even more challenging than editing if I'm completely honest. It is incredibly tedious to match the sound to what's happening on screen and know how to adjust volume, fade-ins, and fade-outs for it to sound the best.

        But nonetheless, we will figure this out! I've already inputted the full opening (without any sound) onto CapCut and I'm starting to add the basic sounds such as wind rustling trees, cars, and birds for the outdoors and ventilation, as well as some chatter for indoors (gas station and bathroom). Apart from that, I've used some synchronized sounds such as doors opening and closing, the bell that sounds when you open a shop's door, the zipper sound for when Grace opens her make up bag, and the sound of a bag dropping on the floor. For now I'm obviously still missing some of the sounds such as footsteps and the basic ruffling of clothing being moved for when Grace is changing, so I will be looking for those in the sound library.

        However, I'm currently more focused on figuring out the Foley sounds. For example, the heeled footsteps we need I haven't been able to find on the library; they only have normal footsteps with sneaker-like sounds, and they don't really match the pace at which Grace is walking on our opening. So i think we will have to make that. Another Foley sound we will need is the mumbled prayer we want to include for the funeral shots. None of the sound libraries have anything similar to what we are looking for, so we will also be making that ourselves. 

        What I'm taking from this part of the project is attention to detail. It is very important to pay close attention to when a shot ends and begins to add the sound correctly. It was also challenging because we are doing parallel editing, which means that we are switching between shots that have different sounds really quickly, so aligning sound that way has been hard. However, already listening to what I have so far adds so much to the overall quality of the work that it makes it so worth the effort. I'm looking forward to listening to the finished product. 

Here's how my sound is looking so far:

Finalizing editing!!

    Remember when I said I was nervous to start editing because me and my partner aren't very experienced? 

        Well I think we pretty much have gotten over that, yayyy!! Honestly the process of editing was less daunting than we had originally thought it to be and we are essentially all done with it now. All of our different shots have been put together, have received feedback from others and are approved. We did decide to go with Plan B for the ending of our opening because our original plan of shooting inside the car just wasn't working and was honestly looking pretty bad. We decided to ask some of our family members to look over what we had so far and asked them to give us any feedback they thought would make the opening better. Plan B's (having Grace come out of the store and throw the necklace away to the trees instead of doing it from the car window) fluidity and coherence in clip order was what made  the majority of the people we asked prefer this option to our original one.

        Apart from helping us choose an ending, the feedback also included tips on how and where we should shorten, adjust, and lengthen our shots depending on what looked better. There were some evidently awkward pauses in between shots that had to be cut out and we learned that the short shots of the funeral scene had to remain between the 1-1.5 second mark. We also got feedback on tightening some shots to increase the intimacy and connection felt towards the character by focusing on details, facial expression, and important props. It was also crucial to remove some of the scenes we liked, like some of the make up scenes, because they weren't crucial and we would've reached over the 2-minute mark otherwise. 

        So, our final shot ends up being one of the heart necklace hanging off a tree, which finishes the opening with a question, what will she do now? It serves as kind of a loose end to her story which will be answered with the rest of the movie. 

        All of our editing was done on iMovie because it is the editing platform we considered the easiest to use and one that we felt comfortable with; our teacher also recommended we use this platform considering our limited experience. But now all we have left to do in regards to editing would be adding the different sound effects we need, the voice over and then inputting the title and credits.

        I'm very glad to be back on track because last week wasn't very productive. I had to be absent from school for a couple days so we missed some time that we could've used to work on the project, but thankfully it is now spring break and I plan to use this time to our advantage. Today we met up after school to finish off the editing and plan our next step. Overall, I feel proud of our editing and the fact that we took on a challenge for ourselves. The process turned out to be pretty simple and now we feel that our editing abilities have definitely improved. 

        Here are pictures from our meeting!

Editing #1

 

        Editing has officially started!! We are both excited and super nervous as to what this will bring, but I'm looking forward to some challenge ;)

        The first step in our day of editing was sending all of the footage we had filmed on my phone to Violette's Macbook because we plan to use iMovie and my own Macbook is very old and slow, so we decided to use hers. We were at school so it took some time to get this done because the Wifi was not on our side that day, but slowly and surely we started to organize the shots in chronological order on the laptop's desktop to keep track of their order. Once we were able to get all of these onto Violette's desktop, we fed them into iMovie.

        We watched the entirety of the combination of scenes together without paying to much mind to the length of it just to get a sense of how it looked. Upon this first watch we noticed a few things. First of all, that it would be extremely difficult to get this opening to the 2 minute mark and that we would have to let go of some unnecessary footage and shorten a lot of it as well. I'm happy that there was over-shooting because it allows us to play around with the editing as much as we want, but my main worry right now is choosing the right footage to keep and discard. 

        This first rough watch also brought to our attention a specific mistake we will have to figure out how to solve. Whenever we filmed our main character driving around, we did this at a different setting than the gas station parking lot hoping there wouldn't be too noticeable of a difference and that it would be safer for our actress since she isn't an experienced driver. However, looking at these shots together it is hard to ignore that change of scenery and it ruins the continuity of the shots. We will have to decide whether to try to re-record this scene in the gas station parking lot again or to use our alternative sequence. We had come up with this alternative before filming because of some suggestions we got during our group meeting in which they told us that it might help us save time to eliminate the driving-away scene at the end. Instead they suggested to skip the car scene altogether and just have the character just throw the heart necklace into the bushes at the end of the opening. This would avoid the need to re-film the car scene and probably take up less time of our total 2 minutes. 

        After we figure this out we are planning on shortening and adjusting all of our shots so they fit seamlessly together and then we plan on focusing on our parallel editing technique. So far editing has gone great and I can't wait to keep learning about it. 

-Sending the clips                                                       -Our iMovie set-up

Editing Research

 

        As we near the time to edit the footage we've filmed for our opening, I decided to do some research about editing to see what I could find/re-fresh my mind on. As I've mentioned before, neither my partner or me are very skilled editors, so i hope that this research helps us work through some new skills. 

        First of all, I liked a blog post by the Nashville Film Institute (Film Editing: Everything You Need to Know) because it provides lots of visual examples of the different/basic editing techniques that could be used for a film, as well as the different things that can be achieved through editing like editing for tension and creating juxtapositions (and telling you how to do this). I will definitely be taking this information into account, specially when it comes to editing to create tension and capturing emotional themes, since these will help me tell our own story more successfully.

        I found a different article by the organization Raindance, titled "6 Stages of Editing as a Film Director" which, as the title suggests, shares the process of editing and the different steps there is to it. According to this article Violette and I will start our First Assembly soon, which means that we'll take all of the shots we filmed throughout the last weeks and put them together in a way that makes sense. I'm looking forward for the Rough Cut and Variations part of editing. This is when me and Violette look at what we have put together so far to see if it is continuous and looks good, and depending on what we find here we can make any of the necessary changes. As of now I can already think of some scenes that might not look the best, so i will start thinking of ways to fix this. 

        Also, since one of the editing techniques me and Violette definitely want to use is a little more advanced and we had never done it before (parallel editing) i thought it was important to research about this as well. I found a great article on Soundtripe called "Everything You Need to Know About Parallel Editing and Cross Cutting" which I found super helpful. The first thing this article states is that although cross-cutting and parallel editing are very similar, they aren't exactly the same. They are both used to show that different sets of action are happening at the same time, but parallel editing focuses more two sets alone, meaning to connect specific themes, while cross-cutting includes several sets of action that are meant to entertain the audience. Considering this useful differentiation, the article also recommends to know what you want to transmit to your audience before choosing which of the two to choose. In my case i would use parallel-editing because I'm only connecting two sets of action and I'm definitely more focused on transmitting the themes of frustration and mystery that my character and her situation involve. According to this article one of the most important tips when editing this technique is to storyboard a bunch; planning roughly where each of the parallel-editing cuts will take place and how that would look is extremely important to maintain organization. Another very useful tip from this article was to balance the narrative between the scenes I'm using, meaning to sense which warranted more or less time on screen.

        Here are some examples of parallel editing that I will be taking inspiration from:

-The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

-Strangers on a Train (1951)

-American Sniper (2014)

Lastly, this is an interesting video I'll be referencing:

        It's safe to say I'm very glad that I took some time to do this research because now I feel more prepared to tackle editing!

Learning about the CCR

 

        Last class, we were introduced to the concept of Creative Critical Reflection and learned a lot about what it will require of us. We'll have to answer four questions regarding our film opening and many specific aspects of it.

The four questions are:

1. How does your product use or challenge genre conventions and how does it represent social groups and issues?

2. How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

4. How did you integrate technologies (software, hardware, and online) technologies in this project?

        I've started to think about some of the answers to these questions already. For instance, I already know that the way we've integrated technology includes the use of our iPhones for filming, Google Docs as an organizational and research tool, Imovie, and potentially Capcut as our editing tools (we also plan to use sound databases when we get to the point of adding sound). Regarding representation, I would say that our opening could represent the unrealistic expectations placed on young women, regarding how they should look and act. Our character would be challenging these standards by changing her look to the opposite of what is expected of her and taking the unusual decision of faking her own death and leaving her hometown. 

        I still have to do some more research on genre and audience, but based on pre-existing knowledge I would say that my target audience would be teens and young adults due to that being the primary audience for drama and thrillers. Obviously, we haven't undergone a lot of development yet due to the short time we've been working on this project, but I could assume that the skills I will develop the most will definitely be editing and filming just because I have never been forced to do them on my own, or with just one other partner, which places more responsibility and therefore time to learn, on me. 

        Since we have to present the answers to these questions creatively, I've also started to consider how I will present my answers. I have two ideas so far. First, I was thinking of doing a podcast format. I (the director) would have been invited to a podcast where they asked me questions about my recently released film. This is a popular format of modern interviewing so I think that it would be engaging. My other idea consisted of being interviewed (again, as director) but this time on a movie set, in a kind of documentary-style format. It would give the sense that I'm on set working on this project and that there is a documentary crew on set documenting the process of creating this movie and letting me give some insight into it. 

        I'm looking forward to putting some more thought into this to come up with the best way to approach it, but for now, I'll include some of the notes I took during the lesson:

Filming Day 2

        I'm afraid to say that today's filming did not start without some drama. 

        Violette and I had scheduled to continue filming Saturday afternoon (when this is being written). I woke up this morning and checked in on Violette to see if the plan was still on and to ask her to send me the picture of Sienna we were going to be using for the funeral scenes that day so i could print it at Walgreens. She takes a while to respond and when she does she tells me she can't find the heart necklace (our main prop) which we needed for the picture. Naturally, we were freaking out over this because that is basically the most important prop and what our title is even based on, so it would really be inconvenient to lose that. We were just texting back and forth trying to figure out where it could be, worried that it might've been lost when we were recording a few days ago, which would've been the worst case scenario. I agreed to go to her house and help her look and hopefully begin filming. 

        Thankfully, when I got there and started helping her look we found it! Turns out it was in the pocket of the pants Violette was wearing that day. So then we took Sienna's picture and ordered it to be printed at Walgreens and went to pick it up. 

        We got Violette's dad to be our priest! We dressed him up in a dark button up shirt and cut a piece of paper to put in the collar to create the priest's look. He wrapped a cross necklace around his wrist and was holding the bible we purchased. 

        We collected fake flowers that Violette had lying around at home and we found a decorative base that had that perfect urn look. We had originally planned to put our picture in a picture frame, but we accidentally got the picture too big and didn't fit in it. So, we decided to place it on top of a sort of stand where it could lay. 

        After arranging the set up we tried to get as many shots as we could in order to have leeway when editing, but i think it was another very productive filming day.

        Filming is pretty much done. I imagine that we'll most likely be needing more footage or to adjust it at least, but I'm extremely excited to start editing. Seeing the footage come together is the only way we'll be able to tell if it works well. Although editing is a little daunting for me and Violette because we aren't the most experienced, I'm excited to learn and practice. 

Filming: ups and downs

 

        This past Wednesday we started our filming process and I can't say that it all went according to our plans...

        Our morning started at 10:30 am at the Gas station we had planned to film at originally. Me and Violette met there and as we were getting set up to create our establishing shot of the store when the cashier came out to tell us that we could not record here because it was a corporate owned Gas station which didn't allow any picture or video to be taken. We were not expecting this, so we felt a little lost on what to do next, but thankfully the lady was nice enough to tell us of some nearby stations that might let us record. However, we decided to go to a gas station that was close to the restaurant my friend works at, because as I mentioned in the last blog, we were planning to record our bathroom scenes there. When we got there, we learned from our past mistake of not asking prior to recording and went in to ask the cashier if it was okay. He was nice enough to allow us to record as long as it didn't take too long; safe to say we felt really relieved. So we got to work.

        Everything was going pretty well with our recording. The gas station turned out to match our vision even better than the last one and the shots were looking really nice as well, but at this point my friend who was going to let us record at her work's bathroom told me she wasn't working until later in the afternoon and neither me or Violette could meet at that time, soooo we were left with no bathroom. Again, this knocked us off course but we decided to keep filming the gas station scenes and then figure out the bathroom situation. This is when something great happened. We were filming Sienna (our actress) walking toward the gas station's bathroom to then conclude our gas station shots and figure out were we would go now and she opened the door to a GREAT bathroom for our opening. My friend's bathroom might've been a little bigger and easier to film at, but this one was also pretty good, so we decided to stay here. 

        The rest of our filming went pretty smoothly. Thankfully the gas station wasn't too busy at this time and we weren't bothered in the bathroom. However, we did have to make some other changes to our plans along the way. As i had talked about in prior posts, we were planning on showing our main character dyeing her hair as part of her change-of-look sequence and we were going to make our own "bleach" for it to look real on camera. When we got to this part of the process we found that it would be extremely messy to make this mixture in this gas station bathroom and putting it on Sienna hair would probably make her really uncomfortable for the rest of the filming. We decided to instead make our character purposely put a wig on instead of cutting and dyeing her hair. We thought that this was both simpler and also made sense with the story, since our character wanted to get out as fast as possible and throwing a wig on was a fast way to change the look of your hair. We tried it this way and it actually turned out looking pretty good. This decision will also allow us to have more time within the 2 minute limit to fit all of the other shots we think are essential to include. 

        Our last challenge was the fact that we had to record scenes of Sienna driving, but she isn't a very experienced driver. We decided to go to Violette's neighborhood in order to record these scenes because it is way less populated than a normal street and would allow her to drive slowly.

        Our first filming day was not what we'd imagine, but I would say it was pretty successful considering everything and I'm very excited to keep working on this.

Here are some behind-the-scenes shots ;)

Filming Logistics

 

        We are starting to film this week... Now it's really starting to feel real. 

        So, I want this post to work as a guideline to what our filming process will be looking like starting this week. We plan to start filming tomorrow morning since we don't have school for SAT Day, which is amazing because it makes it way easier for us to find time to film. Violette, her sister (our lead), and I are going to meet up at the gas station tomorrow at 10:30 am to film the beginning of our opening. We decided to film the gas station scene first because we already have all the props for it, while we are still waiting on some of the other props to be delivered for the funeral scene. We made a list of all the things each of us have to bring tomorrow so we don't end up forgetting something (see image below) and having to stop filming because of that. We have a gas station to go to in mind that's near our house (Indian Trace) and that we know might possibly let us record inside. We have other options in case that's too full or they don't let us film. However, we plan on using a bathroom that's not in a gas station. A friend of ours works at a restaurant that's also pretty close to us and has a bathroom that has that dull, ominous look we are going for. The restaurant is also a lot quieter and less busy than a gas station would be, so that means fewer potential interruptions. 

        We will film as much as we possibly can tomorrow in order to have space to play around with shots and editing when the time comes, but we won't be able to get everything. So, we are planning on filming the funeral scenes, and whatever we don't get done tomorrow, either Friday afternoon, Saturday or Sunday, depending on lighting and availability; but we are definitely filming at some point this weekend. That's when we are planning to film outdoors. We have a few options for locations as both me and Violette live near green areas. We don't really need a perfect field or perfect lighting for these scenes because we are using a lot of close-ups which won't focus much on the setting, but it still should be bright enough to look good. For this scene, as I said before, we are still waiting on some props to arrive and I have to make some of them (the picture that goes on our picture frame & the gravestone), but we pretty much have everything else in hand.

        We really plan on over-filming so we have enough content to play around with. After we are done with filming, we plan on recording our voice over. This will be done either this weekend or through the course of next week (we plan to finish recording altogether by next weekend). We'll get our lead to record these voice overs so the voice matches the face and then we will decide how we will space this sound over the course of the opening.

Here's the updated version of this week on my calendar:

        I think that it's very important to be prepared in terms of scheduling when starting a big task like this one because, at least in my case, it makes it feel less daunting. The blog posts to come will probably include pictures and details of our filming locations and updates on our filming process. 

Mis-en-scene!!

         Filming time is fast-approaching!! We are so excited. However, before that, we have to figure some things out. Mainly the props, costuming, etc. 

        Regarding props, we have lots of things to consider. For example, we have to find a base that looks like an urn, a picture frame, flowers, gravestone, and a small table for our funeral scene. We also need to find a bible and a cross necklace for the priest that will be in this scene as well. 

        Then, we need a wig, dark make-up, glasses, and a gold, heart necklace for our main character's change of look. We also need a car in which our main character will be driving at some points of the opening. 

        Now, some of these props we already have, thankfully. For example, Violette has a base that could pass for an urn, which we will use for the funeral scene. We both have different picture frames and little tables we can choose from in order to place the picture of our main character and the rest of the funeral props on top and we have the cross necklace for the priest. We also have fake flowers to place on the table as well. For our character's change of look, we already have the golden heart necklace and glasses we will use and the make-up available. So, we pretty much just have to purchase a wig off of Amazon (we decided to stick to our blonde wig idea), make a gravestone out of cardboard (painting and cutting it like a gravestone), and purchase a bible. 

(This is the wig we bought)

      For the costume design we have everything available to us already because we are going to be sticking to clothes from our own closets. We want Grace, our main character, to be wearing girly clothes at the beginning of the opening before she changes. Stuff like flowery dresses and heels, and then we'll have her change into very basic and dull clothes, like jeans and a white t-shirt. For the priest, which is the only other character we need to dress, we will use a black button up shirt and cut white paper into a collar, like what priests usually wear. He will also have black pants and a robe if we can find one. Since we are only panning on showing his chest, we don't have to make the costuming too elaborate. 

Here's some inspiration for these costumes:

        Through these Mis-en-scene elements we hope to transmit the tone of the opening in a clear way as well as to develop the plot in a way that makes sense. I will touch more on this subject once we've acquired all of the props and costuming. Now, the next couple blogs will probably touch on location choices and filming schedules. Talk soon! 

Our Screenplay

 

        So, just this week we had a lesson on screen playing, or creating a script, which was very much needed considering we had never created a real script before. We learned about the correct formatting of the script as well as the creation of a story line in general, so here are some of the things that we implemented into our process after the lesson (this lesson came at the perfect time because we were about to begin scripting at this point). 

         First and foremost, we learned that a script and a screenplay are essentially the same thing, which I did not know. We also learned that there is a standardized format for a script that we should follow. For example, the names of characters should always be written in uppercase and it is preferable to refer to a character by their name instead of pronouns so the screen directions are as clear as possible (this excludes dialogue). When it comes to dialogue, it should be pushed to the middle of the script in order to differentiate it from screen directions, which start from the left, and it should have the name of the character saying it right on top. It should also have the acronym -V.O- next to it if it is a voice over, which is important for us to know since most of our dialogue will be voiced over. 

        Another important aspect of formatting would be having the description of the setting on top of the screen directions, like saying if it is taking place in an interior or exterior, the name of where its taking place, and whether it is day or night time.

    

     Now, i want to touch on some of the main takeaways i got from the lesson on story telling. First, the importance of your knowledge in what you're choosing to tell a story on. You should tell stories about things that you know about, care about, or are willing to immerse yourself in in order to learn about. It is not possible to tell a meaningful story if you don't know what you're talking about. This made me think about the story me and my partner, Violette, are choosing to tell. Our main character is a young girl struggling with society's perception of her. Maybe we aren't mimicking our experiences as teenage girls in today's world in an exact matter, but we are expressing feelings through our character that we are familiar with, like insecurity, anger, frustration, and vulnerability. This allows us to tell the story in a way in which the audience will be able to decipher these feelings through our character. 

        Another one of my favorite aspects from the lesson was that you should show your audience 2+2, not 4. In simpler terms, you shouldn't spoon feed information to your audience as if they couldn't have figured the same thing out by themselves with some context clues. I have noticed that when I'm watching a low quality film, they always seem to be stating the obvious and falling into redundancy, while good films always seem to let its audience work toward a conclusion with the information they were given, which makes the film way more interesting to watch. Taking from this lesson is very important for our opening in my opinion, especially since we want to develop mystery with it. We want the audience to watch it, take what we give them, and come to their own conclusions.

        Well, that's pretty much it for today. Lastly I just wanted to input what we have for our script so far :