Final Day of Filming!!

 Finally!! We were able to complete our whole production process and have enough time for the editing we want to do. I am so happy that we were able to get all the shots the way we want them and can make something that we are proud off. 

During our final day of filming we went through all the shots we had taken over the course of the week and decided which ones we were going to keep and the ones we wanted to reshoot. We ended up reshooting a lot of shots because we realized that our reflections were in the windows and mirrors. We fixed this by making sure to change our angles and since I was the one filming I would duck down just in case on specific shots. We also found that some shots were shaky so we decided to also refilm those to get a cleaner look in the final result. 

Our actress was amazing, she was very easy to work with and she really tried to capture what we wanted for the film. The wardrobe is exactly how I showed it in a previous blog and Sara, our actress, smeared eyeshadow down her face to make it look as if she was crying. This gave a very realistic look to the spiraling part, now to talk about the spiraling part, unfortunately we were not able to achieve the exact result that we wanted. Instead, we had Sara sitting down on the floor and I circled her with the camera and then it turns into a zoom in close-up of her. Our other actress, Sandra, was also very collaborative and played the part exactly like we wanted her to. 

The whole production process in itself was not what I expected at all. I was convinced that it was going to be easier than it was, but we did face challenges that luckily we were able to overcome. I found that while we were filming we diverted from our original storyboard a lot. This surprised me because I believed that following the storyboard was going to be the easiest option for us in terms of time, but truthfully diverting from it made both of us feel less stressed. Now we are going to start editing the whole project and see how we wanted to place the shots. Were almost done!!

Still filming...

We are so close to the end of filming!! Finally we can start focusing on the editing!! 

Before that, let me explain the only thing we have left for filming. THE SPIRALING SCENE! I do not understand why we are having such a challenge with this specific part of our project. We do not want to give it up because it will really elevate our whole project but we cannot seem to find a solution. We could not even try the fan idea because my partner's fan is broken, we tried one person walking around our actress but that did not work, and lastly the rolling chair just made the whole scene shaky and that is not what we want. I had the idea of maybe attacking a string to the ceiling and guiding the phone around our actress, we have no tried it yet but when we do I will give an update. 

We finished all the scenes of Serna's mother, and the ones of her making her room a mess, and the ones of Serena leaving through the window. The best part is that we actually had a fun time filming since we are all friends. I cannot imagine doing this by myself, it would not have been the same experience I have had with my partner. 

Now I'm going some editing ideas we have: 

1. Giving a darker tint to the whole introduction to fit that darkness we want to give. 

2. Making it brighter when her mom appears on screen and lowering that brightness when Serena comes into the scene.

3. Making our credits play when Serena is messing up her room

4. Having the screen fade to black at the end of immediately to complete darkness and then end the whole introduction. 

Filming wardrobe && updates!

 I want to show a specific example of what Serena will be wearing just so it is easier to visualize. 

I already mentioned why we are using these specific colors in a previous blog post, but I wanted to mention again that we are trying for Serena to have a comfortable but also careless vibe to her. We also wanted our actress to be comfortable while filming since she is doing us a favor or being in our introduction so me and my partner can focus more on the actual filming on it. 

We have all the shots of her mother walking into the house, we decided we are just going to cut these in editing. We choose to film a long shot of this because then in editing we can select the parts that we like the most and use those for the final product. We also have all the shots done of Serena messing up her room. We started with these two shots because they are the least technical to film and we want to get the easier shots out of the way so we have more time to focus on the more challenging shots like the spiraling one. 

We have began filming the continuation of the messing up the room shots and we were able to get to the part where she is finishing her luggage to get away. However, we did not yet reach the part where we will do the back and forth cuts between the mother walking into the house and Serena exiting through the backdoor. Next time we film we will finish these shots and hopefully start on the spiraling scene because it is consuming a lot of the time we need for editing, but I am not worried about the time because we are right on the track we want to be. 

Filming

 So we started to film and we discovered some of the challenges we will possibly face. 

The most prominent one is the spiraling scene we have to film. We tried with a rolling chair and unfortunately the results were not what we expected. The camera was shaky and it was just not the result we want to put in our final project. I have been trying to discover new ways to film this scene but I am currently out of ideas on how we could do it. 

Another challenge is the lighting of our project. Since we are basing our story around night time we need to wait until the sun is completely down to film our scenes, which takes all our natural light away and forces us to film only at night. Filming at night is more challenging since we need stronger light and we cannot rely on natural lighting at all. Using light from the regular room is simply not enough and gives it a weird look to the final clip. To fix this, we are using a ring light that my partner has. 

We are filming everything on my phone, which has a high quality camera. The only challenge with filming on an iPhone is the shakiness of our hands. Unfortunately, we do not have a tripod to utilize for all the scenes so we are trying to film as steady as we possibly can. 

Stay tuned to see the rest of the filming process!     

Challenges with the changes

 As I mentioned in my previous post, we have decided to make changes to our project. With these changes come challenges and longer filming times. 

The biggest challenge we will face is figuring out how to do the spiraling idea, where Serena is still but the room behind her is spinning. A spinning chair is the best option I can think of, the videographer would be sitting down in a spinning chair, the other person would be spinning the chair around Serena. The only problem with this is that the end result might look shaky which is not what we want. However, a shaky look to the scene could add more to that chaos that Serena is experiencing mentally. 

Since we are changing things about our storyline, we have to take some and add some scenes to our storyboard. I am not worried about the time frame because since we have such as clear picture of what we want to create I know we can do it and have the end result we have been wanting this whole time. Instead of the back and forth scene with Serena's mom going up the stairs while Serena is trying to escape, we will change the back and forth to Serena's mom getting home from work (so as she is walking to the house) and Serena will still be trying to escape. 

We are also considering adding just one word of dialogue at the end of the introduction. The one piece of dialogue will be Serena's mom yelling out "Serena" when she arrives at home. The idea is that as the mom closes the front door, Serena closes her window and then you hear the dialogue. This adds a dramatic ending to the introduction and also hooks viewers into wanting to watch the rest of the movie which is exactly what we want! 

We have started our filming process, stay tuned to see how that goes!!

Changes...

 Here are the permanent changes we are going to adapt into our project: 

1. We will incorporate the spiraling scenes that I mentioned in my previous blog because we want to connect the title to the actual introduction. Also, we feel that it will bring an extra factor into our project and really highlight that Serena's downfall and what drove her over the edge to run away was that scene. It also gives us a chance to show our editing and filming techniques that we have learned. 

2. Instead of Serena's mother being home the whole time, she will be getting into the house from work as Serena is leaving through her rooms window. This just makes more sense with our story because it shows that her mother was always busy and she was alone in real life and mentally she felt the same way. It adds more depth to the story and also adds a dramatic flare to the introduction. 

3. We are completely cutting out the idea that Serena is going to make it appear as a kidnapping because if she was to get kidnapped we would have to make the atmosphere more realistic and we would have to rethink our whole filming process. With how she is spiraling, it does not make sense for her to get kidnapped and her background does not have anything to do with her getting kidnapped either. 

We acknowledge that with these changes we will face different challengers. For example, for the new spiraling scene we are adding, we have to figure out a way to make the room behind Serena spin but have her stay still. This is going to be a challenge, we originally planed to use a ceiling fan, but my partner's fan is broken in her room so unfortunately we have to rethink our whole idea. Another idea we came up with was using a rolling chair but it would just make the whole scene very shaky and that is not what we are trying to go for. We will keep thinking of ways to make this scene a reality! 

I will be making the necessary adjustments to our storyboard. Stay tuned!!

Group Meetings!!

 

We had our class group meetings today where we all discussed our different projects and gave each other feedback about what we could improve in our projects. We discussed every person's project in detail and it was actually very helpful to listen to other's ideas because it made me want to improve my own and think of ways to elevate my own project. I took some great ideas from this group meeting and my partner and I will be changing various things about it to make it even better. However, I will discuss the changes we will incorporate in my next post. 

Here are the feedback my review group gave me: 

First, since our title is "Spiraling", one group member told me that in the moment when Serena is having her mental breakdown the room behind her should be spinning while she is standing there having her breakdown. This could really elevate the whole look of the introduction because it incorporates different editing and filming techniques. However, if we take this suggestion then our filming process would be longer by at least one day. For this specific idea, my group members also suggested adding color to it with LED lights. 

Second, my group and I decided that we should consider taking out the whole kidnapping aspect of the project because it does not make sense that the mom would believe she got kidnapped so quickly while she was downstairs the whole time. 

Third, since we are considering taking out the whole kidnapping aspect, we are also going to have the mom come home from work instead of being downstairs the whole time because it gives that isolating feeling that Serena feels even more. 

Stay tuned for the changes we will incorporate!! 

Filming

 Having our storyboard done makes the whole filming process ten times easier because we are going into it with a clear idea of what we want to do. The whole filming process should take us no longer than 2-3 days since we have the specific scenes already drawn out and what type of shots we want to use for each scene. We will start our whole filming process this upcoming week.

The main reason why we want to do our filming as soon as possible is because we want to leave enough time to properly edit the introduction. Leaving enough time to edit it key in this process since we do not want our final product to look rushed and sloppy. We acknowledge that editing can be quite time consuming and will take longer than the filming process which is why we are trying to cut the filming process as much as possible. Additionally, our spring break is coming up so we want to be as on track as we can to make a great product but also have time to enjoy our break. 

We have a few ideas on how we want the whole feel of the video to be. For example, using dark exposure and not a lot of lightning especially in the scenes inside Serena's room and using more bright lights in the scenes with her mom to emphasize the contrast in mentality that both characters have. We are also actively trying to find the song that we want to use for our introduction but so far none of the songs we have looked at seem to be working with what we want to create. Even though none of the songs have worked so far, I am glad that we have a clear image on what we want to create because it makes the entirety of our project flow smoothly. 

Don't forget to check in next week!!

Character Wardrobe

 I know in a previous post I mentioned what Serena would be wearing for the introduction, but my partner and I decided to change her outfit and give it more significance. 

When we began developing her character we gave her a dark vibe, in the sense that she is someone who is going through mental challenges and it reflects in her appearance at home. Based off of this, her outfit is now going to be black sweatpants and a red sweatshirt. You may be asking yourself, why the change in colors? Well we wanted the character to have more depth to her than just her backstory which is why we choose these colors. The use of color in film is so important because it subconsciously lets viewers know things or gat a feel of the character without anything being said. 

Now to explain the significance behind the colors. Black, in color psychology black represents darkness, despair, elegance, and mystery, among other things. The black sweatpants help aid the idea that she is going through a dark time and it reflects on the clothes she decides to use. The elegance aspect is represented because we know that her parents put an immense pressure on her to always look perfect and sophisticated outside of the house, even when she goes to school. Mystery because it feeds into the suspense part of the film since it is still a thriller film and we want viewers to be hooked. 

Red represents anger, war, danger, and intense emotions, among other things. Red is the one color that fits Serena the most because she is angry at her parents for so many different things, the whole introduction is based off of her intense emotions towards her parents. War because Serena is fighting a war in multiple aspects of her life, whether it be mentally or with her parents. 

Serena's mom, who we decided to call Luchi Thorpe, will be wearing her work outfit because we want to represent the time that she does not spend with her daughter and instead spends it at work. This once again helps represent how absent her parents are for many things and why she has so much anger towards them. 

Stay tuned for updates on filming! 

Storyboard!!

After all this time, me and my partner were finally able to complete our storyboard!! Here it is!!

Even though we could not stick to that schedule I devised up a couple blog posts about, I feel that we are right on track with time. This week we will begin filming during the weekend and try to have all of our filming done in a week and a half. All of our camera angles are listed underneath each different shot and the camera movements are indicated with arrows in the little boxes. Some shots have and "X" that indicates where the cameras will be when the shot first begins. 

The introduction will begin with Serena stomping up the stairs with makeup running down her face and tears rolling down her eyes. All the scenes in the introduction are important because they all help develop the storyline of what the movie is about. I feel that without all the shots we have in the storyboard then our introduction would not feel as complete and whole. The climax of the whole scenes in definitely when Serena's mom is walking up the stairs and almost catches Serena leaving, but Serena is able to jump out the window just in time. This is the most nail-biting part because the audience does not know if she will get caught or not. 

The most important part about the introduction is definitely the ending. It is very important that we do not give our introduction a clear ending because it is only the beginning of the movie. We ended our scene with Serena jumping out the window which leaves viewers wondering what will happen and effectively hooks them into watching the rest of the movie. I am quite happy with the story we were able to develop and am excited about what the end result will look like! Don't forget to stay tuned!

Actress

 We have officially found our actress to play Serena! My partner and I decided to ask our friend who is blonde and has brown eyes to play the part. We decided this based on the fact that we felt it would be less challenging to direct the introduction if we both stayed behind the scenes instead of one of us being behind the camera. 

We have also determined our filming location, we are going to film most of our introduction at my partners house because we want to make it seem like Serena is jumping from a window to run away and my partner has the perfect window in her room. We will also be filming a couple scenes in her backyard and are still determining if we should use a car or not. Using a car to run away would make the actual running away part less believable so the chances we use a car are slim to none. 

Now for Serena's costume design, as I mentioned in my previous blog, when she is at her house her clothes consist of sweatpants and sweatshirts so we will be putting our actress in that same outfit. I think the sweatpants will be colored gray and the sweatshirt will be black to help describe the mindset Serena is experiencing. She will have her hair tied up in a messy bun and will have makeup running from her eyes to make it seem as if she was crying for a long time. 

My partner and I met up today and began discussing if we want dialogue in our introduction or not. We are leaning more towards not including any dialogue to add onto the mystery that is Serena and the reason why she is running away. However, we acknowledge that by not using dialogue we have to make things excessively clear. We also know that by not using dialogue it can sometimes be harder to hook our audience. 

Stay tuned for more updates! 

More about the protagonist

 As me and my partner continued to talk about our protagonist, we realized that in order for her to seem more real we should create a backstory about what led her to run away. Here's what we have decided so far: 

Our protagonist is named Serena Thorpe, I have already talked about her physical appearance in a pervious post, but we have since made some changes. She is average height, has a normal sized nose, has blonde hair, and has brown eyes. She wears glasses and dresses in neutral/dark colors. She tries to maintain a perfect image of herself because that is what she has seen since she was younger. Her parents try to make everything seem perfect, this really took a toll on Serena because she was never perfect but had to hide all her imperfections to the world. 

Serena had a best friend named Juliet Williams all throughout freshman and halfway through sophomore year. They were the "it" girls at their school, everyone knew them and wanted to be friends with them. They were really close and genuine friends at one point, however, Juliet always envied Serena because she was prettier and was better student than her. Juliet began to turn her back against Serena and midway through sophomore year they had a falling out. Juliet managed to turn the whole school against Serena. Serena felt that she went from being on top of the world to having nothing and no one at all, she began to sit alone at lunch and she never had plans on the weekends anymore. This loneliness that Serena felt triggered month long depressive episodes that she has yet to overcome. 

Even though Serena was struggling, she still maintained that perfect look that her parents taught her to always have. She still acted like nothing was wrong and dressed to perfection, while at home she would curl up on her bed wearing sweatpants and sweatshirts and cry herself to sleep. Having to keep up with the perfect standard she had took an even bigger toll on her mental health and caused her relationship with her parents to become strained. Serena felt like even her own parents were against her when they were truly just worried about her. 

For months Serena had been planning the perfect plan to run away from her house, but she was too scared to ever do it. However, that night that she decided to do it she got into a severe fight with her mom and decided it was time to execute her plan. The idea of making her appear kidnapped is to help her maintain that perfect image that she has always had. 

It was important for my partner and I to invent a story behind the character because we feel that we needed a deeper reason to answer why our protagonist decides to run away.