Week 7 pt3 (wow these are getting really long....sorry)

          Hello hello, I'm back and better than ever with the third and final part of this three blog series that I am doing to sort of get started with my CCR. To recap, I started off with the first blog being about some background information on the CCR itself and the general idea that I had for how I wanted to film The CCR. Then, my second blog was about the content of the CCR and how I want it to formulate my answers. I went through each of the four questions that I am required to answer in my CCR and gave a very brief summary of what I want to say. Now, for my third and final blog in this 3-blog saga, I want to talk about how I plan to film and some of my ideas that I have for the filming process. As I discussed in the first blog, I had this idea of doing my own version of the YouTube trend “Draw My Life” and make it a ”draw my CCR” . Now, when I started looking into it and looking up what the actual process entails, I figured out that I needed some supplies and I also needed to figure out how I was going to set up the camera so that you could fully see everything. One of the main things that I needed for this “Draw my CCR” video was a dry erase board and a dry erase marker, which I do not have. In normal circumstances I would drive to my local arts and crafts store or Office Depot and purchase a small dry erase board and marker that I could use for this video however, because we are currently living in the middle of a worldwide pandemic and the state I live in is on a stay-at-home order, this is not actually possible. I started thinking of ways that I could get around this and I realized that I could do one of two things; I could either ask my neighbor if she had a dry erase board and marker that I could potentially borrow for the filming of this video or I could try to film the whole video using paper and a pencil. Because I am leaning more towards the ladder, I started to test ways that I could use paper and pencil to potentially film this video, and quickly figured out that was a little bit harder than I actually thought. First, I was thinking that I could use multiple papers and just flip through them as I'm filmed the video. For example, I would draw out the answer to the first question and then get another piece of paper and draw the next answer to the second question and so on and so on. While this may seem like a good idea, I could run into two problems. One being that this is actually not environmentally friendly at all as I would be wasting a lot of paper, two being that it could potentially look very messy in my CCR and I don't want that at all. The second way that I thought I could maybe get around not having a dry erase board and marker was to just use one paper but erase every time I run out of the room. For example, as I draw and answer my questions I could start erasing anything that I didn't need any more. I like this idea because it resembles more of what I would actually be doing if I had a dry erase board because as you draw in the dry erase board you simply erase what you don't need any more but, this could also be a problem within of itself. I'm worried that if I simply erase every time I don't need a drawing anymore, the paper could get really messy and potentially look really bad on camera.

          Now that I got the whole dry erase board problem out of the way, another issue that I was sort of struggling with was how to actually set up the camera so that this looks nice. Now the setup and the filming are two things that I'm a little bit worried about. First, setting up the camera is going to be a little hard because I don't have a tripod and I will be using my phone to film the video, so in order for me to get a good shot I would have to film everything from a high angle that way the camera can get the whole paper and the whole drawing. I was looking into ways that I could get around it by maybe using things I have around my house to prop my phone up again but it hasn't really been working. One, because I don't really have things that are either high enough or stable enough where my phone could be propped up against it with no problem and two, because the lighting has also been sort of an issue as the films either looks too bright and you can't see the actual drawing or it looks too dark and the quality of the video turns out to be really grainy. Another sort of problem that I'm having is trying to figure out whether I want to film the video in real-time meaning that the speed of the video is going to be a normal speed, do a time-lapse, or have the video be going back and forth between a normal speed and high speed. This can become sort of an issue when time is of the essence with this video, I don't want to make a 20 minute long video of me drawing and erasing and just rambling but I also know that I can't make a really short video if I am drawing essentially my whole project out. So, these are some of the things that I'm trying to figure out that way I can produce the most effective and high quality CCR that I can by just using my surroundings. I did want to mention that I am looking into potentially ordering a small tripod for my phone on Amazon that has a light connected to it which could help solve the issue of how to prop my phone and have good lighting at the same time. I will post a picture of what I'm looking into buying below.
        

         Quick update, I am writing this like 20 minutes later, I figured I would include this update in this blog rather than putting it in a different one so brace yourself. While looking through my stuff and asking different people if they had anything that could potentially help me with this whole phone and lighting situation, I luckily enough I found a neighbor of mine who has a ring light that they are willing to let me borrow for this project. So when I got the ring way I was really excited not only because it was going to help figure out the issue of the lighting but I thought that it could actually help figure out the issue of where I can place my phone because I thought it had a place for you to put your phone in it. However, as always I was a little too enthusiastic and the ring light actually have a place for me to put my phone…..but that's okay because at least now I have the whole lighting situation figured out.

This is sort what I want to buy so the I can film with no problem 

             This is a very embarrassing video of me trying to set up the ring light that my neighbor let me borrow, so enjoy 

Week 7 pt2

          Hello, so as you may or may not have seen, I posted a Blog yesterday starting to talk about my CCR and what it entails. I discussed how I wanted to talk about my CCR my blog and how I will be dividing it up into three blogs. Yesterday's blog was all about the CCR and what it means and today's blog will talk about the actual context of the CCR and what I plan to write in it. My plan had always been to create a sort of script or guide that would help me when I start filming and allow me to have a more organized CCR. As I discussed yesterday, there are four questions that I am required to answer and today I wanted to talk a little bit about my response to those questions and how I plan to answer.

How did we challenge conventions and represent social groups or issues within our film opening?

         When I had originally started planning for this project, some of you may remember that I was working alone and planning on working with the romance genre. however, when Isabella and I made the decision to work together we had decided to step away from the romance genre and really work with the drama genre. This decision wasn't a hard one due to the fact that Isabella had a lot of research within the genre and our ideas seemed to work better with the conventions of this genre. In week 2 of this project, I wrote a Blog all about this switch and our decision to start working together and I really based my knowledge of the genre from Isabella's knowledge. She and I really discussed what she had come up with through her research and started to look into further researching the genre and the conventions of it as well as target audience and other characteristics we felt that were necessary for this genre. Within my CCR, I plan to discuss some of the drama conventions that we researched as well as include some sources where we got this information from. With the main part of this question being how we did or did not challenge the conventions of the genre, I really want to focus this part on the fact that One of the main points of those drama genres is to focus on conflict and realistic struggles. I feel like with our film opening we really did focus on conflict and a realistic struggle like for example a single parent having to deal with racing a child on his own when he has no idea what he's doing or how to even take care of himself. This means that we really stayed within the conventions of our genre and really followed what the main points of the genre usually are. This is one of the things that I really want to focus on on this part of the question, like I said I want to write a sort of script or guideline that will help me narrow down my ideas and really stay organized when filming the CCR but, this is how I basically want to answer this first question.

How our film opening engages our audience and how we plan to distribute it in real media text?

          As I stated above, one of the main conventions of our genre is focusing on a real struggle or conflict. This is how we are going to try to engage with our audience, through the real struggle of a family trying to survive, in this case a single parent trying to deal with the death of his wife and now having to care for his child. The climactic and anti climatic structure over film opening is what is going to keep our audience emotionally attached And keep the tension growing as our film develops. With our target audience being 13 through 25 year olds, we are engaging them by producing and developing a very relatable and dramatic plot and storyline. As far as how we plan to distribute our film, we need to keep this very realistic for a starting director. Throughout my CCR I will discuss how we can still get our film across to millions of people through a low-budget distribution platform without needing to pay millions of dollars to get our movie on the big screen. Some ways we can do this is through YouTube and our local film festivals. Within my CCR, I will discuss specific film festivals that we could potentially distribute our film in.

How our skills developed as we were producing this project?

           This is where we can talk about how we grew from the beginning of this project to the very end. I can definitely say that I went through major growth because of this project, I had to learn how to deal and be able to keep going through major setbacks and realize that not everything is going to be handed to you on a silver platter. While this may sound kind of bad, in no way is it meant like that. What I will try to get across in my CCR is that I, in no way, expected to be met with step backs like I was. In my head, I was going to create a storyboard and a script where I can put all my ideas and my vision for this project and simply turn around and start filming them to create a very successful project. That in no way was the case. As you may know through my previous blogs I have been met with step back after step back whether it is scheduling issues, unexpected travels, casting issues or even worldwide pandemics that no one saw coming. But, I can say that all of these step backs have allowed me to develop my producing skills to a way further level than I ever thought I could have. I have learned how to quickly change the schedule up to make things work for a deadline, I have learned how to rearrange a script in a matter of minutes to make it work with any casting or character issues, I have learned how to still be able to create as successful, hopefully, project that meets all of my expectations through a worldwide pandemic without leaving my house. These are the things that I will definitely discuss in my CCR in a more organized way. I definitely want to discuss my growth, my frustration, and my maturity throughout this project. This is the part of the CCR where I get to do most of my reflecting there for this is where I will discuss all the major flaws that I committed and all the major step backs that had to be taken care of.

How did we integrate technology into our project?

        This is the part of the CCR where I will have to rely a lot on my partner, only because as far as technology, most of the editing and filming of our film opening, with the exception of credits and the song, we're done by Isabella. While this is true, I feel that I can talk about how we went about looking for the song where we had to do a lot of research on the record company that actually owned the song we wanted and how we had to find ways to get permission to use the song, I can also discuss how we integrated different fonts and colors into are credits for all our film opening. I also definitely want to discuss the camera techniques that we use and the editing platform that we will use as well as the distribution platforms that we plan on using.


        Again, this is a very short and sweet version of what I will be talking about in my CCR. I really wanted to be able to write everything down to start to get some ideas on what I actually want to say and how I want to say it. As I was writing this blog, I was making note of my answers for each question and was definitely writing the order that I want to answer the questions and the order that I want to mention certain things in, so this was definitely very helpful to do that. My next blog will be all about how I plan to film because it is proven to be kind of hard so I will definitely keep you updated on that for my next blog.

Week 7 pt1

Hello hello, I hope that everyone is staying safe and inside! This blog is really going to be about my starting process of my CCR. When I started thinking about what I wanted to do for my CCR and how I wanted to presented, I decided to divide everything into three parts. As I have always done, I wanted to continue to keeping you guys updates on what my thought process is, how I am going about things, and what I want my finished product to look like. So, what I decided to do is write three different blogs on my thought process and the ideas that I had for my CCR. The first post will be this one where I will be talking about learning what the CCR entails and what my ideas for presenting are. The second post will be all about the content of the CCR, like the major points that I want to hit, the answers to the four questions required for the CCR, and just a general script to help myself get organized for the actual filming of the CCR. Lastly, the third post will be about the final idea for how I want to present the CCR. This will include behind the scenes of me trying to film it and just general tips and tricks that have work for me and helped facilitate the filming process.
Ok, so now that we got that out of the way, let's get into it shall we. So the first time that we really dove into the ins-and-outs of the CCR and what it entails was actually the last time I ever went to school which was around March 12th. When we talked about this, it really was sort of brief because in class we didn't have that much time so our teacher talked about the main points that we needed to hit in the CCR as well as some tips and tricks that she had seen work when producing a successful CCR. Today what I really wanted to discuss was some of the points that I took from her discussion in class. For starters, we talked about what the purpose of the CCR actually was which for me was really helpful because it allowed me to understand why we are required to do this which motivated me to produce something successful and of high-quality. The CCR really is for reflection as well as serving as an outlet for us, the creators, to be able to discuss some of the things that we weren't able to discuss for example in our blog or express some of the concerns that we had while filming the project, or even talk about some regrets that we had during filming. As far as the actual contents of the CCR, we learned that there were four main questions that needed to be answered during the entirety of the CCR in order for it to be a successful one. The first question being, how we challenged conventions and represent social groups or issues within our film opening. This is where we talked about our genre and why we did or did not challenge the conventions of it, as well as discuss representation and why or why not we included it in our opening. Next, we need to discuss how our film opening engages with our audience and how we plan to distribute it in real media text. This is where we talked about our target audience and their trends of consumption within the Media as well as how we plan to make our film available to our audience. As I mentioned part of the CCR is to reflect back on our product and the toys that we made, one of the questions that we have to answer is how our skills developed as we were producing this project. Lastly, we need to talk about how we integrated technology into our project. The main tip that our teacher gave us for tackling our CCR was to make a script and really think out and write out what we're going to say and how we're going to stay it that way we don't confuse ourselves or confuse the people watching or CCR. That is one of the main things that I will be working on this week, creating my script and sort of a guideline of what I actually want to say and when I want to say it. As far as how I want to present my CCR and how I can make it creative and fun to watch, I have come up with sort of one main idea of how I want to do this. As I have been self quarantine for a week and a half now I have been watching a lot of YouTube videos and this idea came sort of from there. I had seen this old trend where people would film a video about their lives through drawings, trend is called “Draw My Life”, so what I wanted to do and how I wanted to make it work from this project was to film a “Draw My CCR” where I would sit down and do a voiceover over video of me drawing out the whole process and answering the questions through pictures. I haven't really worked out the logistics of how this would work and how I would film it but I think it could be a really fun thing to do. As always I will keep you updated and let you know more on my next blog, this is all for now thank you for tuning in.

Week 6 pt3

It feels like we are moving backwards...

I really don't know if I can take another step-back or delay in this project. When it was first announced that my final project for this class was going to be creating and directing my very own film opening, of course I was super nervous and scared, but I was also really excited to, for the first time, put what I had learned in a classroom to real use and practice. After going through the immense amount of work and stress that were the last two projects, a movie pitch and a music video, and still coming out with two very successful projects, I knew that I would be fine and that I had to let myself have a lot of fun with this project. Also, this was (hopefully still is) the last project that I would be participating in for high school, as my graduation was soon after the deadline for this project. But, we all know that this excitement and motivation left as soon as it came. It seemed that soon after we started working on this project we started to get hit with step-back after step-back. Whether it was our schedules constantly changing, having to stop filming for traveling, not getting permission to use the song we had planned everything around, our actors telling use that they were moving to another state when we are already half way through filming, or the Coronavirus now putting a full stop on filming. I know that most if not all students right now are feeling frustrated and unmotivated, so I am not just sitting here making this about myself, it just a really weird and annoying situation and all I really want is for things to go back to normal. It is really hard to stay motivated to create in times like this. We had a video conference with our teacher not too long ago where we were told that we need to keep working and find ways to work around this, which I understand that she has to help us keep calm and not freak out, but to be honest I really have no idea how we are expected to do this. We were given 8 weeks to complete this project and for the past 6 weeks we have been working hard almost everyday in researching the ins and outs of our genre, creating blog post after blog post talking about the scripts we created, the mood boards for our characters, our set design, costume design, storyboards we made, and some of us even posting about actual props that we made form scratch. Now we are being told, with just 2 weeks left in the project, that if we are unable to continue filming to just either modify your opening or create an entirely new one. It is really hard to create a well produced, well thought-out project that looks like it took a lot of time and effort, when we know have to regroup and try to scramble together what we can without even being able to leave our homes. To finish off because I feel like I have been ranting on for way too long now, I want to make it absolutely clear that I in no way shape or form, put blame on ANYONE for what we are being told to do with our projects. I understand that no one really knows what is going on and that everyone is just trying their best to come up with a solution for everything. This situation is hard for everyone and I am just lucky enough to have a platform like this one where I can express what I am feeling with no fear of judgment. Isa and I will continue to try and come up with ways that we can either film or edit to make this opening make sense and finally finish filming. This is supposed to happen today Sunday 3/22, but I will keep you updated on what we decide and were able to do. As far as my CCR, this has had to be pushed back even further until we are finished with filming. Thank you for letting me rant and I promise to try and make my next post purely based on the updates of our project. 

Week 6 pt2

Hello, is anyone there? 

It is almost 1:20am and I just got hit with some inspiration to write this blog post, so here goes nothing. I know that this might seem pretty crazy but in ties of quarantine anything goes. This pst is going to be quite a short one as I just wanted to update you guys on how our filming and editing is going since I haven't done so in a while. The last time I updates you guys on our filming schedule, I told you guys that there was a slight delay as Isa had to travel due to her volleyball. When she got back we did go ahead and resume filming that same week although there was another slight delay. We had plans of filming the whole opening the week that Isa got back, but after we met up to discus our script, there were quite a few things that changed within our storyline. Nothing really major, but we did decide to add the back-flashes of Avaley looking through her photo-album meaning that I had to modify our script. Since we were filming using the script as a guideline, we had to wait until I was completely finished with the script before we could start filming again. Just when we thought our filming schedule was back to normal, we get hit with this worldwide pandemic, DUN DUN DUNN!!!. Due to the COVID-19, there has now been other added delays in our filming. In my county, Broward County, we have been asked to self-quarantine and practice social distancing. School has also been canceled until April 15th and all businesses have been ordered to shut down until further notice. This means that it very hard for to film due to the fact that our actors cannot go to our filming location, nor can we go to them. This is absolutely heartbreaking and incredibly scary for all of us, but we are learning how to adjust and trying our best to make best of this situation. With that being said, I do have some good news. As we started filming before all of this happened, we do have some footage already done and currently being edited. Also, after talking to our actors and consulting with the mother of our main actress, we have come to an agreement where they are willing to go to our filming location, Isa's house, and finish filming as we don't have that much left to film. Due to our actors being Isa's family, they are willing to do this so long as we are very safe and cautious with everything that we do. This is very very very good news to hear as we were starting to worry wether or not we were going to be able to finish filming as we also got hit with the news that our actors will be moving to Texas the week of March 23rd, which, at the moment of me writing this blog, is next week. At last, we are trying to get too discouraged by the bad news, which seems to never stop, and like I said, make the best of it. With that being said, I wanted to share a few clips form the footage that we were able to get before all of this. 

Week 6 pt1

Hello hello, so we meet again... This is all seems very surreal and feels like we living in this weird post-apocalyptic world. We are now in day 4 of self distancing and i'm pretty sure I have gone completely crazy, but enough about me, lets get into this project shall we. Ok so a couple weeks ago I had wrote about the fact the we were probably not going to be able to use the song that we originally wanted, Butterfly Fly Away, due to copy right issues and that I was going to keep you updated on what our plan and new course of action would be. So, heres that update. It turns out that Disney, the company that currently owns the song, never even responded to our request to use the song therefor we had to keep searching for new songs that could replace that one. This was quite heartbreaking as this song had a beautiful meaning that was really going to play well with our whole theme of incorporating contrasting messages within our film opening. As you may know, we wanted to use the meaning of the song to make our audience thing that Avaley and Damien have this beautiful 'father-daughter' relationship, when in reality they don't. When looking for a new song we not only had that obstacle of finding something that had that same effect, but we also had a time constraint. We knew that we couldn't spend weeks trying to find a new song and asking for permission to use it as we have a due date to meet, so we figured that using copyright free music was our best bet. When tasked with is, what we were looking for was a song that had a happy and innocent vibe to it in order to fit in with our storyline and I really think that we have found it. The song song that we have now, although it is not completely certain that that's the one we will use, has this 'country' vibe to it and its pretty upbeat and happy, so I really think that it could work. The best part, however, about this song is that it is completely copyright free, so we don't have to wait for any record company to give us the go ahead. I will definitely keep you updated on this and make changes where necessary, but for now this is what we have.
*update I tried posting the song but it is not letting me, I will keep trying and will keep updating the blog*

Week 5 pt.4

Hello form the other side...

Well hello hello, just in case you are reading this at a much later time, or maybe you don't live on this planet.... please allow me to fill you in on what the current situation is. Currently the WHOLE ENTIER WOLRD is in shambles as we are learning how to live with/ handle/ contain/ etc. with the our one true enemy, the coronavirus. I might be being a little dramatic, but it truly feels like we are living in some sort of post apocalyptic world where no one knows what is going on. It is currently March 15th, 2020 and tomorrow sets day one of quarantine in my city and I really don't know how to feel. All jokes aside, this is something extremely serious and I just hope that it is all over as fast as it started.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

Through this whole fiasco, Isa and I have still been hard at work filming and working on finalizing our project. I do have some fun updates to share with you guys. So, as we continue to film our opening we also started to think about our opening credits/ title and how we want to present it. 

As Isa and I were discussing the fact the we definitely want to play with our color schemes and really try to tell a story through that, my wonderful partner came up with a pretty brilliant idea. Isa, realized that we can also extend the contrasting color scheme story with our credits and title. 

The way she proposed that we do this is by having two different fonts and colors with every credit. This means that we would have a nice, cute font that would be in light pink to represent Avaley's purity and innocence, and we would have another dark, rough cont that would be in black to represent Damian, Avaley's dad, and his whole aggressive demeanor. This is a great way for us to take advantage of everything that the audience sees to further tell our story, this will also make the audience wonder why we chose this, making them more intrigued as the start to watch our film. We plan to alternate between credits and really create that contrast effect with our color schemes which help is tell the story of these two characters. 

Avaley's font 

Damian's font

Week 5 pt3

Target audience and more

While looking through my blog posts I realized that I had not talked about our target audience, and the age range and gender that we are trying to attract. This is extremely important because every decision that we make regarding our film opening is made thinking of what would attract our target audience and what the would like to see, but fear no more, I have the blog post just for that.

Age range

Our age range is between the ages from thirteen to twenty five due to some explicit language and implications of drinking that will be included within our film. At age thirteen, teens start become more aware of their surroundings and can handle more serious things like death, and cussing. We stopped at the age of twenty five because in drama films, audiences from the age thirty and up tend to lean to other different types of genres. We feel that it is appropriate to keep our age range in between these two ages as at this age most of our audience is still attached to the their parents as they are starting to grow up and experience the world by themselves.

Gender

Our genre tends to attract a female audience rather than male which is perfect for use as we are depicting the relationship between a father and a daughter and males can not really relate to that, other than of course if they themselves have a daughter. Also females do tend to watch a lot of drama films more than males. Through research we found that over 89% of females watch drama more than any other genre, while over 90% of males watch action films more than any other genre.

Target audience

While choosing our target audience we had to consider what we were going to include in our film and really pick our battles with some of the more graphic and mature content. We knew that we were going to included minor explicit language, implications of heavy drinking, death, and aggression, but we also knew that we had to keep these more low key and not go crazy with them. Which is why we decided to make our film PG13. We really wanted to expose our younger audience to the reality of what some families go through in their everyday life.

Week 5 pt2

She's here ladies and gentlemen...

Drum roll,,,, ladies and gentlemen I can't believe I am finally writing this blog. For the past 3 weeks I have been working on getting this script done and finalized and I can officially say that I have came up with a script that I am completely happy and satisfied with. Upon getting our storyboard completed, it really gave me a lot of incentive, motivation, and inspiration to finish the script. Of course, after speaking with Isa and putting together some ideas, we definitely made some changes and arrangements, but I truly believe that what we came up with truly represents our visions and ideas. So, without further ado, our script...

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Week 5 pt.1

This is going by fast...

Wow week 5... It feels like just yesterday I was just starting this project struggling to come up with ideas and being confused by everything I had to do. To be completely candid, I really did not think that we, or should I say I, weren’t going to ever reach then end of this project because of how overwhelmed I we were with everything. This is just the right post to get all emotional and nostalgic because not only can I officially say that there are only 3 more weeks left of this project, but I can finally show you tangible evidence of our work! This is really exciting as I feel like for the past couple of blogs I wasn’t able to truly show you guys what we have been working on, but these next few posts are going to be all about that. It is very important that the readers of this blog get to visualize what we are trying to create and sometimes that can get a little complicated if  I'm just ranting and trying to explain what something is going to look like. What better way to do that than to show you guys what our storyboard looks like. So ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, here is our storyboard!

 I am really happy and proud of the work that Isa and I have done so far. I hope you guys like and kind of see what we are trying to do with this project. If you would like, take some time to read though each shot and maybe try to better visualize our ideas. Hopefully you guys like what we have come up with! This is going to be it for now, but i won't leave you hanging for too long as I will be back tomorrow to FINALY post our final final script! For now be safe out there and take care pf yourself.

Week 4 pt4

Butterfly Fly Away...

THERE'S NO NEED TO PANIC! uh yeah said nobody ever, there is definitely a need to panic and that moment is right now. Ok let me explain, so a couple weeks ago I got on here and I wrote about the fact that we had gotten in communication with Disney asking them for permission to use their song "Butterfly Fly Away". What I failed to mention, however, was that when we wrote that email we were warned that it might take up to 6 weeks to even get a response from them and as you can tell by obnoxious use of capital letters to express my panic, WE HAVE'NT HEARD BACK FROM THEM. This is actually a problem because as if you have been keeping up with these blogs, you know that this song is one of the most important parts of our film opening, and yes, we realize that we probably should not of have put all of our card in one table, but now is not the time to point fingers. While the obvious solution to this problem is to simply just find another song, we have to realize what that implies. Looking for another song not only implies being able to find a song that has the same message behind it as the one we originally wanted to use, but it also implies having to ask another record company for permission which might put us back in the same position we are now in. Fear not, however, as I have/ will continue to spend the whole day today finding alternative song options for us and sending as many emails as I can to try to get permission to use these songs. For now I will leave you with a link to our original song, "Butterfly Fly Away" and maybe just maybe it will help me get the go ahead from Disney that I need.

Week 4 pt3

Updates, updates, updates...

I'm back! I wanted to come on here again to share some updates and talk about something that might be a problem or become a problem. First, I wanted to give you guys some updates about our filming and our script. So, as far as filming, there have been some changes as far as the schedule goes due to some important traveling from my partners side. To explain, Isa, my partner, is an amazing volleyball player, captain of her team, so much so that she’s actually been traveling to some out of state competitions this past week. Her having to travel meant that we had to halt filming for a couple of days, as our filming location is in her home. Now, with that being said, this halt does not put us too behind schedule as we got most of the first minute filmed before that, it just means that we need to make sure we keep on working and keep on task this upcoming week. According to the new schedule, we should be done with filming completely by midweek that way we can get all of the editing done by the end of this upcoming week. We are still planning on competing our CCRs the week after this week, March 16ish, so I am not too worried about that or even meeting our deadline. Bellow I have attached our old schedule so that you guys can kind of get an idea of where we are and how long we will push filming for.

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According to our old schedule, today was supposed to be our last day of filming but due to our situation, our new last day of filming is set for March 11th. Our editing will also be pushed a little bit and will now be done March 12th-14th. Like I said, everything is still on schedule as far as the CCR goes, so that is still set to be done and completed on March 16th. Well, that is it for me for right now. I am sorry that I could not give you gives more fun or interesting updates about our filming and more behind the scenes action, but we have to understand that these are things that happen and we just have to be prepared for them and be able to adjust to life getting in the way for things. I want to end this blog by just giving a major shoutout to Isa, my partner, because she is amazing and even though she's traveling the world being amazing all other the United States, she still somehow manages to find time to sit down and work the logistics of this project out with me. Anyways, thank you so tuning in. 

Week 4 pt2

Hello hello, today I am really excited to write this blog as I can officially say that our script is almost done with the exception of a few changes that we will continue to make as we film. With the script being almost done, I really wanted to explain how we are breaking down our film opening and how we are going to tackle the filming process. When we started planning out our filming and creating our storyboard/ script, we realized that the easiest way to handle it was to divide the whole thing by minute and since our opening is 2 minutes, this was really not difficult at all. Upon doing this, we also had to decide what were the most important aspects to include in each minute, so here is how we are doing it. Our first minute is really important for us as we are introducing/ alluding to the main problem or conflict in our movie, as well as introducing the main character for the first time. The first few images that our audience will see are different handmade paintings that look like a small child made them all around the walls, some toys, and bedroom decor meant for a little girl. Thus, establishing that somewhere in the movie there will be a little girl who will be important to the storyline. Next, our audience will see Avaley, the main character, for the first time sleeping in her bed. The next few shot will be the most important ones as we will be alluding to the fact that something traumatic happened to Avaley's mother as she flips though photo albums (after she wakes up) as well as to a the relationship between her and her father through the sing that will be playing in the background. The song is really one of the most important things for us as the song is all about a beautiful relationship between a father and daughter and we want this to represent the relationship that Avaley wishes she had with her father. As the audience is expecting them to have a good relationship based on what they have seen, our second minute is going to be all about showing them that that is not the case at all. In our second and final minute, we will be introducing Damon, Avaley's father, and the relationship between the two of them. We are still testing a few ways that we can do this, but what we basically want to show is Damon demeaning his daughter as the audience realizes that he blames Avaley's mothers death on Avaley herself. During the second minute is where we will be adding dialogue, which will between Avaley and her father. So to conclude this blog, this is how we are planning on tackling out film opening but of course due to life and us - Isabella and I - always changing our minds, this is subject to change. Anyways, thank you for reading and I will definitely be checking in tomorrow.

Week 4 pt1

Group Meetings

Today in class, we had the opportunity of sitting down with our class-mates to discuss our ideas, progress, thoughts, and bounce ideas off of each other. We sat down in groups of 6 and went around the table to share our vision. This was really helpful and useful as I found that as I was sharing and explaining my idea to my group, it made me realize of the extra "fluf" that I had in my storyline. Ok let me explain, so as Isabela and I started creating and developing our idea and vision, it was very easy for us to get lost in our ideas and what we thought we wanted our film opening to look like. So, what I mean by 'helping us get rid of the extra fluf' is that they helped us get away from shots and dialogue that where distracting from our main point and message that we are trying to get across. Some of the ideas that I got were actually really helpful and will definitely be part of our project. One of the people in the group talked about including a contrasting color theme. For example, having the daughter wear light pinks, whites, and light yellows and the father wear dark colors such as dark grey, blacks, and dark blues. Another idea that they gave me was start looking for alternative songs that would still portray or foreshadow to the relationship that Avaley wishes that she could have with her father as there may be a possibility of not receiving rights to the song. This is actually something really important that we need to get done as we didn't really think of the possibility of not getting the rights to the song in time. Something else really important that we discussed was mise en scene. The group thought that it was a good idea we continue to sort of play with the idea of contrasting characteristics between the father ad the daughter. For example, they thought that it was a good idea to have Avaley's room be very neat, tidy and very girly and have the living-room be very dark and messy with things being all over the place to demonstrate the aspect of the missing mother/female figure. Overall, I would say that these meetings not only really helped me to get better organized with my ideas and what '"route" I want to take, but they also really got me excited again to be able to see the final product and see all that we were able to achieve. I will leave the blog here today, but I super excited to be able to start showing more and more of the behind the scenes of what we have been doing and what we will do as we go into filming this week. 

Inspo for Avaley's father's clothing

Inspo for Avaley's clothing

Ideas for Avaley's room

Ideas for living room

Week 3 pt 3

To finalize this weekend, I wanted to post a blog to further update on our project and how it is coming along. Although this will be a short post, I still wanted to show you guys what we have worked on over the weekend. This weekend, we were able to shoot rough drafts of what we wanted our actual shots to look like that way we could see what worked and what didn’t and then edit our storyboard accordingly. With this, we were able to start working on our mise en scenes and start thinking about costume design. Below I will leave pictures of some of the pieces that we will be using in our set design for Avaley's bedroom, as well as, a picture of Avaley herself. We took various picture of Avaley in her bedroom to be able to further visualize our vision and get a better idea of what we want the shots to look like. The canvas and drawing will be placed in the room that we will be using as Avaley's room, along with other pieces, to make the room look more like that of a small child. I will continue to update you guys even further as we go into our actual filming week and as we wait for Disney to gives us permission for the usage of their song.