Film Opening

 This is the official film opening! It's finally done after all that work! Hope you like it!

Monarch Film

Creative Critical Reflection

Good afternoon,

This seems to be the final afternoon as I'll be posting the ccr. With that being said let me post the my answers to the responses alongside my posts. 

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

Our product challenges the genre convention. Our genre being military fiction, our product does not abide by the general genre convention. The general military fiction such as planet of the apes, saving private Ryan, etc follow more of the battle and the war itself while our movie is more of a subversion of that and moreso looks at someone's internal conflict on the impact of war on them personally. There is also a representation of woman which are mainly side characters or prizes to be won by the protagonist in these types of films. The more person vs society nature from the film really sets it apart from the rest

How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
Romina and I originally decided on our target audience as middle-aged men. We decided the military would be the most targetted for our audience as the story was more on an introspection on it. We wanted to make it as authentic as possible so we even used jrotc uniforms and pages in order to get that militaristic vibe. The whole opening scene was even shot to seem like it was morning and as someone who has participated in military bootcamp, they LOVE how early things begin. The speech at the beginning is used to set the tone and goal of the whole story while also giving those big speeches people love to hear in these types of movies. However, as we filmed we changed the protagonist to a woman which could also attract female military personel to want to maybe watch the movie and relate to the main character.

How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
The main issues I encountered during the project were time related. I was able to do everything effectively but having it on time was always hard for me for some reason. It wasn't out of laziness either. Regardless, that time management led to large amounts of procrastination. This procrastination led me to doing poorer jobs on assignments time and efficiently and than being even less motivated. What I learnt is that from doing things more steadily and pacing yourself, you won't kill yourself last minute.

How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?
I used several different things such as social media, blogger, the different places for music such as freesound and other different software. For editing I used premire pro and while sometimes buggy, it still worked. For filming we utilized a tripod and phone stand to keep camera steady and other things.

CCR 1
CCR 2

Filming finished!

 Good afternoon blog,

The final day of filming! I was excited that we finally got a date for filming and actually planned properly after the mistake on Tuesday. Learning from mistakes is the hardest part of doing all of this so we have to make the most of what we have left. Regardless, we scheduled a time around 5 which would be a good enough time yk get things started as it wasn’t too dark yet and still light enough to film everything! I packed up my stuff, got in the car and drove myself over.

Romina lived in the lakes which was a community that wasn’t too far from me. Originally we were going to film some of the scenes at her house and some of them at mine but because of the way the community was set up, it was just too perfect to be the set for things. When I got there, we immediately started going over our story board and hashing over what exactly we wanted to do with the films we set up. During that time, I was going to start changing but a we got a lively surprise. 

Romina’s sister was in the house and I knew her previously because we were both in jrotc. That meant that she also had a uniform and everything I had. I noticed this and talked it over with romina. It would be way better if she was to star as the main character instead of me. Not only because the rooms we were filming in weren’t the type to be in a men’s room but also for better time setting and for me to do the camera work. For most of the film I did the camera work and I felt like I did a good job. I’m confident in the camera so I tried to convince her to join. After a few minutes of talking and insisting that she’ll look great within the film, she reluctantly agreed. 

So after that we started the filming. We described the general vibe of the main character she would be playing. The main issue with Romina’s sister is that she was rarely serious. She would smile pretty often and that kind of contradicted the type of character she was trying to play. We had to council her into how exactly she should be looking for a bit and how she should present herself. She did a great job adapting quickly and did her best to fit in. It wasn’t something out of nowhere as she was aware of the project beforehand but it was still none the less impressive. 

The scenes we started off with were scenes that all took place within her room. This space was pretty small and barren but fit perfectly with the vibe. To add onto it, off camera was a walk in closet with a light. This light would be perfect for the specific lighting we needed in the room at the start in order for it to not look really bad and dark at the start. Utilizing the closet door to change the amount of light that was visible was kind of a novel and creative idea in my book and I think it worked. After that, since it was getting a little darker, we were able to replicate how things in the morning would be: daybreak. The timing was pretty genius as even though it was the afternoon we could show it as of it was the morning. I don’t think it I came in the middle of the day I could properly replicate this image of the scenes and made the tone of the morning feel especially moody. 

We then filmed the scenes in the house and outside which flowed seamlessly together as she put on her uniform. The uniform was well kept as I told her before in jrotc class to keep it clean for upcoming events. This seemed to be a double perk as it was ready to be worn for the costume design. The uniform was out on and she really killed it with the more subtle scenes where she has to put on the facade of being a good caring person with no worries. 

Overall filming went really well and I think that the editing process will be smooth, even if I feel we took a little too much footage. Anyways that’s about all the time we have! Until next time! 

Scheduling

 Good afternoon Blog,

Today was supposed to be the day of filming, Tuesday the 26th but things didn't go according to plan. Because of what was happening throughout the day we had to schedule at different times. Originally it was going to be at 2 pm than at three than at 5 but than a lot of other things happened with me having to keep doing stuff as I was moving and my partners aunt coming over. It really ruined what we were going for. We had to reschedule to doing things on Wednesday. 

That got me thinking how important scheduling can be for people within not only doing projects but in daily life as well. I’ve realized over the course of the project that i usually leave things for last minute and things like rushing or miscalculations can just be avoided by scheduling myself and meeting those deadlines. It isn’t exactly hard to do but requires discipline and I think that’s what I need to work on. 

Another thing is making sure to set up specific dates with what we have in mind. I think a problem to the dates and times was that we didn’t have everything done prior. It would have been much easier to do things like that if we had just planned properly beforehand. It seems having a structure for things beforehand is better as that foundation allows things to go more smoothly. It seems like an obvious thing but more difficult to put into practice.

We rescheduled for tomorrow and that seems way more plausible now that we actually set up a plan for the things we’ll be doing. I’ll be bringing everything we need for props and other things of the sort in order to  get things flowing. We will see how things go! That’s about all the time we have though. Until next time 

Acting!

 Good Afternoon diary, 

Today I just wanted to talk about acting. Today I helped a classmate Nathanial in his film and it was kind of hard. I don't usually talk in my films or videos but reading and memorizing off of a script is hard. I'm very much aware of how there are 100's of takes that go into getting the right take that they need to get the scene just right but it's still very much daunting. With these thoughts in mind, I wanted to go into what I thought was important about acting in general.

Acting is a multifaceted art form that transcends the mere recitation of lines; it involves embodying a character's emotions, motivations, and essence as authentically as possible. To bring words on a script to life effectively, actors must delve deep into the minds of their characters, combining their portrayal with depth, nuance, and sincerity. By immersing themselves in the emotional landscape of the character, actors can create a compelling and relatable performance that resonates with audiences on a profound level.

Helping out Nathaniel with his project provided me with an idea of what goes into the collaborative nature filmmaking. Working together to create authentic performances highlighted the importance of genuine connection and shared vision among all involved in the production process. Through working with him, I learned the significance of authenticity in performances and how it contributes to the overall impact and success of a project. The challenges faced during the project helped deepen my appreciation for the vision and discipline required in acting.

Acting serves as a journey of self-discovery and personal growth for a lot performers. You can see that by the variety of actors there are and all the different films they take part in. Acting not only improves skills but also deepens self-awareness and empathy. While navigating emotional challenges, connecting with audiences brings immense fulfillment. Evoking emotions and sparking reflection showcases acting's transformative impact.

All in all, actors do a lot to make our immersion in the movies spot on. They help the movie truly realize it's potential and most movies wouldn't able to be made because of it. Recently there have been actor and writer strikes in Hollywood and to that I have to say I hope they get what they deserve. After acting for just a small scene, I can already comfortably gauge how skillful you need to be to do this. Anyways, that's all the time we have. Until next time!

Unifrom

 

Good afternoon diary,

Romina and I wanted to discuss the casting situation or the film that we are working on and who we might cast. 

We are unsure as of now who we want to specifically use because of how we want to do things. Romina could easily do things at home with an extra set of hands and all with her sister but I think it'd be better if I did it. Why you may ask? Because I want to not only test my acting skills but because I want to show more of my vision. Pretty selfish huh? Really though we agreed it was for the best as my house can show the scenes pretty well. 

The main idea for the actors was to get a military's uniform because of the setting of the movie. Usually that'd be a little hard, going to the dollar store to get maybe a costume but for us it was no problem. Romina's sister and I are both part of the JROTC program at the school. This gives us immediate access to an JROTC uniform which we'll be using in the film!

The reason we are using the uniform as well is for easy representation. A uniform itself gives a lot of context into a lot of things. For example, a decorated uniform can show how involved the person is with the military. A person with a bad looking uniform can be clumsy or not every caring for it. All these little things build details on what type of character we want our protagonist to be. For what we choose, we wanted to make a protagonist that is clean and very definition of role model on the outside. Again, the mc is going to be very to faced so we will illustrate that maybe by something like his ranks being a little off because he doesn't like the military system and just wants to be at the top already. To me, little details like that help a lot into making meaningful characters. Anyways, that's all the time we have left. Until next time!

   

The setting

    

Good afternoon blog,
So Romina and I finally finished our ideas for the idea for our film. We decided to make a military fictional movie that focsuses on our characters idea of the world he lives in through acting rather than mostly dialogue. The main plot of the story for our mc is that his parents were in the military and sent on a mission. His mom is killed and his dad gravely injured. He develeops an image in his mind that this place is wicked and that the only way for it to not be is if the people are freed. However, he is not a normal person and his mind is skewed in naivety and ignorance. He wants to create a anarchy where he can rise up to the top and become the monarch and then crush it all himself. Romina came up with the more antiquate part of anarchy and I really liked it. 

The places we established for our setting were as follow:
The auditorium for the initial scene with the monarch and his speech
House for filming the scenes with the mc
The street of the neighborhood 
The school courtyard for a few interactions with other people
The basketball court
The hallway into the Jrotc room.

The places are selected from what we found most convent and that helped wit the process of producing the film. We wanted to also include things like focusing ,moving shots, long shots, close ups, and more. The idea is to build a sense of unease with the protagonist from the get go and shot composition will be extremely important. Anyways, that's all the time I have left. Until next time!