To the future!

 Looking towards the oncoming months, my team and I will be needing to plan ahead our production schedule in order to maximize our time and get our project done in due time. I remember last year, my group and I were planning dates and what weeks we would want to get certain aspects of our film opening done and how useful it was to get us on track (even when a pandemic came in and hit us out of nowhere). Regardless, my group this year has come up with:

Finishing a rough draft by end of next week (3/7), finalizing script and storyboards week after (3/14), begin and finish filming week afterwards, and begin editing once filming wraps up. 

This schedule is ideal, but tight as I won’t be here during spring break. Because of my absence, we will have to buckle down and get ready to rise and grind. To the future we go!

Tik Tok Inspiration? Yeah

 To describe the period of March and April of 2020 as something unprecedented and unexpected, that would be an understatement. It was a period of confusion, paranoia, and isolation all stemming from the initial outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Fast forward almost a year later and.....we're still here :/. An unfortunate reality, but one that has given me plenty of experiences and personal growth I never would have thought of before. A weird, but interesting trend that I found occurred as a result of all this isolation, change in life, and even Tik Tok, was something I like to call the "Main Character phenomenon."

Source: Imgur

There was a trend on Tik Tok where creators would make videos talking about times in life that make you feel like the main character or songs that make you feel like you're the main character. Many users and creators carried on this sentiment on video comments, posts, and in everyday conversations. It was fascinating to me because I also subscribed to this idea and, like many others, wanted to feel like the main character in my life. It felt like a kind of awakening where people became more conscientious and wanted to take control of their lives; to not sit on the sidelines anymore. 

When coming up with ideas on our short film, we decided that referencing or making a commentary regarding this phenomenon is something that we should explore in our short film. Discussing why people feel this way, what it makes them feel, where it comes from, and the consequences of chasing this feeling are all possible subjects for us to explore.

Group Meetings

 During class, my teacher put us in groups today with people from other projects in our class. We all discussed what kinds of project we chose (music promo, documentary, and short film) and we explained what progress and ideas we all had for each one, as well as gave feedback to one another. Being that it was so early into the production process, it's important and helpful to see where everyone else's heads are at and what ideas they have and can give me. And just as I suspected, most people were in the same boat as I am, they have a concept, but need ideas. One group was wanting to do a documentary and we helped them get ideas, while another was doing music video and we helped him come up with ways to record them performing and what would be best for his purposes and skills. When discussing my idea, everyone seemed intrigued at me and my group working on something more meta; they've seen my group's chemistry and work and is looking forward to its fruition. Overall, it was nice seeing opinions from everyone and where people needed help.

Looking for Inspiration

After a few listens and discussions with my partners, we began to formulate some ideas regarding our short film. For our concept as of right now, we are thinking of doing a story that revolves around two characters who are both auditioning to be the "main character" of the film story. The storyline and dialogue would be our main focus and where our attention to detail would come in to play. Throughout the series of events in the story, the characters could be fighting for things such as, screen time or character development. We would want it to be witty, funny, and thought-provoking at the same time (touch balls to juggle, I know!). We have been throwing this idea around in our heads since the summer when we viewed, Stranger than Fiction, together.

Source: Sony Pictures

This film revolves around a main character, Harold Crick, who begins to notice his life is being narrated and he is a part in someone's story. When watching it, I loved how original, wacky, meta and funny the story was and the uniqueness planted a seed in my brain ever since. The fact that the voiceover in the film was something Harold could hear and interact with, which lead to his written fate being intertwined with his free will was incredibly interesting and told a really compelling theme.

Source: Dreamworks

Another movie that gave us some ideas was Shrek, believe it or not. The opening sequence of the story being told like an old time fairytale via a narrator was something that came up in our conversation. We could play around with our film already being a play on storytelling and the suspension of disbelief among the characters and audience with how meta it would be. We could have a narrator that interacts with the protagonists or the protagonists fight against the narrator, etc.

When it comes to breaking the fourth wall, there is a lot of room to play around with and a lot of fun we can have when crafting the elements of our story. I am very excited to see what else we come up with and what concepts will go into our final cut. 

Short Film: The Playlist(s)

 Currently on our road to creating an idea for our short film, my group and I decided to try and first develop and atmosphere and sonic aesthetic for our project. In order to do this, we all created our own playlists on Spotify; something I never would have thought of personally had it not been for my other group members. This was a very interesting idea, but one I will definitely do again. It was fun going through all my own personal songs to see which would able to fit in an actual movie as a lot of songs I love, do give me "movie vibes", so it was nice to finally put them to use. This was a fun way to brainstorm story ideas in a more abstract and audio focused way. 

A lot of times I hear music and immediately think of a scene or characters or shot lists or a story that I would wanna see in either a movie, music video, or tv show. It was awesome listening to my collection of possible soundtrack picks, as well as Ryan and Eddy's. I picked mine with the loose common thread of a mysterious, nighttime aura connecting the songs together. Eddy's was very peaceful and melodic, while Ryan's was more dreamlike and wonderous. All these different playlists helped me get a different perspective on how the film could pan out and it was very interesting to see where my other teammates' creative headspaces are at.

I am very excited to see where these playlists take our creative drive and the direction our film ends up going in.

Missed me?

 Hello world!

After a long blogging hiatus, I am back! I am ready and excited to get back into blogging and production mode once again. For this new latest project, I will be working with two of my other colleagues on a 5-minute short film. Throughout the next couple of weeks, we will be conducting more research and brainstorming ideas for our plot. As of right now, we have decided on a few methods of brainstorming that I will be posting about relatively soon on here. One of which being to construct a playlist of songs that would help emulate the atmosphere and feel for the movie that we will be aiming to create. After doing so, we will most likely begin mood boarding for the visual and story aspects before ultimately starting to work on a full script next week. I am very excited for this project as making a complete and fully fleshed out short film is something I haven't been able to execute for a while now. I hope all of you are looking forward to coming along this journey with me once again as this film comes to fruition!