Group Meeting #2

 Week 8

    Today's group meeting went splendidly. We all passed around our ideas for our videos and how much we've progressed in our respective projects. 

    Josh, a fellow peer of mine, showed me his progress in his sport film. I thought he had many interesting ideas, one of which being incorporating a sport commentator over clips of the main character playing basketball. I also viewed the project of a peer that was in my past group meeting. I can see that she stuck to her storyboard and was able to succeed in her plans. This is something that I did not have as much success in.

    As seen in past blogs, our story had changed significantly. I would say that half the scenes we recorded were not included in the original storyboard. This had pros and cons. 

    Due to us changing scenes, we were held back a bit trying to come up with ideas for the story. A pro was that we were more free with our project to experiment. This was for the best because our project came out pretty well (in my opinion). Overall, I'm glad we did what we did.

    Once again, the group meeting has proved helpful. It seems like we just started our projects yesterday. 

EDITING

 Week 7

    I have almost completed editing. So far, I have compiled all the clips, cut them to the appropriate length, insert clips where they should be and even done color correction. Camila told me she would take care of audio work which is a huge help. As of now, I am experimenting with how I will insert the title cards. Here's how I thought of going through it.

    

    My thought was to animate the text. As seen above with the "BBBB" (placeholder), I am animating each 5 frames or so and changing the position of the text. This gives it an interesting dynamic and prevents the text from being intrusive and out-of-place. This is no easy task though, each movement needs to be minute to prevent the animation from looking, for a lack of better words, dumb. It is very time-consuming, but this time spent leads to a better project.

    The font is also a placeholder. These small little details are very important and we were bound to face them in the end of the project, once we were finished with the important stuff. I expect we can finish this whole thing earlier next week, and then move on to our CCR. I thank Camila for being patient with me and my little crafty mind.

Reflection

 Week 7

    Two weeks ago, I made a reflection on the how the project has been going. I explained on how pre-production, planning, and storyboard had gone. Now I will reflect on how Production and Editing has gone so far.

Production

    Camila was in charge of production. She worked closely with her sister on scenes and mapped them out over several days. I think her having someone close to her helped her be more confident on camera and allowed her to experiment more with her ideas for the video. 

    I was also given a great deal of artistic liberty in the editing portion. Like I said in my last post, I have been implementing editing techniques that help display symbolism, which is pivotal for the Drama genre. This is what I have focused on during the making of this project. I appreciate that Camila allowed me to do this, I have always wanted to experiment in editing and I'm glad I got this opportunity.

   Pre-Production

    I have been editing for the last few days in accordance to the clips Camila has sent me. I have focused more on compiling the clips and cutting them appropriately as opposed to doing audio work. I've enjoyed this as it makes the editing process much more manageable and in turn enjoyable. I hope to incorporate more unique editing techniques and experiment more with symbolism to drive the Drama genre to great lengths.     

    These reflections have done wonders for my project. Having a guide to look back on helps give confidence in my ability and a plan I can stick to. This project is close to finished and all that's left after editing is CCR.

 Week 7

    For the past few days now, I have been focused on editing the project. Camila finished up filming for our video recently and I've been working on compiling the clips, cutting them, and adding techniques to help amplify our films message. One of the most important techniques for our project is the "Match on Action Cut". This editing technique can do two things. The first is move the story along and introduce a seamless cut through keeping the audiences eyes busy, or tying meaning between two things, be it symbolically or literally. 

    The two examples shown above are examples of Match on Action Cuts. The first is a scene from Scream. During a dramatic sequence, Casey is frantically going around the house and locking doors. By using a Match on Action Cut, the film stays focused on the action and does not remove the audience from what is happening on screen. The next example, from 2001: a Space Odyssey, is a symbolic scene, showing how humans have evolved from "bone" (primitive technology) to being able to reach space. 

    In our film, I used this editing technique a few times, the most prominent way was during the scene where Isabel, our lead, is about to inject herself with heroin. Before she does, the scene cuts to a memory of her little brother drawing. This juxtaposition of a depressing scene to a happy one is contrast that leads the audience to make inferences on the story. The audience's eyes are focused on the movement on the screen of the needle slowly moving towards Isabel's arm. This allows the following cut to be almost seamless and instantly direct the audience to the next scene. I'm going to add an audio-shift along with lighter colors to show that the scene is from the past.

    SOURCES

Craven, Wes. Scream. Dimension Films, 1996.



Geduld, Carolyn. Filmguide to 2001: a Space Odyssey. Bloomington :Indiana University Press, 1973.

Filming Flashbacks

 Week 6

    Today's was quite the interesting day. I filmed flashback scenes for the film opening, along with the help of my little brother. These scenes will be important within the story since them flashing in the right moments will aid in giving background to our main character, Isabel, and her life story. We did a variety of flashback shots of "nostalgic memories". This included drawing together, cooking pancakes together, and playing soccer together. While these scenes are all valuable, the most important was the drawing memory.

    

    The drawing is somewhat similar to the one hung up on Isabel's wall.

    

    This hints to how Isabel is still emotionally connected to her brother despite his passing. The flashbacks are used like memorial flashbacks, highlights of happier times. This allows the audience to come to the conclusion that the brother passed. 

 

   This goes along with the "show not tell" idea that I have been blabbering on about in all these blogs. I think that famous Pixar filmmaker, Andrew Stanton said it best during a TED Talk, "Make the audience put things together. Don’t give them four, give them two plus two. The elements you provide and the order you place them in is crucial to whether you succeed or fail at engaging the audience." This absence of information helps make the story "inevitable, but not predictable.".

    

    I had a great time filming with my little brother, it is not often that I hang out with him but I am glad he was so eager to help me film. These little moments are what make me appreciate the process of filmmaking. I might need to re-do some of the shots since he's meant to be the main character's older brother, and I recorded him as more of a younger brother. Not to worry though since these shots are simple and fun to record.

Source

  Stanton, Andrew. “The Clues to a Great Story.” TED Talk. TED Talk. https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_stanton_the_clues_to_a_great_story?language=en

    

Production Truly Begins

 Week 6

    Production has truly started. We have begun filming after setting up the scenes. The most prominent being the scene in our main characters room. As discussed before, we would use posters to display a "grungy" feeling. Here is a picture of said room.

 

A few prominent posters can be seen here. A few are songs and album covers from bands like "The Cure" and "My Chemical Romance". Each contain hints as to what our character is like. The songs include tales of depression and illness, as well as themes in freedom and creativity. These all mirror our characters interest.

    The next type of poster are the drawings. These show the creative nature of our character, Isabel. All the drawings display a sense of dread or somewhat melancholy. From skulls, to monsters, these posters all mirror the sorrow our character feels. The only poster that does not is the family picture in the bottom middle. 

  

  An important part of this opening scene is displaying the once innocent nature of Isabel lost due to the death of her older brother. It shows that despite the drugs she consumes, she still feels a connection to her a family. This sets up the final scene of the opening, where Isabel's mother walks in, showing how drug addiction affects everyone close to the addict.

    A few other props are the crosses seen at both sides of the room. This is more of a minor detail that our character comes from a Christian family. The values obviously rival what our character does to herself.

    

     All this mise-en-scene helps set up the background of our character in a way that shows and does not tell. It also mirrors how Isabel feels currently. Since our film is a drama, mise-en-scene must be relied upon heavily. I am very excited with how everything is going with the opening. Camila surprised me with the ideas for the posters above.

CCR Inspiration

 Week 5

    This post will be shorter than my previous post. The reason why is because I am in this odd spot between pre-production and actual production. Production officially begins tomorrow so I thought it would be a smart decision to speak about something outside of that and save it for next week. CCR creation is a topic I wrestled with this week. My teacher spoke to me about what I would be doing and I jumped to a podcast or otherwise commentary-focused CCR. I enjoy playing around with audio and since I would not need to show my face, using a script would be much easier and would allow the CCR to flow better.

    My teacher gave recommendations for podcasts that I could use (since I've never really listened to one...). I chose my topic as space since it is a subject that I am fascinated in and think would be interesting to be shown in podcast form.

    The first podcast is "Space" by Jad Abumrad on Radiolab. The podcast had an ambience that helped to tell a story. The sound effects coupled by narration by the podcaster really aided in engaging me in the podcast. This coupled with deep questions about space asked to space professionals like Neil deGrasse Tyson speaking about the history of space and space in general. This is an example of how I will do my podcast. It will focus on sound and help in making it engaging.

    The next podcast I looked into was "NASA's Curious Universe" by NASA. This podcast was undeniably more scientific space related. It included accounts by astronauts, scientists, and engineers at NASA. As someone who would love to wind up working for NASA, this excited. The podcast had me hooked, but the main reason why was because it focused on my interest. "Space" was more engaging in my opinion, in a way that anyone could enjoy it.

    In conclusion, I think I will use "Space" as an example for building my CCR podcast. While the NASA podcast was wonderful to listen to, Radiolab podcasts have a way of incorporating sound to make listeners feel something. (I guess this post was not as short as I expected)

    

Sources

Abumrad, Jad. “Space.” Radiolab, 6 Apr. 2020, https://radiolab.org/episodes/91520-space.

Sosby, Micheala. “NASA's Curious Universe.” NASA, NASA, 30 Mar. 2020, https://www.nasa.gov/curiousuniverse.

Schedule

 Week 5

    Camila and I have finally written up a schedule for the rest of the project. As I spoke about in my last blog, we are nearing of the project. Research and planning is finished and that is left to do is film, edit, and complete our CCR's. We thought that writing up a schedule with dates for when we will do these tasks is important going forward. There is a limited time to do all this work and organization is the key to success.

        We're gonna spend the majority of this following week filming as much as possible. We have our story planned out and have set up the locations for where we are filming. The day after, we will begin our editing. Since we only need to edit a small 2 minute clip, we can combine editing and CCR. While other groups may have a headstart, all the planning we've done thus far will make sure that this step (which is the most important) will be successful.

    A reflection on this post can be the importance of organization and planning before beginning a project. Before a few months ago, I would constantly jump into projects with the idea of getting them done and over with for a decent grade. This project, and other past Media Studies projects have helped realize the importance of deep thinking and planning before a project. Not only does this aid in being prepared to do the project, but it also makes one passionate do their project, which will make the end result even better. 

    All in all, I'm glad that I did as much planning as I did, since it gives me confidence that Camila and I will produce a great film opening.

Production Reflection

 Week 5

        This post will reflect the key moments in my group project. Compiling important moments in the project aids in CCR, as I can come back to this post when explaining how my group's production process went and what worked in the process.

Pre-production

    The first weeks consisted of heavy research. Initially, it consisted of genre research, such as dramatic elements and common drama character archetypes. This helped in turning our pre-existing story into a drama by incorporating drama elements into our story as well as making our characters fit in a dramatic story. I think doing research before jumping into anything was a good idea. 

    It allowed us to have knowledge on the subject before we made big choices for the project. Using inspiration from movies that have a similar story and characters to make ours is an example of how researching beforehand can aid in helping develop the project.

    Planning & Storyboarding

    The next weeks were where Camila and I became more creative with the project. This started off with us writing up a rough storyboard in order to write our story thoughts down, while also displaying how the research we had done would be used within the opening.     

    Since our film is a drama, we also found out more about how we would use mise-en-scene in our film. This included showing our characters personality in the clothes they wear, the room they live in, (physically) and color and lighting (symbolically).

    These following weeks will be Camila and I using all this research and planning for our filming. An important thing to do is incorporate the elements that we've done research on within our filming, or else it would have all been for nothing. I'm very excited to finally begin filming our story that we have built up over the course of a month or so.

Production: Mise-en-scene

 Week 4

       This week, Camila and I worked on the Mise-en-scene part of our video. As discussed before, the room for our character has already been established. The dark tones and gloomy posters on the walls highlight the dark situation our character is in. Another important drama element that will be added is low lighting. These coloring and light elements really help to add a layer of emotional storytelling that is the core to making our movie opening interesting.

   

        

        Another important element that will be incorporated in our character is her make-up. First, she will look visibly tired, to emphasize how sickly and exhausting an addiction can be. The next element of make-up will be on her arm. As suggested, by people in my group meeting, adding makeup to the arm to show use of heroin is a great way to show the use of heroin as opposed to actually showing a needle being injected in our character. Below is example Camila made of what would be used in the final product.

 

    Another reason this makeup will be used is to accurately portray the life of an addict. Camila and I want to make this film opening as realistic as possible and prevent any "preachy" or "cliched" ideas. By incorporating realistic and stylistic elements, these goals can be reached.

Sources

Lighthouse Recovery Institute. “Everything to Know about Track Marks.” Lighthouse Recovery Institute, 3 June 2020, https://lighthouserecoveryinstitute.com/blog/track-marks-go-away/.

First Meeting In Class

 Week 4

        Mrs. Stoklosa spoke to Camila and I about our project story idea. We spoke mainly about the storyboard that is up on our blog. She notified us about how portraying drug addiction in a film opening  (specifically the way we had planned it) would be difficult. Firstly, we are not allowed to show the drug actually being used. Our original storyboard showed our character injecting herself with a needle to show her addiction to heroin. This is too extreme for the project, so Mrs. Stoklosa recommended that we insinuate that she is using the heroin. We can still incorporate elements of our old storyboard though. I think using the belt around the arm, and facial expression is a great way to imply the use of heroin. 

    The second issue that Mrs. Stoklosa had that I personally also had, was making sure the opening isn't "corny". A boring, run-of-the-mill, attempt to be sentimental will ultimately ruin the entire opening's message about drug addiction. We need to be able to incorporate drama elements alongside the opening without making it seem like we're prioritizing making a good project as opposed to portraying our message well. A few ways to this are by making the film realistic in the right parts, and dramatic in the other parts.

     I think the juxtaposition of the drama genre and serious drug addiction story is difficult to portray. Using unrealistic elements like lighting and color alongside a realistic story seems impossible on face value, but that's what makes it worth doing. The ability to create a product that is hard, is what makes it worth it in the end. If done right, I truly believe that Camila and I can create a project that's unique and worthy of a good grade.

        Here is the storyboard which will likely be changed in the future to fit in to the new ideas that have been presented to us.