reflection

Hello!!! I am back! Two days ago, I filmed some cool stuff with my friend who is playing Blake, but I will touch on that more in my next blog post. Today, I am going to talk about my critical reflection. Here is what I know about the critical reflection essay:

-It is an evaluative essay

-It should be around 1000 words

-It should answer 4 key questions:

1. How do your products represent social groups or issues?
2. How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
3. How do your products engage with the audience?
4. How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

-It doesn't have to be in the order of the questions

This being said, I already have an idea of the things I would talk about in each of the questions so I am going to write bullet points for each question covering what I would like to discuss

How do your products represent social groups or issues?
-My products represent young adults and teenagers

-Touches on the process of maturity and growing up

-Discusses idea of big changes in life

-Touches the idea of perception vs. reality

How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?

-The idea of the vlog that is being filmed throughout the film is something that I used to market the film in my social media

-I use cooler tones and filters throughout my trailers and posts on Instagram to create a nostalgic feeling and tie back to the idea of growing up

-Wake up being the name of the film and utilized throughout the marketing (countdown, vlogs)

How do your products engage with the audience?

-Everyone experiences the feeling of leaving childhood behind, and the themes in this movie are very relatable to all audiences

-The target audience is young adults. By having the movie surround young adults, this makes it more engaging

-Marketing utilizes short vlog clips serving as a teaser for the film, which is something that engages young audiences as vlogs are a popular form of storytelling

-Countdown on Instagram (wake up in 5, 4...) is engaging and intriguing for the audience because it seems like marketing is speaking directly to them

-The second trailer utilizes text like "We all just want to feel secure", " We all grow up eventually", and "Will you embrace it or fight it?" to speak directly to the audience and have them feel personally connected to the product

How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

-Research on genre and its conventions helped me shape my film and characters

-Research on marketing (mix of fictional and promotional), coming of age films

-Research on movie posters and what they look like for coming-of-age films, theatrical release vs. streaming

-I wanted my products to use conventions of other coming-of-age films and this research allowed me to do so

-Conventions I followed (taken from my initial research on coming-of-age films): Emphasizes the internal thoughts of the characters as opposed to just focusing on external action, centered around teenagers, centered around major life changes and milestones, includes dramatic elements and often inject elements such as comedy and music, highlights the awkwardness and uncertainty of youth, is a slice of life narratives and highly personal story. As for other conventions that I picked up, some coming-of-age trailers use text to directly speak to the audience, most movie posters feature the protagonists and main characters as the films center around them, and most coming-of-age trailers are romanticized and dreamlike (not realistic) 

I just made a google document called "Critical Reflection" and I put these four questions and the planning I did for them. Here is a picture:

I think I did a good amount of planning, and I have a good idea of what I want to say in my reflection. I will continue to work on my reflection as I get further into my production and post-production process. See you soon!

back from the dead!

Hello! It's been a long long time. Last week I was out of town on a drama field trip so I could not blog because I was so busy. Luckily, I spoke to my teacher ahead of time and got an extension on my blog posts this week so I am in good shape. 

While I was on this field trip, although I wasn't able to blog, I was able to film some really cool stuff. Here are some behind-the-scenes pictures:

And here are some of the cool shots that I got:

These clips are going to be used throughout the trailers as part of the content for the vlogs. I am going to use some of the new content that I got to update my social media page, and I am going to continue to search for music for my trailers using the websites: Bullet Proof Bear, PixaBay, and Artlist. I have been looking for music for quite a bit and I have some options but I haven't found what I'm looking for yet so I will continue to search until I do. Today I am filming some shots in my house with the actress who plays Blake, as there are a lot of shots where she is alone, writing in her diary, looking out of her window, lying down, etc. I will see you soon!!

revison...

Hey! Let's just say that I am not happy with my social media and it needs some revision. One of the main critiques that I received during my group meeting was that my social media did not represent my genre very well, this is something that I have thought about and come to agree with. I think that my social media is a little bit too abstract for the genre and style that I am going for, which is why I am going to try a more mainstream and common marketing approach while also combining both the fictional and marketing aspect of my trailers. 

SOOO basically what I did was I made a new countdown and I basically redid my entire Instagram page and here are the posts I made which I think are a lot more fitting for my film and genre.

Here they are. I am very happy with how they turned out and Im starting to like my page a lot more. I also picked a profile picture. Here it is:

Anyways my Instagram has gone though a tremendous glow up and I am very happy about it. I am going to create a little beach vlog to post next on my social media. Here is what my page looks like. I didnt mention this before but I posted a short video (a teaser almost) of two of my friends dancing and singing at a party and then I faded both the audio and visuals to black and wrote: Wake up coming soon. So that is the video that you see there. 

Anyways I am super happy with how this is turning out and I will see you later this week for some stuff on production and my critical reflection!

FILMING DAY 1

HELLO! After a bad sunburn and a day of hard work, I filmed a ton of shots at the beach with my friends. I am very happy with how these shots turned out and I filmed a few extra things.

It felt so amazing to check these shots off of my list. On top of the shots that were supposed to be filmed at the beach, I also was able to film the establishing shot with palm trees that will be seen in the beginning of my first trailer, and the shot where Quinn's head is outside of the car (probably one of my favorite shots in my trailer) Here is a little sneak peak:

I really like how these shots came together, I feel my vision coming to life AND IM SO HAPPY!!! This week I am going to my drama competition, and there I will film a lot of footage also so YAY! I set a day during spring break to film all of the shots at my house. I also started to color grade some shots using Capcut for fun and here are some examples:

                                  Before:                                         After:                                                   

 

                              Before:                                            After:

As you can see, I added a cooler and brighter look to the shots, making them look and feel more nostalgic (in my opinion). Now that I have some footage, I can start to upgrade my social media and start to make it look pretty (this will be something I work on next week). See you soon! Oh wait, I forgot I have a behind-the-scenes picture. Here it is:

Okay, now see you soon!

print!

Hello!! This week has been a hell of a week because I have a musical that I am in and I have been staying late at school performing. Because of this, I haven't been able to film school shots as I hoped. But! I am going to the beach this Saturday to film the shots that I need there so YAY! My next blog post will be about that, but because I don't have anything related to production at the moment, I will talk about the print component of my project, and just flip my two last blog posts for the week. 

Today in class we were taught a lesson about the print component of our project. Here are key things that I noted: 

-The print component for the film option is supposed to be a poster for the film

-The main key art should be shown

-If the film is theoretically going to be a theatrical release, you should include: Title, Keyart, Production credits, and tagline

-If the film is theoretically going to be a streaming release, you should include: multiple thumbnails with key art, title, and no credits 

Keeping this in mind, let's look at some other film posters from coming of age movies and see what I like.

  

Okay so one thing that is very apparent with all of these posters is that the protagonist(s) are clearly shown in the poster. This is something that I also intend to do because the entire story revolves around Blake, Bea, and Quinn, so the poster should definitely center around them as well. These posters also follow a specific color scheme that is significant to the film. Because I haven't really started filming yet, I am not 100% what my color scheme will look like, but I do want to have cooler tones throughout most of the film, except at the very end of the second trailer where Blake is facing fire, to create a juxtaposition.

Let me look for a font that I might like using Canva (the love of my life)

So I made this, obviously I can't use it because I am in it, but I like the concept of it being the three girls taking a picture in the mirror because that establishes the filming part of the story while also showing the protagonists. I don't like the background I used (I just blurred the background from the picture) so I would have to experiment with what I would do, but I like this font, I would have to add credits and all of that stuff if I am doing a theatrical release but, using this as a little sample is helpful, because I have an idea for what I might want to do. I also might want to create two film posters (for fun), one with the three girls like this, and one with just Blake. Putting that aside, I am happy that I have a good idea of what I want to do. See you soon for some fun production stuff!!!

shot list!

Hello, so after making my storyboard, I created a shot list. It is organized by trailer and setting. I added a check box next to every shot so that once I film it I can check it off and, one feel accomplished, and two stay organized. I put this * next to any shot that will be used in both of my trailers. Here it is:

I am going to bring my camera to school this week to hopefully get all of the in-school shots done. Next Saturday I am going to the beach with my friends to get some shots there, and then the week after that I am going to a competition for my drama class where I will film some shots there as well. Things are looking good and I feel like I am at a good place right now. I can start to feel my vision coming to life and that makes me happy. Although there have been some changes to my original idea, I am happy where those changes brought me. I will see you soon for some production stuff!!!

COMING TO LIFE

HELLO so I stayed home from school because I woke up feeling bad but not bad enough to start my storyboarding YAY. So I started storyboarding my trailer that is romanticized and happy, and I used the Perks of being a Wallflower official trailer and inspiration here is the link. Anyways, I have done 4 pages so far because I was in the zone, but now I have to go to school late, so I am going to finish this later. I will update you in a bit.

Hey so it's been a little more than a bit... But HEY I FINISHED MY FIRST STORYBOARD YAYAYYA! I am very happy with it and it is 7 pages so yay?

Anyway, I am not a drawer and all of these shots make more sense in my head but here is my first storyboard:

So now I'm going to start storyboarding my second trailer.

Okay I finished my second storyboard!!! (almost a week later btw)

I am very happy with how these turned out! But I changed the concept of my trailers a bit. Originally, I was going to have my two trailers contrast each other by having one be romanticized and the other one be more serious and realistic, but as I was storyboarding, I realized that wasn't what I wanted to do. I decided to have one focus more on wake up and the vlog, and the other one focus on the theme of the trailer and try to appeal more to the audience with phrases like "everyone fears growing up" and "will you embrace it, or fight it?" I felt that this worked better for marketing, and for my genre, and a lot of the clips that I am filming for my first trailer will be used in my second trailer. There are only around 4 shots that I have to film only for my second trailer, which is really nice. Both trailers have almost all of the same clips, but they use them differently. One is centered around the plot and the story, while the other focuses on the message and attracting the target audience. Anyways, I am happy that I made the decision to change the concept of the trailers and I am excited to start filming!! See you soon!

group meeting!

Hey so today we had our group meeting in class and I presented my idea, marketing, and blogs. I explained my idea and my group told me that they liked my idea and they thought it was very good for the target audience but its also universal as everyone has experienced the feeling of growing up. I showed them my social media marketing and they said that they liked my posts but that I need to make it more obvious that it's a coming of age film as some of the pictures that I posted could be interpreted as like thriller or horror. They also liked my idea of blending the fictional aspect of the vlog series with the marketing of the film, they said I just need to find the perfect balance. They also said that I need to make the colors of the characters not super obvious because that could be distracting.

After my meeting I know to revise my marketing on social media and figure out exactly how I want to approach my marketing. That's pretty much all they said I need to work on so that's it for now! Here's a picture from our meeting:

shooting schedule

Hey, I am still working on my storyboard. I finished my first one, and now I'm working on my second one, but I have made a shooting schedule for all of my shots. I already texted my actors to make sure that they can make it on those days. Here is the text: 

And here is the schedule:

Most of the things are going to be filmed either during school, during a drama competition, a beach day that we have with my friends, and then during spring break. I am going to film most of my footage before spring break, but I will need around two days of filming for the shots that are in my house. For the days during spring break, I told my actors that I can work around their schedule and that the 24th and 25th aren't set in stone and they said they would let me know if those days work for them. I hope this gives me enough time to do everything. I am happy that I have my plan fleshed out and I will see you soon.