The Final Product!

     It's been a very long two months, but the final product of "Steve" is finally here! We hope you enjoy it! Thank you to everyone who helped us along the way! 

Creative Critical Reflection!

    Hello! This is my Creative Critical Reflection! This is the penultimate blog post for this overall process. I really hope that you enjoy this video as well as my group's film opening, "Steve"! I want to thank Nicole Borman, Virginia Monasterio, and Mrs. Stoklosa for being such amazing individuals!

 

Planning My CCR!

     Given that we've finished filming and editing, and our film opening is due for submission on April 4th, it is now time for my group members and I to branch out and independently produce our Creative Critical Reflections (CCR). This is a crucial part of this component of the AICE Media AS examination and is probably the most AICE Media-esque way to create a reflection possible. On Wednesday, our teacher, Mrs. Stoklosa, lectured on what makes a good CCR, the questions that must be answered in it, and showed us some of her favorite samples from past years. This was a very helpful lesson, and I really enjoyed seeing what people did for their CCR's, especially seeing how they somehow connected it to their film openings using small details.

    Given that the CCR is due in a couple of days and I have to work pretty much all day tomorrow, I have planned what I'm going to do, and will be writing the script shortly after I publish this blog. I plan for my CCR to include various scenes from the film opening so it's not just 6 minutes of me talking to the camera. I have already completed some research regarding genre conventions, target audience, and distribution practices, so I'm definitely going to include that research in my script. Since I'm also planning on using footage from other films (especially when I talk about genre characteristics), I'm going to make use of voiceovers to further verbalize the information while I am not talking to the camera. I'm still brainstorming ways to connect my CCR to the film opening itself, perhaps visually, but as of now, with the limited time I have, my main priority is getting the script written and edited. 

Explaining Some Changes

     When we were filming, we made some executive decisions to change some things about our film opening. These changes were made due to a variety of factors. Some changes we had been thinking about for a while (I've made numerous blog posts about our contemplating on whether to change the setting or not), while others were made right at the time of filming, and some even in the midst of the editing process.

    The first change I want to highlight is the change of setting. I've obviously been blogging quite a bit about this because it's been discussed so often by my group. This couldn't be done because we didn't have access to an all-white room to execute the original idea, but we figured that the field would be equally as effective in creating the surrealistic and mysterious vibe that we originally had in mind. However, with the short time we had to plan, this wasn't a plausible option. Because of this, we decided to film at Markham Park, which was closer and obviously more accessible to us.

    Another thing we changed came during the time of filming. When we were filming the dialogue between Dainty and Steve, instead of doing an over-the-shoulder shot, we decided to do close-ups of ourselves. I think that this definitely aids in making it more surrealistic, as it almost separates the characters from each other, furthering the idea that Steve is extremely out of touch with reality. This was also done as a way to make the filming process easier, as Nicole and I kept messing up our lines and talking over each other. Below is a close-up shot from the film that Virginia sent to us as she was editing. 

    One last change we made came in the post-production/editing process. To deal with the differences in natural lighting in some of our shots, we decided to increase the saturation. We figured that this would also further the surrealist nature of our film opening, and also entrance our viewers into the world we're creating. 

    We obviously knew that the final product we would create would deviate somehow from our original vision. There were lots of factors that were out of control that caused us to change things about the film, and about the process itself. This is exactly what we expected coming into this process, and I believe that our anticipation of such changes is exactly what prepared us for this process so well. 

We Filmed!!

    So... despite the odds, we filmed! It was very good to see our vision come to life and to finally be able to put everything together! This post is mainly going to serve as a reflection of JUST the filming process as opposed to the entire project as a whole, which will be done in the Creative Critical Reflection. 

    We arrived at our filming location (Markham Park) at around 5:30, which honestly made me kind of nervous that we weren't going to film it all in one day because we were filming outside and we were depending on the sun for our lighting. As soon as we arrived, we unpacked our equipment (shoutout to Jim Guaracsi and BECONTV), and Virginia started doing Nicole and I's makeup.

    After that, we walked for a bit into a nearby field, played around with the camera angles, and we begun filming. Since the first scene has me laying on the grass, I had to lay in the grass for what felt like forever, and there were many fireflies and bees which actually scared me SOOOOOOO much. After that, we started shooting the rest of it, mainly the dialogue. However, before that, we had to film a couple of shots me breathing heavily, however, because I was wearing 3 layers (undershirt, dress shirt, and suit jacket), the sun was BEAMING in my face, and we had no water, so the filming was extremely exhausting. The rest of the filming process was pretty simple, the main issue we had just came in the dialogue, as Nicole and I were acting, we would forget our lines or one of us would speak before the other was finished saying their lines. We finished filming shortly before the sun set, and we will be playing around with the color and the gradience of the video in order to adjust for continuity. The filming process went so much smoother than I thought it would, and I'm really glad it went the way it did, and I can't wait to see the final product after Virginia finishes editing! I'll make more posts about the post-production process later this week!

Changing the Script... Literally

     Given our group's current dier circumstance, we're continuing to tweak some things about our product before we film. We're still trying to confirm a change to the shooting location and setting of the film opening. Since we, as a group have decided to continue filming with Nicole as Dainty and will be waiting for her to recover from her surgery for a couple of more days, Virginia had the idea of changing the script to better fit Nicole's situation right now. Nicole's left arm is currently in a cast, so we have made some changes in the script just so that we can play off of the situation just a little bit. It is also worth mentioning that Nicole successfully underwent surgery yesterday, and is now home making a speedy recovery! I spoke to her for a bit yesterday and she seems to be dealing with much less pain than her medical team anticipated, so I'm really glad her recovery is going well! I've attached the part of the script that we changed to now have Dainty wearing a cast.

MAN

Cute. What happened to your arm? Fell out of the bed?

Dainty sighs and her eyes widen. This goes on for a couple of seconds. She looks up and down, as if she was thinking of what to say. 

DAINTY

(gasps)

Yep. 

(hesitant)

Fell out of the bed. 

    

    For right now, we're finalizing some other details of the film. I'm finalizing some details to Steve's costume (I'll probably make a separate post next week on the costuming of the characters). I'm going to purchase a picture frame this weekend as it's one of the main props in our film, and as it stands, we will be filming on Tuesday! The past couple of weeks have been extremely tumultuous for our group and our opening, but everything seems to be figuring itself out! By the way, here are some pictures of Miss Dainty and her cast!

Changing The Setting... Again...

     Given that we've had a lot of time to think about our film opening, we're contemplating making some final changes to some aspects of the product. We want to make the most of the time that we physically cannot film, just to perfect things while we're in a period of time where so much is out of our control.

    One of the most crucial factors we're thinking of changing is the setting. When we were brainstorming the plot and the overall image we wanted to create, the all-white and monochromatic color scheme was a crucial part of the film. We thought that this would aid in creating the mysterious and almost dystopian vibe we wanted to create in the project. As of now, we're filming in a field in Markham Park. We believe that this setting helps to keep the mystery we're attempting to develop, but it loses some of the other vibes we were aiming to create in the opening. Because of this, we're still trying to find a way to film in an all-white setting so that the final product is more similar to the original idea we brainstormed at the beginning of the process. Virginia and Nicole are actively in contact with their friend Kim, and they are trying to find a way to possibly film at her house. If we manage to finalize the shift in location, I will for sure mention it in a future post, and I hope that we can do this so that we can keep the original and intended image and essence of the film opening alive well in the final product.

Complicated Matters

    Sooooo... Nicole is still waiting on a date for surgery... and we're getting worried about this. The role of Dainty was written with Nicole in mind, as Nicole is an amazing actress and she has experience playing similar roles in different short films. We were supposed to film 2 days from now, but it's becoming extremely unlikely as Nicole will be getting surgery at some point this week. We're really hoping that Nicole has a speedy recovery.

    As it stands right now, we're leaning towards just waiting to film the week of March 28th. We'll probably film one day after school. This is a HUGEEEE risk to take, given the little amount of time we would have to finally produce our film. I've heard countless stories of amazing films being produced under excruciating circumstances, so I hope this can be one of those. I hope this will end up being an amazing experience despite the downside we're facing right now. We're kind of at a point of stagnation in this process, so I really don't know what I'll be blogging about for the rest of the week, but I'll try my best to keep you guys updated!

A Huge Setback

     Sooooo... something that none of us saw happening happened. We were scheduled to film on March 24th (next week)... but sometimes things don't go to plan. A couple of days ago, one of our group members, Nicole, got into a car accident. I am extremely grateful and happy to say that she is okay. She suffered from a broken wrist, and she has to undergo surgery in about a week from now. The other driver involved in the accident is also doing fine and recovering. 

    This is obviously not an ideal situation to find ourselves in. One of our main actresses is unable to film and the completed project is due in almost Two weeks. We decided that there are two possible solutions to the problem we have encountered. Firstly, we could try and find someone new to replace Nicole as Dainty. This, however, will be difficult to do as we have to find someone who is willing to give up a whole day in order to film the movie opening. Since we are also filming over spring break, so a lot of our potential options for Nicole's replacement may not be available. Our second option is to simply wait for Nicole to recover after her surgery, and then film with her. This would require us to postpone filming until after Nicole recovers from her surgery, giving us less time to edit and deal with any other surprises that may arise. We're still deciding on what route to take, and weighing the pros and cons of each. I will probably make a post updating my readers on the situation in the coming future. 

A Small Reflection!

     Today in class, we were split into different groups with our colleagues to discuss the process of our projects. We were split by Mrs. Stoklosa into groups of Five, and we were each to introduce our idea to the other members in our group and give a brief overview of how the process is going, including any challenges we've had, and open ourselves up to critique and ideas from others. We got to read over each other's blogs, see snippets of each other's films. and gave each other advice on what to do next.

   It was extremely interesting to see all the ideas that everyone else had, I found that some of us were running into similar issues, and other people had run into some that I could not have imagined. I found this to be extremely beneficial. Not just for the sake of the project, but also for myself. Seeing how people are integrating factors that are so important to them in their everyday life into their films was honestly so refreshing to see. For example, Jaxson, who I know is very into American Sign Language, is producing his film around a character who struggles with coming of age while deaf. I also learned that Rodrigo is extremely into music production, and he's centering the plot of his film opening around a college student who tries to make it big in the music industry. Rodrigo is also producing some of the music in the film opening himself, which I think is extremely remarkable. This activity reminded me that creativity is so beautiful. Since this morning, I haven't stopped thinking about the amazing things that we as humans can do with our emotions and our minds, and it's genuinely made me very sentimental throughout the day. It was amazing to see the progress that everyone's made so far, help others out, and see everyone's ideas, and I cannot wait to see all of our pieces come to life! 

Let's Talk About Font

     In this course, we've learned that font is one of the most important factors of any piece of media. It is quintessential to developing the mood and image of anything from a film opening to a brand. In a project like this one, where credits are an essential part of the piece, the font in which the credits are written is of the utmost importance. We only have two minutes to develop the film opening, and we HAVE TO include the credits in that time, as well as develop some sort of conflict (which our script does). Our Credits will be in a Black & White color and are very sharp, developing the aggressive mood of our psychological thriller. Below, I will attach the credits that Virginia has created for the film.

'

 

   As we were talking to our teacher, Mrs. Stoklosa, and showed her the credits. One thing that we might change is that in the first picture, some are too crowded, and would make it difficult for our viewers to read. This might just elongate our film length, or we'll have to cut out some of the dialogue. I love how this font looks, and I think it presents the overall mood and image of our film.

Introducing the Characters (Part 3)- Dainty

    The third and final character in our film opening is Dainty. Dainty is by far one of, if not THE most important character in our film. Dainty was molested by Steve at a very young age, but this isn't really tackled in our opening and the mystery created leaves the relationship between Dainty and Steve up to the audience's interpretation. Dainty says that "He stole from me.", showing that she is aware of Steve's impact on her, even though the stealing is thought to be the stealing of money. Dainty, despite her youth, acknowledges her loss of innocence. Even though she has grown up, she dresses in small-fitting clothes as a way to feel and reclaim the youth and innocence that was stolen from her. Below, I will attach a character board Nicole created.

    In our film, Dainty will be played by Nicole. I think that Nicole is going to do a great job playing this part, as she has the most experience in acting. In fact, tonight, she'll be playing Maria, the lead in our school's musical, West Side Story. For the Five years that I've known Nicole, she's always been involved in acting, whether it's at drama competitions, school musicals, or short films. I have no doubt that Nicole is going to be a great Dainty, and I'm very excited to film next week!

    Dainty will be 

Introducing the Character (Part 2)- Maria

     Today, I wanted to continue the "Introducing The Characters" series on my blog by focusing on Maria, who will be played by Virginia. Most people would consider Maria to be a psycho. Much of her anger and aggression in our film-opening comes from the fact that her now ex-husband, Steve. After finding out that Steve has cheated on her, Maria feels jealous of the mistress, who is much younger and more attractive than she is. Maria envies the mistress' youth and takes her anger out on the man (Steve). Below, I will attach a character mood board Nicole made for the character. She definitely uses the most aggressive and explicit language of any of the characters in the opening, saying lines such as "

                                     MARIA

In my f@cking house. With a wh0re. "

    Virginia will be playing the role of Maria in the film opening. I genuinely think that Virginia is very feisty and blunt, so she's definitely going to do a great job playing the character. I'm confident that Virginia is going to do an amazing job at playing this part, as she has acting experience in other films she has produced, including "Critique", which I have mentioned in a previous blog.

A Change of Setting

    Sooo... We had a little change of plans... In class today, we decided that we might have to change the setting of our film. We originally wanted to have our film take place in an empty all-white room, but we've come to face the fact that it will be very unrealistic and tedious to do. None of us have a plain white room in our houses that fit the description of the set we imagined or originally wanted. The idea of using the photography backdrops I mentioned before was way too expensive and would amount to us spending hundreds of dollars, so for obvious reasons, we will not be pursuing that idea.

    Today in class, we were brainstorming ideas for where to film. We were thinking of asking our friend Kim, who has an all-white room in her house, for permission to film at her house, but figured it would be too big of a favor to ask for considering how extensive the filming process is, and we also don't want to have to move objects in her house around. 

    We decided that another reasonable setting for our film could be in the middle of a forest. This is also a more realistic option as we could film at Markham Park, which has large forest areas, is free to access, and is less than 10 minutes away from my house. I know of many students who have shot short films here, and I even shot a Music Video as part of a project for this course earlier this year at Markham Park (I'll leave a screenshot from it below). The forest setting could create the same sense of mystery we wanted to create through the all-white room, and it might even allow us to alter our script to incorporate the setting into it!

A BTS picture from the shooting at Markham Park. There is a large forest area behind where the picture is taken.

Introducing the Characters: Steve

    As we go further into this process, I thought it would be cool to introduce the characters from our film opening! The introductions will be split into different blog posts, but I thought it would be fitting to introduce the character that I will be playing in our opening: Steve. Steve is the main character in this film opening, he is also the character that our film, "STEVE", is named after. Most of the film opening revolves around Steve and the mystery and confusion he wakes up to, and his douchey personality is almost immediately made apparent to the audience. 

    Steve is a stereotypical cocky, misogynistic, rude, business executive. In the film, Steve is married to Maria, who he considers to be extremely insane, and often questions his relationship with her. He often blames Maria for many of the problems he causes or puts himself in, and is very emotionally abusive towards his wife. Steve feels as if he deserves everything good in the world, be it money, power, or love, and he will do anything in his power to get what he wants. He has a long history of manipulating and gaslighting people to get what he desires, especially women for sex. He is the complete antithesis of an empath, he is a narcissist, really, and he hurts everyone and anyone around him in his search for glory. Steve is someone who has both a savior and victim complex. His passive aggression, toxicity, and lack of empathy will be very clearly seen in our opening, both through his words and actions. Nicole developed a character board for Steve, which I will attach below. Essentially, Steve is a very fratty and macho character. If we had to compare Steve to a famous character from a film, it would be Jordan Belfort from "The Wolf of Wall Street". Even though these movies are of completely different genres, both of these characters are extremely money-driven and manipulative, and they won't let anyone get in the way of what they want.

Nicole's character board for Steve.

    As I prepare to play the role of Steve in our film, I'm definitely going to do more research on similar characters as him so I can channel my inner-douche to give the best performance possible. I'm going to try to stray away from method acting throughout this process because I don't EVER want to be like Steve... I don't think anyone wants to. I'm going to make more posts about playing the character, especially when it comes to choosing aspects such as the costume and maybe even makeup to develop the character's tiredness and confusion, and maybe even a post dedicated to how I'm practicing the lines and having some run throughs before we film.

We Have a Set Schedule!

    On Tuesday, we met up in class and we got a lot done! I think that one of the most important things that we got done was that we set our schedule for this project!

    Even though this schedule is somewhat vague, I feel like it is an effective starting plan to keep ourselves on track. We discussed what parts of the schedule should have more time than others, and this is what we came up with. We gave ourselves adequate time to complete the entire process on time and to submit BEFORE our deadline of April 4th in case we encounter any unforeseen issues in the editing or exporting/submitting process. 

    

    We gave ourselves enough time to film, as we want to film as soon as we can to avoid any mistakes that may arise. We've caught up despite starting off on a delay because of school trips and other factors, and as of now, we're right on schedule! We did acknowledge that while we want to try to stick to this schedule as much as we can, it is likely that we will have to change some things around. We all have busy schedules, and a lot of the time, we can't control them sometimes (tests, jobs, etc.) I'm really proud of how this is coming together so far and I can't wait to keep you guys updated!

Virginia Is a Godsend!!!!

    This morning, I woke up to a text from Virginia in the group chat between her, Nicole, and myself. I was pleasantly surprised at what I saw but felt confused and honestly a little bit worried. I received the text at 1:04 a.m. The text just happened to contain the first draft of our script, which Virginia had written at what I consider to be ungodly hours of the night. I scanned through the first few lines when I first saw it, but after seeing how long it was, I decided that it was better for me to wait until I was more awake and attentive to read through it.

    I have actually just finished reading through it (it is now 7:03 p.m.), and while there are some things to change, I am absolutely enthralled by what Virginia has come up with. Thought I don't want to reveal too much of the draft because at the end of the day, it really is just that: a draft, I will share an excerpt of the description of the setting and conflict below. Yesterday, I wrote on this blog about how I wanted to help in the scriptwriting part of this project, and while a significant part of that is virtually impossible now, there are still some things to change, which my group will tackle tomorrow in class. Virginia also added a couple more characters than we had originally planned for, so I will be taking time to ask my friends with acting experience to see if they can play a role in our film opening. 

    I have so much gratitude for Virginia, her work ethic, and her creativity. She just gave us a HUGE leap in this process, and I cannot wait to see where it goes from here. Stay tuned for more updates!

The text from Virginia with the introductory portion of the film opening.

Can I Write and Play the Part?

     I've been thinking about this entire process a lot lately. Especially about what I can contribute to our project. Compared to my groupmates, Nicole and Virginia, I have very little experience in media production. They've both been in this world for almost 4 years now, whereas my experience is limited to pretty much just this course. I believe that my biggest strength comes in my writing abilities. I've written some short stories that only a few of my closest friends have read, and poetry is my most frequently used coping mechanism. I feel, however, like my skills in poetry and prose could transfer over to screenwriting for this. Since we specifically chose this genre to play to our backgrounds and strengths, I want my writing skills to be my biggest contribution to this project.

    I was also thinking of the filming process and what I could contribute then. Since Nicole and Virginia are both very knowledgeable in the production aspect of filming, I feel as if I will have to end up acting as our main character. While acting isn't something I'm very familiar with, I'm very excited to see first if I even play our character, and second, how it turns out if I do. I think that since this is just a film opening, and our idea wants to focus a lot of the camera time on showing the objects in the room, my performance will do the job we need it to do. While this is a detail we will have to confirm in the next coming days, I'm very excited if I do get to act in this! I love getting out of my comfort zone and trying new things, and I've never really had an opportunity like this, so why not try it? Maybe I'll win an Oscar! Just kidding.

Setting the Schedule

     Given that this process is officially in full swing, my group is currently in the process of developing an official schedule for the production of our project. Since we are still finalizing the details of our plan, we still do not have an accurate end date as to when the planning period will end. However, we now find ourselves in a dilemma: when to film. Since this project should be finished and submitted by early April, we want to get the filming done as soon as possible. However, we do have a week off of school during spring break, but fear that this is too soon before the project is due to film

    Filming ASAP seems like the better option because it gives us the most time to deal with any mishaps that may arise. It would also give us the most time to deal with anything that might need to be fixed during the editing and post-production process. However, given that all 3 of us have busy schedules that are almost always taken up by rigorous academics, jobs, and numerous extracurriculars, we aren't sure of how realistic this plan would be. Our filming would likely be limited to weekends, and filming the entire opening in one weekend would be extremely difficult, especially with changes in lighting, and other commitments, like our jobs, that we would have to clear in order to film then.

    Filming during spring break would basically give us the most consecutive time possible to film, since we don't have to worry about school. This break lasts from March 17th to March 28th. However, that is extremely close to the day we have to submit this project in early April. This would limit the time we have for editing and the post-production process. Additionally, if we started filming and realized we needed extra equipment that had to be purchased online, making this process extremely tight and risky. 

    We're still debating when we should film and will be asking out teacher, Mrs. Stoklosa for advice as soon as we meet with her on Tuesday.

SET(ting) The Scene

     Today, out of curiosity, I decided to do some research on what our set should entail. This isn't something my group has discussed because we're only still in the beginning stages of our planning. The way I pictured our scene, it would take place in an entirely white room, but almost like more of a set than an actual room. Right now, I see it being similar to some sets from Jubilee's (a YouTube channel) videos, which are filmed using white curtains on the sides and background.

Screenshot from a Jubilee Video. (See background for what I envision our setting being like.)

    I envision our set obviously being much smaller to create an almost claustrophobic feeling that also creates uneasiness and discomfort. I think one way that we could create a setting like this one is by purchasing white backdrops for photography (see below), and putting 4 of them together to create the setting, and give the film the sleek, monochromatic look that we're envisioning at the moment. I found what I think is a relatively-priced option on walmart.com, so I think this is definitely a realistic vision, but obviously, nothing is for sure as we're still at a very early point in this process.

    I just wanted to dedicate a post to this because I wanted to bring to light something that I thought would be interesting for my viewers to see about how the set might be created. I think it's important to document little ideas like these because in large-scale projects like this, it's important to be creative and resourceful! We might end up filming in a regular white bedroom instead of following through with this but hey, you never know what can happen!