Planning the opening scene

 Hi, so I have been thinking about all the aspects that the first scene has to have and I am a little overwhelmed. I have all the props, such as awards and boxes, but so much is left to consider. For instance, the background music, the credits' font and size, and especially the title. 

I have begun to look for the background song at the beginning of the scene by searching through a list of upbeat summer songs from this interesting site that offers non-copywrited music for free. There are a few songs that I thought would fit well with the scene, but I am unable to find a way to put them on the blog to show you. So instead I will just explain the vibe that I am looking for when searching for a song. Basically, I envision this rom-com to be young and fresh as the main characters are in their first years of college. I want the song to reflect that excitement of starting in a new place. I also want the girl to be shown as a very light-hearted, kind person. In my past blogs, I may have described her as otherwise, so it may seem as though I am contradicting myself. But, after filming and seeing what the male character is portrayed as, I find the best way to contrast their personalities is by making the girl, Chloe be seen as sweet, innocent, and naive. Which is why I would like the song to be a happy summer type of song. 

The credits should match the color scheme of the items and lighting of the clips, but I find myself leaning towards yellow as the font color to go along with the summer theme. I have been playing around with fonts as well. I know I had said I favored a font with pin-straight letters to mimic the girl's perfect personality and obsessive nature, but I find myself liking the second font, as it makes me think of femininity and innocence. I plan on showing these to my group members and seeing what they think is best. Below is the image of the fonts I have liked the most.

Start of the Editing Process

 Hi, so I have basically edited 75% of the opening. I did not expect the shots that we took last weekend to be more than enough than we needed. I knew we would not be short of clips, but I am more than happy to see that if we wanted to change something about our opening, we could due to the various clips I could pull from. 

I am a little worried though, because I find myself cringing at the scene with the dialogue between my characters. I realize that the genre is meant to be a cringy/cliché romance, so I have to remind myself that we have just followed the typical conventions of a romantic comedy. I also noted that the conversation seemed unrealistic and choppy with the cuts. After taking in feedback, I realized that I just have to cut each scene a little sooner than I have been doing, so that it resembles a real conversation in which people reply quickly. I think this will make the scene much more sophisticated than it is right now. I want to play around with the sound as well because unfortunately the sounds of the children playing in a pool nearby are heard in some clips and frankly is driving me crazy. If I can not get rid of it, I do not think it will negatively impact the final product. It is just my perfectionism that makes me cringe whenever I hear the sounds of the children, I suppose.

Filming Experience

 Hi, so I felt like my last post was a little chaotic since I had so much going on. I basically summed out how my plans were ruined, but a plan B was in place, and we got to film after all. The day of filming was nothing short of memorable. My actors had a little trouble getting there on time, which led me and my group members to be left by themselves for over an hour at our location (aka the apartment). So, we did what anyone would do in our situation and ordered food. When they finally arrived, and we were ready to start filming, issues with the UberEats person being unable to find the apartment sort of derailed our project.

Nonetheless, we were able to go back on track and get the shots we needed (once we had gotten our food). However, this plan was completely last minute due to the original apartment being unexpectedly unavailable. This made it harder for us to film. To elaborate, the apartment had poor, yellow lighting that made it so we were unable to film the opening scene of the unboxing. Also, the balcony showed a view of a parking lot, while the original was supposed to show the view of Miami Beach. Clearly, these aspects are extremely different. So, we just filmed the scenes that included dialogue between the two characters, and any shots that showed Chloe in the apartment hallway. The rest of the shots that include the unboxing, and essentially establish who are character is will have to be filmed another day.

I realized halfway through filming that I could have planned the situation better. For instance, part of our script consisted of a line by the male lead about Chloe's necklace which spells out her name. Unfortunately, I was unable to get this shot as I forgot to actually tell Chloe to wear that specific necklace. This type of thing happened a few other time with small details that we just forgot to bring to the set, as we rushed to get there due to the last-minute location change. I am a little disappointed in myself because I know if I had organized myself better those little mistakes would not have happened. But, I know that I have to give myself a break because the issue with the location was completely out of my hands. Anyway, we were able to come up with more lines and a variety of shots that we could pick and choose from when I began to edit. I am confident that we will have more than enough material to meet the 1 min of the two characters' interaction and leave time left over for the unboxing clips. I am so excited to edit and will update you once I do.

Finally got to film!

 Hi, so literally the worst news possible: my aunt forgot to contact her apartment building security and send over my parents' IDs to let us in. So, since she did so last minute, I am unable to go to film in Miami on Saturday. I am not going to lie, this issue made me reach a breaking point. Luckily, my dad thought of a solution. One of his closest friends has his own apartment in Doral and said we could use it as he is going to be gone all day celebrating his birthday. This was the biggest relief I have ever heard. 

On Saturday we were able to drive down and meet with my actors to get lots of scenes. Unfortunately, the lighting within the apartment was too yellow for my taste, so we planned on filming the unboxing scene in a different location. I think if we use tight shots and white lighting, you will not be able to tell that it is in another location. 

The filming process was a little chaotic since my actors could not stop laughing, but we were able to push through and get all the scenes in which they were having a conversation. We also added more scenes than what was in the original script to make sure that we had extra shots left over if we were to need them.

I plan on editing this in the upcoming weeks and searching for a new location for the unboxing scene, but other than that here is a clip of me filming my actors.

CCR Research

Hi, so I have begun to research media forms that I would like to make my CCR inspired by. Since I watch various podcasts myself, I thought it would be best to research a video that I particularly enjoyed. I chose to take a look at an episode from Therapuss with social media influencer: Jake Shane. Jake is someone who is very outgoing and is confident in the way he speaks. This is clear throughout his podcast by the way he speaks in a comfortable/confident tone. In my podcast, I would not be the one speaking, but rather the one being questioned. So I would have to ensure that whoever it is that is questioning me holds the same confident tone of voice that Jake had within his own podcast.

Moreover, I really like Jake's setting. The warm colors and furniture all tie in together and create a comfortable atmosphere. This is something I would like to recreate with my CCR, but my own living room consists of cool colors, so I would have to use a different location to recreate a warmer tone. This is something I would have to discuss with my mother because I am sure she knows of a location with a similar color scheme.

This video is one of Jake Shane's podcast episodes. It was found on Youtube here.

 

Good News!

 Hi, so I may have the best news possible. I was really frustrated because my actors were unable to film on the same weekend due to their extracurricular activities, i.e. sports. But, I was just informed that one of my actor's tournaments was canceled this weekend. Our original plan was to go ahead and film regardless of whether he was going to be there or not, to get at least half of the footage. Since Justin is only in the second half of the opening, I thought it would be efficient to just get the first minute done. Luckily, we don't have to do that anymore! 

So to just clarify, we are now going to meet up and film on Sunday. One of my group members drives and has her own car (thankfully) so the drive down to Miami will be no problem. We plan on getting to my Aunt's apartment early, around 9 am, so we have the entire day to film. Since it is one hour away, I think are approach to the filming is great. My group members and I are in the process of creating mood boards for our two characters. We have a general idea of what their personalities are going to be like but I want us to be able to visualize it so we choose the right mise-en-scène elements and everything. In addition, we have begun planning what our two characters are going to wear. So stay tuned for when I reveal their costumes!

I realize that I keep blogging about my actors, but have not shown you what they look like. So to put a name to the face, the headshots of my actors are seen below.

Lead actress: Chloe Blum playing the role of Chloe Fisher.

Lead actor: Justin Poms playing the role of Justin Wright.

CCR Lesson

 Hi, so today I had a lesson on the final component of the portfolio project, the CCR. Essentially, I must reflect on the production, respond to at least 4 questions, and express my personality through creativity. This would be shown through two different forms of media such as a presentation with a voiceover, director commentary, talk show, or an enhanced podcast. For the first question, I must discuss the genre conventions and describe how I may have challenged/followed the genre norms within my rom-com film opening. I already have a few ideas on how to answer this question. For one, we followed the conventions by creating a cringy meet cute between the two characters. 

For the second question, I am to describe the audience and distribution techniques. A few ideas I have in mind for how to answer this question is the costuming that we used for the male lead. Specifically, the fact that he was shirtless is meant to engage a younger female audience. A way I would like to distribute this is by using a free streaming platform, as I am keeping in mind that I am not a well-known director/producer, so theaters are unrealistic.

For the third question, I am to explain and describe how my production skills developed throughout. Since I have not started the editing process yet, as of right now I do not have many ideas on how to answer this question. But, I am sure once I begin editing I will learn lots of new skills for the opening I could speak on.

Lastly, the fourth question instructs me to speak on how I integrated technologies. The first thing that comes to mind is, of course, blogger. This platform has allowed me to organize myself and brainstorm research that I could potentially use. The platform, Canva has also been extremely useful as it allows me to create visual representations of what I would like to see in my film.

Out of all the possible media forms I could do, the one that most interested me was a podcast. I am someone who frequently watches podcasts such as Therapuss and Hot Mess, so I am interested in taking an approach such as that one.