Important Decisions (switching locations, casting, etc)

 

Christian Aniello
as Christain

Lauren Nau
as Lauren

Sebastian Calderon
as dead Christian

Hi blog!! We have (finally!!) cast the roles of the girl and boy in our film!! We have been reaching out to many different people who would fit the roles of the girl and boy trying to see who would be willing to participate in our film. Many of our friends and classmates were very busy and did not know if they could spend a few days filming. We decided that it would be best for Lauren to play the girl in our film since that was the main role and she already knew the basis of the film. For the boy part, we picked our friend Christian. The main issue was that Christain could not film multiple days, so we decided to get creative. We had our other friend, Sebastian, play the part of Christain in the first half (where he was dead) because his face would not be shown in the shots. We decided that if we used unique camera shots, angles, and composition, the audience will never know that we used a body double for the dead Christain (our very own behind-the-scenes Hollywood secret!)

Since my last post, we were discussing with a friend about our project and they gave us a great suggestion of a fourth park that we should consider--regional park. It is a closer distance, open 24 hours a day, and has a great forest-like effect. Also, the park is busy during the day but nearly empty at night. We think that this location is most ideal for filming our forest scene and really checks off every item on our list. We have also decided that we are going to use Callie's house and her neighborhood clubhouse to film the second half of the film opening. We are going to use her room because it has a large open wall where we can build the shrine, and a window so it can show Christain skateboarding by, and Lauren taking pictures of him from her window. At the neighborhood clubhouse, there is a basketball court surrounded by lots of trees. We are hoping to film Lauren stalking Christain playing basketball behind a tree, taking photos of him. Also, there is a video game/pool room with an outside connection, so we are going to try to incorporate that room into the film, as well.


Now that we have our cast and final locations for our film, we are really starting to see our story come to life!! I can't wait to start filming and see it all come together!!

Finding a location--forest scene

Today Callie, Lauren, and I went on a hunt to find a place to film for our forest scene. We decided to check out three nearby locations: Vista View Park, Everglades Holiday Park, and Markham Park. Each location had some pros and cons to it.

For our scene, the most ideal situation would be a park that was large, open, and woodsy with lots of trees but had a secluded section where we could film without being disturbed or worrying about other people getting in the background of our shot. Also, we would ideally be filming at night so we would need a park that is open late, or we will have to try to figure out editing techniques to make the scene darker. First, we evaluated Vista View Park. The park is a big hill, which did not completely fit the vision we had for the forest scene. The park was very busy and there weren't many areas that were secluded enough for us to film. Also, the park closes at 7:30 pm every night. We could not find any pros for this location and immediately eliminated it from our list of considerations. Next, we went to Markah Park. This park also closes at 7:30 pm every night, but it gave the right effect we were hoping to achieve. The park is very large and there are numerous trails into the forest area that we could use for filming. The last place we considered was Everglades Holiday Park. This park officially closes at 5 pm; however, there are surrounding grassy areas that we could use to film, but similar to vista view park, it didn't quite fit the image we wanted for our scene. In the end, we have chosen to go with Markham Park because it captures the essence of a secluded forest. I attached an image below of one of Markham Park's trails that we can use to film our scene in. We will have to be creative with the lighting and editing techniques to make the forest appear to be darker, but we think that this option is truly the best and will make our scene great!!

Peer Review

Today in class, we were having a peer review day. I was excited to hear what other people in my class thought of our ideas, but I was a little worried because we could not work on finishing our storyboard and that we would fall behind schedule. I was also very nervous my classmates would find flaws that would highly set us back and make us reevaluate our plot. Callie, Lauren, and I were divided into different groups so we could all share our plots with our classmates. I was with 3 other classmates. It was very interesting to hear all of their film opening ideas, and I felt relieved after they all said that they really liked our film opening idea. It was also very helpful to hear their feedback on how we should improve our plot.

One of my classmates shared that they think it would be beneficial to have many short, rapid scenes in the first part to convey the essence of the character. I completely agree with this piece of feedback and think it will be good to incorporate into the scene. Another idea I got from another classmate in the group was to really emphasize a deteriorating mental state of the character in the first part, to show that she has an evil, psychotic side to her. He also suggested adding subtle clues to her craziness within the second part, such as having a picture of the boy hanging up in her room. The last member in our peer review group considered our current storyboard and thought that we should maybe switch the order of the parts of the scene, and show the body being buried (box 4 of the storyboard) before the girl is frantically running through the woods (box 3 of the storyboard) to add suspense to the situation.

Lastly, once we all shared the plots of our films and gave feedback, we looked at each other's blog posts and made sure that everything was organized, user-friendly, and easy to follow. Although we weren't able to stay on schedule and finish the storyboard in class, this activity was very helpful and we received great feedback that can help us with our film opening.

Storyboard

Hi blog! Yesterday, after our team finalized the plot, we were able to begin the storyboard. Once we created a structure and finalized our plot, it was fairly easy to separate the scene into parts that we created in the storyboard. It was also very helpful to visualize the different shots of the storyboard. I included the paper version of the storyboard below (and please forgive me for the drawings as I am not the best artist) which includes descriptions for each part of the scene, as well as the images. 

Descriptions of each box: 

-The first box shows an establishing shot of the forest. The scene will have dark lighting and will take place at night or at dawn to capture this effect. 

-The second box a close up of the girl dragging a lifeless body through the forest, but will only show the feet of the victim and the hands of the girl. No faces will be shown yet.

-The third box shows the frantic nature of the situation. Multiple clips with quick cuts will show the girl running through the forest. There will be sounds of leaves crunching and heavy breathing.

-The fourth box shows the body being buried in the forest. We will most likely alternate between high and low angles to get both a point of view and aerial shots.

-The fifth box shows a close up of the girl and shows her messy hair and makeup. She will look scared and tired and represent a psychotic emotion.

-The last box will show a missing poster of a teenage boy, and the audience will be able to infer that the boy in the missing poster is who was killed. This is when the scene will cut to the flashback (and part 2 of our scene) that sets up the rest of the film. 

Finalizing our plot

Hi blog! After a long time of not being able to meet in person, our team finally had another team meeting in class today where we were able to finalize details about the plot of our film. We wanted to jump right into the storyboard and draw out our thoughts for the film, but we thought it would be beneficial to plan out a skeleton structure for the different types of scenes we wanted to incorporate into our film opening. We divided our film into two halves: the first half would be the present day, and the second half would be a flashback. The first half would show the outcome of the film, and the second half would effectively set up the rest of the film (all within a flashback).

Part one:
This scene would take place in a forest. There would be all diegetic sounds, including rustling trees, and heavy breathing. A young girl would be shown dragging a body through the woods and running frantically. She would be looking very distressed and have makeup running, dirty clothes, and terrified emotions. She would bury the body in the forest and run away. Finally, there would be a close up of a missing poster of a teenage boy (the boy who she previously killed and buried). There would be no dialogue, but towards the end of the clip, a voiceover of the girl would say something along the lines of "So how did we end up here..."

Part two:
This section would be a complete contrast from the present day situation. There will be upbeat music, bright clothing, and a happy atmosphere. The title sequence will be shown throughout this section, including the important actors, directors, etc. The scene will begin with a graphic match of the picture in the missing poster to the same picture in the girl's room (possibly him calling her on her phone and the picture coming up on her screen). This scene will include dialogue of the girl talking to a friend (or maybe her mother??) about how she is excited to be meeting up with a boy who she had a crush on for a long time, aka the boy who she later kills. The scene will most likely end with her about to leave to meet up with the boy.

Staying consistent with the schedule I created for our team in the previous post, next class we will create the storyboards for each part of the film opening. It is still quite difficult for us to visualize our scenes coming together, so creating the storyboard will help us see our ideas come to life prior to filming. Stay tuned!!

Filming schedule

Hi blog! Since we have not had a team meeting in a couple of days, I thought it would be beneficial to create a schedule for filming to help us organize our time better. The schedule includes each day that we are in our class and what we will be doing with our time in class. Since all of our filming has to be done in locations outside of school, we cannot rely on class time to film and must instead utilize our class time to develop other parts of the project. The most efficient use of our time in our class prior to filming is to plan out the days of filming so that we don't waste our time during the filming days trying to figure out what to do since we have very limited days that we can actually film and the time is very valuable. This schedule is very tentative and will most likely change as we go through the month. We all have very busy schedules and we will most likely have to alter this calendar to accommodate them. Nevertheless, it is still very valuable to have because it will act as a guide and help us stay on track as we work through the project.

Bumps in the road!

Today my group experienced a major bump in the road. I had an important doctor's appointment and could not attend class. My other group members also were unable to attend class for personal reasons. We felt that we were running behind, but thankfully we are all good friends aside from class and were able to communicate ideas through the phone. We decided that we really liked the idea of building suspense in our film and we are almost certain we are going to stick with the idea discussed in the previous post, where a noticeable dirty girl is running away from burying a body in the forest/woodsy location. Through group messaging, our team discussed some key mise-en-scene features we wanted to include in our scene.

We decided that the scene will include some sort of flashback to provide context as to what led to this drastic event of a teenage girl burying a body. I suggested that maybe we show her getting ready for a date with a boy and have a voiceover question "so how did we end up here?" This will create an element of suspense because even though the audience knows something will go terribly wrong, they will be eager to know what led to the morbidity of her committing murder.

We want there to be a large contrast from the girl and her surroundings. We want to film the scene at night and have very dark lighting and shadows in a forest-like setting. To create a contrast, we want the girl to be wearing a white dress covered in dirt stains. Since white is a color typically associated with innocence, this will represent how this event has "stained her innocence" and will show aspects of irony. This message will also be conveyed through her heavy makeup that will be ruined, such as heavy mascara that is running down her face, and bright red lipstick that will be smeared all over her face. I included images below that show the image we are striving for in our scene.