Script Revisions

Just as I mentioned in the previous script update, our script is a living document. And this document has been revised once more; albeit, for a more conclusive time.

Some updates we made included: shortening of the opening scene, revised scene and character descriptions, a few tweaks to the ending confrontation, and a new ending entirely (same idea of protagonist getting their own script, but different execution.

Ryan has added notes and comments to the screenplay online that will help Eddy in creating the storyboards for our film. With all these revisions and markups, my group is happy to say that this version should be the closest to what the end product will turn out to be and are ready to help bring these words on paper to life.

You can view our completed script here.

Music

In terms of our film, the visual is only half the battle that we have tackled head on, now it is time for audio; more specifically, our non-diegetic sound.

For our soundtrack to the movie, we will use resources such as copyright free songs on YouTube, filmstro.com, and freesounds.org for any special sound effects. We will need to gather a rather large array of royalty-free music in order to ensure all the different film genres and scenes have the appropriate soundtrack to go along with what is happening on screen. 

An aspect of this journey that we are wanting to go the extra mile for is for the ability to implement copyrighted songs that we ourselves are huge fans of and want to add these songs as a cameo to our film, as well as these songs have always been songs we have always thought of putting into a film.

The songs are:

• Interpol - Untitled
• Death Grips - Get Got

In order to use these songs without copyright infringement, we will be contacting Matador Records and Epic Records, respectively. While we may not even get a response back, it is worth a shot regardless. I'll be back with anymore updates.

Equipment

 In order to produce our film at the highest quality that we are aiming for, we have gathered a list of all the equipment my group and I own and what we will use in order to produce the project.

I, Oliver, will use my own:

• Canon SL2 with two-three lenses as one of our primary cameras 
• SunPak 12\"\" Ring Light for lighting
• Purple Panda Lavalier to record close and isolated audio
• DJI Ronin S Gimbal in order to stabilize any footage that requires steady camera movement
• Tripod for lockdown and more static shots
• Reflector/Diffusor to control lighting
• Rode Video MicGO for NAT sounds

Ryan will bring:

• Lumix G7 with lenses as our second primary camera 
• Three point lighting stands
• Wireless Lavaliers for audio

While this is a plethora of equipment at our disposal, we want to be ambitious on this project. So, we decided to enlist the help of one of the producers of the Shortcuts TV show at BECON-TV by the name of Jim Guarasci. Their program allows South Florida student filmmakers to rent out industry-level equipment for their films.

Ryan has reached out and we are all very ready and excited to put this new equipment to great use!👍🏻

Group Meeting

  Hello everyone! Today during my class, my teacher arranged our class and had us meet in groups to discuss how all of our projects have been going and for any feedback we could give one another. This is our second round of group meetings and it has been a couple of weeks ago since our first union, so it was exciting to see how everyone's progress and ideas would have developed since then. When we met up, we had a good and positive energy among us which helped for us to give critiques well. I was the first one to go and as soon as I described the plot for my group's film, everyone's face lit up. They all loved the idea and were really excited to see how it would go. I let everyone know how we have a finished script, production schedule, and how we organized the work among my group. For the most part, everyone in my group meeting was all for my idea, but I did ask for critiques on the film's ending. I had asked whether to leave it more open ended and ambiguous or to have something more structured and definite. They decided on the latter in order to prevent from confusing the audience and getting our point across. This is something I will be bringing up with my group to ensure our movie ends on not confusing and satisfying note. 

Production Schedule Update

 As my group and I have progressed and focused more and more on the pre-production side of our short film, it begs to wonder how our production stage will go. Since the last blog post I made about our schedule, we decided that we would have to change our dates in order to accommodate for all of our schedules and the time we have spent on just planning alone. 

Our new production schedule from this point forward will go like this:

• Week of 3/15- Principle photography, location scouting, wardrobe and props
• Week of 3/22- Finding and getting approval for music, social media, and postcard
• Week of 3/29 - Filming
• Week of 4/5- Editing
• 4/10 - Finish
• 4/12 - Deadline

This time table takes into account the fact that I will not be here during Spring Break which is why we will begin filming after break ends. During my absence, we will be working on other aspects of our project to further our progress on the overall project at hand (such as by working on the social media page and postcard), as well as preparing as much as we can for us to hit the metaphorical film ground running. We aim to finish by April 10th just in case anything were to go wrong, we have two full days for buffer time before our inevitable deadline of April 12th. 

Source: Nickelodeon

Script Finalize

 After keeping in mind the feedback from our teacher, as well as my group and I reading over the script and discussing how our film would play out, the general themes of the piece, and how the different elements we hope to keep in our film would work with one another; we have finally come to a complete and prepared script.

Source: Nickelodeon

We have completed the three different genre scenes that our protagonist would undergo: coming of age, action, and romantic drama. While the script is still a living document, meaning we can still change or add ideas as we come up with and think of new concepts, it is definitely a strong foundation for us to begin our production. 

Our script can be viewed here.

Teacher Feedback :D

 Hey everyone! During my last class, my team and I decided to take a step back and ask for some feedback from our teacher regarding our script, story, and ideas we have regarding our short film. Safe to say that the meeting went very well. My teacher had already viewed a draft of our screenplay via our last blog, so she already had a good idea on what the synopsis for our film would be about. Thankfully, she really liked our idea! 

We discussed aspects, such as:

• How we would break the fourth wall to prevent us from rehashing old clichés typically seen in many mainstream movies
• To combat this, our character would be talking to the narrator in a variety of different situations and environments that are not reminiscent of stereotypical "talking to camera" sequences.
• Whether our narrator would be a physical person or an omniscient figure
• We decided it would be best for our narrator to remain an omniscient and invisible presence to preserve his mystique and almost god-like control over the film
• How many genres and interpretations we would show in our film
• We would showcase three main scenes from different genres in order to not over or under load the audience, as well as for the benefit of time. 

Overall, it was a very successful and helpful meeting. It was great to hear feedback on our ambitious concept and to know we are on a good track. 

Breaking New Ground

Since my last blogpost, the team and I have been hard at work with our film screenplay. Not only did we begin writing the screenplay for the actual film (as opposed to the script that would be used for a prop within the movie) this week, but we have made significant progress on our script. 

We are up to 8 pages and have a completed rough draft of our story. As we were reading back this first draft, a concern that came about among us was regarding our time limit. We have to keep our short film within a 5-minute window. With our script already at 8 pages and us still wanting to add scenes and revise more aspects of our storyline, this time constraint could prove a bit of a challenge for us creatively. 

As of right now, the storyline of our film involves our main character, dubbed "The Protagonist", who is introduced in the film as the main character within a stereotypical coming-of-age film; until, he doesn't  want to follow his line and breaks the 4th wall by speaking to the narrator directly. After a back and forth between protagonist and narrator, the narrator proceeds to put the protagonist in several different types of movies and genres that ultimately end in a standoff between one another. The ending would then have the protagonist and the narrator meet up face to face in person in which the narrator hands a script to the protagonist, symbolizing the protagonist (literally) writing his own future and story. 

In order to further add to the script in detail, we will be researching different stereotypes and conventions of several movie genres that we could poke fun of and reference via the protagonist's adventures. We will be further revising and brainstorming ideas and concepts we can play around with and utilize to improve our short film.

Our draft can be viewed right here.

Scripts don't write themselves

 I've begun writing the scripts for our short film ( a slippery slope as I have to make both a script to be used within the film and one that is for our film as a whole). So as of late, it has been a lot of...

Source: Nickelodeon

But we are getting progress done bit by bit! The first page of the script within the film (before the protagonist breaks the fourth wall) is shown down below here:

In order to compose this script, I was just thinking of typical "youth coming of age films" and how I would start one off. The one line the protagonist has at the end of the page is where he would (quite literally) go off script. This is an opening and sequence of events that are simple, but I know our team can add a lot of personal touch and style to the shots. 

When it comes to the script of the actual film, I've been taking notes from all kinds of films like, Stranger than Fiction, that I already discussed, and Scott Pilgrim vs The World. Films that are not only very meta, but edited in a very stylized manner ie. heavy use of text and graphics to accentuate the events of the film and precise cuts. Approximately one and a half pages of the film have been written, but I still got quite a bit to go and still need to discuss with my team for their opinions. But hey, these things don't write themselves!

And the name is...

 Well, the time has finally come for our film to have a name and it is one that I think is awesome and very well suiting. Our title is... *drum roll please*

 Cutting Room Floor

 This idea came from my group partner, Ryan and was the one who taught me and explained to me what this term is because I had never heard of it before. Cutting room floor is used in the film industry as a figure of speech referring to unused or scrapped footage not included in the finished film. Outside of the film industry, it may refer to any creative work unused in the final product. 

Source: El Space

This term for our title made a lot of sense to me because it is symbolic of our protagonist's journey and growth throughout the movie. Our protagonist deciding how the course of his life goes and what does or doesn't make it into his "final cut." It is a title that additionally works for marketing purposes as it is a name that sticks out and people will remember once hearing about it. This is an awesome working title and unless any significant changes are made to the story, it will end up being the final title for our production. :)

Bit by Bit

Hey everyone! Today during class my group and I  came up with a more cohesive outline now that the rough idea has become more and more completed. A big factor that we came to change was that we would now have one protagonist as opposed to two. This was done in order for the sake of character development and to not overcomplicate the story progression. Having one central driving force would make more sense and can focus on the individual in a more complex manner. The other driving force would now be the narrator of the film who the two main characters meet at the end and where the protagonist is handed the script for the film and becomes "his own main character."

Our updated outline is here:

CHARACTERS

• Protagonist - Supposed to be perfect     

• Narrator (VO) - In control of the narrative

OUTLINE

• Shrek Opening

• Scene Description - Motion Graphics

• Protagonist goes off script/Main character does not say their (full) line

• Cuts to IRL scene/Script 

• Narrator: “What are you doing?”

• Protagonist: “I'm not a fan of this script”

• Narrator: “Wdym? You’re the main character!”

• Protagonist: “I’m going to make some changes”

• Narrator: “No, wait!”

• Title Card 

• Next scene with description on scene (First act of film)

• Main character messes up/refuses to act properly

• Next scene with description on scene (Second act of film)

• Main character messes up/refuses to act properly

• Next scene with description on scene (Third act of film)

• Narrator: “This is the last scene, the climax, you’ve gotta get this right!”

• Main character almost perfectly completes script and then starts breaking into laughter

• Protagonist: “This scene is so stupid!”

• Narrator: “You know what?”

• Narrator teleports them to empty white void, like the screenplay itself

• Final argument (Protagonist: “Why would I want to live by someone else’s rules… The only line I’m going to follow is his own”)

• Narrator hands him the script, pans up to reveal the narrator is now the protagonist, he controls the narrative  

 

FAKE MOVIE

• The fake movie is a coming of age story, parodying the same stories romanticized by teens

• Coming age of story is 

• The protagonist is written to be a perfect, flawless character

• Opening - 

• Scene 1 - Skating in neighborhood, Library, getting out of school, at home getting ready for school, football field

• Scene 2 - Reminiscing childhood

• Scene 3 - Outside during sunset reflecting on his future

The work that still needs to be completed before filming is:

-Writing and formatting the complete script

-Finding locations

-Storyboarding

This upcoming weekend will give my team an opportunity for us to catch up. See you in the next update!