Filming Day 2

     Production continued today as we met up and filmed for our short film right after school. We originally planned to film both the coming of age and horror scenes, but ran out of time as the sun set. By the time we would have got to the location to film the horror scene, it would have been way too dark to film anything. Despite this little setback, the coming of age portion that we filmed came out way better than I could've thought. The lighting way perfect as it shined through the window of the bedroom we filmed in and made some amazing lens flares with the camera we used. 

    My partners, Ryan and Oliver, were able to secure some high quality equipment through the Student Television Network, which made the overall quality of our filming sky rocket. We had lights, light diffusers, reflectors, stabilizers, and much more. For most of the scene we used the stabilizer to add a lot of movement into the scene that added some variety to our film. The smooth movements made our filming look very professional and will surely stand out. Other than not being able to film our horror scene, the production process is moving along very well and we expect to be over on Friday. Here's a rough edit of the very beginning of the scene:

Filming Day 1

     Hey everyone! Production has officially started on our short film as  my group came together to begin filming. For the most part, filming went by pretty smoothly with us being able to complete the romance scene. Some scenes took longer due to noise in the background being picked up by the microphone which was annoying and forced us to wait until the noise went away. I had faith in our lighting and composition of but seeing the shots in person exceeded my expectations, especially with what I've seen previously with filming in cars.

    For my first time acting it took a little bit of time to get used to especially with conveying these emotions on camera. I also had a some trouble remembering my lines and on multiple occasions messed up a take by forgetting part of what I was supposed to be saying. Overall I'm proud of myself for getting through the whole day of filming and giving acting my best shot. I can't wait to see the end product especially when all of the footage is properly color graded to truly reflect the romance drama genre type look.

Production Schedule

     Hey everyone, soon we will be starting the production for our short film. Since it will be quite complex film with a lot of different scenes we will have to film over the course of several days. To make the most out of our time next week we have created a schedule that we will follow to get down every scene we need to shoot. The schedule is definitely needed because many of the scenes will need to take place at different times in the day. Now with the schedule we will be able to pace ourselves and get the filming done without overwhelming ourselves. After that all that is left is to edit the footage and the film will be done!

• Tuesday: Romance scene
• Wednesday: Teen and Horror scene
• Thursday: Comedy and Silent film scene
• Friday: Action and Void scene

Costume Final Touches

 Finally after some time, the finishing touches for the costume design have came in the mail. Thankfully the package arrived on time and with everything inside. For the most part the package contains rings and some bracelets for the beginning part of the film where I'm acting as the main character in an indie coming of age film. The rings and bracelets work with the outfit I chose to make me seem like a skater by keeping true to the basic look that is associated with skaters.

For the last item that came in the package there was a pair of sunglasses for the action portion of the film. In that scene I'm acting as the mysterious main character that comes to the rescue in a hostage situation. The sunglasses are great for giving that mysterious look and the aviator sunglasses in particular are synonymous with the "cool guy" main character in many action films. Now with everything here, the costumes are completed and I can focus more on familiarizing myself with the script and preparing for my role in the film.

Locations

    As my group gets closer and closer to beginning the filming process for our film, we have decided to plan out our filming locations. We wanted to get this part of the production process out of the way so that we can get a good idea of where we will need to be going. We tried to make it so that it will easy to achieve a good looking scene while also making it accessible. Most of the indoor scenes that are in houses (teen, action, comedy, and void scenes) will take place in Oliver's house while the rest of the scenes are in the local park and any empty parking lot. Overall the locations are pretty ordinary and simple but I think we will do a great job at transforming some of these spaces to fit with our film.

• Teen scene: House
• Action scene: Garage
• Romance scene: Parking Lot
• Comedy scene Living room
• Horror scene: Park
• Silent film scene: Street
• Void scene: Garage

Local park location for horror scene

Storyboard Process

    Now that the script is complete, I am able to get started on the storyboard for our short film. One of my group members, Ryan, created a shot list that accompanies the script so that I can use it for the storyboard. I can adapt the shot list into small thumbnail drawings so that we will have a good idea of what our end product will look like. I'm sure that when we actually shoot for the film, the shots will diverge from what I will put in the storyboard, but the point is just to help give an idea. 

    I have only just started the storyboard, but I expect to keep working on it throughout the week. The process will take much longer than it would on another project, because this storyboard will be much longer than any other one I have had to work on. Our aim for our short film will be around 5 minutes but the shots we have so far might be much more than we can fit in side that time frame, so we might have to cut some shots out when we edit the film. 

Wardrobe

    One of the most exciting parts of our short film has to be the constantly changing story. The story changes from an indie film to an action film and then to a drama film. I thought it would be a great opportunity to develop some costume design as my character will change clothes to fit with each genre in each scene. Over the writing process I have been thinking about what I would wear for each scene and I have finalized my first three outfits.

    The first outfit is for the very start of the film where the main character finds themselves in a coming of age indie film. The main character is supposed to be a stereotypical teenage skater which is shown through the outfit. I'm wearing a flannel and a light beige shirt which is a look that is often associated with the skater community. While making the outfits for the film I quickly realized that I really didn't have many pants or shoes to work with, so for each of the scenes I will probably use the same pair of pants and occasionally switch out the shoes. Speaking of the shoes, the vans I'm wearing are synonymous with skating as they are designed specifically to be worn while skating. I'm also wearing some rings I have, but I'm still waiting on the rings and necklaces I ordered that will complete the look. Overall, the outfit is laid back and comfortable which hits all the boxes for the stereotypical teenage skater look.

    The next outfit is for the second scene in which the main character is suddenly pushed into an action film and prepares for a fight. From what is gathered in the scene, there isn't much to go off for the characters background. Characters in action movies can range from gritty fighters to well-dressed spies, so I decided to create an outfit that makes the character seem mysterious and dark. The outfit is all black with a hoodie, a windbreaker, and the same pants and shoes as the outfit before. I layered the windbreaker over the hoodie to give me some more size and make me a little more menacing. (I'm not the most muscular guy) Once the sunglasses come in the mail, the whole outfit will come together and I'm sure will work out great for the scene. 

    The last outfit I have made so far is for the romance drama scene in which the main character walks to their car and breaks down bawling their eyes out. The scene is supposed to be after a nice date that ends in a break up so I thought I would make the outfit look like what someone would wear to a nice restaurant. I'm wearing a dark blue polo shirt with white stripes which is a good change from the previous outfits. The colors should go well with the scene as color grading will make the overall scene look cool and blue. For this outfit the pants and shoes shouldn't matter much because many of the shots in this scene will be from the waist up as I'm sitting in the car. 

Main Character Energy

    Hey everyone! Since early on in our writing process, it was decided that I would be the main character in our film. I am more than happy to be taking on this on, but it still is a pretty intimidating role. I have only acted a handful of times and I've never had to act for very long or even utter a single word. For almost all of the short film I will be in the frame and talking for a majority of it as well. Not to mention for almost the entire production, I will be alone on screen with the exception of one scene. In most of the scenes I will have to be holding a conversation with a character who isn't physically there and their voice will be recorded after. As you can see, there are a number of challenges I will have to face, but I'm taking this role very seriously and can't wait to start.

    In preparation for my role, I have been going over all my lines and getting familiar with each scene before we start shooting. Funnily enough, my biggest concern is actually how I will look on camera since I will be in front of it for most of the film. With the pandemic I have been indoors almost everyday and I haven't really been paying attention to my appearance. Luckily, I have been keeping up a good morning routine by cleaning my face, so hopefully I wont have any pimples when we film. (fingers crossed) Although my hair hasn't grown out to where I want it, I'm sure the filming will go great and my character will very likely be the best character in any film.

Screenplay

    After several discussions and revisions over voice call, we have finally completed the screenplay for our short film. I can tell that everyone in my group is very pleased with the end result and we can't wait to get on with filming. We knew early on in the writing process that we all really liked the basic idea for the story, so it as easy for us to agree on our screenplay and get on with our production. This whole part of our project couldn't have been done without my partners Ryan and Oliver because they are much more experienced with writing screenplays than myself. For the screenplay we used writer duet to give it a professional look that's easy to read.

    Soon we will be moving into the filming process so I have started to read through the screenplay to familiarize myself with all the dialogue and scenes. With how it's going now I will be playing the main character, so I have to make sure that I know my lines. It will make the filming process so much easier if I know the script front to back. Here you can read the full screenplay.

Peer Review 2

     Today in class we had another peer review in which all of the groups in our class were split up and randomly paired together so that we could share our progress with each other. This exercise is a great opportunity to get some advice and bounce ideas of of each other. With the added input from my classmates I can get a better idea of where I should be in the whole process of our project.

    When I presented the basic story around my film it was met with positivity and everyone seemed to like the idea a lot. All the positive feedback made me feel very good about our idea and I got even more excited to start the filming process. I didn't have many concerns or questions to ask my peers, so it was a good way for me to see where everyone else was at with their projects. One important thing I learned from this activity was the importance of variety in my blog posts. From now on I hope to include more variety and quality within my blog posts so that it is much more interesting to read. Overall, the peer review activity was fun and made me feel good about our current progress with the short film.

Schedule

    Hey everyone, now that we are less than a month away from the deadline we have decided to create a clear outline for the coming weeks. The outline breaks up what we need to accomplish for each week up until the deadline. With this outline we can pace ourselves and make sure we get everything finished and ready to go without having to rush. We gave ourselves a goal of 4/10 which is two days before the actual deadline so that we can have a comfortable amount of time in case anything goes wrong in the end.

    For the week of 3/15 my job will be to brainstorm filming locations and set up the wardrobe. For the week of 3/22 I will be busy with the storyboard, setting up the social media, and working on the postcard. And of course, for the week of 3/29 my responsibility will be to act in the film.

• Week of 3/15- Principle photography, location scouting, wardrobe and props
• Week of 3/22- Finding and getting approval for music, social media, postcard
• Week of 3/29 - Filming
• Week of 4/5- Editing
• 4/10 - Finish
• 4/12 - Deadline

Preparations

     As we get closer and closer to filming, I have started to get myself prepared for my role and decided to look into the costumes for each of the scenes. While I'm still waiting for the screenplay to be fully completed before I make any decisions on the clothing, I decided to buy some accessories for the scenes that we have down for sure. 

    For the indie coming of age portion, I decided to buy a number of jewelry pieces in order to fit the skater look. I thought that it would be a good way to kill two birds with one stone because I had been wanting to get some jewelry anyways. For scene I would be wearing some rings and I bought some bracelets and necklaces to see if it fits with the character. Jewelry is a big part of the "skater look" so I wanted to make sure that I got the whole look down to drive the point home about the character. We never really put much thought into the costumes for our previous projects, so I thought it would be interesting to plan it all out and have it change with each scene.

    For the last accessory, I decided to buy a pair of aviator sunglasses to complete my look for the action part of our film. The glasses are an iconic staple of many action movies and gives the feeling of a classic action film protagonist. 

A Second Opinion

     Now that we had a good idea of our story and we had a near complete screenplay, we decided it was time to get a second opinion from our teacher before we moved on. We didn't want to get too far into the planning process without getting some advice on our progress and making the necessary changes before it was too late.

    Luckily for us, our idea was met with positivity as she expressed interest in the idea and only had some minor tweaks to our screenplay. This was great news because we really liked our idea and it would be very hard to have to make big changes at the stage we are at now. One suggestion she made was that it would be better to not show the narrator at all instead of the man in the suit that we had before. After some thought we all agreed that it would work much better to our message to have the narrator as some sort of all powerful omnipresent being. This would make the narrator seem much more interesting instead of them just being a seemingly regular person wearing a suit.

    The biggest take away for sure was her warning to be aware of the time we had to work with. We only have around five minutes available for our film so we have to make sure that we don't go too overboard with the screenplay and go beyond our time limit. She suggested that when the story changes it should only happen three times to ensure that we have enough time left for the finale. So, the story would start off as an indie coming of age then most likely move into an action film and then a drama film. This bit of advice was probably the most helpful as we now had a clear idea of what needed to be finished and how to make it all fit within the time frame.

Screenplay Update

     Huge progress has been made with our screenplay for our short film and everything now seems to be falling into place! The fake movie script that I shared in my last post has now been built upon and a good chunk of our screenplay is complete. The draft includes all the dialogue and descriptions of the setting.

    The draft starts off with the main character skating and acting care free as he gets ready for the day, until he decides that the story just doesn't fit him. The main character goes against what the narrator says and runs off to make some changes in his life. This exchange with the narrator would include some back and forth with the two characters as they narrator fights to have a compromise. While we haven't written it yet, the scene would then change as the narrator decides to change up the story to see if the protagonist will like it better. 

    The screenplay then jumps to the end as the protagonist and narrator become fed up with each other as they can't come to an agreement. The narrator decides to pull the main character out of the story and into a void like room where there is a man in a suit. The man would present the script to the main character, signaling that he now has complete control over his story and his life. We wanted to get the ending down as soon as we could because it is the most integral part of the story that would drive the message of our film home. Now all that is left to do is to fill in the gaps and we will be one step closer to our finished product.

Fake Movie Script

     After we completed our outline, my group partner Oliver decided to develop our fake movie idea more by creating a script that the narrator will make the main character follow up until the main character decides to take the story into his own hands. The fake movie embodies the ideas of a coming of age indie film with all the cliches. It's filled with cheesy lines and are sure to make the style easily recognizable. Then towards the end, the film will subvert the expectation of the audience and quickly change tones as the main character veers off the script and the fake movie comes to an end.

    The fake movie script will also play an even more prominent role in our production, as the main character will physically grab the script and make his changes to it in the short film. From this point on I imagine a slightly chaotic tone will come forward as the character acts spontaneous and goes on with making his own story. Now the next step in this process will likely be to make the real script for the entire short film as we make our way closer and closer to our final product.

Project Outline

     As promised, here is the outline for our revised story that we made while on our voice call. The outline contains some potential ideas and general thoughts of what to expect in the film. It may not be the prettiest outline, but it serves its purpose and displays all the notes we made during our discussion of the short film. The outline details a general idea of how the story will progress as well as a short description of the "fake movie" which will be the indie portion at the start of the film before the main character decides to change his own story.

Outline:

CHARACTERS

• Protagonist - Supposed to be perfect     

• Narrator (VO) - In control of the narrative

OUTLINE

• Shrek Opening

• Scene Description - Motion Graphics

• Protagonist goes off script/Main character does not say their (full) line

• Cuts to IRL scene/Script 

• Narrator: “What are you doing?”

• Protagonist: “I'm not a fan of this script”

• Narrator: “Wdym? You’re the main character!”

• Protagonist: “I’m going to make some changes”

• Narrator: “No, wait!”

• Title Card 

• Next scene with description on scene (First act of film)

• Main character messes up/refuses to act properly

• Next scene with description on scene (Second act of film)

• Main character messes up/refuses to act properly

• Next scene with description on scene (Third act of film)

• Narrator: “This is the last scene, the climax, you’ve gotta get this right!”

• Main character almost perfectly completes script and then starts breaking into

            laughter

• Protagonist: “This scene is so stupid!”

• Narrator: “You know what?”

• Narrator teleports them to empty white void, like the screenplay itself

• Final argument (Protagonist: “Why would I want to live by someone else’s

            rules… The only line I’m going to follow is his own”)

• Narrator hands him the script, pans up to reveal the narrator is now the

            protagonist, he controls the narrative  

 

FAKE MOVIE

• The fake movie is a coming of age story, parodying the same stories

            romanticized by teens

• The protagonist is written to be a perfect, flawless character

• Scene 1 - Skating in neighborhood, Library, getting out of school, at home

            getting ready for school, football field

• Scene 2 - Reminiscing childhood

• Scene 3 - Outside during sunset reflecting on his future

Group Discussion

     The brainstorming continues! My group was able to come together and discuss over voice chat to refine our idea and create a rough outline for our project. We spoke for around an hour as we made some changes to our original idea. Discussions like this a surely going to become a regular practice as we continue on with this project and hopefully some in person meeting later on as well.

    Firstly, we all agreed that we liked the main idea of striving to be your own "main character" and we kept this core theme. The biggest change we made was to change the story from a fight between two characters to a fight between one main character and the narrator who is telling the story. We agreed that this new dynamic would be much more interesting and easier when it comes to conveying our message. As we discussed this new story we created an outline at the same time that I'll make sure to put in a separate post.

    The basics remained mostly the same, with the genre being a drama. A big change comes with the twist of it starting off as an indie coming of age type film until the main character decides to go against the script and narrator to form a more chaotic drama as the two character bicker between themselves. The story takes inspiration from movies like Stranger Than Fiction and will take some stylistic inspiration from the director Edgar Wright. 

Peer Review

     In class we had a peer review in which everyone in my class was split from their groups and put with random people in order to discuss our progress with each other. It was a good opportunity to bounce ideas off one another and get some necessary outside opinions. Discussing these ideas with just the people in my group is good but getting a fresh set of eyes to look at our work gives us an unbiased opinion that we might not have gotten otherwise.

    Most of the people in the peer review were pretty early on in their process, so there wasn't much to show from any of us. Despite this, we presented everything we came up so far such as our mediums and the genres we were thinking of exploring. From what I gathered, they seemed to like our idea and encouraged me to continue exploring it to develop it more. The activity was also helpful by giving me an idea of where other people we at in their projects, which reassured me by making me feel good with the point we were currently at. With all this new encouragement, I get more and more excited each day to continue on with this project and see where it goes next.

Brainstorming

     Recently my group has been discussing different ideas for a potential short film but it has proven to be harder than we thought.  We have already decided previously that we wanted to do a short film that includes aspects of indie type films and post modernism. We struggled to find the right balance of both elements while also focusing on making a story that will be interesting through the length of the film. We had to make sure the idea was entertaining but still had a deeper underlying message that drives the themes of the film. After a good bit of thinking, one of my partners Ryan came up with a great idea that we think would be worth looking more into.

    The basis of this short film idea was the idea that people should strive to be "the main character" of their own lives. This theme would be the main underlying message throughout the film and be what the audience would walk away with. While the whole story isn't fully developed, the main idea would be that there are two characters who throughout the film would fight with each other to gain the main character status. 

    While it is a good start, the idea is sure to change drastically as we discuss more over the coming days and weeks. The core idea is a very interesting concept that I feel would make the film unique and stand out against others. Its a perfect opportunity to play around and experiment with alternative narratives and create a piece that is both entertaining, yet innovative.