Film START!

 Good afternoon blog,

Today starts the first day of filming the intro to the film. I have a basic idea of what exactly I want to do through the rough design of the story board but I won't bore you with the details at the moment. For now lets turn our attention to the actual videos themselves.

The first video is a video that shows the monarchs entrance to his big speech. The is probably going to change angle wise because of how you can see my filming throughout the video. Still I really like how the shot came out and looked like how the presidents would walk on stage. Aden (The actor) is really good at playing these types of characters and I feel like the role fit perfectly for him. We also got to film in the auditorium because of him.

As you can see, Aden isn't really reading of the script well and that is because of our constraint time with getting into the auditorium and getting him to read the script a few times. It would have been better if he were more prepared but it was also my fault for not reminding him about reading the script over a few times. It's a fine mistake.

After these initial filming, I felt really dissatisfied with my work and went back to the cutting board to do some more work on the angles I wanted within the story boarding. I talked with Romina as well to make sure we were on the right page and we both went through the videos accordingly and discussed. For her it was more on the side of the lightening and how my shadow would appear. She said she could edit it out but I felt we could do with better angles to more appropriately paint the light of a power figure that the monarch is supposed to be. Besides that, the angles need to be more focused and less wishy washy. I think we are just going to do max 3 angles for the monarch in order for it to be more focused on his speech. The more the angles, the more things are taken away from the scene itself. Anyways, that seems like all the time I got. We are going to work on improving the story board and recording again. Until next time!

Script Done!

 Good afternoon Blog, 

The script is FINISHED. I am happy to announce that the script has been done. It isn't a long script because of the lack of dialogue throughout most of the film. Though that isn't inherintly a bad thing. I want to convey scenes through just mise-en-scene and acting which can either work in my favor or backfire hard. I am aware of the risk and don't mind taking it. Regardless, take a look at it! 

Amazing huh? Well it still has things that can make it more fleshed out but the script is def done for the most part. Celtix, while initially complicated with button layout, made the creating process much easier. Even with the stupid free version, it still seemed really good. I think the opening dialogue is going to have to stick and the scenes leading up with the opening of the film. I asked out my friends smiles to play the monarch because of how he is always wearing suits. I feel like that is literally the perfect part about it. It's also fun to work with other people and work to create a good script. I didn't realize how much fun i'd be having while discussing with Romina about all the different ways we can take the script and how to properly convey the scenes we wanted to show. Another great thing with collaborating is actually getting a name for the main character! Finally Ciel has a name. I think it's a great name for the premise of the film and it's french influence. I think it ties itself pretty well where if people really look into the naming conventions of the characters and people, they can figure out the story pretty easily. But, that's about all the time we have today. Until next time~!

CCR

 Good afternoon Blog,

Today I was just informed of what the CCR project is for the Film Opening Project. Basically, the CCR stands for creative critical reflection. This reflection will be done in different creative ways in order to fully illustrate how far we've come along with our projects and how well we can respond to the prompts. During the time we took to fully check the CCR Mrs.Stoklosa told us a few things.

The first being that the CCR was worth 20% of our grade. This is quite a big portion for something like this so it already got our heads turning on what exactly we should be doing. The CCR is important to the overall grade and we should keep this in mind the entire time.

Next we were told that there were 4 main questions to answer. Those four questions determined what exactly we would be responding with for our projects. The questions would be split up into two separate videos that would go over two of the two questions listed. Our teacher also gave us a multitude of options to do this in. The different forms of media gave us a lot of freedom into what exactly we wanted to do. The questions given to us were as follows:
How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
How does your product engage with audiences, and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
How did your production skills develop through this project?
How did you integrate technologies - software, hardware, and online - in this project?

For the first question I was thinking about the genre itself and how it represented certain groups of people. We were doing a military fantasy idea for our short film so maybe that represented an aduiance that were familiar or liked military related media but also people who prefer different takes on it or the different more fantastical ideas of it.

The second question had me thinking about who our specific targets were. It was fine to pander to the people who like those genres but genres are broad and it would be better to allocate the marketing of something to specific group. We haven't specifically found this group out yet so it is still something to think about.

Third question was easier. I have done a bunch of different things during the project. Some of them have made me improve and some of them have made me regress. I believe it's not good to stay stagnant for too long so being able to explain those different changes throughout the project shouldn't be too tough. Especially with the previous blog posts.

The last question is the easiest but I still shouldn't underestimate this. Software discussion isn't too hard because I just have to mention blogger, the places I took the music from and maybe my reasoning for using these specific things. It shouldn't be that hard.

Now as for the time frame of this event, i'll probably make and edit them all accordingly the start of next week and into spring break. I am moving with my family and won't be able to do much during break. We will see. Until next time!

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!