Filming

FINALLLLLLY!!!!
We started to film and I could not be happier. We started off by filming our office scene.
WHO? Danny Cooke, Ben Eiglarsh and Sam B.
WHAT? We recorded danny walking into work, dressed as a professional businessman. It is shown that he is loved by everyone he works with
WHERE? Ben Eiglarsh's dad's office
WHY? This setting was perfect because it has large halls where we could record and a perfect entrance.

We thought this scene would take the longest to record but honestly, it did not take very long. By using our tripod, it was easy to keep the camera stable and to love it around. We attached the tripod to a rolling chair, which helped us add some movement to our film. Our group chose amazing actors for the part. This part of the opening has the most dialogue and it turned out great. Danny and Ben were able to memorize all of their lines and movements.

What's up next?? We will record Blake, Juan, and the beginning sequence next! We are hoping to get all of the recording done by Monday afternoon and start editing so we can finish by Friday. After that, we will have plenty of time of our individual CCRs and any last minute changes.

Seeeee you guys soon!!

Change of Ideas

Our original idea for the beginning sequence of our film was to introduce who our film starred and the directors. We were going to present this information to our viewers through a montage. The montage would consist of multiple pictures of little kids accomplishing their goals or dressing up as a career such a doctor or firefighter. This idea would have presented how little kids "dream" to grow up and accomplish their goals.
Although that idea would have portrayed the message we are going for, we only know about 3 little kids. We changed our idea to something a little more complicated but hopefully it comes out better. We will be filming actual careers. We will be showing a doctor, realtor, lawyer, teacher, and an artist.

Our Ideas for each career:
Doctor- The doctor scene will show the name of our production studio. This shot will have the background of someone wearing scrubs but will never show their face. A close-up of the person putting on their gloves will be shown. Then, the gloves will turn and the palms of each hand will say "CCS productions"
Teacher-  The teacher scene will show a teacher at her desk (not showing her face) and then zooming into an apple on the teachers desk. The apple will say "Danny Cooke"
Lawyer- This scene will be quick and sharp to show how professional the career of a lawyer is. It will be a case file slammed onto a desk titled "lawsuit" and then opened where the names of Blake Buffa and Ben Eiglarsh are shown.
Realtor- The realtor scene will use the prop of a sold sign being put into the grass of a front yard. The sold sign scene will be for Juan, our main character. We chose this for juan because it symbolizes his life being "sold."
Artist- The art scene will be for Camy, Sam and I. This will be a very artsy shot with a nice view. We will be taking it at Peace Mountain park in Weston. We will paint on a canvas all of our names.

Ready to record !!

I want to update you guys and let you know that this week our tripod will be coming in the mail. As soon as the tripod comes in, we will start recording. We are afraid that we are going to start to fall behind but hopefully recording will not take us long.

What we have planned: 

-Where we are going to record

-Who is going to be our actors

-We have cleared our schedules so that we are available to record all week

-What we will record with (tripod and iPhone 7 plus)

Our group has not yet created a storyboard but we have discussed and decided what we will be recording and with who. We are not worried about making a storyboard because in the past when we made storyboards, we ended up changing all the shots when we got into the actual recording process. It helps to brainstorm and write down the general shots we will record but not making them super detailed. If we do create a storyboard, I will be posting it for you guys to view!!!

This was our brainstorm sheet for casting!

Meet the cast

OUR CAST:

Guy walking into office: 

Danny Cooke

Actors in the office scene: 

Ben Eiglarsh

Sam Bialczak

Actors that are NOT the voiceover:

Camila Martinez (me) and Blake Buffa

Voiceover/ Man on bench:

Juan Echeverri

WHY WE CHOSE THESE ACTORS:

Lets start off with Danny Cooke, our businessman. We chose Danny due to  his personality. Danny is very outgoing guy and could play the role of an outgoing business owner, who loves his life. His part is one of the only parts that have a script and we trust him to memorize and act the way we tell him to. We also had to find someone who was around the same age as Juan (our voiceover actor). Danny and Juan are both seniors in high school. 

Next, we have Ben Eiglarsh and Sam Bialczak. We chose Ben and Sam due to their personalities, just like Danny. We wanted two men who could work in the office and look as though they enjoy their job. Ben and Sam both look the same age as Danny. They are all supposed to look like men who work together in an office so they cannot look too far apart in age.

The actors who are not the voiceover are used to add comedy to our film opening. Blake Buffa and I will be in two seperate cuts but will play the same role. We have not yet decided whether we will be on a jog, playing a sport, looking like a frat boy, just sitting on a bench but we will soon choose. Blake Buffa was chosen because he looks like an athlete and could also look like a preppy boy. I was chosen because of my good personality and I am willing to play whatever role is necessary to make our film opening look amazing.

Juan Echeverri was chosen because of his appearance. A "bum" or "guy who's life has been destroyed" usually looks "unkept". Juan has the long hair and long beard. We do not know anyone else who has that kind of look so we chose him. 

Hope you love our choicessss!!! 

Time management & Our tripod

HELLLLOOOOOO!!!

Due to my past experiences, I have learned that time management is an important component to creating a film opening. Our group has created a quick schedule with dates that we plan to have a certain task done. For our last project, Camy and I worked together and as partners, we realized that when we created a schedule with tasks, it helped us a lot. Personally, I am a huge procrastinator and need to have deadlines. I read an article that suggested creating a planning page before starting a project. Our group plans to have a week for editing the video since none of us are skilled at editing. Also, we believe the most important parts of creating a film opening are the editing and recording portions.

This is what our schedule looks like…

For recording, our group has purchased a tripod. After having a quick discussion with our teacher, we realized that our phone camera would be just fine for creating this film opening. At first, we did not understand how good the quality on our iphones were. I have a Iphone 7 plus, which has a dual camera. This website, gave our group information on all of the video specifications the Iphone 7 plus has. Along with the phone camera being good quality, we realized how much cheaper it would be for all of us to just buy a tripod. A tripod on amazon is about $30, in this case each member only needs to pay $10. The cameras we were looking to get on amazon were about $150, in this case each of us would have had to pay $50. That is a huge difference and we are extremely happy we realized it before it was to late.

This is what the tripod would look like...

References

Bruce Woodcock (2017). University of Kent; How to manage your time effectively.

Retrieved from: https://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/time.htm

Lars Rehm (2016, November). Next level: iPhone 7 Plus camera review; Digital Photography

Retrieved from: https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/iphone-7-plus-camera

Character Development

Our film will start with character development. It is important to introduce a character at the beginning of a film because it gets the audience intrigued. As The Script Lab says “...stories are only as good as the characters within them.” This is why we want to base the beginning of our film on character development. The beginning we have planned so far alludes from the main character for the first few seconds because it shows the opposite of the life our main character has but we believe it helps the viewer see how hard his life truly is.

In order to have good character development it is important to develop a background story. It can not just be any background story though, it needs to be one that the audience can relate to or feel for. Our idea is to make the audience believe this guy is rude and stuck up for no reason. We have created this idea because it is easier for people to hate someone than to like someone. Once the audience has grown hate for this man, we will force them to feel bad for all the bad thoughts they thought about him by showing them the truth about why he acts like this. The reason will be that his wife passed away and it changed his whole life. We are not 100% about that idea but we would not be able to show the reason in the two minutes that are given to us anyways.

I plan to fill out this chart next time I meet with my partners:

My opinion on character development:

When I watch a film, my favorite part is learning about the main character. I love when i get emotionally connected, it makes everything else about the film just come together. I want to be able to create a film that I would personally enjoy if i had to watch it. Also, I believe it is very important for the character’s personality be showed and presented to the audience. Setting is an important aspect of  a film but in my opinion, i would not stop watching a film because i do not like the setting. On the other hand, if i do not like the character i will stop watching immediately.

Just wanted to share brief research on character development with you guys. I have attached the link to a great website about character development up there ^^^.

References

K. Simpson(2012); Blogspot

Retrieved from: http://msksam.blogspot.com/2012_10_01_archive.html

The Script Lab(2012); TSL Character

Retrieved from: https://thescriptlab.com/screenwriting/character

The idea

The film will start with a businessman. The man will be walking into work one morning in a good mood. He is dressed very professional, in a suit and very cleaned up.

Example..

As he is walking into work it is intended that he owns the business and everyone who works for him loves him. As the camera is following him, the viewer will hear him greeting all of his workers and being very friendly.

After a couple minutes, the camera will pan and the viewer will be taken to a man laying down in a park. The man will be very sluggish with no clothes on, other than a piece of cardboard covering his private parts. In his hand, he will be holding a bottle of liquor in a brown paper bag. Since we are underage to purchase alcohol as a prop, we will use the brown paper bag over any glass bottle in order for the viewers to infer it is alcohol.

Example..

On top of these scenes we are going to play a voiceover. The voiceover is going to start off by talking about how nice it is to be “the boss” and have everyone love your presence. Then, as the camera pans, the voiceover will say “yeah that would be nice, but that isn't my life,” and then start talking about his terrible life. As the movie continues the viewers will learn how his life got to where it is now.  We have not yet written the exact script for the voiceover but we do know the first minute will be positive and the second minute will be negative.The idea of a voiceover came up when we realized we do not know anyone that is an actor. Having lots of dialogue means spending lots of time writing a script and memorizing it. By having a voice over, all we need to do is time it correctly and create one script rather than multiple. The easier part about having a voice over is that nothing needs to be memorized, it can just be read off of a paper and recorded. Unfortunately, we are going to have to find someone with a mature voice who can read the voice over for us because we do not think a good movie would have a voice over of a 17 year old.

Currently, we are in the process of finding a cast. Our group has run into the problem that we all look young. Since our film is about a grown man who never succeeded, we are going to have find either adults or kids our age that look mature. It will also be hard to find people that are willing to spend time with us for hours to film.

The idea came to us when we sat and thought about location first. Camy’s dad has a business office that is empty during the weekends and would be perfect for recording a film.

Since we are only creating the first two minutes of a film, we want it to be intriguing. By tricking the viewers, it will catch their attention and force them to keep watching in order to understand why this man’s dreams of becoming successful never came true. Our first idea was to just start it with the man at the park, but by only doing that the viewer does not get intrigued.

We have decided that the title of our film will be the man’s name. Next time we meet together as a group, we will be creating a name that suits the guy and that sounds like a good film title. Our group will also be creating a storyboard within the next few days so that we can start recording our film.

Top 3 genre choices

I recently did research on our top choices for genres and wanted to share it with my followers. I will soon be blogging about our final decision. For each of these genres, I have shared my sources.
1. Romantic:
A romantic film revolves around the love of two protagonist. In an article on TSL,  I read about romance and it mentioned “This genre usually has a theme that explores an issue within love, including but not limited to: love at first sight, forbidden love, love triangles, and sacrificial love.” My group is planning on having a film where a man is destroyed due to something that happened in his love life. Our film will take a twist on the idea of a “happily ever after.” We are not planning on having a sad film, that will make our viewers feel as though a “happily ever after” is impossible. The film will later on be added to either a drama or a comedy but our group has not decided yet.
2. Drama:
Drama films are defined as “serious presentations or stories with settings or life situations that portray realistic characters in conflict with either themselves, others, or forces of nature.” Sam, Camy and I also want to tell the story about man’s life. The main character (the man) went through something very hard throughout his life. He is shown in the beginning looking very sluggish and not well-kept. Going the route of drama means we have a lot of space to work with. Drama films are very brought and can include several types of plots. We may choose to do a drama but paired with another genre because we do not want our film to be completely drama. It will be easier for us if we can narrow down the plot.
3. Comedy:
A comedy film would be the most entertaining route to go with when it comes to genre. Comedies are created in order to loosen the mood for the audience. They are supposed to exaggerate everything in order to make the viewers laugh. The best comedies do not directly say jokes, but instead use certain kinds of gestures, acting and words to make the audience laugh. There are several kinds comedies, there are slapstick, deadpan, verbal comedy, screwball, black and white, and parody. If we do go with the genre comedy, we are not sure yet which kind of comedy we want to create.
References:
The Script Lab (2016); Genre Romance; TSL
Retrieved from: https://thescriptlab.com/screenplay/genre/romance
American Movie Classics Company (2017); Drama Films; AMC Film site
Retrieved from :http://www.filmsite.org/dramafilms.html
American Movie Classics Company (2017); Comedy Films; AMC Film site
Retrieved from: http://www.filmsite.org/comedyfilms.html

OUR plan

Since my group and I have not selected a genre yet, I wanted to share with you our plans that we have come up with so far......

We want to start off by thinking backwards. Our film needs to look professional and we do not have the money nor the technology to create the costumes and backgrounds that we want, so we need to find a location that will work for us. We plan to find a place with good lighting, nice colors, and easy to get to everyday. The actors will not be a problem for us due to all of us having amazing friends who would not mind taking their time to help us. Sam is a very outgoing guy so we all agreed he would probably be the best actor for our main character. 

Speaking of the main character, our group has decided that we want to use our introduction to introduce our main character. There are many different way to begin a film but want our audience to get introduced, understand, and connect to our main character within the first couple minutes of our film.

One of our others ideas is to use a voiceover. As we watched several movie introductions, we found that we all enjoyed the ones with voiceovers the most. The thing about voiceovers is they need to be timed correctly, spoken clearly and planned ahead. If our group can master doing a voiceover, through doing research, we will definitely be using that idea. Voiceovers are cheap and would be easier than trying to get all of our actors to memorize a script. We do not want to rely too much on other people. 

Before we start recording, we want to have everything planned out. In our past projects in class, I have learned that the best projects are planned. The longer a group takes to plan, the better their final product turns out. Recording and editing would not take so long if everything is planned and ready to go. Our group plans to create a story board of where and what shots we will take. In my last projects, I learned that the best way to plan is to creating a calendar with due dates. I am personally a procrastinator and if I do not have certain dates to get things done, I will not get them done. 

Our group will get together again soon and figure out the genre and what the best setting for our project will be. From there we will come up with a plot and create a calendar with due dates. The calendar will guide each of us and force us to get everything done.  

Thank you for keeping up with my film!! See ya soon

 

Our 1st discussion

The first time my group came together, we decided to brainstorm ideas for our movie's genre.

THE STEPS WE TOOK

    1. Wrote down every genre

• Our group did not know every kind of genre from the top of our heads, so we had to do research to find out every kind that has been created.
• We then selected the ones from the website that we were individually interested in.
• Our group wants our genre to be liked from all of us not just one member.
• We figured that if we all agreed on the genre, we would all enjoy coming up with ideas for the movie.

    2. Eliminate genres 

• Together, we all did VERY brief research on each genre. 
• As we went through each genre, we decided whether we liked it or not.
• If we did not like the genre, we crossed it out.

    3. Viewed several movie introductions that were in our final options

• We found that many professional movie introductions were too expensive and impossible for us to do.
• As we watched these film openings, we figured out that our phones were not going to be acceptable cameras to use while we record. Camy, Sam, and I decided that as a group we will buy a hand-held camera with better quality than our phones. We are not going to buy one that is too expensive but one that each of us will pitch in $20-$40.
• As we watched films, we came up with ideas but none that we all agreed on.

Camy, Sam, and I decided that we are going to aim for either a drama, romance, action or comedy. All of the ideas that came up during our discussion were one of these four. We have not yet chosen which we are going to use but stay tuned and I will let you guys know ASAP!! 

OUR BRAINSTORMING: 

The beginning of it all

HELLLOOO!! I would like to start off by introducing myself.

My name is Camila Martinez, I was born in Kendall Florida and raised in Weston Florida, I attend Cypress Bay High School where I am a focused student. Along with a being student, I am also a cheerleader year-round. I have two older brothers who are constantly protecting me and guiding me. I live in a home with my mom, my oldest brother, my cousin, my aunt, my uncle and my grandma. Let me not forget our two dogs!!  You can say we have full house and that it gets a little hectic around here sometimes. Overall, I would say I am a very outgoing, caring and selfless person.

Things I love 

• Watching movies
• Spending time with my mom
• Hanging out with my friends                               
• Coffee
• Trying new desserts 
• Playing with puppies

Things I hate

• Snakes
• When people chew loudly
• Rude people
• Being ignored
• Having nothing to do 
• Tests

NOW, lets talk about my project.

I was assigned a project in my Aice Media Studies class where I have to create my own film opening. I will be working along-side with my partners, Camy and Sam. Throughout my blog I will be updating my followers on the pros and cons about our project. 

This project truly excites me. It will be very satisfying to put together a piece using all the skills I have learned throughout the school year. In the beginning of this year, I honestly did not understand what course I had signed up for. Someone had told me last year "Take media studies, all you do is talk about social media and play on your phone." YEAH RIGHT!! That will be last time I ever listen to anyone about which classes are easy. 

I was surprised when I came into class and we started learning about shots, angles, composition, and sound. But, I was even MORE surprised when I fell in love with the subject. This course has honestly made me have a passion for media and all the hard work and dedication that goes into creating a film. It would have never crossed my mind that I would enjoy studying media. 

I cannot wait to see what Sam,Camy, and I can create when we all put our creativity together.

CONTINUE reading my blogs throughout the duration of my project as I have learned that creating a film opening is not all that easy. I will be posting about my planning process, what complications I run into, what things I am satisfied with, my opinion on ideas and at the end, I will be posting the FINAL PRODUCT with a complete analysis on the process and how it turned out.

See you next time!!