Group meeting

Last week, on Thusday I believe, we met in groups to discuss our ideas and show others our blogs.  For starters, I was amazed at everybody's interesting ideas. Most people barely had a storyboard but was working on the basic idea. Everybody was on the same page as my group, which did make me feel better. While in groups, I got to tell everybody about our idea, and I was happy when my group really liked it. Some advice I got was to focus on minor details, like mise-en-scene and camera shots. I discussed this with my group, and we got to planning what the main character is going to wear, what the friends are gonna wear, and the overall mood. We decided to focus on one color, that the main charcater will wear to express her charaterisitics, either red or yellow. My other group members told me the feedback they got from their group meeting. We definitely have a better understanding of what exactly we have to do.

Production starting! (finally)

I'm very excited because tomorrow will be our first day of production! All the bits and pieces of our pre-production are finally coming together. Tomorrow at night time, we got permission to use the auditorium. We're going to be filming our opening scene, which includes what we have on our rough draft of the storyboard. I started creating our finished storyboard, but we couldn't all meet today so I'll have to show my group tomorrow during class to make sure everything is final, and then I can post it on here for you guys to see!

This week as we're filming, I hope I can start playing around with my editing system to see what kind of graphics I can do for the name and the credits. We discussed making the graphic of the name similar to the one in High School Musical, with the lights to show that broadway feel.

Not exactly like this, but something similar would be cool. I hope I can play around with the lettering and figure out how to do something like this. 

Character development

After discussing the importance in main character and the minor details, we started with coming up with a name for our main girl. Because the person acting was going to be Rachel, we went with Rae. While doing research, I learned more about what the main charater should be like in a drama film. The protagonist needs a strong, in-depth character development. They need to be someone the audience can relate to. The main character needs to challenge something, like a stereotype or "what you would expect".

While coming up with little details about Rae, we put the plot into perspective. The plot is about a girl who goes against the path that's been chosen for her. She's different than the rest of the crowd, so I imagine her maybe dressing differently. We talked about what Rae's outfit could be and how she could present herself. I was thinking of a character like Jessica Day, from the hit TV series New Girl.

Jessica has a certain persona that is recognizable before you even say her name. She's quirky, awkward, and an over the top person. She's most recognizable for her colorful and "out-there" outfits. Rae is going to be similar to this, wearing probably a dress or a skirt, with crazy and different features.




http://www.filmbug.com/dictionary/drama-movies.php

The filming process

The pre-production of filming is the most important part, in my opinion. If anything is planned out, it should turn out to be as great as expected. The main components of our planning process will be scheduling shooting times. When we shoot, not only do we need access to the auditorium and a classroom, but also friends that can serve as actors and actresses. Since we want to show a normal classroom setting, we need enough people to fill up a classroom and maybe even a teacher. A big problem that I can recognize already is that since our locations are primarily in school, we'll have to shoot during school hours. This can be an issue because we all have different school schedules and lunches, so we'll have to compromise on a time to meet up. This project is all about teamwork and putting in the extra effort, so I hope my group, as well as I can make it work. Another question is what equipment we will use. I'm in the TV production class, so maybe I can check out a camera and tripod to make our opening better quality. You can only check out equipment for a day at a time, so even using cameras that we own at home will be fitting.

Storyboard beginning

We haven't gotten as far as we would have liked in the planning process, but hopefully in these next few days we'll make progress. When talking about how we want the first shot to be, we decided on something that will shock the viewer a bit. Something like it's not what it really seems to be. We wanted to open up with a close up of the main character, followed by some shots of her acting. Using different techniques we've learned over the years, we can make the perception that the main character is acting in a large crowd. In reality, she's just going to be in her high school auditorium. We'll show this through the next shot of an empty auditorium.

The use of close ups will tell the story of the main character from the start based off facial expressions. Her emotions of frustration will be shown through these shots. 

Planning

After deciding what genre we want to do, the planning can begin. After doing some research, we decided on keeping the target audience at teens-young adult, around the ages of 12-25. Most drama film viewers are around this age, so our genre will match our target audience. Also, we think that choosing a target audience that matches our ages will give us a better insight on what that audience likes. Just because that audience is our friends and ourselves.

As a group, we discussed what we want to focus on for our film. Generally speaking, most drama films focus on a conflict within the main character. We wanted to pick an obstable of importantance. Something that we truly believe is an issue within our target audience. Being a senior in high school, a huge issue for many is college. College is something that our parents and teachers tell us we have to go to, when in reality not every profession requires college. In fact, 36% of professions don't require education after high school. Even though college is not for everyone, if you're not planning on continuing your education, you're looked down upon by society. We decided to use this as a basis for our film opening. Some type of movie about a student who wants to do other things, such as acting or music or art, and is struggling with the fact that college is so important and everyone else is telling her to go a different path.

I'm very relieved we came up with an idea like this. When you believe what you're saying and are passionate about the topic, everything else is almost fun. I'm excited to share this idea that not all students want college, and that's okay. It's also very convienent that our film opening will be shot primarily in school, which we have great access too. Instead of having to create the scenery or location, we have a legitimate school that we can shoot at.


https://www.slideshare.net/ebonypeart/target-audience-16706479

https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Recovery2020.ES_.Web_.pdf

Main character

Since our plot focuses on a younger target audience, the main character is going to be a female high schooler. The drama genre focuses on realistic characters, so what's more realistic than an actual female high schooler. Since we have access to the auditorium, we decided that this main character wishes to pursue acting.

The basis of our movie is a lot similar to the recent award-winning movie La La Land (2016)

La La Land is about an inspiring actress trying to make it in the big business. Having to overcome the troubles and doubts, she successfully listens to her heart. Like La La Land, I think we could create something with the same idealism. Not to listen to the critics, but to follow your inner feelings and be true to yourself. 

The opening of La La Land is said to be one of the most impressive scenes. When looking at the opening of this film, they use special techniques to set the mood and create the feeling from the start. The costumes, the cars, and the attitudes of the actors in the first scene let the viewer know the time frame and even where the movie is taking place. With all of the cars waiting in the Los Angeles traffic, including the main characters, you get an insight of the characteristics and traits of these people. A huge detail added to the opening scene was the use of a long take. Long takes are shots that aren't cut for a longer period of time. This technique instantly gives you the feeling that you're watching a musical, and shows you the almost fantasy of a world. When creating our film opening, I hope we can achieve something like this, where all aspects of our mise-en-scene and editing, reflect our ideas and what we're trying to tell our audience. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_La_Land_(film)

Genre

Over the past week, as a group we discussed the pros and cons to doing horror as our genre. It turns out that horror would be extra challenging. After viewing some horror movie openings and seeing how gruesome and explicit the content is, we realized that horror is hard to obtain.

Our next choice in genre is drama. The drama genre is a genre that relies on emotional and relational development of realistic characters. Since drama is relatable and shows real life events, we thought we could create something exceptional. Many drama films use the method of introducing the main character. Drama films focus on the protagonist, which have some type of special quality or has to solve a problem.

I looked at the opening of American Beauty (1999)

The movie opens up with introducing 2 of the main characters. The daughter talks about a conflict that'll be present later on, filmed with a cheap camera to give off the home-movie type of feel. After the daughter is introduced, it switches to her father in his suburban life. The voice-over adds to the simplicity of his boring life. You automatically learn how this character looks, feels, and acts. In American Beauty, it is present right away that the daughter is like every parent-hating teen and the father is like every adult going through a mid-life crisis. You learn so much about the main characters in just the first 2 minutes. My group and I decided to do something like this, where you instantly can recognize personality traits of the character(s). At the same time, you also get a small insight of the main conflict. This would be easier for my group to achieve.


Libbyannjones Follow. "Research into drama film genre!" LinkedIn SlideShare. N.p., 30 Sept. 2013. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.

Genre

Hi! I'm very excited to explore the film world and create my own piece of art. For this project I'm creating a 2 minute film opening. My group and I started brainstorming different genres and which one we want to do. We started off thinking about the horror genre, because it's intriging and seems like it could be executed properly. I researched some horror films that would be similar to our idea. We would obviously want to scare the viewer, so I found some techniques here. The aspects of sound, lighting, and editing are very important for horror film openings. A lot of horror films include some sort of extraterrestrial creature or villian. Basically, just a person/thing that is the basis of the fear.

Some films that do this include:

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

With having a scary killer as the main character, the plot focuses on the fear of Freddy Krueger being in your dreams at night. 

Orphan (2009)

A pyschopathic orphan gets adopted by a family who quickly realizes her manipulative and alarming ways. 

My group and I realized, after gathering this information, that the techniques needed to create a quality horror film opening are difficult to achieve. It might be smarter to think of a unique horror film or just change our genre idea all together.