Film Opening

 Today I am proud to present... our final project! I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I do!

Click here to view my project.

Creative Critical Reflection

 After almost two months of planning, filming, and executing- I'm finally finished with everything. This is a very bittersweet goodbye, and hopefully, I'll see you guys later.

Click here to access my 1st Creative Critical Reflection

Click here to access my 2nd Creative Critical Reflection

Home Stretch

 My entire project is gone.

APRIL FOOLS!

In all seriousness, I have been looking forward to seeing what the final outcome of this entire project would be. Right now, it's looking pretty good. As I finish editing my CCR and reviewing what we need to do with my partner, I'm so excited to get to be able to show the world what we have worked so hard to create. 

As I was editing the video, I encountered a problem with my Premiere Pro in which there is a giant white block across my screen. I tried everything I could to fix it but to no avail. I was lucky in the sense that I had downloaded what I had edited onto my computer previously, but it did mean that I needed to edit on a platform that I wasn't so comfortable with. In the end, I'm extremely happy with the result and I'm sure that Mariana and I will want to make some minor changes before we publish the project tomorrow. We met up on Friday after school to ensure that we were both on the same page when it comes to our plans for the CCR and Phases of The Moon. 

Mysterious white screen in my Premiere Pro

Earlier this week, we met up in groups during class to review what we had going on with our projects. My group and I spoke extensively about the CCR process and what we were going to say and how we were going to do it. My group was very helpful and gave me a few ideas that I have included in my CCR. All in all, this is really the last time I'm going to be extensively writing for this project... a little bit nerve-wracking. I'll see you guys later with my final project!

One of my groupmates and I

CCR Time

 During our meetup, we also talked about how we were going to create our CCRs. The day that Mrs. Stocklosa reviewed the specifics of how to create our CCRs, Mariana wasn't there so I had to send her my notes. I made sure to text it to her, and she said that they were helpful. I really appreciated the compliment on my note-taking skills.  

Anyways, using my notes in person we were able to create a list of points we wanted to talk about when answering the four questions in our CCRs. We created a google doc and wrote down all of our ideas. I'm super excited to start writing the official script! Here's what we wrote down so far.

The Meetup

 As spring break comes to a close, Mariana and I decided that it would be best to meet up and shoot some backup shots as I had previously discussed. The two main issues that we wanted to address were sound and getting a few more shots to include in our introduction.

In the end, we were able to film more cleaning shots and we tried to include different camera angles, as I noticed when beginning editing that most of them were the same. It was very important to us that our camera angles are interesting when possible, to help keep the viewer engaged. 

Additionally, we spoke on sound. After about half an hour of browsing through some non-copyright websites for music to add to the intro... we couldn't find anything that we thought suited it. So, Mariana was able to get out her guitar and play something that we both ended up liking. I'm so excited that we were able to create something original for our video! This whole process was really fun and it was a nice way to end spring break while making some progress on our project!

It has begun!

 I'm so excited to begin this step in editing. I have successfully imported all of the clips that we recorded previously into Adobe Premiere Pro. I love this process as it lets me get really creative with what I create and I can't wait to show more. 

I have yet to be able to get super technical as we're still figuring out what sounds we want, whether it be music or foley noises (most likely both). Once I get home, we're going to get together and discuss these things so I can be sure to finish editing in a timely manner. Regardless, this is my favorite part of this whole process and I'm so happy that it's beginning!

THE FONT IS HERE!

As I was finishing up skiing this afternoon, I checked my phone and I had received a few texts from Mariana, I was so excited because throughout these few days I've been gone, she and I have been texting about the fonts. I thought that this would be a good update. I was right! She had sent me a picture of a few fonts that she had found!

Mariana and I's texts

After looking over the fonts a few times, and trying to picture what each one would look like as our title, I finally decided which one I liked! I told Mariana that I liked the one on the top left, and she agreed and told me the font was called CMU Serif. Although I'm not excited for my vacation to end, at least I have editing to look forward to once I get home next week! I'm super happy with how our font adventures turned out, and I'm getting more and more excited to see the final product!

Fonts, fonts, fonts...

 I'll have to admit, fonts aren't really my thing, so Mariana took the challenge of narrowing down the font search before I leave for spring break. While I'm away, Mariana and I will be sure to text as much as possible in order for this font-picking process to go smoothly. 

I know Mariana has a good eye for these things and, with some input from me, we will at least be able to get down to three or four fonts that we like. We have both previously agreed that a serif font will most likely fit the vibes of our movie, as most serif fonts tend to not have rigid corners and our movie isn't anything intense, so softer lines in the title will better relay that fact. I can't wait until we finally choose the font!

Phases of The Moon

 After a long day of filming, Mariana and I were both eager to start cleaning up and beginning the editing process. As we began to clean, I realized that after all of these weeks, we still hadn't given a name to our beloved project. As I stared at Amelia's "innspiration" board, it hit me. 

Amelia's "innspiration"board

Amelia's goal is to work hard enough to be able to open her own inn, "The Crescent Inn". Although the intro to our movie will only show Amelia working in order to get her inn, the rest of the movie would follow her through the process (or phases) of building her idea. So, when coming up with a title, I put together both the name of the inn and the premise of the movie to create the title "Phases of The Moon". After I explained to Mariana the meaning behind the name, she was on board as well. I'm super happy with this name, and now its onto the font picking!

Toxic Chemicals In My Car

 We filmed today! I'm so happy with how all the shots turned out, and after a long day of running around town and gathering some supplies we need and getting into some questionable places to get the perfect angle.. we have what we need! Everything went as smoothly as it could go thankfully. We did realize that our corkboard was looking a little bit empty so we decided to find some more pictures to add to it. We went to CVS to print everything we needed and then went back to Mariana's house to begin the filming process. 

Mariana printing pictures at CVS

When we came back, we rearranged Mariana's room further in a way that we thought better represented Amelia's character. We moved around some furniture and changed the bedsheets to give it a more mature look. We also made sure that the corkboard looked the way we wanted it before we started to film anything.

Mariana putting the finishing touches on the corkboard

Crouching in the back of my car to get the right shot

Next, we began to film. We started filming outside where Amelia gets her supplies out of the back of a car. We kept making mistakes, between me not liking the angle or Mariana closing the trunk wrong so it took a few takes and some contortion from me to get an angle I liked. We also really wanted to incorporate a shot of Amelia dropping her bucket on the floor, and we accidentally put too much water into the bucket. This caused a few spills on our set, but it did create a more authentic cleaning scene!!

A little bit of a blooper!

There was one particular shot that I really fell in love with and it just happens to be our final shot. I feel that it really helps summarize Amelia's love for her inn. I can't wait to begin editing all of this footage and I hope this section goes as smoothly as filming did. Mariana and I agreed that if there was an issue with any of the footage that we would refilm the scenes we need to during spring break. For now, here's my favorite shot from the entire day!

SEEN or SAN?

 Today is an imporant day in creating the correct filming environment for our project. We decided that we would be filming in Mariana's house. So, Mariana went home and started to set up some of our mise-en-scene elements. We made sure to order the corkboard that will be an essential part in telling our story. We also made sure that the living room would be set up similarly to the way we had designed it previously, so some things were moved. There is still some work to within our mise en scene, but I'm happy that we've gotten one day closer to filming! We've decided to film on Sunday, so expect a new post then. For now, here's what our set looks like!

A Story On A Board

 Today, Mariana and I were able to finish up drawing our storyboard! Hooray!! I'm so excited that this crucial step in the preparation process is finally finished and we can finally look forward to filming. As of right now, it looks like we're going to at least begin filming before spring break starts next week. I might start the editing process during spring break assuming we will have all the footage we need. 

I really enjoy how our storyboard came out; our goal was to not rely on dialogue to tell our story and I feel that we were able to achieve that goal very well. We will heavily rely on the shots of our corkboard, mentioned in previous posts, and a flyer that Amelia has posted to it to help show the audience that the inn is Amelia's goal. I'm hoping that when we start recording, our vision is able to come to life in the way we imagine. We are now taking a new step in our project and I can't wait to see how it goes!

Our final storyboard!

"Inn"side Our Character's Mind

 Earlier this week, we met with Mrs. Stocklosa to discuss our project. She suggested that we include something within our introduction that shows our character's goals, without using dialogue. She suggested that we give our character something like a corkboard where she can hang up her posters and ideas for her inn. This dream board will most likely be featured in a few shots within our introduction and will serve as a natural way for the audience to realize why Amelia is working as hard as she is. 

Because of a DECA competition my partner, Mariana, had to go away for the second half of the week. However, we still were communicating through text when she was able to find the time. She was able to create this dream board and I plan on discussing some additional things I want to add when we are able to see each other in class on Monday. Although, this dream board is an excellent start and I believe if it is used correctly within our introduction, will serve its purpose very well.

The Dream Board

I Hate Drawing

So when we began our storyboard, we got into a small argument over who was going to be the "brain" (the person who came up with the storyboard) or the "hand" (the person who drew them). Even though drawing is not one of my strong suits, I was nervous about taking the reins and thinking of the different shots we would be composing in our project. We eventually settled on the correct decision and, by the end, we were both coming up with the next shot and working together to begin our storyboard. Mariana definitely took the role of the "hand" however.

Although we didn't get very far with our storyboard today, we have a general idea of how our introduction will begin and how it will end. Additionally, we have the first few shots planned out. We knew that we wanted to establish in our opening that our main character, Amelia, is working hard to accomplish her goal. She is cleaning around peoples' houses to eventually make enough money for her to achieve her dream of owning an inn. So we decided that we would begin with different shots of her cleaning around a house just so we can establish that fact extremely early. We did not get much farther than that today, but we will continue to work on the storyboard throughout the rest of the week and hopefully come up with a title for our project, fingers crossed.

Mariana holding up our storyboard

Flying Popcorn Everywhere

 Today we were able to meet with our advisor, Mrs. Stocklosa, and speak to her about how our project is coming along. She makes sure that she meets with each group in our class to make sure that we're staying caught up with all parts of our project.

Initially, when we went up to her, we believed that this meeting would be more negative because we thought that we were slightly behind compared to the rest of the people in our class. The opposite was true, however, because after having a fun conversation with Mrs. Stocklosa about flying popcorn everywhere, she assured us that our project was moving at the correct pace. 

Along with the timing of our project, we also discussed some ideas of how to visually show our character's wants without explicitly stating it in a script. Since our character wants to be the owner of an inn, Mrs. Stocklosa suggested that we create a corkboard and include it in a few shots to establish our character's goals.

Lastly, she said that she agreed with our decision to change from a period piece to our current idea, as it would have been challenging to create the proper environment needed to make it look realistic. She also said that our current idea seems to have the potential to be good. Overall, this meeting was very educational and successful and I'm glad that it was as positive as it was.

A Long Week

 This week, we were placed in a lockdown on two separate occasions. This made it difficult for my partner and me to meet up in person, so today we decided to FaceTime and create a mood board for our film opening. 

The first thing we wanted to figure out was our character's name. We know that she is going to have a determined, hardworking personality so we wanted her name to reflect that. I went onto the internet and looked up some names that could roughly translate to hard-working. A name that we immediately both agreed upon was Amelia, which means hard-working in German. 

Next, we designed one of the rooms Amelia will be cleaning in our opening so we could get an idea of the vibe we were going for regarding the mise-en-scene when we get closer to filming. After this quick design, we worked on Amelia's mood board. We know that since she is going to be cleaning during the opening, her clothes need to match that activity. We decided that our character will have her hair in a ponytail and be wearing a plain t-shirt and jeans. 

Additionally, we changed our idea for Amelia's goal. Instead of it being a hotel, it will be more of an inn, as we felt that a hotel is too large for the personality we've been building for Amelia. We were inspired by the Dragonfly, and inn from the show, Gilmore Girls. 

The beginning of our mise-en-scene

Our mood board for Amelia

Group Collaboration

 Today, our advisor put us into groups without our partners to give each other advice about our projects. As a group, our main goal was to visit each person's vlog and have them tell the group what they had planned so far for their film opening.

I went first, I told my group about our plan to do a period piece and how we are starting to rethink it. However, I told my group that we are most likely going to work with the slice-of-life genre for our film. My group agreed that it was probably best to stay away from the period piece and liked the genre we had chosen to focus on.

Moving on to the other groupmates, we went to each of their blogs and helped make the backgrounds better, change the link, etc. if it needed anything. Each group member went through their ideas individually and we all tried to make helpful comments either supporting or opposing an idea. 

After the fact, my partner and I met up and shared the information we each learned during our time with our groups, although I didn't have too much to share, it was helpful to know that the decision we were making was the correct one and that we are headed in the right direction with our chosen genre.

Just A Slice

After many conversations with my partner, we realized that making a period piece dated so many years back would be highly challenging due to our lack of budget. However, we knew that we wanted to stick to the slice-of-life genre within our movie. But then comes the question, what exactly is the slice-of-life genre?

This specific genre focuses on relatively normal people and the day-to-day issues they may face. This down-to-earth genre allows viewers to become extremely involved with these issues because, most likely, it is something they can relate to themselves. Additionally, unlike action, horror, or sci-fi films, most of the plot is character driven rather than more unordinary/fictional problems.

One popular example of a slice-of-life film is Moonlight. This film follows a boy, Chiron, throughout the stages of his life and how he deals with the rather challenging circumstances that he must face around him. This film is a great example of how slice-of-life films are because the problems that Chiron faces aren't driven by unlikely/impossible things. This movie, although an extremely heavy subject, is something that many people can relate to in one way or another.

Although our film won't be addressing the heavy topics that Moonlight did, we can still learn from it. Our film will likely be targeted toward teenagers, as most slice-of-life films are. Our film will most likely include a coming-of-age aspect to it and might have a few jokes scattered throughout, especially because of our target audience. 

Overall, we thought that this category would be the best for our budget, we will continue back to the drawing board to find more specific ideas, but for now, we have decided on our genre.

Sources:

Kench, S., Sam Kench Sam Kench is an internationally-awarded screenwriter, & Sam Kench is an internationally-awarded screenwriter. (2022, June 6). What is the slice of life sub-genre - characteristics & examples. StudioBinder. Retrieved February 26, 2023, from https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-slice-of-life-definition/#:~:text=SLICE%20OF%20LIFE%20DEFINITION&text=Slice%20of%20life%20is%20a,coming%2Dof%2Dage%20genres.

Cleaning Up Our Minds

This past weekend, Mariana (my partner) and I were talking about what we wanted to do for our film opening. We realized that we probably wanted to do something in the slice-of-life genre with a target audience of 16-25, but what?

Watching many Disney movies while growing up gave us an idea, The Princess and the Frog was where we drew some inspiration from. At the beginning of the movie, Tiana has a dream to build her own restaurant but doesn't have the funds to do so. Through hours of hard work and multiple jobs, she is finally able to afford to buy her own building and make her dream come true. 

We wanted to rework this hardworking character into something of our own. We liked the idea of there being a goal to own something, so we decided that our character will be working to become the owner of a hotel. She will work jobs cleaning around peoples' homes and eventually have enough to buy her own hotel. We believe that we will include her reaching her goal financially in our film opening and the rest of the movie will be based around the process of her creating her lifelong dream. 

Looking Into It

 Today we started to look into what it would take to create a believable setting for a movie set in the 1950s. The thing that we looked into first was costuming because clothes can show a character's mood and give a proper introduction to the entire mood of the story, which an intro should do. 

As women in the 1950s had just gone through a major depression just a few years prior, in a prosperous time for the US financially, people were able to afford nice clothes. Our character will be more middle class, so no outfits too over the top. However, with this newfound financial freedom, women were able to acquire a variety of large skirts. Anything that accentuated the waist was considered to be "in" at the time. Along with this, women began to wear more casual items like trousers and shorts. Since our idea places our character on a date, we will most likely dress her in a dress with a tight waist and long skirt.

Some research is started in class

We needed to research again for our male character. Famous male actors and singers like James Dean and Frank Sinatra set the trend for men in the 1950s with, like women, an increasingly casual style. Hat wear made a resurgence in the 50s and bright colors became very popular. Additionally, waxy hairstyles became very popular. Sunglasses were a sign of wealth, so their popularity rose in the decade as well. T-shirts also started to become more common as men were able to afford more than just their dress shirts. 

An in-depth video about 1950s menswear

Sources:

Fashion history: Women's clothing of the 1950s - bellatory. (n.d.). Retrieved February 20, 2023, from https://bellatory.com/fashion-industry/Fashion-History-Womens-Clothing-of-the-1950s

Schneider, S. R. (2022, August 22). What men really wore in the 1950s. Gentleman's Gazette. Retrieved February 19, 2023, from https://www.gentlemansgazette.com/what-men-wore-1950s/