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 :

 

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:

Fonts

 

        Since we've started to consider the plot and tone of our overall story through bran storming and story boarding we wanted to start thinking about fonts. According to the article "The Basics of Titles and Graphics" by Susan Schmierer, fonts of movie titles are important because they credit the people who made the movie and set the mood of the film for the audience. Schmierer suggests titles are essential to give viewers the experience you want them to have and that a lot of thought has to go into them in order to make them successful. 

        Thriller movies are usually characterized by having bold and bulky titles that transmit the feelings of suspense and seriousness that these films emit. For example, the font used for the movie Get Out (2017) is all upper cased and bold, calling the viewers attention, which carries the tone that this movie will be uneasy and maybe uncomfortable to watch. It sets the audience up for uncomfortable topics and bizarre scenarios that will be all up on their face, just like this title.

        On the other hand, there are movies like A Haunting in Venice (2023) which still has an all upper cased title but is not bold and the letters have a thinner, more sophisticated look. This movie's plot is a classic mystery and is much less abstract then Get Out, so it makes sense that the font for the title looks much more classic and elegant, also, considering the setting, characters, and costuming it makes sense, since it takes place in the past and in an Italian city which transmits romance, just as the font does. 

        The movie Seven (1995) has a title which looks more hand-written and free-hand. The letters are lower cased and it is less sophisticated than both of the last ones. The movie tells the story of a mad serial killer who is obsessed with the seven deadly sins, and the title prepares the audience for this uneasiness because it is not very conventional to have a title look like that. It almost gives the feeling that the serial killer wrote it himself because of the hurried and informal nature.

    

        My partner and I started to play with some fonts on Canva to see if we could come up with a title font that matched the tone of our opening. We tried bulky and bold, more curvy and sophisticated, thin, hand-written, and then a mix of bold and sophisticated. We decided to go with the second option that appears in the picture below. We think it encapsulates the ominous tone of our opening by including the sophistication of the writing because it transmits mystery, while the all-upper case, large and bold font transmits the fact that the film is a thriller which will keep the audience on its toes. 

        Now, I'm looking forward to working on our script, filming locations and schedule next week. We are most likely also going to be researching still. Until the next! 

Story boarding

 

        Today we've reached the point of storyboarding for our project- Exciting!! We had a brainstorming session a couple classes ago and we came up with the basic plot for our story, but now we are laying a clearer path.

        We are dividing our planning into the scenes we've thought of so far (we will probably alter some aspects of these as time progresses), like a scene in a gas station bathroom, a funeral, and a car. According to these scenes, we are mapping which shots might look the best and which of them would help us tell the story most successfully. We are thinking more specifically of the order of our shots in a way that make sense and is engaging, and the planning is just helping us think about the details that will go into making our opening a little more specifically.

        For instance, since we want to have a shot of our main character dyeing her hair we had to come up with the logistics of this sequence because we recognize we can't realistically just dye our actors' hair. In order to make the fake bleach we plan to mix conditioner with either flour or starch to create a creamy and powdery consistency to make it look as realistic as possible, and then well use a wig to show her new, bleached hair, showcasing a contrast to her old look. Also, since we are planning on staging a funeral, we had to think of realistic ways we could do this, because we can't really have a real casket. We decided on using an urn instead and researched how funerals with urns usually look like in order to plan what well need for it.

  

        Our storyboard begins with an establishing shot of a gas station and then moves on to the gas station bathroom where our character will begin changing her appearance. We made sure to list a couple of shots and angles we want to try for each shot so when we are recording we have a sort of guide and then we can decide which one looks best. We decided to alternate the scenes in the gas station bathroom with scenes of a funeral with parallel editing in order to give the impression that both events are happening at the same time. This way we'll create the sense that they are correlated to each other. After the big reveal (close up on a picture of the main character at funeral) that the funeral is actually for the character we've been seeing change their appearance, we pan to cut to a scene where we see her in a car with her changed look and leaving this place behind, and with it a heart necklace she discards of, a statement piece we plan to incorporate throughout the opening as a sort of symbolism.

        Story boarding has definitely been an essential tool for success in the process of planning this project because it not only provides a map for recording but it also made us consider aspects of the production process that are essential to create a quality project but that not always come to mind if you don't plan ahead. In the next few posts i think ill be looking at fonts for the title and credits as well as the process of creating a script.

        

Further Research on Drama/Thriller Openings

 

        It is the start of a new week and even though we feel pretty good about the story we've been brainstorming; we still feel like we need to make a little more research on other openings from the same genre in order to know how to develop our purpose successfully. We've mostly been talking about creating an opening which has creating mystery as its main purpose, so I'm currently looking at drama/thriller movies that have that same purpose developed through their openings.

        Knives Out's (2019) opening is one that clearly and simply develops mystery by showing that a character has died within the first two minutes of the movie. The viewer is immediately led to the questions: How? Who? and Why? They don't really know who this character is and haven't developed any kind of relationship to him, but they can clearly see he is deceased, covered in blood, and there is a knife on the floor, so their mind goes directly to murder and what that implicates. The opening also has minor aspects that develop the setting it takes place in, but that's not necessarily something I would be eager to incorporate on my own opening. What I want to take from this opening is delivering a shock to the audience. In this case it is the death of a character very early on, which isn't the order of events the audience expects, but in my case, it would be showing the audience that the character they are seeing on their screen changing her appearance is supposed to be dead and that there is a funeral going on for her at that same moment. This would create the same type of questions the Knives Out opening created.

        Similarly, the opening scene for Girl, interrupted (1999) starts off at a point of the story at which the audience has no idea how they got there. There is the main character, Susanna, holding an unmoving Lisa Rowe and there are other characters present who seem to be affected by what's happening as they are upset and crying. The audience doesn't know what has happened to Lisa, where they are or how they even got to this point, so starting a movie off like this creates many questions, and therefor mystery. At the same time this is going on, Susanna is giving a voice over that provides no explanation to what's going on whatsoever, but it sets the audience up for what's coming next. I really like the idea of incorporating a voice over that won't necessarily give away what's happened to get to what's happening in the opening, but that will make sense at the end of the movie when the questions the audience have developed begin to be answered. 

        What I take away from this research is that I would like to make an opening in which the audience is watching the result of the story the rest of the movie will tell them, so to achieve that it is necessary to use what i learned from these productions in relation to creating mystery in their openings. 

Scheduling Matters

 

        I just want to start off by saying that I'm pretty happy with our progress so far; It seems like we are on schedule as of now. So that is what I wanted to share in this blog post, our schedule for the next few months regarding this project. Having a basic outline of when things are supposed to be done is very important for me when tackling big tasks like this one. It really helps me not only by letting me organize my time so that I'm not missing anything from this project as well as other classes, but it also keeps me on track so that I can get this task done well and on time. Knowing me, the magnitude of this project could really be intimidating to the point of making me dread working on it, but since we have a schedule that breaks the whole into small pieces, the task definitely feels more approachable. 

         So, starting off on this month, we are mostly going to focus on researching genre, incorporation of titles and credits, thinking about our story and the approach we will take to our opening. We will also create our script, come up with the shots well use for our opening and finally create a storyboard. Toward the end of this month we'll begin planning our filming locations and organize filming and editing schedules. 

Here is a snippet of my calendar for the month of February:

        Beginning March, we will focus on the mise-en-scene elements we will use and begin our filming. We will also keep researching  project components continuously throughout the process as needed. Around the 6th week of the project we hope to start editing our project as well as start developing responses for the Creative Critical Reflection questions. By week 7 we want to be close to done with our editing and getting feedback from our peers on it. Weeks 8 and 9, toward the end of March and beginning of April, will consist of  CCR projects and questions and then the overall project reflection and submission.

Here's how that will be looking like: