Creative Critical Reflection

     All good things must come to an end, and the end of the journey I've spent the last 9 weeks writing about here has reached its end as well.  I'm happy to present to you my Creative Critical Reflection.

Enjoy the show.

     I'm sort of surprised to find myself thinking about how much I enjoyed writing this blog.  While it was something I didn't mind doing at the time, I haven't realized until now how fun I found it to type out my thoughts and feelings while working through a project.

     I hope you enjoyed keeping up with my blog, watching as our project progressed, and finally getting to see the culmination of all our work.  See you around!

Flame: Short Film Opening

    It's finally here.  After 9 weeks and half a pandemic, the penultimate blog post has arrived at last.  I'm proud to present to you our completed short film opening!

     I spent about 7 or so hours today editing audio, and I'd be lying to you if I said it was enjoyable.  But art requires suffering, and all that time was spent ensuring (with Sil's counsel) that all of the sound meshed perfectly with the video.  Formalities aside, I'm just really glad we're finally done with this.
     My next and final post will feature my Creative Critical Reflection.  It should be published on Friday unless I'm able to finish it sooner than I anticipate.  See you then!

Week 9: I Realized I Needed Another Post So Here You Go

     So funny thing.  I did not realize that our short film opening was no longer due tonight, but is instead due tomorrow.  This misunderstanding led to Sil accidentally stressing me out of my mind as I was afraid I'd have to work down to the wire on finishing up editing.  It also led me into thinking that my second blog post for this week (April 6-April 12) would be our completed opening.  Since it's not, that means that I still need another post for the week.  Here we are now.

     Fortunately, I have plenty of stuff to talk about anyway since I've spent this time doing editing.  

Adding Audio to Video

     I've mentioned this a few times in the past, but let me bring it up again as a reminder: all of the audio in our opening is added in post.  Lucille's, even with barely any customers present, is a noisy place due to the music and people in the kitchen.  As a result, all the audio, including the dialogue, is being added to silent footage.  This means that Sil, Sil's friend Danna and I have had to read our lines into a camera and I have had to take the audio from those videos and add it to the opening, syncing it up with our mouth movements in the opening.  It's not as bad as it sounds, especially considering the video I'm getting Danna's lines from is just the video Sil used of her for the holograms, which makes syncing up the audio way less of an issue.  I'm just hoping against hope that our lines are being read after the fact at the same speed we were speaking when we filmed.  Other than that, I've added in some sounds for background noise such as diner noises, electricity buzzing, and air conditioning humming since the scene takes place indoors.

My Computer Does Not Like This

     There's been a tiny bump in the road that's made this process just mildly more annoying and time consuming.  I'm using my laptop for editing, and let me say, it and HitFilm do not like each other.  On one occasion, my computer froze up while editing and needed to be restarted.  On another occasion, HitFilm "encountered an error" or something and had to shut down.  The most annoying part is that when trying to play the video in the little preview window, it's so choppy that you can't even watch it.  Now to be fair, HitFilm warned me as soon as I installed it that my hardware was out of date.  However, I'm not gonna install another software.  I don't have the time or patience.  I've simply been forced to watch the cut in my Google drive and then place the audio files based on the timestamps where the lines are spoken.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.

     Anyway.  My next and second to last post (for real this time), which will be coming out tomorrow, will include our finished opening.  My final post will be published by Friday at the latest and feature my CCR.  See you then. 

Week 9: Final Thoughts and Reflection

     The final week is finally upon us.  In these last few days, I'll be adding the dialogue and sound effects to our film opening since Sil is finishing up on the visual effects.
     If you recall, in the last post I did as a sort of outline for my CCR, I did not include my final thoughts as is required for the video.  This is because we were still not completely finished with the project yet and I figured it'd be a little premature to give my "final thoughts" before the actual finale.  However, due to the time restraints upon me and the fact that we'll be done in the next three days anyway, I figured I should just give them now.

     This project has definitely, without a doubt, been the longest, most complex school assignment I've ever worked on.  No project I've ever done has required this much planning, communication, or time dedicated to the post-production process.  Everything we've done over the year in class has helped build toward this, and even after that there have been new things that we've had to learn to do after starting this assignment. 
The first 2 weeks were dedicated entirely to research.  Researching genre characteristics, researching films from the genre, researching mise en scene elements, all that good stuff.  A lot of it was sort of fluff to have work to log before we came up with an idea for our film's story, but it ended up being relatively helpful in the long run.
Weeks 3-5 were all preparation for filming.  Script writing, story-boarding, contacting Lucille's to ask to film there, and finding actors was all done during this time.  That last part about the actors got up-ended by this whole coronavirus thing as our actors were no longer able to show up, meaning we had to fill the roles ourselves last minute, something I'm still not pleased with as I hate acting, especially on camera.  This problem led me to lose faith in the final product of our project for a bit, which is very ridiculous in hindsight considering it didn't really have an impact on anything in our post production process.  Just goes to show what a negative Nancy I am.
Weeks 6-9 were dedicated entirely to post-production.  Sil worked on editing visuals (including her success in figuring out how to edit in a hologram) and I worked on doing the audio.   Due to the environment where we were filming, all of the audio had to be added in post.  This included the dialogue, meaning I had to sync up separately recorded voice lines with the mouth movements and correct timings in the videos.  Having to do this on top of adding sound effects was very time-consuming, but you've got to do what you've got to do. 
A year ago, I never would have imagined being able to help produce something of this quality, even if it's nowhere near that of professional productions.  I can say that at the end of the day I'm very proud of the opening that Sil and I have produced.

Week 8: Reflection Questions

     For today's post, I'll be addressing the questions we're required to answer as part of our "Creative Critical Reflection."  This will serve as sort of a rough draft for the answers I'll be giving in my actual CCR video that I'll be making this week.

1. How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

     As discussed in the article "What is The Current State Of Diversity in Science Fiction Film" from A Plus, while the science fiction genre has begun to see more diverse representation in its casting choices, it is still a genre that is dominated by the presence of white men.  This is reflected in the genre's traditional target audience, which, when looking at the audience demographics for most science fiction films, seems to consist primarily of young men between the ages of 18 and 29.  However, as the audiences of these productions have become more diverse, the representation in the productions has become more diverse as well.  So, our choice to have a female main lead joins in with the current trend of defying the old genre conventions of representation in science fiction.  However, our choice to have a female lead was not meant to be some kind of statement of defiance against the traditional norms of the genre.  We just sort of decided to have a female lead.

     Our opening and the following short film are meant to serve as a critique of modern dating culture, in which people rarely form any meaningful relationships and just hook up with a bunch of randos they'll never meet again.  In our short film, the dating culture is not so much revolved around sex as it is just around meeting as many people as possible.  It's something of a numbers game in which people will compete against their friends to see who went out on more dates.  The overall message is that dating has devolved to a point where there's no real romance or emotional investment involved, which is a viewpoint held by many when looking at the rise of hookup culture and apps like Tinder.

2.  How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

     Our short film is about dating, something people in our target audience are either a) looking forward to, b) starting to do, or c) have some experience with.  Since films relating to dating and romance are typically more appealing women and girls, we could possibly also draw in a female audience for the dating aspects while drawing in a male audience with the sci-fi aspects.  

     The traditional audience for sci-fi as previously mentioned is males in the age range of 18 to 29.  According to YouTube demographic numbers, 62% of users are male and 81% of 15-25 year olds in the US use YouTube.  This makes it the perfect platform to release our short film on as it is frequently used by a large number of people in our target demographic.  YouTube is also frequently used to upload sci-fi short films.  One good example of this is the channel DUST, which regularly uploads CGI science fiction productions.  Beyond digital distribution, we could also show our production at popular short film festivals such as Aspen Shortfest and HollyShorts Film Festival.  These would provide an opportunity for our production to get some acclaim and build up excitement before a release to the general public.

3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

     The first two weeks of the project was comprised almost entirely of research.  I looked up sci-fi genre conventions, analyzed film openings, and looked at examples of small-scale science fiction films.  After that, most of my research was planning or planning for the planning.  I made an outline for the scene, an outline for the storyboard, the actual storyboard, and I helped Sil write the actual script.  

     When it came to production, we had to adapt suddenly when our actors were no longer able to show up due to this whole coronavirus situation.  We ended up having to fill in the roles ourselves, something that I was not and am still not happy about.  It also meant that we needed more outside help in the form of Sil's boyfriend, Gus, who did the filming.  

     I feel like all the projects we've done so far have contributed to this one.  The one word film taught us about editing and shot composition.  The Foley sound project taught us about the importance of sound design.  The film pitch project taught us about researching genre conventions and target audience.  The music marketing project taught us about appealing to a target audience through marketing and distribution practices.  All of these assignments contributed to some extent in helping us work on this project.

     We started off this project with a somewhat ambitious idea for a unique project and have ended with a product that I don't think I'm personally quite satisfied with.  However, considering how hard I typically am on myself when it comes to my own creative productions, I doubt anything short of actual movie quality would satisfy me.

4. How did you integrate technologies - software, hardware and online - in this project?

     The two big pieces of technology we used the most in this project were an iPhone for filming and computers for editing the visuals and audio.

     We didn't use much hardware in our filming other than a tripod for filming.  Since our opening was filmed in an open restaurant, we couldn't really do anything with the lighting or have any large-scale filming equipment even if we had some.

     When it comes to software, the first big one is of course Blogger.  I've been using it since February to log pretty much every single thing that has happened in the process of working on this project.  The second is WhatsApp, which I've used to communicate with Sil for the purpose of scheduling and discussing how to allocate work.  Third is HitFilm, which is the software I'm using for adding the audio into our opening.  Since we couldn't record good audio when originally recording our scenes, I'm using HitFilm to add in our lines after the fact.

     I originally planned on using WeVideo, a website we've used for past projects, when doing my work, but Sil didn't think its audio features were that great, so she got a recommendation that I used HitFilm Express.  Since it was a new software, I obviously had to spend some time learning how to use it.  Fortunately, their website had a reference manual for new users and I only had to know how to use a few features to work on audio editing, so learning to use it was pretty easy.

     I won't be including the final reflection on the project in this post since we're not quite finished with it yet.  I'll make some notes on that once I finish working with the audio.  I expect my next post will be about me doing said work on the audio editing.  See you then.

Week 8: Test Run

     In order to make sure that 1. I know how to use HitFilm, and 2. that my computer can handle the software, I decided to do a little test run with adding sound effects to a video.  So, I filmed this short video of me walking my dog:

     It's very short and doesn't have much background noise other than the crinkling of leaves.  I added in some Royalty Free Music from Bensound and the sound of an airplane flying overhead.  This was the result:

     The reference guide I talked about in my last post proved very helpful, as a lot of the features I wanted to utilize were not that easy to find on a first glance.  I lowered the volume of the music so that it wouldn't be so overwhelming and raised the volume of the airplane sounds to make it more noticeable.  While editing, the program shows a timeline of your video so you can see how long it is, and it kept playing after the video ended for up to 5 minutes, so I was a little worried since I couldn't find out how to make it stop doing that.  Fortunately, the edited video was really only as long as the original, so I was worrying over nothing.
     Since this project will be over in a little over a week, my next post will be dedicated to giving some basic answers to the reflection questions to help me prepare my CCR video.  See you then.

Week 8: Get With the Program

     As mentioned in my previous post, I downloaded a video production software called HitFilm Express for the purpose of editing the audio for our opening after Sil finished with the VFX.  Since this is a new software that I've never used before, I expected there to be some kind steep learning curve like I usually experience with these things.
     Fortunately, I seem to be mistaken.
     First off, they have a nice little reference manual for new users.  Or, "little" may not be so accurate.  Take a look at it if you want.  It is quite extensive.  This was initially very intimidating, as, while I have plenty of free time right now, I don't really want to spend an entire day reading a manual.  However, this isn't as much as an issue as it originally appears to be.
     There are about a hundred feature sections to read through, but due to my job here, the only one I need to worry about is audio.  Out of the entire manual, there were only a few sections I had to look at in relation to audio.  To sum that up, it tells you about audio tracks, syncing up audio with video (I'll get to that in a second), and audio effects.  The audio effects section will mostly just be relevant to me trying to make the audio sound like it wasn't recorded in someone's living room (which it might be, who knows).
     HitFilm has a pretty nifty feature that allows you to sync up separately recorded audio with a separately recorded video so long as the video was also recording audio.  The program then uses the video's audio to sync up the footage with the new audio file.  Very convenient stuff.  However, I believe I could run into a problem with the video being sped up.  If the lines are just spoken at the same speed as the mouth movements in the sped up video, then there probably won't be an issue.  On the other hand, there may be a situation in which I also have to speed up the audio, which could lead to it sounding abnormally high pitch.  To be honest, this sounded like a bigger issue before I started writing this, but it'll probably be fine.
     I'll have more updates on my work with HitFilm and I expect Sil will be done with her VFX work somewhat soon as the final week quickly approaches.  See you then!

Week 7: Looking for some sounds

     As I've gone over several times in the last week, Sil is going to be editing and adding affects to our footage.  I would show the clip here, but apparently the file's size is larger than 100 MB, so the site won't let me upload it.  I digress.
     The video speed was increased to 120% since she realized that our footage may have been a little longer than intended, but it's always good to have more footage than you need than having less.  My only issue is that it looks a little chopper, which I think is due to the slight movements of the camera while Gus is walking also being sped up.  Sil said she'd try stabilizing the footage while editing.
     In the meantime, I'm looking for a bunch of sounds that you would hear in a diner, but one that doesn't have many people in it.

Diner sounds: https://freesound.org/people/AllenStacy/sounds/240652/

     This one is just some all encompassing diner noises.  The clinking of glasses with some barely intelligible chatter in the background.  I think it's pretty good, but we need more than just this.
     The last time we needed sound effects for a project, I made sure to find a bunch of ambient noises to make it clear that the scene was taking place indoors.  Here are some such sounds:

Buzzing electricity from lights: https://freesound.org/people/lukaspearse/sounds/149734/

Air conditioning: https://freesound.org/people/mikevpme/sounds/273620/

     The volume of those sounds will be adjusted so that they're audible but still not too loud.  We'll also need some asynchronous sounds such as Sil walking and her sitting down at the booth.

Steps in high heels: https://freesound.org/people/anagar/sounds/267933/

Sitting down: https://freesound.org/people/jpkweli/sounds/154785/

     I can probably find some better sounds to use later on since we still have a lot of time left in this editing process, but these are just some examples of what I'm looking to use.  I'll have more updates in my future posts.  See you then.

     

Week 7: Editing Software

     In preparation for editing the sound for our opening, I've had to find a free program to use since I don't like spending money on things I'll probably only use once.  Per advice obtained from one of Sil's friends, I'm going to be using HitFilm Express.

     Just from looking over their website, it seems like they have a lot of really good materials to use for video production and editing.  I may actually use this in the future if I decide to start my own YouTube channel.  The program is free, but there are paid options available to help support the creators and I guess get more tools for the program.  They had some emoji line chart to show how each purchase makes them feel and getting the free one makes a crying emoji.

     I respect the hustle, but that sort of emotional manipulation is just really gross to me.  Especially because I'm such an empathetic and that stuff gets to me.
     Complaints about marketing strategies aside, I plan on using the next day or so learning how the program works in preparation of having to work on the sound.  I'll also be searching around for some royalty-free sound since I really don't like having to ask people I don't know to use their stuff.  Anticipate updates on these efforts in the next post.  See you then.
 

Week 7: Relatively Important Update

     First thing, I have confirmed that we have an extra week for this project.  Turns out the update was on Canvas of all places.  Who would've thought.  You can find my thoughts on this in the previous post.
     Second thing, which is not that important to this production process but more so to this class over all.  Due to the corona virus, Cambridge has cancelled all AICE exams.  This is a very big move considering the exams are what all the AICE courses, including this one, spend the entire year preparing students for.  So I guess that means that this project is just a class grade now?  Okay then.  My primary concern with this project was how it would affect my class grade since it was only half of the exam, so these developments don't really affect me personally all that much.  Although I am quite happy about not having to take any exams at the end of the year.
     Third thing: I need to find a free editing software to help Sil put together the opening.  I originally planned on just using WeVideo, an online program that we've used for editing projects in the past, but Sil thinks that it's not very good when it comes to editing audio, which is going to be my major contribution to this part of the process.  I don't know of any free editing software, I don't have any money to buy a program, and I have no intention of ever spending money on a grade, so that may make this a little difficult.  Sil said she'd ask some people from A Level if they know of any programs, so we'll see if I get any help there.
     I'll be back with an update on my progress in the next post.  See you then.

Week 6: Lights, Camera, No Actors

     I probably should have made this post a few days ago right after we did this, but I kind of forgot to.  It is what it is.
     At last, we finally got to go film at Lucille's on Thursday.  We couldn't have had better timing for it either, because the governor just ordered that all restaurants not let people inside.  So it seems we pretty much lucked out.  Or you know, as much as we could luck out while not being able to have our actors show up for the scene and have to fill in the roles ourselves.

     On the bright side, I don't look terrible in this greaser outfit.  I would perhaps go so far as to say I even look good.
     Filming lasted a little under two hours.  Sil brought her boyfriend Gus to do the filming and it was a big help.  He's in Media Studies A level, so he's got a lot of experience with this stuff.

     I really don't like acting, especially not in front of a camera, so it was very fortunate that I only had to be in the scene for two shots, only one of which shows me talking.  Due to the music playing in the restaurant and a few other factors, Sil said that we're going to have to dub over our lines in post.  That's fine I guess, since it means that we won't be able to forget our lines.  Something great though is that we're apparently getting an extra week!  Now I have not had this confirmed, but Sil told me this, and she is fairly trustworthy and seems to know a lot of people, so I believe her.  I will edit this post if I find this to be false in the future.
     This means that we have an extra week to do editing (yay)!  What to do I think of this?  Well...

     To be entirely honest, I'm not sure it will really help improve the final product of our opening.  Over the last 5 days or so, I've been losing faith in this project.  Prior to this whole corona virus thing, I thought everything was gonna go really well.  But now that we weren't able to use our actors and had to do last minute changes, combined with the uncertainty caused by this whole situation, I don't think that the opening we're going to produce will be very good.  I mean, c'mon, dubbing our lines?
     Who knows, maybe I'm just a very negative person.  Actually, I think I'm generally regarded as being a cynical person, so I'm probably over blowing this.  We won't know for sure until we're done.
     Now that filming is complete, we can start editing.  That means we'll be working on color, sound, editing techniques, all that good stuff.  My future posts for the next week or so will likely cover these topics.  See you then.

Week 6: Corona Conundrum: Everything Is Cancelled

 

  Alright.  Okay.  So I expected that some bad stuff could maybe possibly happen when we first started this project.  Insert some old proverb about plans not working out here.  However, this sucks.
     Due to a global pandemic of the corona virus, pretty much everything is shut down and a lot of people are staying hunkered down in their homes.  This just so happens to include our lead actress, Veronica, as well as everyone else who was supposed to show up to be in this.
     Now fortunately, things are not as bad as they seemed when I started writing this blog post yesterday.  We originally thought that Lucille's wouldn't let anyone in because of a bunch of state mandated stuff about social distancing, which would mean we would be without our shooting location and we'd be pretty much screwed.  It's just our luck that they will be opening tomorrow, which means we will be able to go in.  Although I don't know how important that is since we're going to be filming before they open anyway.
     Unfortunately, since our actors are now unavailable, Sil and I have to fill in the roles ourselves.  Which sucks.  I don't particularly like acting, especially not on camera.  It feels very awkward and unnatural, and I feel like I'm making a fool of myself when I do it.  I guess I have some sort of stage fright?  Whatever.  It doesn't really matter at this point.  The show must go on regardless of whether I like it or not.
     Since we're going to be filming tomorrow, my next blog post will be about that.  See you then.

Week 6: I Finally Got Some Food

     After several weeks of trying to find opportunities to go, I finally managed to go to Lucille's on Sunday.

     The place itself is very nice.  I was worried about the outside showing through windows during our shots, but fortunately the booths are up against a wall connected to the next business. 

     And here's my lunch (most of it, anyway).  I got a tuna salad sandwich with a bowl of New England clam chowder.  It was very good.  I highly recommend Lucille's if you want to stop by a diner for breakfast or lunch.
     I don't really have much to say for this post, I mostly just wanted to show off these pictures to prove I went to our shooting local.  I'll be back with more updates in my next post.  See you then!

Week 5: Target Audience and Distribution

     Today's post will be a mild detour from our regularly scheduled update and will instead focus on some information that will pertain to the Creative Critical Reflection I'll be completing after we've finished working on the opening itself.  Today I'll be talking a bit about target audience and the distribution options for our short film.
   As discussed in one of my first blog posts, the typical target audience of science fiction films consists of white males between the ages of 18 and 29.  This is reflected in the usual demographics of sci-fi move casts, aka a bunch of white guys, one or two women, and a token black guy.

   
     Aliens (1986) was and still is a pretty rare exception to this rule.  Not only does it have a female main lead, but it also has (gasp) multiple people of color!  They also have names and some of them are quite memorable, even if they didn't survive that long.  Most of the white guys are also either evil or incompetent, so that's a nice change of pace.  It's notable that Aliens is widely regarded as a classic and all-round awesome movie, so its defiance of genre conventions clearly did not do anything to harm its reception.

     Something we have to address in our CCR is the distribution of our theoretical short film.  We need to do this from the standpoint of an amateur film producer, which we are, so doing a worldwide theatrical release is off the table.  The most obvious distribution platform to use is YouTube, as it is the largest video sharing platform on the planet.  It's also frequently used to distribute actual short films, so us using it wouldn't be out of the ordinary.
     Another option is releasing our production at film festivals.  These events can draw pretty large crowds, some of them get a fair bit of attention, and a lot of the time you can win money if there are rewards for best film.  This would be a cool, more professional way to initially distribute our short film, as well as potentially getting us some publicity.  There's actually a film festival today in Miami while I'm writing this, so that's a pretty interesting coincidence.  Or it may not be because of this whole corona virus thing.  I don't know, and I don't really care since either.
     Next week, we'll finally be starting our filming (yay), so expect at least one post on that.  I also finally got to Lucille's, so my next post will be talking about our shooting location.  See you then!

Week 5: Storyboard and Trying to Get Some Dinner

     The storyboard is done.  It's a lot shorter than the other storyboards we've done this year, but this is a pretty short scene and we'll probably use a few more shots in the final product.

     As mentioned in previous posts, I'm pretty awful at drawing, which is why I originally wasn't going to do the storyboard.  Alas, here we are.
     There's one problem with the storyboard that may or may not be a big deal: I have yet to actually step foot inside Lucille's Diner.  Yes, Sil has been there, but I feel like I need to see the place for myself so that I can adequately prepare to film there.  This leads into the other thing I want to talk about today.
     For the last two weeks or so, I've been trying to go to Lucille's.  Since I can't drive myself yet, I need to find an opportunity to go with my family.  The problem is that such a situation has yet to present itself.  Either we already have plans to go to another restaurant or my parent's not in the mood to go out to eat.  It's a little maddening.  Not being able to go there isn't too big of a deal, as Sil and I should get a grip of what exactly we plan on doing when we get there, but I'd like to try and get a head start on that process by going ahead of time.
     Also I just really want to try their food.
     I'll be back next time with further updates on our progress.  See you then.

Week 5: Script

     Here you go, folks.  Our script is here.

     The script was written on a site called WriterDuet and there were issues with  being able to share the original document with me, so instead Sil sent me screenshots.
     Sil has a pretty full workload when it comes to her existing responsibilities for this project combined with stuff she has to do for other classes and extracurricular activities, so now I will be working on the storyboard.  This is good because I don't want Sil to do all the work (which would be bad for my grade anyway) and I like being helpful, but also not-so-good because that means I'll have more work to do, which I generally don't like.  Such is life.
     My next post will likely revolve around said storyboard depending on if anything important happens before I finish it.  See you then.

Week 4: The Package Has Arrived

     Not much has happened in the last few days; however, the dress we ordered has arrived.  Sil plans on having Veronica try it on tomorrow so we can see if it fits and is comfortable so we know whether or not we need to return it and get a new one.  However, since we're going to need a few more actors, that means we're also going to need a few more costumes.  So, I've been looking up some 1950's clothing on Google to try and find anything that looks nice.  Here's some of what I found:

     Fun fact: the default results for "1950s clothing" were all women's clothing.  I had to specifically look up "1950s mens clothing" to find stuff for guys.  Just thought that was pretty neat.  I also think it's pretty interesting how while women's clothing pretty much went completely out of style, men's clothing was just relegated to various occasions, because seriously, all of the men's casual wear from the 50's is just bowling shirts.  Although I do think that guys just using their old clothes for something else when a new fashion style comes out is a very dude-thing to do.

     I'll be back next time with more developments and (hopefully) our finished script.  See you then!

Week 4: Dress Shopping and Script Writing

     Here's a nice general tip for you guys: if you find something that you like, buy it now.  Right now.  Do not wait a week or more until someone else buys it.
     Mild exaggeration aside, the dress we originally planned on buying is no longer available.  Why did we not get it as soon as we found it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 
     It's not really that much of a big deal, it just means that we needed to go dress shopping again.  After some discussion on the exact look that we were going for, we settled on a nice sleeveless burgundy dress.

     In other news, we restarted the script since Sil hated it.  She thought that the character she was writing was extremely unlikable and would rather scrap it and start again instead of work with a script that she already despised.  On the bright side, this has led to me having a much more involved role in writing the script than before.  To give a summary, the main character, Anne-Louise, is walking into the diner while talking to her friend, Donna, while looking through the "Flame" app and waiting for her date.  Their dialogue reveals that marriage or long term relationships in general are very uncommon and looked down upon while going out with a bunch of people each for a short time is the norm.  We have a bunch of holograms showing the news stories and the phone is projecting the app and the video call with Donna.  The opening lasts for about 1 minute and a half now when taking the credits and title card into account, so we've got a little left to do.
     I'll be back next time for further updates on our progress.  See you then.

Week 4: Hologram Time

     As promised last time, I have some experimental footage to show you folks.  I've previously mentioned a few times that Sil plans on editing in hologram projections of news headlines in the diner to help with the whole sci-fi setting.

     Using Premiere Pro, Sil edited the rectangle onto the top of the whiteboard and then added the moving line of text on top of it.  The text originally continued from all the way on the right of the screen to the left past the rectangle, so Sil got some help from other people in class who work with Premiere all the time and figured out how to put some clear layer onto the video that would hide the text where ever she put it.  The line also used to be a solid blue color, so she turned it into a gradient and made it translucent so it has more of that holographic feel.  She was upset that she wasn't able to figure out how to make the hologram glow, but I think it looks good the way it is.

     In my next post, I'll be discussing our work on the script and further preparations before we (hopefully next week) we start filming.  See you then. 

Week 4: Group Meeting

     In class today, we had a group brainstorming discussion about our projects.  I spent about an hour with five other people from different groups talking about our progress and obstacles in producing our films.
     The first person to go was Camila Criscola.  She's working on a film about bullying and how it can provoke suicide.  She wasn't sure what to have as a title and had considered using "Wounding Words" but Mrs. Stoklosa didn't like it.  I suggested that the title should be "Sticks and Stones" like the old saying, although instead it turns out that words really can hurt you.  Everyone seemed to like the idea and Camila fist-bumped me.  That was probably the highlight of my day since I quite like feeling helpful.
     The second person was Ana Jurado and her opening is for a film about a teenage girl trying to decide which half of her life she wants to devote herself to; her more nerdy, school centered side or her music loving side.  Pretty basic stuff, but I think it can really appeal to a teenage target audience since that's the time in people's lives when they're trying to figure out who they really are.  She also needed to think of a title and she settled on "My Own Way" by the time we got to the end of her part of the discussion.  Pretty basic, but I think it does its job.
     Third went Sydney Surico with a film about a girl living in the 1970's realizing that she is a lesbian.  It's definitely one of the more interesting film ideas we heard at the discussion.  Having the story be about self-discovery and setting it in that time period definitely makes it very unique.  She didn't have a title when we started the discussion, but by the end she had landed on "Dynamite."
     Fourth went Jessica Briceno with her film "Affliction."  It's about a teenager dealing with the death of her father and the loneliness experienced in the absence of a parent.  I'm not sure how well she can portray something as traumatic as someone losing their father, but I she seems to have a decent grasp of what she's doing.  She originally planned on having the first chunk of her opening being a montage of memories with the late dad, but then said she didn't want it to be too much of a montage.  We suggested that she have scenes of the main character going about her day with the shots composed in a way that would emphasize loneliness or isolation.  A really vivid one we thought of was the girl and her mom sitting at the dinner table at the left and right thirds of the shot with the middle third, the head of the table, being empty.  There would also being a shot at the end of the opening showing a family photo with the father, who has been absent for the entire opening, making it fairly clear what has happened.
     The fifth and last person to go before me was Oliver Sulla with his film "Valid."  It's about a social media influencer struggling with keeping up her online persona and being herself.  He had just about everything down but was trying to figure out some of the mise en scene elements to use in his opening.  I suggested that he watch some vlogs from female influencers and see if he could find some inspiration there.  I also suggested that he start using a shot from the phone or camera recording the main character and then switching to a shot of their set up in the room around them, showing just how artificial her persona is.  It sounds like he'll have a pretty good production when everything is said and done.
     Last, of course, was me.  I'm not going to go over everything we discussed since it's basically everything I've gone over in this blog.  However, everyone else at the table did think that our opening is very unique, creative, and that we seem to have everything ready to go through with filming.

(That's me on the left in the back)

     I plan on showing off what Sil has managed to do with editing in holograms for our opening in my next post.  See you then.

Week 3: Story-boarding and News Headlines

     There was something I didn't realize when I made my last posting.  I mentioned that since we had already cast a main actress that we were starting to get ahead of schedule, but I totally forgot that we also planned on finding a shooting location next week.  Since we already have Lucille's down to film, we're actually super ahead of schedule.  The only thing we have left to do for Week 4 is find a handful extras, so we've pretty much cleared that week.  This also means that we have more time to refine the script and storyboard that we're starting this week.
     Following the theme of me creating a skeleton and Sil filling in the rest of the body, I have created an outline for our storyboard.  I'm not very good at drawing while Sil is, but I still wanted to contribute to planning out our shots for the opening.  So, I created a list of shot ideas that we could use in the scene.

1. Title card fades away, cut to wide shot of diner interior, showing off setting
2. Close up of bell ringing as door opens (I assume Lucille's has one of those never been there)
3. Mid shot of main character
4. POV shot panning left to right of the diner
5. Mid shot of MC walking towards a booth
6. Long shot of booth with MC approaching in left third
7. Mid shot of MC sitting in the booth
8. Close up of phone
9. Shot counter shot of MC video calling with her friend on the phone
10. Mid shot of MC putting away phone, smoothing out clothes as her date arrives

  I know that there aren't that many shots, but this is just an idea of what we want the scene as a whole to look like, and we'll probably add some more shots when it comes to the complete storyboard and the final version of the opening.

We plan on having a bunch of holograms floating over the tables in the diners, essentially functioning as newspapers. Sil wanted be to make a bunch of news headlines so that she could choose a few to use in the holograms, so I brainstormed, asked some friends for ideas, and went to the Onion for "inspiration." Here's what I came up with:

• Partly cloudy weather expected for tomorrow
• Heavy rain forecasted for Saturday
• Hurricane on track for East Coast, president unconcerned
• ‘No way to prevent this’ says only nation where this regularly happens
• Western Culture Ends
• Neurosurgeon feels lucky to have turned hobby into a career
• War erupts in Europe, Germany blamed again
• Mercury in retrograde
• Internet down on Mars
• Chinese government pinky-promises to stop spying
• Florida man arrested for assaulting fast-food mascot
• Patriots claim 123rd Super Bowl win
• Legendary Hollywood actor dies of apparent age overdose
• Disney acquires rights to the word “movie”

  Some of these are just normal headlines, but since I think retrofuturism is inherently sort of goofy and the news headlines aren't meant to be focused on, it would be funny to have some jokes in there as Easter eggs for anyone who decides to try reading them. Using sci-fi and a futuristic setting also gives us a lot of leeway in terms of whats possible, so some of the more ridiculous ones seem somewhat plausible. Sil seems to have especially like the ones about Disney, Western culture, and the neurosurgeon.

We're experimenting a little more with the holograms and discussing some of our plans for when we're filming at Lucille's. I plan on talking about this in my next post. See you then!

Week 3: A Whole Bunch of Stuff

     If the title is any indication, there have been a lot of developments since my last post.  To try and make clear how much has happened, Sil has a blog post scheduled to be published every single day until Monday.  I, on the other hand, have elected to talk about everything in this one blog post so that I have some wiggle room to talk about any more things this week in future posts.
     First things first, we now know what our film is about (insert applause track).  It's a retrofuturist piece critiquing modern dating culture, and so far our working title is Flame.  Sil intended for it to be a parody of Tinder, but I realized that the term "old flame" refers to someone you used to have a relationship with and was used a lot more back in the day than it is now, so it actually fits really well into our 1950's-esque sci-fi setting.  Obviously a very intentional choice on Sil's part.
     We decided upon having a female main lead and already have an actress for the role: our friend Veronica.  We still need to find another supporting actor or two and maybe some extras, but getting an actress for our main role in Week 3 puts us ahead of schedule considering we didn't plan on finding actors until Week 4.
     Sil has also found a potential shooting location, that being Lucille's American Cafe.  I've never been to the place, but Google describes it as a "1940s-style diner", so it seems to be just what we're looking for.  They've said they're happy to help us by letting us film there, but they still want some more information before hand.  We don't have everything we need yet to nail down a definitive date for filming, but once we do it seems like we'll have a pretty nice shooting location to use.
     In the meantime, I have the task of finding some more actors and props.  I've know a pretty wide variety of people and have found a few folks who wouldn't mind showing up for a moment or two in our opening.  When it comes to props, I'm looking for some small stuff that we could probably put on a table without looking too out of place, like a clock or a little table ornament, something like that.  The things I want have that sort of atom-punk look of a lot of the metal and plastic products from the 40's and 50's.  I've asked some friends if they have anything that fits my criteria, but I haven't come up with anything yet.  I plan on asking some of the older people I know if they have anything like that since, well, they were around when people bought stuff like that regularly.  If I can't find anything to borrow, I plan on seeing if there are any places around here where I can find antique stuff like that without emptying out my entire savings account.
     Yesterday, I made a script outline for Sil to work with in order to make a full script for our scene.  What is a script outline, you may ask.  It's just a skeletal overview of the parts of the scene and the gist of what the characters are saying.  Why not just start the actual script yourself, you may also ask.  That's a very good question.  You see, back when I worked with Sil on a film pitch project back in November (if I remember correctly), we had to make a script for a 3-minute scene.  I wrote up a substantial part of this script, and once I was done, Sil realized there was a bit of an issue.  All of the characters in the scene sounded like me.  What I mean by that is when I write character dialogue, I tend to write them in the way that I talk.  This is a bit of a problem when the characters are supposed to be different people who talk differently from each other.  So when Sil said that she wanted to write the script and have me do any necessary edits or additions, I figured that would be best for getting through this part of the project efficiently.
     That's pretty much all of the big stuff that's happened in the last couple days.  I know right now Sil has been looking for fonts to make the dating app that will appear in our film.  On my end, I'm going to be looking for some songs that we could use so we can get the rights to use it soon.  We also plan on starting our storyboard in the next day or two, so I would say that our planning and early production process is going along pretty smoothly. 
     I'll talk about any updates or big changes that happen in the coming days in my next post.  See you then.

Week 3: Researching Costume Designs

     While we haven't definitively decided what our plot will be yet, we do seem to have a general idea of what our setting will look like.  Because of that, I'm looking into the fashion trends of the 1950's, the era that retrofuturism gets its look from.

(Some of these pictures can't make up their mind if they want to load or not and it's mildly infuriating)

     This is just something of a baseline for what we're looking for in costumes, as it's not just a 50's look we're going for.  It's the future with a 50's aesthetic, so we're going to make things look a little more sparkly and maybe add some funky shoes.  The only issue that may come up is actually finding clothes that fit the look, but Amazon can probably help with that.  Once we find outfits that look good, the only real thing we'll have to worry about it price.  Sil has been experimenting with make-up and trying to find a good look for our theoretical female character.  Right now, we think the film will be about a guy and a girl going on a date, so looking at fashion trends for both men and women will be very helpful.
     Sil and I have been talking more about what the story of our film will be and we'll probably have an outline of the whole film's story done by today.  I plan to discuss this in my next post.  See you then.

Week 2: Scheduling

     After some discussion with Sil, we have a general overview of  when we plan to finish each part of the project.  This will definitely be subject to change if unexpected events turn up or if doing certain parts of the project take longer than we originally thought they would.  Also, I'm including the previous week and this week that's about to end because I hate starting a list after #1.

Week 1: Genre/films research

Week 2: Figuring out a general plot, some more research, planning out a schedule

Week 3: Script and story boarding, researching/finding/making costumes and props

Week 4: Finding actors and a shooting location

Week 5: Probably some overlap from Week 4, hopefully start filming

Week 6: More filming, hopefully finish (fingers crossed)

Week 7: Editing

Week 8: More editing, finish opening, do Creative Critical Reflection

     Sil wants to make sure we have a lot of time to do editing since it can suck up a lot of time if you want it to be really good.  Aiming to start filming in Week 5 also means that if we can't start then, we'll still have plenty of time left to do it.  We'll see how closely we can stick to this time-frame, but I'm about 99% certain that this is not going to turn out the way we plan.  This is at least the most complex production that I've ever participated (I don't know about Sil since I'm pretty sure she's in TV production), so I anticipate that there will be a lot of bumps in the road in my near future in relation to this project.
     In next week's postings, I plan to cover some research on costuming and some stuff on our script and storyboard.  See you then.

Week 2: Retro Futurism and Narrowing Down Our Ideas

     My partner Sil is finally back, which means that we've gotten the chance to discuss our concepts for the project.  Right off the bat, Sil introduced a very interesting idea that I hadn't even thought of: retrofuturism.
     I've never heard that term before, but after showing me some examples, I realized it was something I had seem before quite a few times.  Here are some examples:

     While you may not know the name (like me), you've probably seen retrofuturism somewhere before.  It's basically what people in the early to mid-20th century thought the future may look like.  Probably the most famous example of retrofuturism is in the Fallout series, although it may not notice it initially due to the gritty post-apocalyptic aesthetic.  The name does a pretty good job at describing the look of retrofuturism; it's the future but it also looks like the 1950's.

     Of course, this will require some actual work on mise en scene and costume designs since we have to go for a 50's look.  Sil has suggested that we find some places to go shopping for some "old" clothes and various other stuff such as an antique TV set.  I have no idea where we'll find one of those but I suppose that's what we have all this time for.  She also suggested using an old doll house or something like it and use some clever camera techniques to make it look like a city for our film's setting.  Y'know, like some stuff George Lucas used to film the spaceships and stuff in Star Wars.  I have no idea how to do this either, but again, I have this time to figure that out.

     Or we may just not do that, so who really knows.

     We also discussed what our short film will be about, and Sil had an interesting idea about it being about some kind of dating show or something and critiquing today's hookup dating culture.  Sounds pretty neat, so we'll see how we can expand off of that.

     I'll be back later with further updates on our progress.  See you then!

Week 2: Small-Scale Sci-fi

     We're now onto Week 2 of the portfolio project, and we're in the process of narrowing down exactly what our short film will be about.  In the meantime, it has occurred to me that some of the examples of science fiction films I went over last week may have been a little too big to give a good idea of what we're aiming for with this project.  We have a relatively small amount of time and no official budget to produce our opening, so I think it's a good idea to look at a couple of sci-fi movies that are much smaller scale than the films I'd previously discussed.

Her (2013)

     Her is a science fiction romantic drama written, directed, and produced by Spike Jonze and starring Joaquin Phoenix.  The film's story is about a man named Theodore Twombly who develops and falls in love with an artificial intelligence with a female voice named Samantha.  If you've read my previous post looking at sci-fi film openings, it's clear that Her is distinctly different from those films.  While those movies dealt with flying cars, space ships, aliens, and traveling to other planets, Her is just about a guy falling in love with a computer software.  It's much smaller and much more personal.  Remember: science fiction doesn't need to be big, it just has to do with a scientific discovery or technology that doesn't exist (yet).  Her focuses on the topic of artificial intelligence and how AI relates to humanity, putting it squarely in the science fiction genre without having to be some grand story about flying through the future or interstellar conflicts in another galaxy.

Upgrade (2018)

     Upgrade is another great example of small-scale sci-fi.  Written and directed by Leigh Whannel and starring Logan Marshall-Green, Upgrade is a science fiction action thriller about Grey Trace, a man who lost his wife and was crippled in a mugging.  After being implanted with a chip that allows him to regain control over his body as well as giving him superhuman strength and agility, Grey uses the abilities granted to him by the chip to hunt down and get revenge on.  Cybernetic enhancements are a pretty run-of-the-mill sci-fi trope, so why do I specifically use Upgrade as an example?  It's simple: budget.  The film was produced with a budget of only $5 million, which is pocket change in terms of movie budgets.  While most films that focus heavily on cybernetics or trans-humanism would need a lot of cash to pump into special effects, Upgrade avoids this by having the sci-fi aspects of the film being something that is not always shown on screen.  Instead of having elaborate cyborg costumes or using CGI to create cybernetic body parts, Upgrade negates the need for such things by having the cybernetics hidden away inside the body of its main protagonist.  The film is a good example of how sci-fi concepts that are usually brought to life with a lot of special effects (and a big budget) can be portrayed in a way that is more doable for a smaller scale production.

     Check in next time for further developments on our project.  See you then!

Week 1: Science Fiction Film Openings

     As I said last time, in this post we'll be taking a look at a few science fiction film openings to get an idea of what we'll be doing for our portfolio project.

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

     The opening of Blade Runner 2049 does a great job at establishing the setting of the film.  In the text at the beginning, it is established that humanity now lives on different planets, that they have developed advanced machines called "replicants" which have gone under a variety of changes, that the environment is in shambles, and that industrialism and companies play an important role in society.  Along establishing the setting, the opening alludes to the film's conflict, establishing that older, defunct synthetic models are hunted down by people called "Blade Runners".  Since "Blade Runner" is the name of the film, it can be assumed that the story will likely revolve around someone who is hunting replicants.  The flyover establishing shot that makes up much of the second half of the opening also establishes that solar power is much more prominent than it is today, suggesting how technology has advanced since the present time we live in.

Avatar (2009)

     Avatar's opening serves to introduce the main protagonist and the setting he finds himself in.  We learn three things about him: that he was crippled while serving in the marines, he has dreams about flying over a jungle, and he is defiant in the face of cruelty or injustice.  Several details are also revealed about the setting of the film in this scene.  Technology has advanced greatly with holograms being commonly used and interplanetary space travel being alluded to as something that is available.  Medical science is now capable of healing spinal injuries, but getting such a treatment is apparently very expensive.  It is also implied that there is a great deal of economic inequality as simple things like coffee at the VA's office are extremely expensive, so that may be a factor in motivating the actions of our protagonists or any other characters that we are introduced to later on.

Alien (1979)

     For the last opening we'll be looking at today, we have the classic sci-fi horror film "Alien".  Alien's opening scene does a good job at establishing the film's tone and setting.  While the camera switches around to various shots of the exterior and interior of the spaceship, establishing the level of technological development and the location most of the film will take place in, the most notable feature of the scene is the sound design.  Or, to be more accurate, the lack of sound.  Most of the scene is almost completely silent, creating a very eerie and mysterious tone.  The only sounds in the scene come from the quiet rumbling of the ship and beeping from the computers booting up.  It's all very unnerving, which is why it does such a good job setting up the tone to expect from the rest of the film.

     Next time, we'll start getting more in-depth into the research and pre-production process for our short film opening.  See you then!

Week 1: Genre

     Oh boy, it's finally here.  The big end-of-the-year portfolio project that this blog was created for has arrived at last.  Over the span of about 8 weeks, my partner Sil Gamboa and I will be creating a 2-minute opening for a short film that we come up with.  The first step of this process is figuring out what genre we want our short film to be in, and fortunately, we've got that figured out already.

     Science fiction is a genre that most people should be familiar with, especially anyone who's been keeping up with this blog since I made a post about sci-fi already several months ago.  To give a fairly basic rundown, science fiction is a genre in which the story and setting revolves around some scientific or technological discovery or advancement that is probably impossible under our current understanding of science (hence the fiction part).  Most of them pretty much go: "hey, if this science-y thing existed, what would the social implications be?"  The main focus of the plot can revolve around anything from androids to aliens to diseases to opening hell-portals for faster than light travel.  The sky is essentially the limit when it comes to science fiction so long as fictional science can be used to explain whatever's going on.

     For a more in-depth description of science fiction and an analysis of various examples, please check out my previous posting on science fiction as a genre.

     We haven't nailed down exactly what the plot will revolve around yet, but we're in the process of brainstorming ideas.  In my next posting, I'll be discussing some examples of science fiction film openings.  See you then!