Group Meeting! What's new?

 Good Afternoon Blog,

Today we had a class get together where we discussed everyone's projects, portfolios, and ideas. It was quite an interesting part of the day since we have mostly just been working on our blogs the entire time we were within class. I won't lie the refreshing nature of this is what originally drew me to the class. I was a bit disappointed that we so rarely got the chance to converse and talk with our peers like at the beginning of the year. However, this all changed today and I made sure to use it to the best of my abilities. This is what we discussed during the movie:

The first thing that came to mind was how vast and different each of the topics really were. Everyone picked different topics which was refreshing as everyone was on different creative wave lengths. Everyone was also at different parts of their project. There were people that were close to me in how they had a general idea of exactly what they wanted to do and others who were still playing with different ideas they had. I made sure to pitch into ideas whenever I could. I think my insight was pretty good as I made sure to give ideas for each and every project that was mentioned. I wanted to make sure all their visions were able to be visualized in my head.

I think a big part of making a compelling story is being able to tell one without the need for images. Books who can make me imagine a scene incredibly well sprinkled in with my own imagination are incredibly engaging for me. It makes me feel like I'm watching a movie. The opposite can be said about a movie. If a movie is produced well, it doesn't have to spout dialogue in order for me to get the gist of what's going on. The scene explains itself. Mrs.Stoklosa also made it apparent how important show instead of tell is important to making a good film opening. With all those things in mind, lets start.

The first post we went over was Brianna's. Her story was a coming of age story that featured 4 girls slowly drifting apart after they enter High school. The story would come right after summer while a mini Montague of their summer plays. The opening scene is supposed to establish their close friendship and the future of their relationship as they speak over the phone. This format was very similar to mean girls scene with the discussions on the phone. We suggested that the filming should all be taken in the same house so they don't waste time.

Meghan had a more thought out idea of her project. She had the idea of s psychological thriller where the main character had gone through a fight while playing the piano. I feel like this is such a good idea and could be incredibly well done if given the right amount of details. I think the mix with the fight scene as the notes are struck are such a cool detail for her project and will certainly turn out great.

Nicole wasn't very sure of exactly what she wanted to do. She wanted to do something with two friends getting bullied and one of them committing suicide and the other friend dealing with it. Suicide in this context, especially in school is a very sensitive topic so I mentioned how much care she had to put into it in order not to get skeptical looks from an audience. Regardless, we figured the best way to portray something like that would be to show that scene discretely. To elaborate, showing the two together at the start of the opening scene and after the title card, it could be the one girl standing next to her grave. General ideas like that.

As for me, I have a general idea of what I wanted to do with my story. Romina and I had fleshed out that we wanted to have our character be very detailed in the way that he paid a lot of attention to his appearance due to his sociopathic nature. We wanted to do a show rather then tell way of portraying it. The group helped us in this respect in two ways. The first is when the Main character (mc) is exiting his house, and onto the street, when someone asks him for how his father is doing he says he's good. Despite his father being out of commission and never able to do anything himself again from the brutality put upon himself through the military. He does this to put up appearances. I think it gives the vibe we want so perfectly. As well as before he enters the military room where he speaks with people, he quickly pulls out a mirror he keeps in his pocket in order to check his smile and make sure it's perfect. I think those additions give him so much characterization that is needed in such a scene carried piece rather then the dialogue. 

Overall I think that the review was extremely helpful for what we are at and with the advice I am currently working on the script. I am very excited to see what comes next! Until next time!

The switch

 Good afternoon blog,

I had a break of school yesterday as we get to have Valentine's Day off. During that day I wanted to get ahead into the project so I decided to watch some more film openings in order to get a better idea of what I wanted to do. Turns out, my horror idea wasn’t as appealing as I had thought. That isn’t to say that i’d switch my ideas at seeing anything and continue to do that but I came up with a more engaging idea. I feel like it’d be way better to make something that isn’t horror. I don’t feel like horror would be pushing what exactly I wanted to do. Here is my idea: I want to make a project regarding the speech from one of my favorite series, JJBA (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure) on the topic of being a leader. The scene originates from a part of the story where the main antagonist, president Funny Valentine is talking to another character about the position of being a leader. The president is a very parotitic man is fighting others in order for is country to be safe. He doesn't care if he has to get rid of innocents, the ends justify the means. The speech is basically saying this and that it takes a strong person to be able to carry out this action. The presidents speech somewhat inspired me with some powerful beginning monologues very similar to Oppenheimer. I wanted to see if I could replicate a scene similar to this in my own way so I went to my partner Romina to ask if she liked it and she did. We wouldn't outright copy it but we both liked the idea so it should work. However, Romina came to me with another proposition that we should change up the speech a bit to fit a new narrative. I wasn't quite sure if it would work but it seemed very interesting to try out so I said why not and we started discussing. We haven't got many details down but I'll be sure to share it with you in my next blog post Until next time!

Initial Ideas

 Good Afternoon Blog,

Today is the first day throughout the week that I will actually be working on the blog. It is exciting to think about how this is the start to me doing the blog and eventually seeing how far i've come. Anyways, lets get into what I did today.

Today I went over the two genre topic that I was curious about: Horror and Fantasy. Horror was the thing that came immediately to mind first when I started this project and it would be the basis of my ideas. It originally stemmed from the scream film opening I was shown in class that got me very excited o do the project. As for fantasy, i was inspired by different things like more unique ways of telling stories. Ways that didn't necessarily involve people but still told the story in a unique and meaningful way. That is where my thought processes started.

For horror I started with the idea of someone on a computer doing the a whole horror sequence. This idea is fully stemmed from the fnaf (Five Nights at Freedy's) game minigames. The creepy face that played when I played the game gave me an incredibly good idea as for what the horror aspect should lead to. I think the base idea of starting with that face would be a good idea and going from there would be the most appropriate measure.

As for the aspect of fantasy I was thinking of doing a story book kind of story telling. Not something too complicated but still something that could tell a story with little drawings could be cool for the project. This time around I was mostly brainstorming so there wasn't much to do. The ideas I have for everything must be kept in mind though as I move forward. 

I have a partner to tell in the fact that I have officially started to work with Romina. I can't wait to make a great project with her. 

Until next time.

The beginning of the end

 To the one reading,
Today marks the start of a final project for my aice media class. Our teacher, Mrs.Stoklosa gave us the details regarding exactly what we would be doing from here on out. Our final project will be a film opening, lasting about 2 minutes and it will all be done within 52 days. The second she started discussing the project, several ideals came into my head. We seem to have a lot of creative freedom within the project so it was finally time for me to show what I had learned this past few months. 

Immediately when the project was initially explained, there were two things that came to mind: Horror and Fantasy. Since the teacher specifically assigned us with a fictional project those were the two that I thought I wanted to do. My mind became scrambling for how exactly I wanted to do it and how I could make my individual project unique. The core premise of what I came up with is how do you make a good project showing as little actors as possible. This would be done in two ways: the first being a horror film made completely on a computer and an other is a classic retelling of the start to a fairytale with paper cutouts. These two styles would be hard to bring out the full vibe of their genres but I willingly accepted the challenge.

I wanted to mainly get the ideas of the scenes through diegetic dialogue which is how a lot of films do theirs but for mine it would be different considering that I want to use as few actors as possible. Ideas that came to mind for the horror story was things like having it be done completely on a computer with audio in the background. It could set up the vibe pretty well and just the audio in the background alone could make things tense since you aren't aware of whats happening. What I realized with horror is that humans are afriad the less they know: especially when it is important to the current situation. That knowledge of knowing you're watching a horror movie but not knowing how the horror will come could be interesting. As for the fantasy one, I think cardboard cut outs or paper cut outs would make for an interesting asethetic. However, there wouldn't be much actual dialogue considering that its being done without actual actors. Most likely utilize miss-en-scene to set the scene and give context with a narrator in the back.

I'm unsure whether to do this project with another person or not. My skills at editing are lackluster but I'm not really sure if I want the extra stress with doing things with another person. If I were it'd probably be people I trust like Romina or Luis. We will see. Untill next time!