#27 Issues — Planning

Our whole schedule has so many faults.

    First, the time we are given for this. I'm not talking about the fact that we have like three and a half months to do this, but the fact that we have only two minutes. I could do so much if only we had more time. I need to figure out how to do the credits, but I just don't know how I'm going to overlap words on top of the opening. I need the audience to see what's going on too. I've seen so many good openings that I could take inspiration from, only problem is, they are like 4-10 minutes long intros. I don't have all that time. 

 

    Second, what if we don't have time? Even with the schedule, every time I try to make plans, there's always an excuse. I invited them for bowling one time-- even though it's not the place we're filming, we could've discussed over the filming there together--and they didn't even say whether they were going or not. In the end, neither of them went. And get this, they read it but just decided to not respond.

    Lastly, I think there's some type of beef going on with Leanette's grandparents, but I don't know because they won't tell me. Leanette and Victoria both know and I don't, what if the only place we have in mind to film suddenly isn't available? Where are we going to film? Leanette's parents are strict and won't let her go anywhere if Victoria's not going, so they can't come to my house. And Victoria doesn't have a pool, which is what we need. 

    I don't know how I'm going to fix this; the only time we see each other is in school and we can't film there either. We didn't get together the week before winter break which is what I had hoped we would've done, but maybe we'll be able to meet up during winter break. The deadline's creeping closer really quickly, way too quickly; we need to lock in.

    Also, the blog in which I put a picture of the house we were going to film at was wrong because that was actually the house in front of Leanette's house, but then we changed the setting and said we were going to record at Victoria's aunt's house instead. This is Victoria's aunt's house:

#26 Music and Lighting — Planning

 Music

    Since this film takes place in the 2000s, so Britney is going to be listening to popular 2000s music such as Rihanna, Destiny's Child, Beyonce, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Ke$ha, and Justin Timberlake (these are some of the 2000s artists I know). This is the music she'd listen to through her earbuds, which I think I said she'll have in my second decision blog. For diegetic sound, the music she's listening to makes up one part, as for the other, I think it'll have to be the splashing water when she's drowning, Chloe on the phone, and Britney's mom calling for her. For nondiegetic, I'll have to include music that will signal the change in atmosphere.

    Here's one song I'd like Chloe to be listening to as she's working and in her own little world, her music isn't supposed to make you feel scared.

Lighting

    Because I don't want our film to start off horror-y, the beginning of the 2-minute film opening will have warm colors to make everything lighthearted as it starts off. As the intro progresses, I want to make the lighting get cooler. However, I have not played with lighting before, so I'm going to have to watch a lot of tutorials on how to do that. I'm going to be so pro, trust me.\

    I did a whole research blog about how light affects the mood of a picture or clip.

    Take this setting for example: a warm toned living room, a homey space with soft, yellow-ish lighting. It does not give the feeling of "Oh someone's in here that's going to come kill me". On the other hand...

    Take this cool toned corner store, it looks like a before scene of a zombie apocalypse, in my opinion. Although the setting itself isn't scary, or the fact that there's much light, the green tone in the lighting makes you feel as if something is going to happen.

    In this final picture, even though there's a source of warm lighting, the setting is open and there's a lot of shadow. There's also no people, making the setting feel very solitary and empty; something a handful of people get scared by.

#25 Clothing — Planning

    Since the movie is taking place in the 2000s, I went to look for clothes that would fit Chloe. Obviously most of the pictures of 2000s clothing are modernized and the ones that aren't are too much for a character that's going to be at home. The least extravagant clothes that give off 2000s to me are the ones that are simple tracksuits, and shirt and jeans. However, I also have to make sure Leanette has these clothes because I don't know what her wardrobe looks like.

    I may or may not be wrong, but I think this is Britney Spears. A sweater and sweatpants is pretty chill to wear at clothes, and even though it's not that modernized, trashy, y2k, mcbling clothing; it's really simple and could really work for any recent era. Leanette's going to have to be ready to be pushed into the pool wearing regular clothes though, since it's all for the movie. I'm not sure what shots I'm going to use when recording her in the water though, I'll have to take some inspiration from horror movies with drowning victims to try and recreate that and put that into our film, so I don't look just take random close-up shots.

    As for Samuel, because he's breaking into the house and killing Britney, he's just going to wear all black; he can't stand out and he can't show his face because.. he's a murderer. I'm not going to go too in depth into his outfit because he's just there to hit and run. Chloe and Britney's Mom's outfits don't matter because they won't appear physically in the film opening, so me and Victoria can wear whatever we want.

#24 Characters — Planning

    We still have like no clue who the characters are going to be in the film intro, but two are certain: Britney, The Guy Who Walks in Britney's House, Chloe, and Britney's Mom. 

Britney

    Britney is the girl that goes out of her way to answer the mail and get herself killed. She's going to be played by Leanette. Since Britney dies in the movie intro, she's not going to be the film's main character. Britney really isn't going to do much since she dies almost immediately into--what we're assuming is--the two-hour movie; the two minute film opening is just 1.67% of those 120 minutes of movie.

The Guy Who Walks in Britney's House

    We do not have a name for this guy yet because this is just the movie film opening, so we don't really think he needs one, yet. He's going to be played by Samuel (who's not in our group). Samuel is huge. He's like 6 feet and something inches, or more than 190 centimeters tall.

Chloe

    Chloe is the real main character throughout the movie. She doesn't physically appear in the two-minute film opening, but you'll hear her voice through Britney's phone. Chloe is going to be voiced by Victoria. Chloe is going to be on the phone when Britney drowns.

Britney's Mom

    Britney needs a reason to go and get the mail in the first place, so that's why we are also going to include the voice of her mom to call her down and go get the mail. I'm going to be playing as the voice of her.

#23 Media Project Reflection — Planning

    Sometimes, in class, I’ll work on what me and my group members must do for the end of the year 2-minute film opening; other times, we will get sidetracked and do other things. I do all my work at home though, sometimes I’ll stay up till late at night doing homework and making sure all my school work is completed by before 11:59 p.m. One task that really took long to do was my planning blogs, since me and my group members haven’t met up yet outside school; I couldn’t think about anything to write about and turn into a blog. I hope we’ll meet up more so that I can make some blogs about it, it’d be very helpful—also since we need to meet up for the video. However, making planning blogs about the little interactions we’ve had over the film are tricky. My current work pace, in my opinion, is not effective. I procrastinate a lot so—even though I do my work before the deadline—I have an unhealthy habit of doing it and turning it in last minute; therefore, my pace is slightly behind.

    On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give the effort I have given into this project so far a 5. I do my work, but I only do it because it is assigned; if it weren’t, I wouldn’t do it. For example, my research blogs were done reluctantly. If I had more chances to meet up with my partners and actually get the plot settled, I’d bump the number up to around 8. Like I said in my first paragraph, my biggest obstacle is procrastination. I do my work last minute. I’ll try to do blogs earlier so that I have more time to change them when given suggestions before the deadline. In my opinion, the reflections are the hardest part; especially when I have to add a reflection paragraph for my settings blog. My standards vary; my research blogs have to show that I actually found stuff over what it is that I’m researching, my planning blogs are more lenient since I haven’t really done any planning with my friends.

    As a group, we’re only really around 66% efficient since 2 out of the 3 of us actually do the work on time. We tell the third member to do her work on time and before the deadline, daily, but she doesn’t listen. As for me, I’ll try and not procrastinate on my work so that I don’t have to stress about doing everything at the very last second.

#22 Interviews — Planning

 

We interviewed a different group of people to see how their film plans could influence ours.

    The group we interviewed has the idea of making a movie about a skin-walker, this does not correspond to our plot, only the common genre of horror. They suggested that we get on pace with our schedules and that we should meet up soon, which is what we are trying to do. They didn't suggest any lighting techniques or shots we could use, just basic stuff that we were bound to think of anyways. However, one person from their group did say we would have to be careful with how we use our diegetic and nondiegetic sound seeing as the music part of our story is going to be tricky. I included a picture of a drawn, simplified plot where it shows the girl with earbuds throughout the whole thing. We're going to have to incorporate the music she's listening to and the music we--the audience--are hearing, such as suspenseful music signaling danger that she will not sense, due to her being in her own little musical world. We'll also have to put in sound effects and whatnot; a lot of overlapping music that, hopefully, won't just sound like a mess. So yes, incorporating diegetic and nondiegetic sound into our film is something I'll have to be careful with not messing up while editing the film. Other than that, there was nothing suggested to us in the interview that would be helpful to our film. 

#21 The Setting — Planning

     In my second decision blog, I had said that we are going to film at Leanette's grandma's house. I said it gave off 2000s, but now that I'm seeing it properly...

...This house does NOT look 2000s.

This house looks more like the white house if you asked me. This place looks huge, I think this is where the phrase "let them eat cake" took place in. Trump's probably signing papers in one of those rooms (this is not anything political don't cancel me, I'm just saying that because Trump is the president and the president lives in the White House, and I said this house looks like the White House). However, if you really think about it, you could make it work. You'd just have to imagine this house as peak 2000s Miami. The only thing we're really, truly focused on is the pool. We want the pool for the drowning scene. Thing is Leanette doesn't know how to swim, but I do, hopefully the pool isn't that deep, I don't know what the inside of the house looks like because I've never been. In the story, there's really no other place we'll need except the house. I'm very excited to get together to put the film together, I hope we can start working soon so that we won't have to compress all the work in a short amount of time.

#20 Schedule — Planning

 

    We made this schedule thinking that it was the most important thing that we could bestow our eyes upon. No. Saturdays we couldn't meet up because Victoria had bowling, Sundays we couldn't meet up (before 2pm) because I have church. We didn't meet up the whole of Thanksgiving break because Leanette was on vacation. The days in pink was the month of November, the days in blue are the month of December, and the days in orange (1, 2, 3 at the bottom right of the first picture) are the first three days of January. Hopefully, we'll be able to meet the week before winter break, since it's very likely we'll be busy those two weeks of no school. Our schedule is all over the place, and we are deciding to meet at Leanette's grandma's house, since it has a pool (for the drowning) and the house and neighborhood themselves seem like they'd fit in a 2000s film. We would be able to get the script done if they called, but they call each other over the plot without me. I find this out during class when they talk about changes to the script I was never told of. We have a group chat too, but we barely even use it. I'd like if the three of us could actually get together to talk about the film, even if it were just a call.