Day 1 of Filming

   Hey, Welcome back!!
 Tonight at around 7:30ish we started the filming process. One of my group members, Laerke, couldn't make it because she was at work, but Jessi and I started filming anyways. We had set up the lights and it took us like at least 30 minutes to get the red light just perfect. After we set up it all up, we began filming.
  The filming process while being the actress is one of the most difficult things. After every shot, we had to go back, review it, and move on. Also, I'd like to say I'm a silly person so there was a lot of scenes in where I'd giggle. I was taking myself too seriously. In my head, I said to myself "I probably look really stupid right now". At first I would be really hard on myself when I couldn't stop laughing. I felt like Jess wanted to kill me because she just wanted to get it done. But in reality she wasn't thinking that at all. I learned at the end, that I really can't be so hard on myself.
   Anyways, it took a while to film and after, Jessica and I were incredibly exhausted. I don't know why I was so tired after that if it was only like 3 hours of filming. We made a lot of good progress even though it was just the two of us. We got the whole outside (red world) scene just tonight.

This scene basically is where the protagonist, Violet, comes home from school and goes to the backyard to relax a little bit. When Violet drops all of her stuff on the counter, she sees that there are some newspapers on the counter. Violet picks one up reads it and discards it, then she sees one that catches her eye. (Aka the one one the left). Violet gets angry because the government is taking away a right that is so important for humans. She crumples the newspaper and storms off.




In the film opening, this scene is probably going to last like 30 seconds or maybe even less. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but for a 2 minute video it is quite a lot. We made a lot of great progress today.
Tune tomorrow night to see Day 2 of filming!
Isa.

Going Back to Our Old Plot?!

   Well, I know I said theres a new plot. I sort of lied. Don't hate me!!!
 On Wednesday night, I met up with one of my group members because she wanted to discuss something about the old plot. Jessi felt really strongly about "Spectrum" and she didn't want to give up on the idea so easily. So she made a story board on her own for the intro of "Spectrum".

   











 We basically made the opening more simple by not using a flashback and having Violet literally step into another world. Also, the meaning of the two worlds have changed. The red world has freedom of speech taken away because the government's plan is to create conflict and anger between the people. The blue world has a government that wants people to lack human communication by manipulating the media into believing human communication is detrimental. We're also using newspapers to help distinguish between the two worlds.
 Friday, we will begin filming. I'm excited for my debut acting gig. I'm happy that Jessi came up with a way to solve the issue we had before, which was not having enough time. I'm excited to see the end result.
Stay tuned for more,
Isa.

New Plot!!

Welcome back!
  I left the last blog post with a cliff hanger because why not? This time i will briefly explain why we have planned for our new plot!
  Our setting is a futuristic society in which everyone is extremely attached to their phones. In credit scene, we are gonna have people either talking about insignificant things or not even talking at all. To establish that this is going on everywhere, we will have actors that speak different languages. In the actual film opening, we will have a group of friends in that same society, hanging out. They're having conversation that is insignificant, not making any eye contact, and constantly on their phones. They all get a text message that is unknown and it reads "*main characters name* dad has died, watch video!" The main character looks away from her phone and no one seems to be phased by this. They all click the link and the main character starts screaming. We show one of the phones and it says "watch now" flashing on it and the person clicks, then the opening ends.
Feel free to leave comments on what you think of the plot as of right now! I'd love to hear your feedback!
Until next stop,
Isa

Road Blocks Lead to Success.

Hi everyone!
  The last time we spoke, my group and I had established a back story for our main character, Violet. The day after I posted, my media studies teacher had individual meetings with groups in class. My group had a meeting with my teacher that shook us to the core with our film opening. My teacher said she was afraid we were trying to do too much in our film opening and wouldn't meet the time restraint of 2 minute film opening.  She was right, we had too much into those 2 minutes. My teacher also suggested we need to focus on establishing the two worlds within the 2 minutes. This causes us to throw everything we had planned, in the trash.

  After we spoke to our teacher we tried to brainstorm. We came up with an idea that Violet would be in the blue world at the beach and she'd bend down to touch the water and the water triggered her into transition into the red world involuntarily, into a shower where her she's just in the shower with her clothes on. Jessi was out of it and just agreed to what we said.
 A day after, we met up and we tried brainstorming but decided that it was best if we just get rid of the entire plot. We were back at square one. Two weeks of planning down the drain. This was frustrating. We quickly bounced back though.

We wasted no time and brainstormed. We came up with an idea that was much easier than what we had before.
Tune in next time for a explanation of our new plot,
Isa.

Citations:
"Sheldon throwing papers gif." Gifyu.  https://gifyu.com/image/sWg  March 24, 2017.

"Bounce music video." Tumblr. https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/bounce-music-video March 24,2017.

The Plot is Changing!?

Hi, welcome back!
   My group and I just got done discussing somethings about our film opening. The plot has slightly changed. The blue world now has no human interaction and real news. The red world is currently the same as it was, fake news and anger, resentment, and fury in the air. The red world has a tense environment that the protagonist hates (the protagonist hates both worlds actually). Also, we created an in-depth back story about our protagonist.
  Heres a little back story in the protagonist. The protagonist's name is Violet. Violet is nineteen year old girl that lives back and forth between the blue and the red world. She lives alone in both worlds. When Violet was about 10 years old, both of her parents died in a massive car accident. Jade, a family friend, took care of Violet. Jade's family were best friends with Violet's family. Ever since Violet was little she looked up to Jade. Jade was a trustworthy, smart, kind and responsible person. Jade lived in the red world. Suddenly, Jade was brutally murdered, at age 21, in an act of violence and hatred that occurred at lot in the red world. Violet was devastated because Jade was her mentor and her only friend. Jade was the only one that knew about Violet's ability to transition between both of the worlds, so they had an unmatchable bond. Violet remembers Jade every single day.
  The progress of the back story has been great because it makes it easier for me to prepare myself for the role I am going to play. Also, it helps guide the rest of the film opening.
Tune in next time for more progress,
Isa.

Group Meetings

   Today in class, my class took part in group meetings. The group meetings consisted of 6-8 of my peers discussing our progress in our portfolio project. It was interesting to hear other people's opinions on my group's project. Most people thought our idea for the film opening is interesting and I got a lot of great feedback.
  Someone suggested to watch an episode of Black Mirror that sort of has something to do with our idea. I have already watched this episode but not with my media studies thinking cap on. I will be conducting a small case study on this episode.
  Most people suggested to develop the plot more, which is something I agree with. More specifically, people had a lot of questions about how we are going to portray the transitioning between the two worlds. What my peers suggested is to have the universes be completely in different settings to demonstrate the two worlds being opposite. I think this is a great suggestion and I will take it into account when further planning our opening.
   Jessi, one of my group member, had someone suggest in her group to instead of focusing on fake v real news, to focus on have a universe of loneliness, where the people in the world can't speak, and one of communication, like our world now. I think this is a great idea and would be a little easier to convey than fake or real news.
  Overall, the feedback was great and i enjoyed speaking to people about my project. I"m excited to meet back with my peers again for another group meeting.
See you at the next stop in the journey,
Isa

Film Opening Unofficial Storyboard

  Welcome back to another exciting stop in our long journey of the film opening project. On Friday of this week, sadly, i was absent. My group members didn't just sit and twiddle their thumbs because the most important member was gone, no no no (this is a joke by the way, I'm not that conceited). My group member created an unofficial storyboard of what the credit scene in our film opening will be. 

We decided that our film opening will focus on introducing the character and establishing the background of the storyline. Also, we decided that a voiceover and some snip bits of radio put over the images would best suit our credit scene to establish the story better. 

Our credit scene will incorporate the credits written on different technological mediums, like computers and smart phones; this goes well with our theme of technology and news. This is demonstrated in our first six boxes of this page on the storyboard. 

Boxes 7 and 8 are the first of two options on how to transition between the two universes of our film opening. Box 8 is a close up of the protagonist's face to show blinking.

As you can tell, there are two different color pens in which this storyboard is written in; its not that our red pen ran out in the middle of drawing this out. The blue and the red represent two different universes.  Boxes 1 and 2 of the second page seem to be the same but in different color pen. It is supposed to be a close up where, when the protagonist blinks, the color of the lighting and costuming changes, which represents the transitioning into the two different universes. Boxes 3-8 show the protagonist doing something everyday in the blue universe and a credit line is shown within the scene.
Then the second option is shown on the last two boxes on the page, where there is someone other than the protagonist in close up then sitting on a couch.

This last box shows the protagonist holding a phone in the red universe with three different credits on it: Script writer, costume design, and art direction.



















   As you can tell, this storyboard is quite sloppy and hard to understand. When one of my group members explained it to me, she couldn't even understand what was going on. This is a huge problem. Next time my group members and I meet up, I will surely address this issue. Also, I didn't really like the credit scene at all. It seem boring and did not intrigue me. This is also a huge problem. The whole point of having a film opening is to intrigue the audience into watching more, even in the credit scene.
  In the beginning I said that we decided to focus on establishing background and introducing the main character but I personally feel like switching establishing the background with creating suspense would be a wiser idea. After all, this is a Sci-Fi genre convention that has worked for many films like Inception.
Some flaws need to be fixed and/or discussed.
Stay tuned for our official storyboard,
Isa

Genre Research

  Today, I did some research on our film opening genre, Science Fiction. Why did we pick Sci-Fi? Some of the genre conventions match our vision for our film opening. For example, Sci-Fi tends to focus on making either a political or societal statement, our film's setting is in two futuristic universes, and our film compares a controlled society vs a chaotic society, just to mention a couple.
 I took some notes on 3 different slide shows and a wikipedia page about some genre convention and information I need to know about the genre.

  Also, Ive conducted some case study material on two of the examples listed in my notes.

Case Study #1: Inception

Inception is a fun piece. Personally, I love how it always keeps you on the edge of your seat and how its not a movie that you don't think in. Those two aspects of Inception are something that i want to reflect on my group's  piece. 

The film opening of Inception gets the audience interested. The film opening is primarily alluding to conflict and creating mystery to entice the viewer, which I want to do in our film opening. The protagonist is shown washed up on shore, with a close up of his face, and I can't help to think "what is he doing on shore like that?". The close up is a genre convention of sci-fi films. There is an eye line match that shows children playing in the sand and I think to myself "what are they doing there?". An officer of some sort uses a gun to pull up the protagonist's jacket, sees a gun, and shouts to another person on shore in a foreign language. The scene cuts to a room with low key lighting that adds to the suspense of the scene. The dialogue also adds to the suspense, the antagonist is talking in a foreign language about the protagonist on shore. Two objects are introduced: a gun and a spinner. The gun is a gun very much like the guns in the modern world which goes against the genre conventions on futuristic technologies and timelines. As a viewer, I ask myself "what is the spinner for?". Again the dialogue adds to the suspense. A flashback to another time period, has viewers with confused about what is going on. Again, the scene is set in a low key lit room and what seems to be the same or a similar room to the one in the scene before. The scene yet again shifts with a close up of a watch, maybe indicating that time is prevalent in the film, to a more chaotic scene where bombs are going off and people are running. Then you can see the protagonist looking at the ground, it shifts to a man checking on people which makes a viewer wonder what is going on. Lots of stings are used to add to the suspense of the scene. 

  I enjoy this film opening. The stings, close ups, and dialogue work perfectly together to keep the viewer interested in the film. This opening  generates a lot of questions for the viewer, that will be answered later on in the film. I intend to create mystery in our film opening, just like this opening did. 

Case Study #2: Avatar 

  Why did I choose Avatar as a case study, you may ask. I felt like it is important to compare different types of movies with in the same genre. I feel like choosing something different will optimize my knowledge on the genre. 

  

   The opening starts with an interesting establishing shot that make the audience feel like their flying over a jungle. A voice over is used to narrate what is going on. Then, there is an extreme close up of the protagonist's eyes opening; this a genre convention. The protagonist is seen in a crowd of people in a city that is futuristic; alternate time period, another genre convention! The protagonist is in a wheel chair. He is in his apartment watching television while getting ready for bed. The apartment is sort of run down or dirty. The protagonist's legs a spear to be very skinny, I'm supposing CGI was used to make the actor appear like his is disabled. The voice over is narrating what is going on still. The scene switches to a bar, where the protagonist is balancing a shot on his head and everyone is cheering his name. Then the scene cuts to him watching a big screen at the same bar, he looks over and he sees a couple fighting and the man slaps the woman. The protagonist goes over and starts fighting the man. Then the protagonist gets kicked out of the bar and the opening scene ends. 

 I didn't enjoy this film opening as much as I did Inception. I did like the voice over and I may consider using it for my own film opening, although sometimes it goes off as cheesy. 

I did lots of good research that has been helpful.

Until next time,

Isa 

Citations

Christimothy12 . "Sci-Fi film."  SlideShare. , 05 Dec. 2013. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.                   https://www.slideshare.net/christimothy12/the-sci-fi-genre

Nikky Bain,  "Science Fiction Conventions." SlideShare. , 01 Dec. 2013. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.

    https://www.slideshare.net/Nikchik89/science-fiction-conventions

SGurung-MediaStudies . "The Generic Conventions of Sci-fi Films." SlideShare. , 23 Sept. 2015. Web. 18 Mar. 2017. https://www.slideshare.net/SGurung-MediaStudies/the-generic-conventions-of-scifi-films

"Science Fiction Film." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 14 Feb. 2017. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction_film#Characteristics_of_the_genre

"Inception (2010)." IMDb. IMDb.com,  Web. 19 Mar. 2017. 

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/

"Inception Opening Sequence Analysis AS Media Studies." YouTube. , 21 Oct. 2013. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.

     https://youtu.be/z1Osptd0C6s

"Avatar (2009)." IMDb. IMDb.com,  18 Mar. 2017.

   http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/?ref_=ttmi_tt

Avatar Opening Scene." YouTube.  07 Mar. 2017.  18 Mar. 2017.

     https://youtu.be/sjb5yfuaKeM

I'm the Actress!?

   In class today, my group and I had a productive day. We had a lot of great discussion about what the plot is going to be, who is going to be our actress, and what our title is going to be. So for the plot it is a girl who can travel between universes that are totally different. The universes consist of: having news/media that is truthful and everyone in the society is resentful and angry and the other universe has a society that is completely isolated from the true news and what is going on in the world but are very happy and content. This girl can travel through these universes and is conflicted on which one to stay or what she wants. In addition to that, a select group of scientist, who know about what is going on with her ability, are out to find her. 

  We also discussed who was going to be the actress today. For a while now, I wanted to see how acting in a film for class may be like. I told my group members that in the beginning of the project, and we decided today, that it would be best if I was the actress. This is a great idea for many reasons. For example, last project that we had other people be the actors in, it was quite difficult to really organize everyone to meet up. This portfolio project is worth too much of our grade for us to be dependent on other people to have time to film with us. Another factor is that we don't have to communicate our ideas to an outside person, we could just have what we want clear to each other and I could execute it just how we pictured it. I feel like I could execute the acting for this well and really embody this character well. I'm excited to act our film opening because I will be expanding my horizons and doing something completely different. I'm used to being behind the camera, I wonder what I'll be like in front of it.

   Lastly, today we discussed what our title is going to be. It's quite funny because I asked the group what it was going to be and Jessi immediately said what she was thinking and we all agreed. We agreed on the title "Spectrum". The title goes perfectly with our idea about color psychology and having each universe have a color under tune that means something. We're using colors that are on opposite sides of the color spectrum, red and blue, which each mean something different. Red means anger, resentment, and/or violence. Blue means sadness and/or coldness. Also, this is just an idea and it will have further thought and maybe will be changed but, we wanted to end the film with her finding a world that has all of the color spectrum which all represent different feelings and that she find a perfect balance in society that has a balance of isolation yet informed and happy. I feel like "Spectrum" is perfect and it conveys our message well.

 A lot of great progress has been made. Tune in next time to see even more progress. 

See you next time, 

Isa.

So We Have an Idea...

   If you tuned into my last blog post, you"ll see that my group and I feel strongly about incorporating color psychology into our film opening. This theme will be carried on. I'm happy that we all agreed on it and will go through with it. This will test our creativity and our ability to improvise. 

   We've also vaguely established our plot. We've established that are genre will be Sci-Fi/ Drama. The plot will be about a girl that has the ability to cross universes that are polar opposites. One universe will have a society in which the people are constantly informed with terrible, heart breaking news, and are depressed almost aways. The other universe has a society with fake news and everyone in the society is happy; this plays on "ignorance is bliss". We want to use the colors to demonstrate the transition between the societies and we want to use what emotions the colors evoke with the audience to further get our point across. 

   I'm very excited to see how the plot changes though next week, when we will moving further with our planning process. We're also planning on having the plot finished and be ready to film by next weekend.

See you next week, 

Isa.

Brainstorming

 My group and I have not yet established what our film opening plot is going to be but we are in the brainstorming process. We are inspired by the role that colors play in the tone of our film and we are interested in having colors be an artistic element. I think that this is an amazing idea because recently films like La La Land and Moonlight have used colors as an artistic elements. I'm excited to see how exactly we will incorporate the colors and to play around with Mise-en-scene elements. This is something I have not tried doing with previous projects. It is important that I go out of my comfort zone, especially on a project as big and as important as this one. Originality is key to make a good film, as long as it is executed correctly. 

Citations: "La La Land (2016)." IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3783958/,  March 12, 2017.

"Moonlight (2016)." IMDb. IMDb.com http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4975722/?ref_=tt_rec_tt  March 12, 2017.

The Journey Begins.

  Welcome to the blog where I will document my thought process, emotions, frustrations, and everything in between. Beginning the portfolio project is exciting but scary. I will be embarking on a journey of creative thought process that I've never experienced in my academic years. School tends to test students' abilities to memorize, read, and mathematically think, which is great, but thinking creatively has become difficult to many students including myself. Not having a set of guidelines or rules lets the creative juices flow but it can be rather difficult to create something completely new and original. During this 5 week process, I will be exercising a creative side of me that doesn't get used very often in school. 
    I am thrilled to be working on this project with my group members and being creative with them. I'm excited to see what the future holds for us, good and bad. I'm also excited to see how we will overcome obstacles that are along the way and how we progress not only individually but also collectively. 
   I'm very enthusiastic to see my personal progress as an editor. Editing has been something that, ever since I had the chance of doing, I did. I've made little montage videos of trips just for fun and also have edited all of the videos I've made for school. I just love how I have the power to take clips and videos and put them together into one cohesive story. Editing is tedious but it is something I genuinely enjoy. I've never thought of editing as a hassle. 
  The process of seeing how I am learning and progressing as a new and better me, makes me happy about this project, although it may seem a little overwhelming at times. Come along on this journey with me.
See you at the next stop,
Isa.