Group meeting

 Hello hello! Today I met up with a group to talk about my project and give me some insight on edits I can make to it. First things first, I'm totally dismembering the character of Alex and am going to replace them with Tina. I am doing this not only because I'm on a tight schedule and need to start filming soon, but also because I believe it would help develop Tina's character and show why she has to be so "perfect". 

Today in our groups, Kyria and Martina came up with a good solution to my poster situation. This is having the poster be something like the moonlight poster.  

<<Making the poster like this highlights the twins and their specific color palettes as the lighting. I really liked this idea for the reason of showcasing the two characters and since their twins, it'll be easier to look at while still looking cool. 

It's really hard to describe through words but that's as best as I can do.

As far as the topic of actors go... haven't found any minus the 3 that I have. BUT I AM ON THE HUNT! I'm asking around and am creating a filming schedule as we speak.

I've gotten confirmation from Carlos saying he would love to act in it

I am still working on the title and film schedule and am being helped by my good friend John (one of the last existing giants). Until then <3

P.S. Anna came up with the great idea for a song of the day so at the end of every blog I'll embed a song. 

Today's Song Of The Day: Another Time by Anderson .Paak,NxWorries, Knxwledge

I got let go from my job.

Yeah... it happens... and this only means one thing... I DON'T NEED TO SCHEDULE OFF FOR FILMING WOOHOOOOO!!!!!!! It was a magnificent time working at my little movie theater job almost every day for the past year and a half, but everything happens for a reason. But that's enough sulking, time to get down to business. Today I will be focusing on the colors I am going to use for my second trailer. 

My second trailer will give a feeling of a darker point in someone's life, something that they never can get out of. The colors I want to use for this are greys, blues, greens, and muted tones.

these colors in specific.

I want a very sad tone in order to portray how Alex is truly feeling, even when around friends. Although this is how they feel I want to switch it up with lighter tones when Gabe is introduced in the film. This will illustrate how much of a help Gabe truly is to Alex and how happy he makes them feel. These colors will play a role in the costumes, lighting, and time of day these portions are shot. 

I've come to the decision to challenge some gender norms with this piece and make Alex gender-neutral. This would bring in the LGBTQ+ community, and also help get the word out there through the press. I am still yet to find actors to play these parts so I will post something about it on my social media page and hold auditions maybe.

I'll keep you updated if any news is to come up. Until then <3

SSD

 Finally Friday… the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the trees are dancing, the beach is calling, and no more lockdowns in school. Today is senior skip day which means no more getting trapped in a freezing room for six hours, just me and the beach… after this blog post of course. Today is the day I finally figure out what colors I am using for my two trailers.

I would want them to reflect a different feeling on the audience, one being a feeling of nostalgia and the other being a more reflective, low time in someone's life. I want these two trailers to be severely different in color grades but have similar emotions produced. 

My first trailer, which is the one with Madison and Tina, will be the one that is nostalgic. This will contain lots of bright colors such as orange, yellow, white, pink, etc.  This will show that this side of the story progresses positively and will have a happy ending. I want to use a lot of daytime colors, and make it feel like the whole trailer is giving off a "childhood summer". What do I mean by childhood summer you may be wondering. Well, remember when you were a kid and you and your friends went to the beach all day every day without a care in the world? Yeah, colors that make you feel like that. 

<< This to be more specific

Of course, the lighting will play a big role in this, but we'll cross the bridge when we get to it. But for now, that's all I've got for you today. The beach is screaming my name.

I'll discuss the color palette of the next film with you another time. Until then <3

Lock down 2: electric boogaloo

 …This is starting to feel like a sick joke. It is the day before senior skip day and I’m stuck in a freezing room since 7:40 am and now they’re saying they dont know how long this could last. So I’m back! I need to come up with more characters but this one I feel like I should start with the other main character. I havent found an actor yet so I was thinking of giving the character a gender neutral name like Alex which I liked a lot. 

Alex struggles a lot with depression, and parental issues that they don’t really like to take seriously while in the company of others but really is dying slowly with it. Alex is a down to Earth, kind hearted person who is highly influenced by myself. Alex finds joy in making others laugh and have a good time, even at their own expense which doesn't allow them to fully heal from their trauma and issues they have. Alex is afraid to be alone and disliked, but one person always always stuck by their side. This friend character is named Gabe who is a mentor to Alex and helps them through all of their issues and is the only person that truly understands since Gabe has been through this as well.

Gabe is based off of my good friend Carlos who played this role in my life for this past year. He made me feel not alone and understood in a lot of my lowest points. He served as a mentor in a lot of what I did, especially at work.

Picture of Carlos (right)>>

Now that we have the main characters out of the way I will return tomorrow with more technical elements and a draft of a filming schedule for my first trailer, which reloves around Madison and Tina.

Lock Down: Characters!!!

 Happy Tuesday… is what I’d like to say if I wasnt stuck in my english class for the past couple of hours. I was going to wait until tonight to write this blog but I am currently in a lockdown so I thought I’d get this done since I wont be on the move for a while.

As my research has come to a conclusion as far as genre and story, I decided to start and come up with character names and descriptions. To start off this attempt of naming, I decided to start with the identity crisis character. I has a friend named Madison that has had this issue and is very open with me about it and is kind of my primary source for information when it comes to this. So I felt the name Madison works well and its a nice little tribute to my friend. The role of madison will be played by 2 people, but heres the twist… THEY’RE ACTUALLY TWINS!!!! The first one (the one that primarily will be playing the role) is Sydney, i feel like the character will fit her atheistic very well and that she is literally Madison. Very quiet, reserved, and a bit intimidating at first glance.

PICTURE OF SYDNEY HERE>>

The other person will be her sister breana, who is gonna play both madison and her sister… whose name i will be revealing later in the blog. I want to use breana to really show how similar these two are and how they were often confused by strangers, teachers, parents, and even friends. Since Sydney just went through a hair transformation so I could use that in the trailer.

PICTURE OF BREANA HERE>>

Breana will be playing the part of Tina, who is the exact opposite of who breana is as a person. Breana is a very kind hearted, level headed, easygoing, and touch skinned person… which differs drastically from her character. Tina is a self absorbed, egotistical, sociopath that thinks the world revolves around her. Tina is… kind of a bitch that takes out her insecurities on her sister. Madison often gets compared to Tina and is talked down upon by everyone around her. Eventually Madison and Tina will have a bad fight that turns into a bad bad bad thing for both which will be shown in the trailer.

The code green just came on so this concludes what I will say for this post and will be back on Thursday after more brain storming 

Genre exploration

 Hello, I have good news! I have researched my genres and how they work. The main genre I researched was the coming of age genre. I watched videos on youtube and checked out some articles, but the one that stood out the most was a video essay on youtube (which you can watch here) that really explains the genre fully and made me think about new things. One of which being the color palette of the film. This topic brought up questions that I’ll need to answer to find a fit for my project. How do I want my audience to interpret the film, and how do I want them to feel while watching it. Coming of age films usually centralize on the free feeling of adolescence and being in the “good old days”, a nostalgic feel that romanticizes your teenage years. Films that incorporate these feelings are Mid 90’s, Last Summer, call em by your name, the kings of summer, boyhood, and summer of ‘03. These all have specific color palettes that give off different feelings, as explained in the video essay. I feel like finding out how I want the audience to feel is going to play a big part in how color is going to be used in my project. I focused a lot on sound elements last year and I feel like this year lighting and color is my next challenge. 

I can definitely incorporate signature lighting use in my project, and all aspects of it. Since I did take 3 years of photography and am currently in the AP 2-D art and design class, lighting and framing won’t be as challenging as I am anticipating. I am really excited to start on production but I do need to figure out some stuff before I do, such as characters and a script. 

As I work on these things, I bid you fairwell and shall return once the week begins again. Okay… bye <3

Update from the workforce

 As I sit here at work, writing my blog on my break, i had an epiphany: What if these characters don’t know each other but constantly show up in the others trailer (in the background or as a cameo) to subconsciously make the audience recognize the character and have a weird sense of familiarity when watching the second trailer. WOW talk about a run on sentence… anyway, i know that the idea is kind of a long shot and probably not the best idea but I feel like it’s a good way of connecting the two characters in a way that is subtle and effective. 

Thinking about how I’d want the trailer to be, I had to think about the movie and how it would look as a whole. This thought process helped me come up with the idea of splitting up the trailers and not directly connect the characters and give them a close relationship. I’d want the film to be structured in such a way where it seamlessly transistions from one character to another without the audience really realizing. Again, this is just a thought and not exactly how I’ll be doing it since I will consult Mrs. Stoklosa about it and get her insight once I’m able to.

Thats all I can right about at this very moment since my break is almost done. I will post tomorrow with genre and target audience research, as well as hints of teaser reasearch.

Until then <3

What is the point?

I know, I know, you’re done waiting for me to talk about the plot and plan of the trailers. After a lot of time and consideration I have finally come up with an idea. The trailers will be split between two main characters suffering with their own issues. The first trailer will challenge an identity crisis and how it effects an individual. The main character (who I have not come up with a name for yet) and their sister are identical twins one of which is the popular one and is very egotistical and often rips on the main character. The main character has a small, tight group of friends and they all joke about this issue that she has. But, what the group doesn’t know is that the main character is truly struggling with their identity crisis and is going through a hard time (shown in trailer) making extreme changes to herself to differentiate herself from her twin. Of course, she is not the only one with a big issue but, a friend (might make it a love interest) also goes through home issues resulting in self harm and unhealthy coping skills. Although this person struggles with this he doesn’t let it be taken seriously and often jokes about it (kinda like Pete Davidson).  Thats what I have so far but have talked to others about the idea and they’ve liked it so far. I definitely need to develop my plot more and really pin point what I’m going to do. 

In the mean time, I have started to look for actors and someone to create a production logo which i’ve gotten a few responses from.

This is from my good friend Breana, who also plays the “cooler twin” in my trailer. who She’s is a very good artist, she will be helping me an awful lot throughout this project.

This is all I have for you today, or for this point in time for today rather. I’ll update you on more details, research and plans.

The Day of Reckoning (research)

 The day we all knew was coming is finally here, the start of my research. Today I've started by just searching "AICE media studies final project" on youtube and watched... more than I am proud to admit. A lot of the ones I've watched were really good and showed me what to and not to do. One of the ones that I watched and stood out amongst the rest was called "The Places We Used to Go" by Camson Alevy. These audio elements were well expressed throughout the short film and worked very very well, especially with the incorporation of the phone call and the news report. The cinematography was very well done as well with the use of jumpcuts and just the way some shots were framed. I won't nerd out about the specifics but it has some elements I'm definitely incorporating into my project this year. 

I also took to the internet to research the target audience of the coming-of-age genre. By taking to the internet, I mean going on google and typing it in the search bar and reading what pops up first.

Once I clicked on the link and discovered more about the genre I decided to watch some trailers and movies in the genre. I re-watched mid 90's which was one that I researched last year and really liked but didn't really use for my film opening.  The film revolves around a child trying to fit into this skate culture and this group of friends that took him in. As the film goes on it shows the struggle this kid goes through at home and for himself which is definitely something I'd capitalize on in my ideas.

Thats all I've got for now, my next post is going to be purely figuring out the plot of my trailers.

The Journey Begins…

Today I am starting to figure out what my plot and the whole story is going to be. I started doing this by opening up YouTube and started to watch a lot of trailers to try and get an idea of what genre I am following. This journey of drowning myself in trailers has resulted in me choosing to go for a comedy/coming of age film for the genre. Very generic, I’m aware, but it’s something I’d like to see and watch over and over again. This clicked for me after watching a lot of A24 trailers, especially the trailer ‘When You Finish Saving The World’. Oh man did I LOVE this trailer, It feels relatable and makes me want to watch it, I also loved the kinds of music.

I want my trailer to be comedic but also with serious tones and tough subjects, since that is how I am as a person, making light out of serious and darker situations. I have a very big vision in my head which I would need to narrow down for it to work. My story would be focused on two different characters that go through personal issues that are a bit controversial in film, the two trailers will focus on each of the respective characters of the film in two different color grades. The posters will have both characters with their color grades clashing, kind of like the borne identity poster. 

That’s all I have for now,  my next post will be research and diving right into finding a plot. See ya soon!

Planning blog

 Week 1: 

Figure out genre

Develop plot

Start researching!

Post blogs

Week 2:

Continue to research

Finish up plot development

Post blogs

Week 3: 

Research some more

Start writing script

Start shot list

Create social media account

Start to cast

Week 4:

More research

Finish shot list and script

Post to social media

Finalize casting

Week 5:

Plan production

Shoot teaser and poster shots

Post to social media

Post blog

Week 6:

Finish production planning and start shooting

Edit teaser and poster (finish them)

Post teaser and/or poster on social media

Post blog

Week 7: 

film more and edit first trailer

Post on social media

More posters and teasers

Post blog

Week 8: 

Write CCR 

Post on social media

Finish filming

Edit trailers

Week 9:

Finish editing trailers

Post social media 

Edit CCR

Week 10:

Finalize trailers, CCR, teasers and posters

Post on social media

Post blog 

The start of something new.

 Hello again, I’m back and here to stay for the next 10 weeks! After a extensive time thinking about what I wanted to surround my life around for the next 2 months. I have decided to do the film promotion project since I feel like that’s what I would enjoy the most. After Mrs. Stoklosa told us about the contents of this project I knew this one was for me, especially having a practice project for it literally right before I started my portfolio. I had a lot of fun filming the trailer and making the posters (shown below) so I feel like not only not only is it an assignment but a fun activity I’d do on my own.

While writing this blog I talked to my friend wade and asked him what he was doing to maybe get inspiration and while we were talking I was telling him how hard it was to find songs I could use without being it being copyright. He was telling me about this website called epidemic sounds which finds music catering to the mood/genre you’re looking for and they’re all royalty free!!! Im so glad he told me about this so I dont die trying to find music online. 

So now that I’ve found out what project I’m going to do all I have to do is figure out what the plot will be which is undeniably the most important part of this entire project. I also need to figure out a schedule for the project which will be stated in my next post. 

That’s pretty much everything for now, but I’l be back dont you worry!