The Marathon Continues

Today, my teacher had set up an online class meeting to discuss all of our progress on our projects and relay us important information. What I had taken away from this meeting was that despite the pandemic and uncertainty of it all, there still will be a final assessment and to continue working on our projects despite whatever obstacles may arise. She continued to give us more information about how online learning will go from now on and to keep pushing forward in our work and to not let the online barrier push us back any further. This was a major reassurance to know that all of our hard work and perseverance through the entire portfolio project will be deserving at the end and will count for something. Additionally, there was a bit more pressure put upon us when she introduced the possibility that this portfolio project could by itself be our entire grade rather than just a portion of it that it used to be. Despite this I feel confident in me and my group's end product result; the only other deciding factor will be my Creative Critical Reflection in which I give an in-depth analysis about the entire project production process at large. I am excited to really delve into the depths of the hard work my team and I have accomplished together, but at the same time have been procrastinating writing it. Will give you all an update as to how I get this next milestone done (hopefully) very soon!

Brave New World

The time has come. It is the first day of distant learning. Up until this point and even today, most of my peers and I really had no idea how or if the transition to online learning would realistically work. It kinda felt like we were all left in the dark, however my teachers had sent numerous messages to me about how their classes would run and had already put up assignments for me to complete which really cleared up a lot of confusion. And how this day ended up all in all was: hectic.

(For me at least)

The online learning model has pulled back the strict and scheduled regimen that us students had to follow on regular school days and given us both the blessing and burden of organizing our own schedules. This wasn't necessarily the easiest thing for me to adjust to as I now wake up five hours later than I normally would for school and as soon as I do I have to jump into a meeting and begin my online assignments, which at this point (the starting point) seem to already be piling on top of one another. This experience really opened my eyes just in the course of a single day that I really need to discipline myself and organize my time for each subject and assignment or else it would be game over. So basically:

Current To Do List

As of right now, I have yet been able to return to Austin's house to continue editing with him and we still are not done. From my last post, the list of needs still hold true and here they are with their progress in bullet format:

• Add Credits-We have established our roles for credits and the order in which they will be presented in the opening, but have yet to edit them into the piece.
• Find Music-We have yet to find a definite song for use, but Katherine has been searching the past  few days for some strong candidates. It will be something suspenseful that can effectively convey the character's inner feelings and is something to be decided upon by all of us in the near future.
• Establish Font-For the font that we are to use for the credits and title card, we all agreed upon a font that would be very clean and sharp to be reminiscent of a font that would be used on a computer or mobile device. This helps to establish the tone for the film and Austin will be experimenting with different types of fonts and will let us know as to which ones will be strong contenders.

I am glad to have a sort of grocery list of tasks to accomplish for our film opening, especially since filming is not on there which relieves a lot of stress off my plate. Seeing it all written down with the progress we have made, does put a smile on my face...

*I hope the reference is understood.*

Progress on Editing

So, in terms of being able to meet up and edit, the times in which both Austin and I are able to have become few and far between due to the pandemic and increase in the practice of social distancing, isolation, and parents being more strict on my whereabouts. However, I was able to sneak in a visit to his house where we had established to be our location for editing. This is due to Austin having not only the most optimal computer and hardware, but also having the best editing software (Adobe Premier 2019). When I went to his house, I was able to complete the entirety of line editing for the opening before I had to leave. 

This puts us in a great track to complete everything on time with the rest of editing comprising of more or less what I like to call: "the seasoning." This includes the credits, what font to use, syncing up recorded audio, and the music and sound effects.

 And yes. That is our workplace.

How to Film a Mirror

During the filming process, there were a variety of techniques we had to implement in order to create our opening. One of the most unique and helpful happened when Austin and I had to film Katherine in front of a mirror taking mirror selfies for a scene. The only issue arises when the camera we were filming with and myself would show up in the reflection; therefore, ruining the shot. So we had to think on our feet and improvise how to overcome this obstacle, and that is exactly what we did.

I came up with the idea to have Katherine screen record her phone while taking pictures of herself in the mirror in various poses, so that while filming Katherine will just have to match the movement of herself in the video. This allows us to film herself and her phone in the mirror taking pictures without having the camera in the video which is exactly the shots that we needed.

We Filmed!

The long awaited day has come and we delivered as promised! We finished the filming phase of our project. We began at around 10:30 in the morning and took us until around 2:30 in the afternoon to wrap everything up. I would say it took longer than I expected but I had a feeling it would take at least three hours, considering how specific we would all be with shots and mis-en-scene. We began with all of the set design mainly set up from the day before thanks to Katherine and began filming right away after some quick debriefing between me and my team. It went by pretty smoothly considering our planned storyboards, script, and order of events that we have established over the past weeks.

I am incredibly satisfied with what we have filmed and the fact we finally overcame this milestone. Now, it's on to editing!

Updated Set Design

Both this Tuesday and today were meant for us to gather props and other elements to complete our set design; however, due to the increasing need for social distancing and worry amid the COVID-19 outbreak, our parents have confined us to staying home. With this barrier, we had to think on our feet and work with what we had. Luckily, we were able to find posters, drwings, and other nice decor for us to use. Since we are filming at Katherine's house and had researched what our mis-en-scene elements would be, she took the liberty of preparing her room for the day of filming.

The mess (Madness)

The classy side (Beauty)

The two sides of her room are exactly what we envisioned. The contrast between the two serve to exemplify our character's struggle between the fake perfect self she chooses to have seen by the world and her inner self which she chooses to keep hidden and cluttered away; in other words, the beauty behind the madness. When Katherine sent us these pictures of the set design, I was so happy and pleased as to how it turned out and the fact that it was completed ahead of time. All this and more when I get back after filming!

Changes, Changes, Changes

Today, my group and I met up at my house to begin setting up, as well as to establish we are all on the same page by finalizing scripts, storyboards, and ideas for the film opening to begin the process of shooting tomorrow. This was the first time since my trip and the entirety of this whole Corona virus outbreak and panic that we have met up and talked, so it was nice to see they were doing well.

Since the last time we had filmed last Sunday, we decided to postpone our final filming in order to further research and plan our set design and key elements for filming, such as getting a dummy phone for Katherine to throw.

At our meeting we finished the script and all went over it. Afterwards, we began to gather items in order to start setting up in my room by going to Katherine's house as she was the one who supplied the set design last time. As we arrive to her room, we begin to bring up the idea of changing the location of filming to her house. This was because her room was completely filled with artwork, posters, and color. The way her room was organized showed the mis-en-scene of the "artsy" side of the main character we wanted to show. The only thing we would have to adjust is to create a part of her room where the "classy" and model part that she would show the online world. This was an idea that my team and I decided to follow through on for our film.

In order to adjust to this change in scenery, we decided to push back our film date (once again) to Thursday and have Tuesday and Wednesday to find decor to create the social media persona of the set design. As always, I'll keep you guys updated as to how these changes turn out :)

Case Study 2

The Quest for Perfection and Cost of Excellence

In order to gain a greater in-depth understanding for my character in "Valid", I decided to research the film "Black Swan." Black Swan follows a ballerina named "Nina" whose passion for the dance rules every facet of her life and her drive to secure the lead role reveals the dark side within. I chose this film for analysis as it deals with themes of obsession, recognition, and validation as well as the dark side effects that can follow.

Natalie Portman as "The Black Swan"

Growing Up

A key aspect of the film I wanted to delve into was the theme of growing up. This is evident in the main character and her journey. For example, her name "Nina" means "little girl" in Spanish and her mother still tucks her into bed and oversees her actions. As Nina progresses farther and farther into her quest to gain the role of the Black Swan, she begins to show signs of rebellion such as disobeying and distancing herself from her mother by going to night clubs, doing drugs, and other dangerous activities. 

Another way this is represented is with one of the supporting characters named Lily, who plays the role of the black swan and serves as a direct contrast to Nina by symbolizing adulthood and maturity. Lilly is a character who Nina sees as reckless, flirtatious, and someone who does things her way which is ironic given the name "Lily" means "pure." Her character is an embodiment of who Nina wants to be; a true "Black Swan."

Use of Mirrors

The use of mirrors in films is a great tool to visually show a character's self reflection; however, in this film it is used beyond that with the use of mirrors highlighting the internal struggles that Nina faces, serving as an exploration of who she is. The way the director shows the dehumanization that Nina's strive to be the swan queen entails is through the constant implementation of mirrors. In addition to showing great film making technique, the mirrors are riddled with symbolism as we are able to see Nina descend into madness and her transformation from dancing for the love of the art to dancing to prove others, like her mother, wrong.

Color

Colors that are commonplace throughout the film are black and white. In the beginning, Nina can only dawn the role of the white swan in the play. The white representing innocence and purity. Unlike Lily, who is not held back and rebellious, cannot take on the role of the white swan to the level Nina can because of this. However, at the end when Nina finally lets go of her innocence and the facade that she has been hiding behind her whole life, she is then able to dawn the role of the black swan which represents evil and her loss of innocence; a true contrast. 

These are all aspects of this film that I have taken away and intend to implement as inspiration into my film opening. Specifically the use of mirrors and colors were already an element my team and I had agreed upon beforehand to use, but researching how this film used it was good to see and understand. 

Thanks Corona -_- (STN Update)

Some interesting events have occurred in my life since the last time I've written here. Allow me to debrief everyone.

As mentioned before, the competition I have been preparing for since November is finally here. Student Television Network. The place where student journalists and multi-media storytellers from around the country all come together to compete and learn. I went on the plane and arrived in Washington D.C with less than 24 hours left until the convention officially began. Or at least it was supposed to until...

The Corona Virus
Source: Livescience

Long story short the convention had been cancelled because of DC Health's recommendation. While I understand the cancellation, it doesn't mean I'm happy about it especially since they had several chances to cancel it before hundreds of teams wasted their time and money to arrive; but, I digress. 

My entire TV production team (CBTV) have been pumped up, preparing, and were ready to compete and win at STN. But come Wednesday afternoon a mere one day after we arrive, we get information that nobody wanted to hear; STN has been cancelled. Hearing this news was absolutely devastating and knowing how many hours of my Saturday mornings, after school days, and time spent for meetings have been wasted didn't help either. This was a competition where I felt incredibly confident a lot of us, including myself, would have placed and won. But, I guess this confidence won't be justified until next year...

All I hope is for this outbreak to settle down, not only for the entire world's safety, but also to help make sure the rest of this filming and school year continues as normal.

The Living Storyboard

While we weren’t able to film our opening on Sunday, Austin brought up a good point and idea about how to help make our filming more efficient. He mentioned many filmmakers and directors take real draft pictures of their subjects to serve as a storyboard and when it comes time to film or even edit, it makes the process so much easier. So, thats exactly what we did since our production design was mainly finished and all of us were here. This will definitely expedite the process and centered our focus.

Outcome of the "Big Day"

On March 8th, we planned to film our opening in full. We had our set all set up and ready to go. Ready, set, go, and we began to film according to our storyboards. It was full proof...

Or so we thought. We began filming the first few shots to introduce our main character as well as establishing shots to introduce credits. As we further continued down this journey, something began to feel off as if we hadn't planned everything out enough to ensure the best possible end product. Although we had planned a lot and we did figure out a shooting schedule, the fact we accomplished this so hurriedly made us feel as if we could go more thorough with this project than we had been.

And with that, we rescheduled for March 17th. 

While we didn't complete filming today, we were able to further drill down what we need come March 17th. Austin agreed on purchasing a dummy iPhone for us to use as a prop and Katherine was going to be able to get a clothing rack, as well as more clothes and lighting from her friends to help further flesh out our production. I did feel uneasy going in to filming this opening so early, but believed my group would somehow overcome this and finish. I now see the more careful deliberation and overall confidence we have with our project, the more efficient we will work and the better the final project will turn out. With added time, I will use this to conduct more research and character studies to benefit the opening.

Setting up for the big day!

The big day, March 8th, is quickly approaching! The day of reckoning...the day of filming. So, as one does, we decided to get our production design all set up ahead of time by transforming the earlier decided location of: my room.

What my team and I are aiming for in terms of mis-en-scene is to have the setting (the room) reflect the character and her inner struggle. As my teammate Austin pointed out, "the room looks so small, but so large at the same time." We wanted to have the room be spacious to symbolize the emptiness the character feels within herself, but also when in the room. The vast height of the room portrays an unusual vacancy that we intend on having viewers feel.

 We wanted to use colors such as, tans, creams, whites, and blacks to represent the bland and neutral aesthetic the protagonist is attempting to emulate with her social media presence. We took inspiration from the chic, couture route where these colors highlight elegance and class as well as for the actual articles of clothing that will be shown. 

An additional aspect that we intend on touching on is the character's repressed person. In contrast to the sophistication she wishes to show the world online, in reality she is someone a bit different. Someone who enjoys making colorful art and doesn't conform to dressing normal or "posh." We want to demonstrate this with paintings and excess clothing in her closed closet, as if she is wanting to hide all of herself away from the world. 

It was a bit unreal placing all the elements in the room, mainly because I couldn't believe we were already going to film this especially considering the fact we had an entirely different idea for an opening a little more than a week ago. I am ready to shoot this on Sunday and it does inlay confidence within me the fact we are getting filming out of the way this early into the process. I am excited to update you guys on how this turns out!

The Calm Before the Storm

Source: Goalcast

Throughout this entire production and planning process, a lot of different thoughts have come in and out of my head. This feeling of chaos keeps persisting throughout. These past weeks have felt like the ultimate juggling act between schoolwork, my job, my work in my school's Television Production program, and of course this very film opening. It's always the third quarter of the school year where it seems the hardest and it is especially true this year. My group and I all have our own hectic schedules too, but thankfully have come to settle on an organized, mutual schedule for the project. 

Source: Student Television Network

The biggest impending event that is really freaking me out is going to Washington D.C next week for STN competition. While I am excited, it is an entire week off school and with that, working with my group mates. This will be pushing editing, or any other touch ups we may need for our opening, for after I come back which may or may not play a huge role in our progression. I am glad we have our schedule in line with STN, but it is something that has been in the back of my mind for a while and I felt like it was important for me to be able to document this.

Case Study

In the creation of our film opening, my group and I set forth a goal in mind which was to have it centered around the perception social media portrays on the individuals consuming it and the reality behind the creator of the posts. In order to demonstrate this concept effectively, we looked to case studies.

In 2015, Essena O'Neill was a fashion model (19 at the time) who looked like she had everything in her life and was living the dream. With over 500,000 followers she was a glamorous teen making a career on social media. However, this glimpse into her "picture perfect" life was anything but perfect. O'Neill deleted a majority of her popular Instagram posts and with the ones remaining, updated the captions.

Essena's captions

O'Neill was able to shatter the illusion that is social media. In her now updated captions, O'Neill pulls back the curtain such as when saying how she only posted certain pictures because a company told her to or how she would "want to look hot" just for Instagram. This thinking process of seeking validation or attention seems to be incredibly characteristic of social media and their users, especially the youth, and it is an issue we want to be able to bring more to light and give it the attention it needs.

This case study was something my group mate Katherine had brought upon early in our pre-production for our project. And by early, I mean as soon as she pitched the idea. This specific case study was news I had heard very faintly a few years back and it immediately caught my attention and piqued my interest for going through with this. It is the dichotomy between social media and reality that I have noticed a lot especially throughout my experience as a teenager in this day and age and it will be very fascinating to be able to portray this to an audience.

Group Meetings

In class today, I had an opportunity to further strengthen my idea for my opening.

Names from left to right: Ana,  Camila, Robert, Myself, Jessica, Sydney

We were arranged into groups each working on their own different openings and discussed each other's ideas. Everybody had very interesting and different ideas for their films and it was great to critique one another and give inspiration and help to one another. I even gave one of my group members a title for her short film :)

A lot of the people had really cool ideas I am excited to see how they bring it to life, like Robert who is doing a retro-futuristic film about dating culture. A common theme I found was a lot of people were doing coming-of-age films about a character either in romance, family, social group or their mental state.

Within our discussion, I got some great feedback and new ideas I hadn't thought about. For the most part, they all liked my idea for the opening and thought the concept was original and very topical, especially today. An idea they brought to the table was having the main character be more of a video influencer rather than a photo model, which is what we had in mind. This perspective went completely over my head as I was more tunnel visioned on making it more centered around a typical fashionista. I'm really glad I was able to get more feedback and insight for my idea to help me give a new view to my opening. 

Update

Update time! On Sunday, my partners and I met up and discussed how our film opening is going to pan out. Here is what we worked on:

Storyboards

One issue we got out of the way first was what for our film opening was actually going to be filmed. The best way for us to prepare for this was to storyboard the shots. After some back and forth as to the different shot compositions and order of events in the scene were discussed, we came to a final outline for us to follow. We have around 20 shots and we also ensured what pacing and editing techniques would compliment these shots.

Shooting Location

We also figured out where our production will be taking place, my house! There is a room I have (pictured above) where there is a all white closet, a mirror, and all cream and white walls with a lot of empty space. This room is perfect due to the range of options it gives us in terms of set design with all the space and the plain white walls plays in tune with what the character's "aesthetic" persona is about. Speaking of figuring things out...

We have a name! "Valid" will be the title of our story. Funny tidbit about this title, it came to fruition when I decided to use a random word generator when my group and I were trying to come up with ideas for names. The word Valid came up and it took us all by surprise, but in a good way. We decided to roll with this name since it fits our character's struggle with wanting to feel validated through social media, as well as being vague enough to not give too much of the story away.

It was overall a really productive day where we hashed out ideas and cemented our game plan to be able to film next week. Every time my group and I meet, I feel us making more and more progress and in an efficient manner. The only things left for us to prepare before filming will be:

-mis-en-scene

-characterization

-representation

-editing techniques

-music

With this in mind, we are on the right track to pump out something worth watching!