♬ Music ♬

     Hey everyone! Yesterday during class we were put into groups again and had the opportunity to get into groups and talk about our projects. We gave each other feedback, helped give each other ideas, and helped with any problems that we might have been having. One of the things I mentioned was that i'm having a hard time choosing what songs I want to use within the trailers. They told me that the best route would probably be to look through non-copyrighted music and chose witch one's suit my trailers the best because at the moment the only songs that I have in mind are copyrighted. Which means that I would need to get permission from the artists to use their music within my trailer. There is one song that I know that I definitely want to include for a part of the video but I have yet to hear back from the artist. The song is called Stop This Train by John Mayer and it goes perfectly with what the main character is going through/ how she feels. Another thing that we talked about was differentiating the two trailers. I decided that for one of my trailers I'm going to make it a bit more dramatic/ personal and the other one is going to be a bit more on the funny/lighthearted side. The more dramatic one would strive to reach the younger spectrum of my target audience by relating with them, while the other one would be more broad since almost all ages love watching a lighthearted film every now and again.

      After school, I also got the chance to film a bit more and I got some pictures that I'll definitely be able to include in my website and might be able to use one for my film poster. I took a lot more pictures than I thought I was going to so I still have to look through all of those, but out of the few that I've already seen, I've really liked them. I also started editing yesterday, and it's a bit difficult since I don't have all of the shots that I want, but with the voice-overs and the shots that I have so far I've been able to put some of it together. I know that I have A LOT left to go, but i'm trying my best to use everyday to my advantage.

Voice overs

     Hey guys! Yesterday I got Bailey to do the voice overs that wanted for my trailer. It was a bit more difficult than I thought it would be because neither one of us wanted it to sound staged. What I ended up doing was showing her the script and telling her what I was planning on showing while she'd be saying that. With that she put some of the voice overs in her own words so it would sound a bit more, personal and a lot less read/scripted. Along with that, we came up with some other ideas of shots that I could include withing my trailer and we filmed them right then and there! 

     The reason why I chose to incorporate voice overs within my trailers is mainly due to the fact that it works to introduce the characters and a bit about what the film is going to be about. For my first trailer, i'm thinking of incorporating it in the beginning to introduce the characters and a but about whats going on. For the second trailer there's going to be a bit less, but its also going to help introduce some background info on the plot/characters. I got some of my inspiration from The Perks of being a Wallflower trailer, which starts out with a voice over of the main character who is explaining what he's been doing, who he is, and then is dispersed throughout the trailer for important and engaging phrases. Another film trailer that also uses voices to move the plot is, Me and Earl and The Dying Girl. The trailer starts out by showing the main character in various shots paired with a voice over, then its followed by some important shots and then a voice over is used again. Both trailers' voice overs are the voices of the main characters, which I liked a lot and is why I chose to do that with my trailers as well. They both also go back and forth between voice over and dialogue and they are both accompanied by suitable music that helps progress the plot and establish the mood.

Last but not least, I am going to be filming tomorrow and Friday as well in order to get some of the other shots that I am still missing. I'll let you all know how that goes!

AND... ACTION!

      Hey everyone, I finally started filming!! I started to film on Wednesday and I got loads of footage, but I still have many more scenes to film. I used my script as a guideline, but I ended up filming that and so much more. I think that it's always better to have more than to have less. What I stated to film were the shots that showed my characters at school. I got shots of them talking about senior year, casual things, how stressed they are and I also got various close up shots of each and every character.  I got the shots that I wanted of the group of friends at school and I even got one more friend to act in my film. I've been looking through the footage and I'm really happy with how the shots turned out, in the majority of the shots you can hear each person very well and I made sure to get different angles of them all. I'm going to start putting some of the shots together tomorrow to see how it looks, and see if maybe it'll bring forth some new ideas as well.

      Originally I was planning on only having 3 main characters, but since I had another friend that was also staying after school I decided to include her in the filming process as well. So now instead of there being 3 characters there are going to be 4. There's Bailey, the one who's stressed out about not knowing where she wants to go. There's Justin, the guy friend who's dream is to be a race car driver, loves playing guitar and is a bit shy. There's M, the outgoing fashionista, who just got into her dream school. The newer character is Jen, she's going to play the part of the misunderstood artist. She loves to draw, and paint, but she tends to go a bit overboard when it comes to talking about art.

     Another thing that I wanted to mention was that with some of Wednesday's footage I put together a very short Behind the Scenes video for the website. On it you will see that it has the "WeVideo" logo, which is because I have a Chromebook and Its one of the only things I can edit on. Fortunately, my uncle allowed me to borrow his laptop for the time being for me to edit on! That is going to be the first, and only BTS video with that logo because I now have access to a different/more advanced editing system. I'll let you all know how the editing goes and any problems that arise. Goodnight!!😀

Posters

     I hope that everyone's week is going great so far! Today I've been working on the website and I feel like there are so many things that I can include and so many different ways that I can design it. I really want it to be simple, yet visually engaging. Along with the website, I've also been listening to many songs to help me choose a few for the trailers, and I've been thinking about how I want to make my poster.

      Before brainstorming ideas for the poster, I decided to do a bit of research for inspiration. Since I've been using a few specific films as case studies, I decided to use their film posters for conventions and inspiration as well.

The Kings of the Summer has multiple posters to promote the film, but these two stood out the most to me. Both of the posters have an image of a memorable scene from a movie, and it clearly gives out that these three teenagers are simply living free and having fun. They both make it abundantly obvious what film it is without making the title the main focus, and they both include the release date, reviews and awards. I think that including the reviews and awards work really well to give the film credibility and engage the viewer. I really love how the poster on the left incorporates a memorable/ meaningful phrase with the image of the boys jumping into the lake. It all works to make the poster visually pleasing. Since my film is a revolves a bit around having fun as well, I think that a memorable and visually engaging film from the film (or in this case the trailers) could be an interesting way to promote the film.

      Whiplash & The Perks of Being a Wallflower both had completely opposite posters. The colors and the highlighted words within the Whiplash poster gives it a darker, and more powerful tone, while establishing that the movie is going to revolve around drummer. It's so simple and yet they used a similar technique to the one of the posters above, by intertwining the image with various words to create a specific tone. The poster for The Perks of being a Wallflower is much more lighthearted, and simple than both Whiplash and The Kings of the Summer. Although the poster for Whiplash is very powerful, I don't think that that style would go well with my film, so I'm leaning towards doing something like The perks or the Kings posters. Some of the most important things that I have to remember when making my film's poster are: the title, the release date and creativity.

Work in progress

      Hey! So I finally wrote out my script, and its going to serve as a guideline so that both the actors know what to say and I know in what order everything goes. As of now im planning to start filming on Wednesday, but i'm trying to establish exactly how I want the school scenes to look. Initially I wanted to film some of the scenes in the cafeteria, to establish that it was a school setting, but I just realized how noisy and difficult it would be. Instead I think i'm going to have the group of friends at a picnic table outdoors, so that it still establishes the setting without taking away from the character's dialogue.

Here's the first page of my script/ guideline:

      Another thing that I just started to work on was the website. To make it i'm going to be using weebly.com because I've used it before and I really love all of the options that it gives the user. So far I've only chosen a template, but i'm very excited to start personalizing it. Before I get to that I've been looking at the websites for some other films like Whiplash, and Kings of the Summer. The film Whiplash has its website linked to the company that produced and includes various movie elements like the synopsis, the cast, the crew, reviews, external links, the trailer and where the full movie can be seen/ purchased. The website is also extremely user friendly and although it is simple it connects well to the film with the colors and images that were used. The website for the film Kings of the Summer is also a subpage on the website of the company that produced it. It includes a summary of what the film is about, the cast, filmmakers, reviews, news, and most importantly the trailer. I'm going to use these sites to gain inspiration and use them as a sort of guideline as well. That's it for now, but I'll be sure to keep you all posted!!

Scripting & Scheduling

     I know I probably waited too long to do this, but I finally made a schedule for myself. I feel that having one will really help me get more things done at a quicker pace and have more time to fix/ change any minor details that might need correcting. Although I didn't specify what I want to do every single day, I set a date for when I want certain things to be completed by. For this upcoming week, I'm going to focus on filming, editing and starting to work on the film's website. The following week, I want to film any scenes that I have left/ any new ideas that I want to include within the trailers, finish editing, the website and work on the promotional poster. I'm hoping to have the majority of those tasks done by April 2nd so that I can dedicate the last week to any final changes/details and the Creative Critical Response.

      On another note, I've also been writing out some of the dialogue that I want the character's to say, but i'm leaving it with flexibility because I really want the character's personalities to stand out and since each one of the actors has such a distinct personality I want to see where it could lead. At this point I only have drafts of what I would like them to say for certain shots, which were the ones on my storyboard in the previous post, but i'm working on a more solid script and I want to have it done by tomorrow so that I can start filming as soon as possible. Once I have it done, I promise to post it on here to give you all a sneak peak of what the dialogue will be like.

Storyboarding & more

      Hey! I hope everyone's Saturday is going great! Today I have a lot of things going on because it's my mom's birthday! Before we all celebrate, I have a few things I need to show you guys. On Thursday I got to hang out with one of my closest friends, and the main character for my film, Bailey Smith. I had chosen her initially because of the fact that she is very musically talented and I wanted to make a film about music. Although my film might still include that musical element its not going to be the main focus. The main focus is going to be her and her friends and all of the many things that they go through/ do during their senior year of high school. When we met up I told her about the role that she was going to play and we talked about the people that could possibly play her crazy friends. I also showed her the rough draft that I made of some of the shots that I would like to take.

   

     The storyboard/rough draft pretty much includes some possible shots that I would like to take paired up with possible dialogue. At the end of the paper I wrote some of the fun things that the friends can take the main character to do and some other possible ideas. Now that I have a general idea of what I want the main trailer to look like, I need to make sure that all of the things that i want to film are plausible and what shots I can use within the second trailer. In regards to the second trailer I also need to think about what is going to differentiate the two trailers whether it be the distribution method, the target audience, or something else. I want to have all of those elements set by Monday so that I can begin the filming process.

Tweaking + Conventions

     Hello, Hellooo! I hope everyone is enjoying their day. After I met up with the group on Friday, I got to thinking and found a way to make my plot more interesting and even added a small element of comedy into it, to brighten up the mood a bit. Although I didn't include the SoundCloud/Podcast idea, into my plot it might be something I could include in the trailer, if it helps the trailer move along in some way. You and I both know how hard it is to stick to one idea, and be done with it. I'll definitely be adding more details along the way, but here's my tweaked plot:

This story is about a girl who is in her senior year of high school and is struggling with her body image, and trying to figure out what it is she’s meant to do. She has two best friends who are the complete opposites and tend to joke around, go on adventures, aim to make her happy, try to convince her not to worry so much about the future, and help her understand her self worth and beauty.  As they go through senior year she experiences various bumps in the road, but along the way finds out what her passion is and how unimportant society’s standards tend to be.

Overall it's a story about friends who spend one of the most shaping years of their high school careers learning, changing, having fun and a girl who finds her passion and learns to love herself.


Along with that, I've been doing some research on drama/coming of age films and their trailers and have found some really great conventions and suggestions. Since my film falls under the drama genre, I've been doing some research to help me understand what drama trailers tend to be like. One of the places that exposed me to some really great information was The Guardian, which started off by emphasizing the importance of music in a trailer, especially a trailer for the drama genre. It mentioned how piano music tends to be extremely helpful in creating a feeling of melancholy and euphoria, which is pretty much perfect for many dramatic scenarios. It also said that some drama trailers include heavy-handed dialogue in the opening 30 seconds, because it helps draw the viewers into the movie's "key themes and messages." Within Drama films, any mention of the Oscars or Awards will grant your film instant credibility and tend to help strengthen a movie's reputation. When the title is finally unveiled, the reveal needs to be intriguing, emphatic and "in a Serif font." It's also important to include a funny bit within the trailer to show the audience that no matter how serious the film might be, there will be times for lightheartedness. Since, coming of age is a sub-genre under dramas it's trailers tend to follow similar structures to traditional drama trailers. However, some of the things that is specific to coming of age films is the high school setting, overcoming trial, and finding yourself/ one's passion.

"The “Coming of Age” of Coming-of-Age Films | The Princeton Buffer." Princeton University. The Trustees of Princeton University, 06 Dec. 2014. Web. https://princetonbuffer.princeton.edu/2014/06/12/the-coming-of-age-of-coming-of-age-films/

Lyne, Charlie. "Coming Soon ... How to Make the Perfect Movie Trailer." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 15 June 2012. Web. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/jun/16/how-to-make-a-movie-trailer

Flourishing ideas

     Yesterday, during my Aice Media class we all had the opportunity to meet up in groups and discuss what we were doing for our projects and see if anybody had any suggestions towards making it better/ more interesting. It was great because it allowed me to see what others where working on, the pace that they're working on, and swept new ideas around the table.

     After going through and talking about everyone's projects, I presented mine. Although I knew my plot, I was still not sure about many of the film's details so they gave me suggestions about other routes that I could take and I was even recommended a video for inspiration. Some of the ideas that I was given was maybe having the main character be anonymous/ have a stage name when publishing her music. Since her passion is for her music to move and inspire people, without all of the attention. They said that maybe she could publish her music to something like sound cloud or a podcast. They told me that if I wanted to go a more negative route (negative representation of the main character), that maybe the songs could be about her friends, which would be the reason why she doesn't want to be exposed. Once the friends find out they could set up a way to expose her/ get back at her. I think that I could still go the positive and more dramatic route, by establishing that she doesn't want to be exposed because some of the songs are about personal experiences and isn't comfortable with everyone knowing that its her. All of these ideas have me thinking so much, about the different things that I can do with the plot, which is why I am going to continue to research and watch videos and try to settle my plot by the end of this weekend.

     Later that day, I also sat down to watch the video that was recommended to me called, Melody. This video is about a woman and a girl who both learn to express themselves and their feelings through their violins despite their poverty. The older woman, Melody, devotes her life to conducting a youth orchestra in Chile, and the young girl ends up being apart of Melody's life and an important part of the orchestra. This Op-Doc was beautiful because not only did it show how beautiful music can be, but also how much of an impact in can make in the musicians lives and in the lives of those around them. I really liked this video because it assured my want to show how powerful music can be. I'm going to take the rest of the night to think about how I want my film to be and how successfully I can get that message across.

Link to the Op-Doc: https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000003487331/melody.html?playlistId=100000001150263&region=video-grid&version=video-grid-thumbnail&contentCollection=&contentPlacement=71&module=recent-videos&action=click&pgType=Multimedia&eventName=video-grid-click 

Research

Hey everyone! Ever since I decided upon the plot for my film, my week has consisted of research, research, and more research. I've researched what makes great trailers, examples, and drama film conventions and have a bit more to go. Surprisingly, I found more information than what I was expecting and found very helpful tips.

One of the first websites that gave me wonderful information was the WikiHow page titled "How to Make a Movie Trailer." Here's a summary of the information/tips that I found on the site:

The website said that one of the most components of a great trailer was the "teasing," in other words a great trailer is one that shows the full movie without revealing too much, builds excitement and gives the audience an alluring taste of the final product leaving the audience wanting more. It also mentioned that trailers tend to start out with separated clips of the film's producers, and studio logos, which tend to be brief and can be used to fit the mood of the trailer. Most trailers also use those starting seconds to introduce music or dialogue that establishes the mood of the trailer. It's important that within those first few seconds the audience has a rough idea about the various elements that your film will include/ will be about (e.g. genre, main character, mood). After the most important elements of your film are established, introduce the main conflict. The conflict is very important to introduce because, "without conflict there's no drama." Showing them the conflict will help explain to the audience why they should care about everything that the trailer has just introduced to them. The website says that one should strive to answer questions like "What dramatic thing happens to set the plot in motion?", "How does this make the characters feel?", and "How does the main character try to solve the conflict?"

Many modern trailers choose to hint at the plot's progression by showing quick, snappy clips of key lines or events in the film in a rough order of their appearance. Although the plot may intrigue and interest the viewers, it's important not to reveal too much about film's plot. This includes any plot twists because it would take away the film's element of surprise and would keep viewers from wanting to watch the full film. The most important thing to remember is to acknowledge your film's main theme in an exciting or compelling way and not to overuse any music and dialogue. The idea is to leave the viewers with questions and wanting more.

One of the films that clearly follows this structure through its trailer is the Academy Award winning film, Whiplash. Throughout the whole trailer, the music and instruments work to move the mood. Within the first 20 seconds, the trailer introduces a grand amount of information about the movie: the main character, his passion, the film's romantic component, and the teacher-student relationship. After all of those were introduced the conflict was brought into the equation, by revealing that one of the characters that was shown earlier is actually ruthless. One of the things that are important for me to keep in mind is that style, to strive to establish the conflict without it being explicitly stated. As the trailer came to an end the shots increased speed with the music, ending the trailer with a memorable phrase and the title. Another thing that I noticed, was that the trailer's very last shot was of the film's website and all of its social media, which is a very important element considering that my film trailer is going to be targeting a portion of today's tech savvy society.

Like I mentioned earlier in this post, I also did some research on drama film conventions to help guide me with this creative process. Watch out for that and much more in my next blog posts! 

"Whiplash (2016)." IMDb. IMDb.com, Web.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2582802/

"Make a Movie Trailer." WikiHow. WikiHow, Web.

http://m.wikihow.com/Make-a-Movie-Trailer

Plot(ting)

Good News!! I finally have a base for my plot. It took me a while, but what I did was watch a few trailers of films that related to what I want to do and put together all of my ideas. Two of the films that really helped me establish my plot were Sing Street and August Rush.

     August Rush is a film about an orphan's journey to finding his parents. His parents were both musicians and ended up having to give up their only child. He grew up to be a musical prodigy and decided to run away to New York City. Along the way he discovers who he is, the influence that his music has on others, and his parents search for him too. The reason I liked this movie so much is because of how powerful they portrayed music as, and how it connected people who were on completely opposite places.

Sing Street takes place in Dublin, Ireland in the 1980s. A 14 year old boy, Conner, growing up in this time escapes his strained family life by starting a band. Which started out as just a cover story that he used in order to impress a girl. This film was also very influential within my decision making process because it consisted of teens who were growing up, learning to fit in and used music as a way to do all of those things, and more.

     From the start, I knew that I wanted my film to have something to do with music and be influential in some way. Due to that, I found a way to incorporate both of those elements into my film. I also wanted to make my film a bit different then what music films are typically about and take my character out of the typical teenage stereotypes. Although I will probably change some details along the way, this is what I came up with for my story line:

Drama/Coming of age: Since she was young she loved helping people, and now that she's older her passion to help has only grown. She also loves music. Now that she’s older she’s learning that those two worlds can merge, she can use her talents to help others, influence others. All of her friends have completely different music taste, she tries to be more like her friends in order to conform to society, in order to fit in. Her friends don't agree with the kind of music that she’s into, that she wants to use to influence people; they think that with that kind of music/ dream is unrealistic. The music and growth teaches her that she doesn't have to be anyone other than herself, music has the power to change lives and she is apart of that change.

- You have to be yourself, it's more valuable than following societies standards; that way you have the most fun, you are happiest, and impact others (without having to be famous/ a celebrity/ have lots of money). (+joys of music/ power of music)

Target audience: Teens - Young adults

- Character is trying to figure out what she wants to do in life, is influenced by her surroundings by shows, friends, and thinks that she has to be a certain way, one day she realizes that she is talented (can sing, play instrument) and finds herself, her passion and pushes boundaries, finding out how influential music can be.

"Sing Street (2016)." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3544112/

"August Rush (2007)." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0426931/

Brainstorming

     Hey! I've been brainstorming these past few days and I have loads of ideas. I'm thinking of making a film that one way or another revolves around/ includes music. It can be an instrument, music itself, or an artist. When I met with my teacher, we talked about my idea and the fact that I need to really settle upon a plot and choose a target audience. Right after my Aice Media class, I met up with another one of my bestfriends and she made me realize that we also have a friend that plays the cello and violin. Which are both such beautiful and intriguing instruments. Initially, I was thinking of using my friend Bailey, because she can sing, and plays the guitar really well. Now that I have more ideas i'm not all that sure because I have so many different ideas. I need to decide exactly what I want to make my story about while keeping all of those possibilities in mind. I'm going to take this weekend to figure out what I want my film to be about so that I have something to base my trailers off of. I'll let you all know, as soon as I do!

Here are some of the things that I have on my brainstorming list:

Story has to do with music

Instruments and musicians:

• Guitar: Bailey, JP, Justin
• Violin: Jesus, Eugenia
• Cello: Eugenia
• Flute: Dani

Make it interesting without recreating/ making a guitar Whiplash

• Girl that doesn't have many friends and in order to understand life and her role in it is by playing the guitar. She doesn't really fit in, but when she plays her guitar all of her worries seem to float away.
• Going through a tough time at home/ with friends/ growing up and expresses her emotions through her music.. singing and playing instrument (coming of age)
• Was influenced to play guitar by a cute boy, she wanted him to like her so she learned to play guitar. He ends up being the complete opposite of what she thought and realizes that playing a guitar is what she was meant to do/ she's actually amazing at playing some other instrument.
• The struggles of an aspiring artist, improving playing skills, growing, learning, socializing
• The power of music
• Finding herself.. finds music... sucks at first but then improves and learns that its a completely different lifestyle.
• Target audience:
• Youth: Coming of age story and the guitar ties everything together, or could be some sort of struggle (Perks of being a Wallflower)
• Children: The guitar could have magical powers, or some special meaning (Diary of a Wimpy Kid/ Bedtime stories)
• Could be about the character and music is just apart of the story (Walk the line)

Drama films p/t music: Grace unplugged, Walk the line, Whiplash, August Rush (older audience), Sing Street, If I stay, Song to sing, Nick and Nora’s Infinite playlist, rudderless

Drama films: Brooklyn, The Finest Hours, The Edge of Seventeen, Jersey boys

Guess who's back. Back again.

     Hey! It's been almost a whole year since the last time I posted on here and now its time to get back to work. If you don't remember, last year I made a film opening for a made up thriller called "Lilac." It was a wonderful learning experience and i'm definitely going to use what I learned last year and apply it to this year's assignment. This assignment consists in the making of a film promotion package, which consists of two original trailers, a website, and a poster.
     So far I have been brainstorming and doing research, but I'm already thinking of taking a completely different route. There are no set ideas, but I've been leaning towards my film revolving around music in some way. I have so many ideas, but still have to do more research to see what it is that I will be able to do most successfully. Just like I did with the last film, I will be documenting all of my progress on this blog. I'll keep you posted!

P.s. I'm going to be changing the website around soon so that it aligns better with my film.