Film Opening Project (blog 21, CCR edition)

Last blog I did a bit of research looking at other independent films similar to ours, getting information on our target audience, and studying representation within the subject of our opening. The reason why I've been starting to this is because I will need to start making my CCR, which is another component within my AICE project. Basically CCRs (Creative Critical Reflections) is another addition to the film opening where I make a video, letting the AICE judges know why we chose certain things in our film. We need to include a variety of other information as well such as representation and audience (hence the research in last blog). 

A really important factor that our teacher stressed is that our CCR needs to be creative. If we were to submit a video where we just talked for minutes on end, we would probably get a poor grade. Or rather we would get a poor grade. So, I've been brainstorming and coming up with ideas on how I can present my CCR in a creative way. For me, I feel that by developing my personality through the presentation is one way to make it stand out, but I'm still not sure which route I should take it.

I guess I have two options. I could either do a video where I narrate with photos or I could do a video where I'm visible on screen. The second option seems like a better choice for me; I think I'll be able to portray my personality a little more (plus it means a lot less editing).  However, I am going to have to find a way to make it not dull. Last thing I want for anyone is to see a video of me where I ramble for 10 minutes.

I guess that means I'll have to keep brainstorming, I'll keep you guys posted. :)

Film Opening Project (blog 20)

Before I start with my project, I want to say happy 20th anniversary of blog posting! :D I've been looking through my old blogs and seeing how far I've come in this project, and all I can say is that I'm very proud of our group and myself for accomplishing this much. It isn't over yet, but what we have been doing is pretty cool nonetheless!

Okay, back to the important stuff. I was searching for more music on Youtube and I still found nothing. I was getting pretty bored of searching so I decided for today I wanted to look at other film shorts/openings that covered topics that are similar to our story. I'm hoping that by doing this, I can get a better idea of our target audience and the impact of the representation we have within our film opening.

It didn't take a lot of looking to find videos that covered social media. There are thousands of short films, TED-Talks, speeches, and commentary videos on the subject, and there's also a lot of people putting their two cents on how they feel about social media. The majority of these videos that I found painted social media in a negative light, warning audiences about the affects it has.

Here are the results after I searched 'social media'; I wanted to see what would come up if I searched using neutral language and still a majority of it was negative.

Another thing I noticed that the representation within this topic seems to be pretty equal amongst both genders. I have to be honest, this surprised me. When I think of social media, I was lead to believe that woman are more impacted by it in comparison to men, therefore they would care more about these issues. However, that doesn't seem to be the case. I am planning to do more research on how men interact with social media in the future, that is definitely something I should look into.

As I was scrolling through youtube, I found this short titled A Social Life, directed by Kerith Lemon. I wanted to include this video within this post because I feel that it beautifully conveys the message I want to show within our own story, so maybe we can look at it as inspiration in the editing stage. I also really like the music within the film, so maybe we can look to this video to serve as a guide to find a song that'll match the tone in our opening.

It's taking me a long time to research yet I've only scratched the tip of the iceberg, I definitely need to look into this more and see what else I can find, I'll keep you guys posted. :)

https://www.google.com/search?q=social+media+both+genders+stats&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS863US863&hl=en&tbm=isch&sxsrf=ALeKk00F8BZgv1i9ccefbxuaEilQpMHb4Q:1584941853318&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjR-5_B8K_oAhWkgnIEHfisAxoQ_AUIDygC&biw=987&bih=684&dpr=2
https://netsanity.net/social-media-and-its-effect-on-boys/
http://cs4lv.stab.org/78digitallife.html
(here are some links I found regarding social media and its affects, it also contains information on social media demographics)

Film Opening Project (blog 19)

We have officially moved onto the editing stage! Austin and Oliver are taking care of editing, and since I want to help I am looking for a song to have within our film opening. I'm also very bored right now, so this is giving me something to do while I'm quarantined in my home.

Now, when it comes to music, there are a LOT of choices. However, I've been finding that none of them really suit our video. Mind you, I'm only looking through Youtube at the moment, so there's probably a lot more options that I have yet to discover. In terms of music on Youtube, there seems to be two categories. For one, you have music with lyrics in them, which typically tend to be songs that people listen to more often. Then you have instrumental music, which is comprised of basic music or 'artistic' sounds (vaporwave or lo-fi music are two examples).

I don't know why, but my Youtube search-bar suggests a lot of this lo-fi music. It doesn't work for our video, but I do think it sounds cool. I also have been finding a lot of jazz albums which I like, such as this album below. Although I think some of these songs could work for our opening, I'm not completely sold.

I guess that means I have to keep searching for music. Hopefully I can find a song soon, especially if I need to ask permission to use it. I'll keep you guys posted :)

Film Opening Project (blog 18, filming edition)

The day is finally here, film day!! :D

I woke up today pretty early so I could get my makeup done and also go over my lines to make sure that there are as little screw ups as possible during the process. Oliver and Austin came over and then after a brief talk about Animal Crossing, we started working.

A photo of me doing my hair and makeup

For makeup, I did a natural look to put more focus on my outfit (which was the fanciest look I could come up with). I really like the look, and more importantly it matches the style of our character.

The whole filming process turned out to be very long, but because we prepared in advance it was relatively easy. We all were on the same page when it came to how we wanted the shots to look, the only main difficulty we came across was the lighting. It was kind of cloudy so the light within our set kept changing. Not to mention that a LOT of light was coming in through the windows, so we had to play with angles to avoid any over-saturation within shots. Also, filming using the mirrors was a bit hard, but it was a fun challenge too.

Outfit (ft. my dog)

Reviewing footage

For one of the shots we needed to take, Oliver had the suggestion of making a screen recording of me taking selfies so that when we filmed, my phone screen would not capture the camera through the mirror. It. Was. Genius. I'm so excited to see that shot within our opening, it's going to mess with people's minds!

I'm really satisfied with all of the footage we got today, and all we need to do is simply edit. Austin and Oliver are much better with editing than I am, so that's their main job. However, I will be working on sound foley and finding music as well. I did cover music choices in an earlier blog, but we were not entirely sold on the idea so I guess that means I have to continue searching. I'll keep you guys posted! :D

Film Opening Project (blog 17)

Alrighty, so change of plans (again)!

We decided that we are going to plan in my bedroom instead of Oliver's space, which means we need a few days to prepare. Basically, this is a long-winded way of saying we are filming tomorrow instead of Tuesday.

Yesterday we were talking about how we want our set to look like, and we all agreed on the idea that our character should have a 'blank' area as her photoshoot space, and the rest of her room should look like a colorful tornado. Thing is, my whole room looks like a colorful tornado, so for today I worked on perfecting our mise-en-scene. For starters, I changed the prints within the frames. I found magazine pages and various sketches to replace colorful prints for more neutral tones, thus sticking to our idea of an elegant, mature palette.

From this...

To this!

Secondly, I needed to strip any object that suggests individuality and/or personality. In my case, this meant getting rid of all of my art supplies, personal figurines, and my beloved pink base. I also placed a table cloth over my art desk so there would be no sign of color within this area.

Before 

After (had to repot my cactus for this, sorry lil' bud)

All done!

The other side of the set, looks like one of those I-SPY photos

I feel that there is a very clear contrast in between the two spaces. While the photo area looks clean, it looks almost cold in comparison to the other area. I feel that this creates a very good reflection of the character, as the second space has a lot more things that suggest that our character is, well, an actual person. She has messes and she has things that say things about her, it isn't as monotone as what she wants her followers to see.

I am not completely finished; I still need to set up the mirror and also the whole vanity space. However, judging the fact that I need to move a desk into the middle of my room in order for that to happen, I'm planning on waiting for tomorrow to do that. 

As you know, the Coronavirus is preventing us from going out to the store to get props (which was our initial idea), so I had to get creative with finding things I already have laying around. I'm always up for a challenge, and I think I did a pretty good job! I can't wait for filming tomorrow, hopefully everything runs smoothly and we won't run into any bumps along the road, I'll keep you guys posted. :D

Film Opening Project (blog 16, COVID-19 update)

So the Coronavirus is now in the area where we live, huh.

This past week a lot of discussion has been going down on what to do now that the virus is starting to affect our community, specifically what will happen with school. On Friday afternoon the board for Broward Schools said that they will be closing down school this following week, meaning that we technically have two weeks of spring break. I would usually be ecstatic at the thought of even missing one day of school, but in this situation I'm starting to get nervous.

I'm concerned that this virus is going to make it harder for us to complete our project. Obviously our health comes first so if we do need to postpone something we definitely will, but as of now we were told by our teacher to continue the project as we normally would. I talked with my group and it seems that Oliver's parents are really concerned about him going out of the house, so that is going to be a barrier we'll have to work around. It still seems as if no one is really sure about what will happen these next few weeks, so for now I guess we have to keep going on as usual.

I'll keep you guys posted.

Film Opening Project (blog 15)

Today in class we were looking at things that we needed to complete before our filming day, and Austin had the suggestion of completing a script. At first I didn't really see the point, but after Austin pointed out that the last time we tried to film that I kept stuttering and messing up my lines, I felt that it would be a pretty good idea. Here's a copy of it below: 

By having a script, I feel By having a script, I feel it'll give me a chance for the filming day to run pretty smoothly, and hopefully save us time (and pain) during the process. In terms of our set, I realized something that I feel our group needs to consider.

I was talking with a friend of mine about our film project and giving her a run-down of the story and our character. I showed her the shot of the photo string and how it's supposed to convey that she was just like an everyday person before she became an influencer. I then showed her our set, and she began to raise a few questions. She said that if we are trying to develop this character through our set, why is it so bland? She suggested we should try to build/use a set that is 'more established' to develop our character even more, and I agree. 

I want to suggest the idea of using my bedroom as our set instead of Oliver's space. I feel that if the audience can see more things about our character in the background of our shots, it would make our story (and her) look more realistic. I was thinking that in one space of my room we could convert it into her 'photoshoot area', and have it look more pristine in comparison to everything else around her. 

This is the space, by adding a mirror here and lights, I feel that it'll show that this is her studio space

This area can be used in the final part of the opening where she is scrolling through social media

All of the things hung up on the wall can be enabled as props and suggest that there was more to her before she became an influencer

I would be fully on board with this idea, except for the fact that it would mean that we would have rearrange things within our original plan and storyboard to make it work. Obviously, my bedroom is not the same as the space we had before in Oliver's gym, so that is going to be tough. Also, does this mean we are going to have to extend our film date? And if so I'm wondering if it will be worth it then... I guess I am just going to have to suggest my idea to Oliver and Austin and see what they think, I'll keep you guys posted.

Film Opening Project (blog 14)

Folks, I'm back with some more aesthetic research!

Well, I haven't started it yet, but I did find a book that definitely will help me out. I was going through books in our house to give away to the library (our family is trying to get rid of a LOT of clutter) and I found this! It a philosophical book on aesthetics by Dietrich Von Hildebrand (super fancy name, I know) maybe this book can give me a bit more insight on the idea of beauty which then can help us out with our project. I'm planning on doing some light reading when I get the chance, I'll let you know how it goes.

Even the cover goes with our visual theme

Currently, Oliver is at a competition, so right now Austin and I are planning to work on the script and also any other thing we need completed by Tuesday. There are rumors going around that school will close next week due to the virus, so maybe that give us some extra time to film just in case we don't finish everything we need to get done. I love my group, but I will admit we do like to procrastinate, so I'm having the feeling we may not get everything down by Tuesday... Anyways, I'll keep you guys posted :)

Film Opening Project (blog 13)

Okay, since the last time that our group met up, we did not have a solid image on what we wanted the mise-en-scene and visuals within our opening to look like. So, my job for today was to work on that.

I was doing some research on Instagram of various social media accounts on certain aesthetics and popular trends, and one thing that kept reappearing was this renaissance/rococo aesthetic. People take certain images from paintings of this time period to adorn their accounts with this airy and clean image; I took some photos of it below:

I have to say I love the way it looks! I also feel as if it is not too far off from our previous inspiration of other influencers, so that means we are not starting completely from scratch. Not to mention it is super beautiful :D

Although I could be disillusioned because I like the way it looks, I do think we can use this aesthetic to our advantage for two reasons. One, it's trendy right now. Since I want out influencer to be a modern-day one, it would be illogical for our character to have a style that is not in fashion at the moment (I also feel having a modern style is crucial as it subtly shows she is dedicated with keeping touch with what is popular on social media). Secondly, I feel that this aesthetic ties in with themes with the nature of perfection or the strive for beauty (which is what our story is all about). With my (brief) knowledge I have about the renaissance/rococo period, perfection and beauty was highly revered within art. Because of these commonalities within the style and our story, it makes sense to use them together.

In terms of our set design, I feel that we were pretty spot on with the color scheme, but we definitely need to fill our room with more things. This type of style plays with a lot of elements and it is far from minimalist, which I think was our mistake before. So, with the information I gathered, I spent my morning working on this Pinterest board with various images that share similar motifs. You can see it with the link below; I guess for now this is our 'unofficial mood-board'.

https://pin.it/6yobIUO

I was thinking we could print out a few of these images to serve as posters, I think that would look pretty cool. I'll keep you guys posted :)

Film Opening Project (blog 12, change of plans)

You know how we were on schedule? Never mind.

This morning we were planning to finish shooting everything today. Everything was running smoothly until we started to actually film. As we kept working, I kept feeling more and more dissatisfied with the footage we were getting, and I wasn't alone on this feeling either. I guess our laziness this week got to the best of us, not good. 

We all stopped for a minute, and after a discussion of whether to continue filming or not, we decided not to. It would make no sense to film and put all of this effort in footage that we won't be able to use; we did not want to make the same mistake that we made within our last project we worked on together. Although, today didn't go to waste. Austin suggested that we photograph each shot within our opening to create a 'real life storyboard'. He told us about a video he watched about Mike Diva, a very well-known music director and how he directed Panini by Lil Nas X.

According to Austin, what Mike Diva does is that he takes photos of every single shot to create a rough draft. This rough draft helps with saving time on the shooting day, and it also gives an opportunity to see all of the shots laid together. So, that's what we ended up doing today. Austin took all of the pictures, I took care of composition, and Oliver put them all together within this video. 

Lucky for us, since election day (the 17th) is a day we have no school, we have a filming date! By moving the filming date, it gives us more time to prepare and make sure we actually have everything we need to get all of the shooting done in one take. Although we have less time to edit, we are still getting filming done before Spring Break so we are not THAT far off track. Honestly, I feel relieved we are giving ourselves some more time, I know it'll be worth it in the end. I'll keep you guys posted :)

Film Opening Project (blog 11, pre-film preparation)

Good afternoon everyone! My group and I just finished setting up everything we need to get ready to film tomorrow. The main thing that we got down was the overall set design. As you know, our opening consists of getting ready within her studio space, so our goal was to create this effect. We decided on using is Oliver's gym room since it already has neutral floors and walls, therefore the color palette we're incorporating within our opening is not obstructed.

Before

After

It still is kind of bare, but with the clothes that I am planning on getting from my friends today, I think it should be ready by tomorrow. I was afraid sticking with our visuals and color palette would be a challenge, but it was pretty easy (phew). We also finalized our storyboard and how our opening would play out, you can see the whole storyboard within the link below. 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1aHSZP-RgIWHALl49qUmB11izK5TsLuEU?usp=sharing

Because we are planning on our opening to focus on introducing the character, we wanted to incorporate the use of closeups to reveal a sense of intimacy in between the character and the audience. We also want some of the shots framed in a sense that the camera makes the audience feel as if they were also in the room watching her get ready, emphasizing the idea that the audience is an observing her (just like her audiences on social media). Very symbolic stuff, I know. 

One of my favorite shots is the pan on the photos hung up on the wall, where the audience sees the character age and change through the photos. It says so much in a subtle manner; it adds depth within our character and shows that there was a progression to how she is like in the present moment (where our story begins). 

I'm relieved that we are on track with our schedule, giving us plenty of time to revise and edit if we need to. I'm also looking forward to filming tomorrow too, I'll keep you guys posted :)