Introducing the Main Character

   Having a character in a film is most certainly an important aspect that can not be forgotten about, so let's jump into the discussion of our film opening main character. After a bit of discussing, my group and I started to create our protagonist for the film.

   Aria Gil

   Play by one of our group members, Sabrina, Aria focuses on surviving and exploring the big open world. Surrounded by nothing other than herself and whatever animals are left roaming the earth, she scavenges around the cities to find whatever she can to survive. We want to use our film opening to progress Aria's story as she strives to find some deeper meaning, the opening hints that she find it at the end. After being alone for a while, Aria's just assumes she is the last person on earth and gives up hope in finding out living people. This is why our ending to the opening is so intriguing because it leaves the audience asking lots of questions. We want our audience to ponder after the train scene and think "Who is driving the train? Why is there a train?" Although, despite Aria's nature, we also want her clothing to fit her. This would mostly be some roughed up clothing, something like a beanie, jeans, a jacket, and boots with laces. We want Aria to seem very woodsy and survivalist so this should be good. 

   We also have some ideas for the background of the disappearance of all humans. This is only a starting idea and it is not finalized but we realized we needed some explanation for the occurrence so we wrote a little story up for it. Our film opening will mostly rely on visual aid so this will not be shown but incase we do end up needing it, we have it ready to go.

   Before I finish off this blog post, here is a photo of Sabrina who will be acting as Aria. Sabrina volunteered to be on camera and adapt the role of our protagonist. With our character, outline, and a few technicalities set in place, we should be good to move on to the next step, digging deeper.

Group Meeting

   Hello everyone, Wednesday in class we had the group meetings to discuss any questions we had about our film opening. Basically, we were put into breakout rooms with our classmates who each had different film openings. To be honest, my group was not much help because I was not sure what question to ask them. In my mind I was pretty set with everything for now and maybe have a few questions down the line. I mostly helped other people with their ideas and told them that they needed to remember it was only a film opening and they could not have their whole movie plot there. This made me think of my film opening. Did we plan it correctly? Should we cut more stuff? Add more? Even though I did not have any questions for the group meeting, it made me realize that I need to better visualize my own film opening and make sure everything is needed to create the final product, someone who believes they are alone and finds out they never were. We do not want to have our whole movie in the filming opening, we just want to introduce our idea and have suspense follow it through. After watching our film opening, my group and I want people to be left wondering and thinking what is going to happen. I am glad we had these group meetings because not only did I get to help others with their ideas but it helped me set myself into perspective with my own.

Figuring Out Some New Details

   What's up everyone! Today I have a quick blog post just to catch up on details like the location and some ideas we have for post production. 

First Look into the Set

   The pictures of our location for filming was never shown here. Since our film opening revolves around the office building and a factory for scavenging, one of our group members volunteered for us to use this establishment. The location is perfect for our opening as it has broken down pieces lying around and a train track that runs behind it.

Outside of the office building, nice area to film walking scenes

   With this setting, we can achieve our goal of having our character scavenge around and collect what they need for survival. Yet, another factor that comes into play is how are we going to make it look old and dusty. Since our character is supposedly the last person on earth, the area needs to fit the criteria. This is where editing and tools can be very useful for us. One idea that we had was to use a fog machine but there is a chance that it will be difficult to get. Another option is to edit it in post, which could go wrong if the lighting shifts. Overall it is something we need to look more into to find out which will be the most effective for us.

First Outline

   Starting this brand new week, right off the bat my group and I knew we needed to start planning exactly how our film opening would be so we can start getting the show on the road. Even though myself and another group member were not present, our team discussed the final outline and envisioned our plan. We just wanted a quick and simple outline to start planning the more in depth features later on. 

OUTLINE

• Begin with several (constant) security camera shots
• character about to enter building, looking around, going in
• transition with an Over-the-shoulder shot - character looking at camera
• Enters building
• office shots, character scavenging, exploring inside
• gets the Twinkies and coffee
• credits begin to roll, names of directors and such
• wide shot of office to show area
• Camera follows character into factory
• using drone shots (maybe), have character scavenging around
• Continue with drone shots to transition to train tracks
• blinking train lights
• Last shot: character has the train pass in front of them
• title screen pops up
• idea: Losing Track

   Even though we have our basic outline done, we still have much more to do. We will take it one step at a time and start figuring out our main character and their background next.

Adding More Pieces to the Puzzle

   Hello everyone, I hope my last two blogs gave a better vision for what my group and I have in mind for this film opening and how we intend on creating the mood for it. First, I want to mention that my group and I have been putting together each piece of the puzzle for our film opening through meetings on Discord. Even though it is popularly known for people to communicate while playing video games, it has been extremely helpful for my group as we are able to share our screen, look at past conversations, and feel comfortable in a known website. We are able to send our references and research there so we can look back at another time. Discord is also helpful to have orderly meetings as we can mute one another and lower each others volume if it is too loud. I never thought Discord would be able to help me on a school project like this. 

New Update!

   Secondly, as mentioned before, our character will be scavenging in an empty office building and we want to establish that they have been alone/isolated for a while. We decided that just having them in an empty office would not be enough to put emphasis on the idea of them being in a post-apocalyptic world where they believe they are the last man on earth. Since we revolve around the idea of them being isolated, we needed to come up with props and maybe even makeup to make them seem dirty and not caring much for how they look. We also have access to a drone so we would use that to our benefit to show how beaten up and empty the landscape is. With this, we would also have our character use clothing that looks old and ripped up. This would all add more to our idea of a post-apocalyptic atmosphere. 

   Thirdly, as we were meeting up, we realized we needed to start focusing on what shots we wanted. We had the drone idea and the security camera idea but we need to figure out what else and why those shots would be good for our film opening. The idea of the drone shot came from what we learned in the AICE media course. Establishing the scene is extremely important and could be useful to develop the isolated atmosphere we wanted, this follows with the security camera shot. We learned that having a story or a feeling throughout a piece can leave audiences more intrigued with the result. The idea of the character being watched through the camera would leave our audience questioning what is going on right from the start. In addition to this, we would have several wide shots to show just the main character of our film opening.

   And lastly, I presented the idea, that was mentioned before, of the character having a journal with them to document their experience. This would be important for the ending as, when they hear the train, they would drop the journal. We would focus our camera on the journal heading and use that as the title of our film. This was just an idea I had, we are not sure if it is final, but I thought it would be a nice addition to our piece and it would help us with the decision for a title. So basically that is all I have to update everyone for now, we still have a lot to plan and research so stay tuned for that. 

SOURCES:

Babirye, J. (2020, April 17). How filmmakers manipulate our emotions using camera angles and movement. Wolfcrow. https://wolfcrow.com/how-filmmakers-manipulate-our-emotions-using-camera-angles-and-movement/

Swift, L. (2017, March 30). Filmmaking 101: Building Suspense. Recording, Radio Film Connection Blog. https://www.rrfedu.com/blog/2017/03/23/filmmaking-101-building-suspense/

Manipulating Emotions Through Film Research

   As I mentioned on my last blog, controlling the feeling of the scene is so important when it comes to post-apocalyptic films. In our film opening, we want our character to feel isolated, so this is an emotion we should try to convey also to the audience. 

But How?

   There are several ways that we can do so, a few being, camera angles, camera movement/speed, and sound. Let's start off with the camera techniques. I could list many ways of how to make an audience feel through camera movement/angles but I will only list a few that would be beneficial to our film opening. First, the pan and tilt. These two are used to guide the viewers eyes onto the scene and bring their attention to a certain aspect of the shot. With the pan and tilt, tracking can also be incorporated which makes the audience feel as if they are a part of the scene. This would be prominent for our scavenging scene as we would want the viewers to feel as if they are foraging through the building with our character and allow our viewers to focus on the Twinkies or cup of coffee in the scene. Another technique we could use from my research is a whip-pan. This would be by quickly panning left or right to create a sense of urgency. This would be super helpful for the ending scene of our film opening when the character hears the train. Another effective camera technique could be a static shot. This keeps the audience focused on a specific action and can intensify the feeling that the character is experiencing. 

   Following with camera techniques, certain angles can also create specific emotions for our film opening. Using a high shot forces the audience to look down at the character and can create the feeling of being belittled or defended. The opposite can occur for low shots, it has the audience look up at the character making them feel empowered. This could be used in our film opening in the beginning and end to establish the different feelings of our character as they believe they are alone but then discover they never were. Another effective angle would be the point of view shot. The POV shot emphasizes what the character is seeing and draws the audience deeper into the scene. We could use this to our advantage in our film opening for the ending.

   Lastly, being able to utilize the lighting and sound of the atmosphere is key to manipulate the emotions of a scene. Just the simple decision of using music can completely change the feeling of a scene. The perfect ominous music could be the key factor to building suspense for the end of our film opening. After reading through source for this reason, I realized it is essential to take your time to be able to create suspense for any scene. 

Post-Apocalyptic Film Opening Research

   Having references is something extremely useful for when it comes to creating anything from scratch. It can be from your own personal experience or from an outside source. For our film opening, we looked to several films we have already watched and we wanted to use their techniques as references. In this blog, I will go over two films that we used as inspiration.

I Am Legend, 2007

   I am Legend is an excellent movie to refer to for our film opening. The idea of this movie revolves around the idea of a sole survivor for the disease that ended humanity as he searches for the cure. The main character, Robert Neville, has to face the loneliness of humanity in New York City, the place that was once filled with life. Throughout the film, Neville is shown to scavenge for supplies and experience the heat of being by yourself in the big world. The setting for this film is excellent and extremely well done. Everything is broken down and has a run down look. As I was reading for my research, in post production, they made sure that the set seemed completely empty and seemed as if the infrastructure was about to collapse. It was essential that everything was empty and overgrown as if it was not cared for. The post-apocalyptic exhibition for this film is an excellent example for us to follow in our film opening.

The Road, 2009 

   The Road is another film that we got inspiration from. This movie is able to create an extremely desolated image throughout the whole piece and it is a feature we need for our film opening. During the production, John Hillcoat, the director of The Road, make sure to select abandoned or decayed locations to film. For example, Hillcoat selected Conneaut Lake Park which has a building that was destroyed in a fire. Not only this, but he made sure to film during the winter since it would be bleak and abandoned. They also used areas that were destroyed from natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina. The research I acquired from this film is that the location is essential for the mood you want to create in any film piece. It can really manipulate the emotion of the audience and change their view of the scene, which is something I will discuss more on my next blog. This research really gave me a better understanding of the whole apocalyptic theme we are going for.

New Idea

   Alright so on my last blog post, I said my groups idea was to create our film opening related to Character vs. The Unknown theme. That was definitely not anywhere near the actual idea we have now. Since our last meet up in class, we decided to create a new idea that was easier for us to do. As much as we wanted to create something new and interesting, we needed to remember that we do not have the equipment and such we would need to do a film opening like we envisioned, so we decided to go with the idea of a dystopian/post-apocalyptic film opening. We still have the same energy of wanting to create something with a cool concept but we made it more doable. We wanted to show our main character as someone who was alone on the planet who would note down what they would do day by day. It was a theme that we wanted to continue in the film opening. As I mentioned in a prior blog, one of our group members has access to an office building with a train track in the area. This would be essential for the ending of our film opening. 

   Let me rewind though, so our film opening would start off with someone scavenging through the office building and we would use security camera footage to also make it look like they are being watched by someone, even though by the end, its revealed that they weren't being watched, they just were not alone like they believed. The scavenging around for supplies in the empty office would give the first hint of the apocalyptic vibe we are going for. Not only this, but we would also have the character grab a stale pot of coffee and a Twinkie, which is ironic as it is meant to "never expire." After this, we would show them writing in a journal and walking around the lot outside, which they would then stumble across a train track. This would be normal for the character until they hear a train sound. In a world where they thought they were alone, the sound of life surprising them and it ends off with our audience wondering is the character actually alone. This idea was intriguing to the whole group and it stuck with us. We are extremely excited to follow through with it and I will be researching more about the topic in the next blog.

Busy Weekend

   As of my last blog post, I discussed on the basic idea that my group and I had for the film opening and planned to elaborate more after meeting up with my group. Unfortunately, my group and I were all busy as we were competing for a national competition and our schedule was packed. We were not able to completely discuss our idea, but since the last meeting we were able to create a very basic storyline for our opening. 

   Since we have access to the office building by one of our group members, we would incorporate some situation with an extra terrestrial being and an office worker. We would emphasis that they were the last person in the building with some dialogue and then use specific camera angles and shots with either our camera or a security camera to create some sort of suspense. We would describe the unknown monster with shadows as it lurks around outside. We are not 100% sure what the idea is for now but we will keep on building with what we have or create something new by the next blog post. 

Transitioning into the Cambridge Portfolio project

New Project Time

   It's around the time of our course to begin the Cambridge Portfolio project. For the next 8 weeks, I will be documenting my progress as my group and I research, plan, produce, and learn from this experience. This is one of the first times that I will be doing a long term project relating to film so I am very excited.

   To begin, we started our brainstorming process to find out what genre and mood we wanted to go with for our video. To create a video that we would all enjoy and be encouraged to be as creative as possible, we needed to find some references that would allow us to envision our piece. After scrolling through some images on instagram, we found @iamwinter profile and used his images to start creating a vision in our minds for our video. With this reference, we already knew that we were gonna use lots of different colored lighting to produce the result we wanted. We most likely create our tone by using blues for darker/cooler hues to establish our mysterious climate and reds for any danger aspects we would include.

Images from @iamwinter Instagram

   After discovering the look we want for our video, we started planning out what genre and overall plot there was going to be. As we tosses around ideas to one another, we decided we were either going to go with a character vs. society or character vs. nature/character vs. The Unknown type film opening. If we were to do character vs. society, we would go with the idea of the government being the big bad man or if we went with character vs. nature/character vs. The Unknown, we would go with an extra terrestrial theme. It was important for us to take a step back and think if we could pull this off with the resources we had. As much as we want to create an insane film opening, it was important for us to make sure every now and then that our idea was possible. After somewhat figuring out what kind of plot we wanted, we figured that our genre would be either sci fi, extra terrestrial, dystopian, or post apocalyptic. These genres and basic plot ideas were something that the whole group enjoyed and that we would have fun producing. 

   Even though we were just brainstorming and our idea could change, we went and thought of some video ideas with the resources we have. One of our group members told us they have access to an office building so we could build something off that. We also want to incorporate shots of security cameras so the office location would be perfect for that. If the office idea does not follow through like we would want, we would create a plot focusing around an isolated character. In my next blog I will have a better plot understanding for the film opening but for now it is just brainstorming.

Music Marketing Blog Post #2

Lots to Update

   Since my last blog on the music marketing project, much has occurred. To begin, we had planned our idea for our music video and we were prepared to film it all and be done with it. Our idea was to symbolize the music as it was breaking free from religion and base it on that. We would have several pool shots and emphasize the mood we wanted through colored lighting. Sooner or later, the day came and we had filmed our beginning shots with religious items such as the cross and the bible. We then continued onto our next few pool shots and realized this was not going to work.

FIRST STORYBOARD PT. !

FIRST STORYBOARD PT. 2

Uh Oh Moment  

   The second that Maya, who was acting, and Isabella, who was filming had to enter the pool, we realized the temperature outside was not on our side. It was around 62 degrees at night and the pool was not heated. It was a struggle for them to continue. Even though we had the GoPro, lightning, and props, the cold was too much to bare. We managed to get a few pictures for our social media and decided that we needed to change our idea, and it had to be as soon as possible as the due date was coming up.

   After tossing many ideas around and trying to find something new to do, something hit us. We did not have to emphasis the breaking through religion part, we can create something else. With this, we decided to emphasis on breaking free of something with yourself. This is where the idea of freeing yourself from your phone began. As our target audience for our band is a younger age range, around teenagers to young adults, we decided it was perfect to emphasize the idea of living your life fully. 

SECOND STORYBOARD

Back on Track
   After quickly planning the new video idea, we got to work and started filming. At the same time, we were also finishing up our marketing campaign for the band which I will speak of later. After many errors with lighting, coloring, camera angle, and everything that could possibly go wrong, we were done with filming. At one point we tried going outside to film and the extension cord did not work for the lights so we stood out in the cold for a bit to figure something out. After filming, the editing part was next. The editing process took a while and made us realize we did not have enough shots. Since we were not able to film the outside shots, some of our video was empty. We decided in the end to repeat clips we had as there was no other option. The whole production process was very long and tedious but it was worth it for the end result. 

Moving On

   Now that the music video process has been discussed, let's jump to the marketing campaign part. Even though we had to completely change our music video idea, the rest stayed the same and we just added more as we went. We stuck with the name Venus and created our whole brand as it. We made a logo for our band and created several social medias too. The group also decided to create a website and include a merchandise page for the band. In our marketing presentation we showed all the options we had available to our fans that was prone for our target audience. We also created an inside joke with our fans about spoons and started a Floating Rock Society for our fans. It was a nice way to market ourselves and let our fans feel included.

BAND LOGO

website: https://maya3lizabeth.wixsite.com/venustheband/about

   From this project, I learned how important it is to work as a team and communicate with one another. I also got first hand experience of having an idea go wrong and having to start over fresh. This will prepare myself for the AICE exam so I know how to work quickly on the fly and know what to do when there is an issue.