Week 8 Post 1

    The editing process has been going great. We don't want to call it a finished product because we are reviewing it carefully. As we have done before we always review and make sure that everything is on point before we end the process. The researching of different genres was crucial in order to figure out many things in the editing. This helped us focus on what was best for the genre we wanted to focus on. The filming aspect and organization of our film were very useful in order to make the editing as clean as possible. We don't want any misconceptions in our film so we made sure to focus on the continuity of our film and editing. 

    After we were set on the drastic change in our film we kept the same script and stories. Throughout the process of preparation, we switched our ideas a lot but kept the same core of our film opening. sticking and adapting to challenges thrown at us was absolutely crucial. We were able to do this through great teamwork and organization. After several discussions, we believe we were able to make the right choices.]

    Overall, we still have work to do before the project is over. This includes more reviews and discussions, but for these new discussions, we can use the past ones as a precedent to make the right calls in the future. Most of our changes towards the end were made because of the last-minute COVID-related accident that one of our group members had. Even with this, we were able to overcome adapt and manage. We are excited to finish our project and showcase our skills. 

Week 7 post 3

    As we get ready for the editing and reshooting, my group feels very confident about the work we have done. We tackled different aspects in our film opening that make it very complete. First, we can look at how the film opening presents the rest of the film to come. As I have stated many times before we wanted to create questions in our audience so that they stay engaged in our film. The best aspect of this is how diverse the film can be. In one way we present the characters, settings, and problem and in another way, we prove to our audience that the film is going to go somewhere.

    Although keeping continuity and getting perfect shots was difficult we believe that we showed technique and demonstrated a lot of what we learned through the year. I believe the editing will be a crucial part of this process but with the right decisions and skills we can certainly pull it off. The preparation for our film helped a lot even though we had a big last-minute change in our project. I'm glad to have a group that has worked very well together with every obstacle is thrown our way and it really demonstrates great teamwork, decision making, and skill. With this film, I'm sure we can combat many false preconceived notions that we have the best equipment to make a great film opening.

    Overall, now that we got most of our shots how we want them we will start reviewing footage and editing. The editing, as said before, will be crucial to portray our film. We have to make sure that our skill can hard work can be shown throughout this process. We are still discussing what type of editing platform we want to use. My group and I have come a long way but we still have more to show!

                                                                           (New setting)

Week 7 post 2

    After filming the base shots of our opening we are moving into the next phase. After the beginning of the film, we moved onto the next scene. This scene is where we show most of our skill and ability that we have learned through the year. We wanted to show the difference between what our character thinks is happening and what is truly occurring. We did this by switching between our character suffering and crawling on the floor to our character walking. This confusion can be used to our advantage to keep the audience engaged in our film. 

    My group wants to extend the audience's engagement in our film so we decided it would be best if we made a sort of "cliff-hanging" clip. In order to do this, we used another actor to pick up the substance that the past actor dropped off. This gets the audience thinking "what happened to the substance". Taking the shots we had to make sure the quality was top notch. For this, we had to take multiple clips from different angles and combine them to make them look as good as possible. For the ending shots, we followed our character back to his car. This builds suspense because the audience may think that something bad might happen. This is where we end the opening scene.

Week 7 post 1

    We started the filming process. We chose to meet up around one pm in order to have the right lighting for our film. We passed by several different filming spots that had great potential. We had to make sure that the spots weren't noisy and we could film there with minimal to no interruptions. We found a beautiful trail that we have seen before. These trails looked like the perfect place to make our film opening. The place was very open but restricted which gave it the perfect sketchiness for our film. There were several ways we could have shown the scenery. We decided to show it with a shot of our character's feet walking and then an "over the shoulder" shot of the scenery. 

    Next, we had to introduce the second character. We tried to make our character look as sketchy as possible by having him under a tree in the middle of the trails. The encounter between both characters has to seem somewhat natural but confrontational. We wanted as minimal dialogue as possible so the scene seems very lowkey and sketchy. It took many shots to get this right so the enditing can look as clean as possible. We took many scenes until we got the right ones that we wanted. When we were satisfied with the shots they were taken we went onto the next scene.

    Finally, it's the walk back to the car. With this walk right after our character took what was given to him we knew what scene we wanted to implement. We were going to use inspiration from a scene used in "The Wolf of Wall Street." The scene with the character crawling and using any means necessary to get to his car. We used this but implemented another aspect. Whenever the camera passed by a tree our character would switch from reality to what he thinks reality is. We wanted to focus on these scenes first and then we will edit and add new ones later on. 

    

Week 6 post 3

    A couple days away from filming we have to make sure that our group is set. This is when the unexpected occurred and one of my teammates, unfortunately, tested positive for Covid-19. This was a huge blow to our morale and everything that we have been building up. The situation was very unfortunate and we knew that we would have to make drastic changes to make this work. The number of people we could work with had been reduced and we had to figure out a way to keep the narrative of our film. We had to review the lines, actors, dialogue, setting, and even our film ideas and genre. We grabbed inspiration from films we studied and looked over them in order to figure out what approach we wanted to take. Our humor relied a lot on a side character for our film. Now that we didn't have this crucial side character to film with, our situation feels very restricted.

    We decided to go back to our drawing board and try to brainstorm a new idea out. This idea needs a strong base and we can do this by keeping some of the same ideas as our last drafts. We kept some of the same unique scenery such as the trails but put a twist in our film. We took inspiration from a very popular scene from the movie "The Wolf of Wall Street". In this scene, the character consumes a substance that leads to an experience where he can't move his body correctly and struggles to make it to his car. We wanted to incorporate some of this into our film but we aren't completely sure how to.

    Besides our inspiration, we also want to keep the bases of a substance that alters our characters' experience. This works well with the scenery and trails that we want to use. Although it is unfortunate that we were a member down we still feel confident that we can show our technique. What happened to us is just another obstacle that we can overcome. FIlming will be great and can lead to many great ideas.  

Week 6 post 2

    Now that we have worked on the screenplay my group and I want to focus on the storyboard for the shots we want to take. The storyboard is another way of making our shots come to life and helping the organization of the group as a whole. My group and I first talked about whether we want to hand draw and write our storyboard or we want to make it digital. Digital may make the drawings clear and have a nice format. On the other hand, the drawing may help us make our ideas more specific and it would be physically with us instead of a file on a computer. 

    My group discussed this in greater detail. The digital option would make it easier for us to work together because we can just send the file to each other. The physical hand-drawn version would require decent drawing techniques that allow us all to understand what is going on. Although we can meet up and work together on the storyboard it takes much more preparation and coordination. We are capable of this type of preparation but we think it would be most efficient if we work on it over a call on a document everyone could see. Due to this, we chose to do it digitally because it would be most efficient.

    When we decided that digital storyboarding would be the best option the only thing left was to find the best app for storyboarding online. We looked over several apps but came to the final conclusion that "Canva" was the best option to use. Canva has a large variety of templates and allows us to put our own twist into our project which allows it to be unique. Working on the storyboard has been challenging but we wanted to make it as professional as possible. Overall, we are excited to use our storyboard to our advantage and truly show our skill and attention to detail in our film.

Week 6 post 1

     We have begun the writing of the screenplay and gone over several key points that we want to add. We want the screenplay to be able to show what our characters are like and how they react to situations. This is very important because it can showcase The screenplay that can show our technique through the reactions and events that occur in our opening. The script in our film will be able to show the detail and work that my group and I are putting towards this project. Through engagement strategies that seem natural and the comments that provide humor our script is important. The screenplay can set a foundation and provide a lot for a film opening. The details of where the film is or what's going on can lead the audience through the film. 

    We want to make sure we include different factors such as fade-ins, scene headings, character appearances, transitions, dialogs, extensions, intercuts, and more. Being able to really make a correct helps us become organized, therefore helping our film opening. We are still struggling to figure out what our best options are to complete the screenplay. There are a few details that we have to go over. These include the types of shots we want to use and some small details on the dialogue. We may have to adapt the movie depending on what is said in the screenplay so it is crucial to have a complete screenplay done before we start shooting our video. 

    Naturally, we might have to adapt our actual opening depending on how it goes during shot taking but we always want to make sure to keep a strong screenplay. We reviewed a couple of screenplay software that could help us make our screenplay professional. Some of the ones we went over were Dramatica Pro, Save The Cat!, final draft, and more. We ended up choosing one that we were comfortable with. We feel confident with our screenplay but still, have lots to work on. 

     

    

Week 5 Post 4

    Now that we have a clear idea of where we want to film, my group and I can look for specific places where our shots could look the most professional. In the park that we are thinking of filming in, there is a lot of space for many different types of shots that could show great camera technique. The park has a great aesthetic that we could use to our advantage in order to make the shots look as good as possible. There is also great lighting and different types of environments.  

    The image following this paragraph is a trail that can look very scary if it is paired up with the right music and shots. There are a lot of different trials like this one which allows us to give our film a thriller aspect. The trail is also very beautiful and can be used to take talking scenes that represent the genre of our story. Just like this trial, there are many more settings where we can show our film technique. 

    Another great example of the different settings we can use is the one below this paragraph. This place can be the setting where everything starts and our characters have discussions. Then they can be lead to the spooky trails. The uniqueness of this environment can lead to great inspiration for new ideas. Over the course of filming, I'm sure that new inspirations will allow us to make our film even better. 

Week 5 Post 3

    After yesterday we noticed that there were ideas that are up for discussion. We did our best to update our story and make it as profound, clear, and thorough as possible. The story we had before was about a teen who gets called to go to a beach party where there are a lot of people which gives him social anxiety and makes him take an illegal substance, this substance would create humor and scary situations. There is a lot we have changed from that story and we changed them for good reasons. The story we have now is as follows, The boy gets a text from the "popular kids" at school asking him to hang out at a park, when the boy goes he is very unconfident. His social anxiety and the desire to fit in get the best of him and decide to use one of the illegal substances that the kids provide him. This leads to our character getting scared by things that the substance makes up in his head. This creates a villain which he tries to run away from or fight and which creates humorous scenes through the popular kid's point of view because of how dumb our character looks. Just like before, this story is not completely set in stone and there are some details that we want to work on. Naturally, we will be adjusting the film's details as we go in order to make sure that everything works together. 

    We came to the conclusion that this is the best story for several reasons. First, the updated version provides efficiency in our storytelling. Seeming that we have to introduce a whole film in 2 minutes this is the best approach that we can use to accomplish that. Next is safety, in our old film we were planning on doing a sort of fake party. Due to the current COVID-19 restrictions, we really can't do this because we don't want to have many people together without masks. My group and I also feel that we can express the character versus character story better if it is done in a smaller group of people.

    This switch of story openings allows us to display our technique. With a beautiful enviroment that we can use to our advantage, editing, and camera work this film has great potential. We want to be able to showcase a high tier of film understanding. This switch will allow us to do just that. Overall this switch is a huge positive, but we still have to be able to adapt to any problems that is thrown at us. 

Week 5 post 2

    My group and I met up and started discussing our ideas once again. We went over what type of film openings we want to make and noticed that there were some key factors we were disagreeing with. The first factor was the setting. As stated before we wanted to make the film as a teenage beach party. Upon rediscussion of this topic, we came to the conclusion that the beach wouldn't really work out. Due to one of my teammate's restrictions the beach wouldn't work. We also noticed that it would make our work more efficient if our setting was somewhere else such as a park. Thankfully, not too far from us, there is a perfect park with a lot of space and different settings inside the park. This park is a lot closer to where we are than the beach so instead of wasting time driving to the beach we could use that time to work on our film. The park also allows us to get more extras for our films which is a huge bonus if we want to keep the party aspect of our film.

    My group and I also discussed the horror aspect of the film. We noticed that since we only have 2 minutes it will be challenging to implement a new character such as a cop that is on the lookout for kids using substances underaged. This is still something that we aren't too sure about and we will discuss further in-depth later on. Another topic that rose to the question was the voice-over aspect. We noticed that with the right camera shots and editing we might not have to use a voice-over in our film. The downside of not having this voice-over is that we might confuse the audience, which would make it hard for them to keep up with what is going on in our film. We decided to look this over with different scenes, this way we can be confident that we made the right decision. 

    Over the ideas we analyzed, one struck out the most: the idea to use the substance as an excape. Acknowledging, that this isn't the right answer to life's hard moments our character decides to do this. This is a great way to cause paranoia in our audience. This can also cause funny moments because we can show our character doing funny things. This is an idea that we really want to stick with, but now we really have to build the rest of the film opening around it. After today we noticed that many ideas are up for discussion and we have to make sure we make the right decisions. 

Week 5 Post 1

    This week we started off by discussing music in our film opening. We discussed starting our film with no music and a long shot of our character getting a call. The only thing you can hear is television or some video games in the background. When the character gets to the beach we want to have a soundtrack that is similar to what kids our age would put. We can do this by finding uncopyrighted music that would fit our film or ask for permission to use the music in our film opening. We would want a beach/party background music soundtrack that lets the audience understand what is going on in the film. We are planning to use background music in different ways. One way we could use background music is by showing the character is comfortable with the situation and then our character can get into a fight with his mind. The music can be blurry and turn to a high pitch sound which creates a scary, sinister feel to the film. When the character snaps out of his mental fight we can continue on with the same music showing the contrast between problems.

    Another way we can implement music is by making it ironic. We have discussed this in the past but it is something that we want to make sure we get right. My team doesn't want to get our audience confused, thinking that we edited the wrong soundtrack on so we want to make sure the irony is felt through the film. We can do this by putting our character in an uncomfortable situation where he is asked to put on a song. This is one of our character's worst nightmares since he isn't the best in social situations he isn't sure what song he puts. Our character debates between songs and end up putting one that is the complete opposite to what the people want to hear. This creates a funny situation due to the rest of the character's reactions to the song. This situation can make the character's problem even worse when he decides to get desperate and try to fit in, which leads to multiple bad decisions. 

    The music we want to use has to be chosen very carefully. It has to fit in very well with our problem and lead to the next seance. I feel like with the right song choices we can make this happen. This can show skill through the process of finding songs we can choose that complement our film very well. Overall, music will be a big aspect of our film and will lead to great scenes. 

Week 4 post 4

    One important factor my group and I need to analyze is the type of comedy that we want to add to our film opening. Comedy can be broken into different types of subgenres. Since comedy can be very subjective my group has to make objective jokes so that the audience as a whole can understand it. Some subgenres are "black comedy"(making the audience feel uncomfortable and drawing laughter through controversial, "taboo", subjects). The next is "Burlesque" (sexual jokes), "Romantic comedy" (set on a love story), "Satire" (sophisticated humor), "slapstick" (physical pain), "Political Comedy", "screwball comedy" (ridiculous characters), "Farce" (Improbable plot), "Musical comedy", and "Parody" (making fun of an original film).

    Although we have many to choose from we have to find genes that best adapt to our film ideas. Off the bat, we can take a few comedy options out due to their subjectiveness. The first we can take out is "Burlesque" this genre wouldn't fit well into our film and could seem more inappropriate and uncomfortable than funny. This can lead us to the "Black comedy" debate, although black comedy has similar subjective aspects to Burlesque, we can add uncomfortable situations due to the horror aspect of our film. We can manage to turn a scary situation into one that creates humor and engages the audience. next we can look at "Satire", this type of humor wouldn't work in our film because it could be confusing to some in the audince due to the level of understanding they may need. Next is "romantic comedy" there are some aspects of this type of comedy that we can use but we wouldn't truly follow its strict guidelines. Since our opening is about a teenager we can definitely create some awkward interactions in romantic situations. "Slapstick" would be a type of comedy we would definitely use. The horror aspect of the film can play into this very well. Due to the problem, our character faces we can put him in unfortunate situations that may cause physical pain. Screwball wouldn't entirely work because none of our characters are crazy but we could try to implement a character like that can create this humor. Political comedy, parody, and Musical comedy both wouldn't work because of their subjectiveness. On the other hand, Farce could work and would compliment audience engagement because they wouldn't know what to expect next. Overall we can continue to look at new forms of comedy and truly see what works and what we could implement. 

    

Week 4 post 3

    My team and I went back to the drawing board and discussed some new ideas. Before finalizing anything we wanted to throw new ideas on the table, that way we are sure about what we want to do. We saw it would be pretty good to mix in, the illegal substance issues into our film. As a teenager, this is something you see around you more than you would expect. We feel that this is an important factor to bring to light which might help our film. The substance aspect works in our film for a couple of reasons.

    The first is that it simplifies the concept of our film. This makes it easier for our audience to understand the concept. Our idea right now would be character versus self but adding a substance aspect opens the door to having a character versus character problem. Since the party, our character is going to is know we can add a character that could be an undercover cop. This cop blends in with the kids at the party and is on the lookout for illegal substances. This could be the horror part of our film, we can make it as thrilling as possible by having the main character get mixed up in a substance. The character can view the substance as a way to get out of his problems and mental battles. This substance problem could show the audience how the actions the character is taking aren't good ones.

    This new idea could also help create comedy. By showcasing our character under the influence, embarrassing things could happen. Our characters could be doing things that have no correlation with each other that could create humor. We could add a twist which is that the undercover cop doesn't suspect that our character has done anything because our character is known for being a "goodie goodie". This could lead to even more humorous moments in the film opening.

    Although this idea could be a good twist and add more to the film it is still fresh. We would have to talk it over more and ask other people for their thoughts. My group wants to make sure that using this substance problem won't offend anyone or won't break any rules. The idea still needs more development but it does seem appealing. At the end of the day, we want to make a film the engages the audience and shows our skill and what my group is capable of and my team will choose the best option to accomplish this goal. 

Week 4 post 2

    One big aspect that my group and I are starting to go more in-depth about is our main character. We want our main character to be a teenage boy since it's something that we can relate to. Our main character also has some mental problems that he suffers some. The mental problems, as stated before, are a big part of the film's premise. Our group wants to continue building our character's image and how the people around our character interact with him. we can use this to our advantage in order to foreshadow our character's difficulties with social interactions. This engages the audience further and creates purpose in our film. My group wants to make sure that our character is as likable as possible. We want the audience to feel a connection with our character, and we can do this in several ways.

     First, we can make sure that our character is relatable to teens. We have talked to several students and teenagers in high school about social problems and how they react to them, these talks give us ideas and inspirations not only for our character but for situations that we can put our character through. Through more discussions with teens, we can make our film opening as accurate as possible which leads to better development of our genres. Making our film-accurate will lead to a relationship between the characters and the audience. This relationship is a way of hooking our audience and promising them a good film with just our film opening. 

    Apart from relatability, we can also make our character as likable as possible through the comedic aspect of our film. By providing humor due to the unfortunate situations our characters have been through the audience will build a soft spot for our character. My group and I can use this soft spot to our advantage by once again streangtheni9njg the relationship between our audience and characters. Overall my group and I still have a lot of ideas to create our character as likable as possible. The topic of characters seems like a topic that we will further discuss in the near future.

Week 4 post 1

    At the ending of last week, there were some group critiques that were given to my group. We decided it would be best to go over and review these critiques. The critiques went over several things some including the ideas that we have had and we have been wanting to implement into our film. First, we went over our genre. We explained our ideas for the comedy/ horror film opening. The feedback on the genre was positive. We also found out that some of the other groups were doing horror. The difference is that the other groups were not doing a comedic aspect, and they had their main problem as Character versus character. Our film will be character versus self which makes it more unique. We described a couple of ideas that we had such as the characters and inspiration from other films. 

    After my group finished explaining our ideas we listened to feedback. most of the feedback was positive but there were definitely some good tips that were given to us. One of the tips was for the setting of the opening. The setting of the opening would be a beach event that the high schoolers go to. The feedback from this opening was good but they told us to make sure we represent the reason for the highschoolers to be meeting up at a beach. We have to make sure to do this well, this way the audience doesn't get confused and mixed up on the events that are occurring in our film opening. 

    My group took this into deep consideration and talked it over. We agreed that a good way to represent the beach party plan would be at the beginning of the film. Our character would get a call from his friend inviting him to this plan. this is where the character first starts to panic. This panic is represented throughout the rest of the film. Thus call introduces important several aspects of our film and gives the audience something to look forward to. This beginning would show the skill we gave as a group and how it develops meaning through our film opening.