Sunday, April 18, 2021

Critical Reflection

 My group and I have worked tirelessly on our film Cutting Room Floor taking into account each small detail to make our most developed piece yet. The film is a sort of “coming of age” film that centers on an unnamed protagonist as he tries to find his place. The narrator controls the protagonist’s narrative up until he has enough and rebels against the narrator. Throughout the film the narrator tries to solve the problem by changing the story until it fits with what the protagonist wants. 

The research we conducted prior to filming allowed us to challenge conventions and create a unique and distinct film. We drew from a number of sources but the main influence came from the film Stranger than Fiction in which the main character begins to hear the voice of a narrator that reveals that he is soon to die. We loved this idea of the dynamic between the main character and the disembodied voice of a narrator. This idea worked to challenge conventions by having the protagonist repeatedly break the fourth wall and interact with a character outside of the story. 

Through our research we also developed the main idea of the switching genres throughout the film. As the narrator struggles to create the perfect story for the protagonist, they constantly switch the genre of each scene. We challenge conventions of the usual coming of age film through this alternative narrative and having each scene be drastically different from one to the next. We knew from the start that we wanted to create a film that stood out and had an unusual style that draws from postmodern ideas. We employed the use of parody to have each scene follow along with their respective genre in a very cliche way, which the protagonist calls out at the start of the film. In a way, we challenged conventions by sticking to them.

All of the elements come together to create a unique sense of branding for our film. When it comes to the film, the dynamic between the protagonist and narrator as well as the ever changing genre/story create a style that is unique to our film. The quick and drastic changes between genres and the dialogue make the film fast paced and fun with a more sentimental portion at the very end. 

The branding is further developed through our postcard and social media page which aims to intrigue viewers with mysterious images and messages. The social media in particular tries to mislead the viewer and hint at the true story of the film. Each post is split to show some of the genres used in the film and confuse the viewer as to how each post shows seemingly drastically different stories. The postcard is simple, yet eye catching with the big yellow title right in your face. The imagery in the back hints at the story of the film with the main character standing straight as his head is split into several poking out from each side. Each of the colorful heads is made to represent some of the genres in the film, but does so in a subtle way as to not be too upfront with the story. All in all, the elements come together to make a film that is mysterious and exciting. 

 All of these decisions and elements were specifically chosen with the intention of creating a product that engages the audience. The film does its job at engaging the audience by keeping them constantly stimulated with the fast paced changing genres. Aside from this, we deliberately focus on the message of “becoming your own main character” as a way to engage our target audience of 14-26 year olds. While researching for our film we had started to look towards a popular trend on social media that revolves around the idea of being “the main character.” This trend romanticizes this idea of being the protagonist in a film and having a life filled with happiness and adventure. Our product adapts this trend into its story by having the protagonist struggle with becoming the perfect main character.

My product aims to represent the groups of people who feel they have no control over their life and the struggle of finding one's place in the world. This is represented in our film through the protagonist and his struggle with finding his place in his own film. The protagonist embodies this group of people who feel hopeless with the protagonist just wanting to take control of his story but the narrator preventing him from taking his life into his own hands. The narrator is just a voice with no physical form that is made to represent the broad idea of everything that seems to bring us down and stop us from being who we want to be. 

Over the course of the film we see the protagonist grow more and more desperate up until the climax where they confront the narrator and explain their struggle with finding themself and their place in the story. This confrontation leads the narrator to give in and let the protagonist write his own script, finally being able to take control of his story. This last scene gets down to the core message of our film and encourages those who feel they have no control to fight back and take control of their lives. While the film is mostly fun and light hearted, the last scene is by far the most important in the way that it delivers the idea that the film has been leading up to. Hopefully our film does it’s job at encouraging the audience to be honest with themselves and push through their struggles to become the person they want to be.

Overall, I am beyond proud of the product we were able to put out and I truly believe that this film delivers on everything we were aiming to do. All the research and work was worth it in the end to create a film that stands out from the crowd. In the end, our project is a rollercoaster that concludes with a touching ending that is better than I could have ever dreamed of.


Cutting Room Floor

     Here it is everyone! Cutting Room Floor in all its glory. It was a crazy experience working on this film with my friends and I hope you all enjoy what we were able to come up with. I hope you enjoyed this journey seeing my group and I create this film from the ground up and into this final product. Now enough waiting here it is, Cutting Room Floor!

Film and Postcard: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1Ps4-LfpkuaUHKY1XYgXjQDImwzTUhvVm

Social Media: https://instagram.com/cuttingroomfloor_film?igshid=uuv05s4ryj5t



Final Thoughts

     Now that every elements of our project has been completed I can safely say that this project is everything that I wanted. The film, postcard, and social media all come together to create such a fun and unique product. It is relieving to have is all done and over because it took a whole ton of work to complete. While the filming was a fun time I still found myself exhausted and I will likely not be acting as the main character in a film for a while. I cannot wait to present the finished product for everyone to see and get some feedback on our work. I can sleep happy at night knowing that all of our hard work has paid off and the project is finished and ready to be enjoyed. 

 




Postcard

     After a lot of tweaking a revisions, I have finally finished the postcard for the short film and I am very happy with the result. My main focus for the postcard was to create a product that was both mysterious, yet intriguing so that the story of the film was not completely given away. The postcard contains all the necessary information that someone would need to know about our film and where to see it. The front is eye catching with the big yellow title that draws the viewer in to learn more about the film. I wanted to make something memorable and unique so I had the image of me, the protagonist, staring up while colorful images of my head protrude from the side and represent some of the genres shown in the film. On the back I had some more information about where to view the film and also our social media page for the film. Overall I think it does the job its intended to do well while staying unique and true to our film.




Sunday, April 11, 2021

Thinking Back

     Now that we are very close to the end of our project, I wanted to spend some time to think back to what I would have done differently if given the chance. While I think we did an amazing job and I'm proud of what we were able to accomplish, there are still many things I would have done differently looking back at it.

    First and foremost, I would have focused much more on time management so that we could have comfortably completed everything in our given time. Originally our projects were due a week before our new end date, but it was extended to give us all much needed time. While I still think we could have finished it on time, it would have been a race to the finish and potentially a worse product. If we had managed our time better from the start I think we could have made the whole project run a lot smoother and maybe we could have made an even better film.

    The other thing that I would have liked to do better was my acting in the film. While I'm proud I was able to get through hours of filming for this project, I still think I could have done much better with my acting. At the time I thought I was doing a much better job but I never had a chance to get a good look at my performance while we were filming. If I was given the chance I would definitely have focused on making more expressive faces to really sell the emotions in the scene. I think the same can be said for the delivery of my lines in the film and if it was possible, I think I could go back and do a much better performance.

Rough Cut

     Hey everyone! I just wanted to update you all on the editing progress for cutting room floor. After we wrapped up filming, my partners Ryan and Oliver quickly began to edit all of the footage we got into some rough cuts. They both are amazing editors and made rough cuts of most of the scenes before they met up together to get a huge rough cut of the final film. It was really exciting to see all these scenes come together for the first time and the product is way beyond my expectations. 

    They both did such an amazing job with their editing and it's even crazier when I realized it wasn't even the final product. While I was working on some assets for some of the scenes they were editing each scene and adding amazing details. The most impressive details they added had to have been the details to the void scene at the end of the film. While you'll have to wait for the final cut, I will tell you that they did an amazing job at expanding the scene through fake reflections on the ground and even making my voice echo out into the room. There is still some more work to be done but the end is in sight and I can't wait.

Saturday, April 10, 2021

Storyboard Scene

     As my group and I continue on with the editing process, another gap to fill came with the short storyboard scene that appears in the montage right before the final void scene. In the scene the protagonist finds themselves reduced to just a sketch from a storyboard as the narrator begins to run out of ideas for stories. This is one of my favorite scenes because it is unexpected and blends live action film with illustration that I think is really unique. The process was fairly easy I just used a frame of me looking at the camera as reference and drew a sketch of me standing with my arms crossed. I sketched myself with a slightly annoyed face as the protagonist reacts to being stuck as an illustration and the narrator messing with him. 



    All in all it was a simple detail but I think it came out great. I really can't wait for everyone to watch the finished product because I don't think anyone is expecting what we were able to come up with. The silent film and storyboard scenes are especially great because it out of nowhere and a little bit of fun that's sneaked in at the end of the montage portion of the film.