Settling

What's up blog. It's pretty hard making a short film when you're missing the actor for your main character. Even though Lynda agreed to help us, after writing the script we realized she would fit better for the "Sun" character (placeholder name that we still haven't changed) meaning we still needed to find someone to play "Moon." I tried asking M and J if they knew anyone, as I already did my part finding our first actor (sorry gang) but this resulted in no luck and we still didn't have an actor. To be honest, I was willing to sacrifice myself and be on camera (but I really really really do not want to and I'd much rather be DP/Directing) but luckily M decided to offer herself up. This actually relieves me to because with M being apart of our project, we don't have to work around someone else's schedule, and when we decide on our days to film, M can prioritize it more than anyone outside our group could. 

Now that we know M is going to be our "Moon" we started thinking of outfits for her to wear. We know that Moon is going to have slight physical transformation to reflect her inner confidence change, so ideally her initial outfit is a little drab, covering a lot of skin (think hoodies), while her final outfit is more colorful, wearing shiny/unique jewelry, and possibly tank top/cropped shirt (I'm imagining a really cute green top M has that would look pretty).

Drab outfit in the beginning inspo.

More confident, unique outfit for the end inspo.

Hopefully, having M as our actress can help us, maybe even J and M can find time during spring break to film clips for a teaser. If not, we'll have to go crazy after we return from break. Now off I go to Colombia...

Group Meeting

What's up blog. So we had another peer review/group meeting session and it was nice discussing with others with the progress on their different projects. The main advice I got was from Dani after she read our script, was that she felt the resolution wasn't strong enough, that it ends anticlimactic if our protagonists never meet. I completely agree and after class I brought this up to M and J and we agreed we would go back and rework the script. Here's what my other classmates were up to:

Duda
- Working on her documentary
- Improving upon her football team documentary 
- Filmed her interviews already

Dani
- Short film is sci-fi and follows an AI bot over 60 days
- Message wants to send is appreciate your humanity
- Needed help/critiques on the middle of the script and if the story made sense
- Working on props
- Filming over spring break

Sammy
- Working on documentary - theme overcoming insecurities - wants to create the last 5 minutes of the first episode
- Wanted advice for b roll shots: suggested using b roll where the interviewee speaks as well (interview shot wouldn't get repetitive)
- Also filming over spring break

Zain
- Working on a short film with Martina, behind schedule because writer has been travelling
- Script has been written but it's not the intended comedic vision so it needs to be rewritten
- Ideally want to use actual adult actors since it takes place in an office

Thank you Zain.

Getting to discuss was helpful, but also got my group worrying as we know I'm going to be out of the country over spring break and will likely have to film the majority of our project upon return. I suggested to M and J they could location scout while gone or try to film some promotional clips for social media so hopefully we don't fall too behind. 

A new attempt (socials and title)

What's up blog. So after my attempt at making a graphic went horribly, I suggested to my group to capture some graffities practically. In class, we decided to use a blank sheet of paper and pass it around to our classmates asking them to write something random, pretending it was something they'd write in a bathroom stall. My group liked this approach more as it added a human touch through the different handwriting styles of people, making it seem more realistic and genuine (and we'll remember this when we actually have to create our real bathroom wall). We did use some images from the internet as inspiration, such as the "would pee here again" and we asked for a couple doodles as well, including the "cool S" which is a  very popular graffiti symbol.

The result we're using for social media.

After filling the page, we were able to remove the white background and add in a fake wall behind all the colorful text. We're going to use this for social media purposes, such as our Instagram profile picture as well as our first post, announcing the title of the film.

Regret

What's up blog. SO I had this idea for out initial social media post to be a bigger picture than just the one post. That way we could have multiple posts drop at the same time and it would increase engagement. 

Where the idea came from (9-grid posts)

I talked about it with my team and we decided that 9 was too much but we discussed using the same idea but with 3 posts instead. That sounded easier to manage. So I opened up Canva and am blessed with my first time using Canva Pro (the features I've longed and dreamed about finally in my reach) and then I was hit with a wall of just nothing. I set up my template and everything but it looked so ugly I had to take a step back and rethink the whole thing.

Maybe because I color matched from an ugly bathroom stall?

The Draft

I would so much rather capture this practically and I'm gonna discuss that with my team. The draft is a DRAFT so maybe there's still coming back from this, salvaging it even. It's so ugly I'm so sorry Canva. 

New Schedule (Goals at least)

What's up blog.. I realized part of the reason we're a tad unorganized is because we haven't set targets for ourselves since we changed our whole plan so a new schedule is definitely needed.

My teammate J actually semi-started doing this during a team meeting we were having but they're definitely brain-to-the-page type notes, no polish or cleaning up, so that's why I think a formalized schedule will be better for all of us. I'll add these to a Google Calendar later so we can all share dates and reminders and make edits but my hopeful timeline is as follows:

Week 3/10-3/16

- Make initial social media posts (tease name and reveal name)

- Finalize plot outline 

- Create story board

Week 3/17-3/23

-Social media introduce creators and actors

-Use weekends to film or after school hours throughout the week

-Film at least enough to create a teaser 

Week 3/24-3/30

- Spring Break so M and myself are gone

- Discuss prior to leaving visions for teaser

- J edits teaser while we're gone

-Post teaser

Week 3/31-4/6

-Finalize shooting and refilm if necessary

-Edit full trailer and post

-Edit full short film throughout the week (I'll probably take the edit burden so J and M can focus on our print element)

Week 4/7-4/9

-Finish everything we haven't finished

-Write our Critical Reflections

-Cheer after we're done and cry that it's over

After typing that out I realize how little time left we actually have.. going to share this information with my group ASAP so we get our booties in gear...

Back in Business

What’s up blog? I was finally able to catch up with my groupmates with updates on our project because I was out of town for the last week as I was competing in a national TV competition for high school students.

Our team won one of the highest awards given by STN.

But now that that was over, I needed to return to school and continue pre production with my teammates. Unfortunately, I had missed a group meeting where our classmates in our A Level class period peer-reviewed each other on our ideas and progress and made some suggestions. Luckily, with the power of FaceTime, my team was able to walk me through some suggestions too keep in mind as we go forward in outlining our plot.

Some of the comments made from peers.

As of right now, our main goal is to really get started on the social media page because we know we really should have started as of last week, but since we were all busy, no one really got on it. So we definitely need to get it started this weekend and our other big goal is to have an initial storyboard or detailed plot outline by the end of the following week. The good thing is I’ve already secured an actor. 

Actor pictured on the right.

She’s really great and I’ve worked on film with her before so hopefully once we get our plot down, we can start filming as soon as possible because both myself and my M are going out of town over spring break... This means we'll be for the most part unavailable so I’m hoping to get everything filmed before the break so that our teammate J can start the edit while we’re gone.