Too Much Like a Trailer?

One of the main things we have been trying to avoid during the filming & planning process is making our film opening look too much like a trailer.

I feel like we have done a pretty good job of staying away from the conventions of a trailer, but yet again it's a huge challenge we've been facing. Our concept and plans have been repeated in this blog several times so I'm sure you already get the gist. Our main problem is that we feel like since we're including the fact that she goes deaf in the end, it'll look like a trailer but that's not the case. We plan for our film to demonstrate more then just the idea that a musician goes deaf, we want to show how she overcame the struggles that come with being deaf, but we don't know how to include that into the film opening.

Another part of our film opening that may make it look like a trailer is the flashbacks. I feel like flashbacks are typically within the movie, not the opening. But in order for us to make it clear that the dad is also deaf, we must include them. On the other hand, I've seen film openings include flashbacks and maybe that's what will make our film opening more unique from the others in our class.

Once again, this is another major challenge that we've been facing but I know we'll be able to work our way around it. Positivity is key in this process, I strongly believe in the outcome.

The Hardest Part

The whole process has been stressful but in our case, the hardest part is finding an additional actor. We need a dad but not an actual one...if that makes any sense. In the films from other students, adult figures are typically played by additional students so we figured that its fine for us to do the same. The only problem is, Rachel and I can't seem to find a friend that is cooperative and willing to help us out with this.

Rachel and I are always giving constructive criticism when we're making our projects and we don't know someone who is going to be able to take that. Also, majority of the guy friends we have are in our class and have been working on their own thing so they don't have time for us! This has been an ongoing struggle for weeks and we're just trying to work hard to come up with a solution.
We considered using an actual adult in the beginning. I feel like this would have made our film a lot more professional and understood. On the other hand, the use of a student as the adult may make it more relatable to our audience but less understood by the adults at Cambridge.

We've hit a lot of bumps in the road along this journey so I'm sure we'll be able to overcome this one. Stay updated with my blog to see our final decisions!

How Our Film Fits The Drama Conventions

Before we develop our whole film intro, we need to make sure that our concept fits the conventions of drama.

First off, drama films are typically in a realistic setting with realistic characters. Our film fits this category because we’re shooting it in a park which is a very realistic setting and our main character is Rachel, an average highschool girl.

Dramas main purpose is to move the audience emotionally. Our way of achieving this is by building up the characters passion towards music and imputing a plot twist that doesn’t allow her to pursue this passion as easily anymore.

The conflicts within drama include realistic struggles depicting difficulty. Our main conflict is a very realistic struggle, deafness, and clearly depicts difficulty because now the protagonist can no longer do what she loves as well as she used to.

Dramas typically end in a happy way. The film we intend to create starts with a struggle, but then portrays how the protagonist was able to overcome it and continue living a successful life, doing what she loves.

As far as production goes, production techniques in drama are based on the concept of the film. Since our film starts out with the protagonist expressing her passion for music, we’re shooting it in a park where life is peaceful, there’s bright lighting, and happy people all around. Then when things start getting worse for her, the lighting will most likely dim down and we’ll change locations.

Every convention has been checked off the list, so it looks like this film will for sure be put under the drama category!

Main Message Of Our Film

So why did we decide to make this film? I’ve mentioned this before but Rachel and I are both involved in the Deaf community through our sign language class. Since we both figured this out, it’s been a main topic of conversation between us so I felt as if we had to include it in our final film. Every since this concept arose, we’ve been so eager to get to the final product. Our passion makes the process that much easier.

The main message of our film is to raise awareness for the deaf. Deaf people go through many everyday struggles that some people could never imagine. Not only that, they overcome these struggles happily, building relationships with other deaf people all around the world!! So not only do we want to show how hard it can be to become deaf when you once knew what it was like to hear, but we want to portray the idea that these obstacles can be defeated!! Our protagonist starts off building a passion that a deaf person can not really obtain because without being able to smplify sound, the music is much harder to create, if not impossible!! But many people in the past have overcome this struggle, Here Are just a few of them. One of the greatest musicians to ever live, Beethoven was able to continue music without ability to hear, and this is who our protagonist will begin to look up to.

Research on Deafness

Rachel and I know a little bit about the Deaf world since we take the sign language class at school but we’re not THAT educated on the topic so we decided to do some research on how people can go deaf. The reason we didn’t choose to do research on people who were born deaf is because in our storyline, the girl becomes deaf at a later age.

We found out that some causes of deafness include: head/ear injury, medication, illness, sound disruption, old age, etc. but this information wasn’t exactly useful to us. We needed to find a way that someone inherits deafness. So after some more research we made an important discovery: Otoscelrosis. Otoscerosis is an inherited disorder that causes hearing loss due to the ear’s inability to amplify sound. This is perfect for our plot! It’s an inherited disorder as well as one that specifically takes away the ability to amplify sound, the most important part of music!!

How will we incorporate this into our film opening? Well, we’ve decided that the parental figure is going to the father. In the flashbacks talked about in the previous post, we’re going to demonstrate the father and daughter growing up and how it was different from the average family life since he’s deaf. We’ll include certain scenarios that may be easy for an all hearing family, and show how they were more difficult since the father is deaf. This is kind of a foreshadow and emotional appeal cause later on, she goes deaf and now life becomes ever HARDER. We hope to make a way that the audience can infer how she overcame these struggles.

Flashbacks...again

One thing that has stayed consistent throughout our brainstorming has been flashbacks. For some reason Rachel and I are really intrigued with them and how they work to make a film opening so engaging. Because of this, I feel like our film opening wouldn’t been complete without incorporating them. At first, it was hard to figure out how to fit them into the plot we began creating, the life of a musician who goes deaf but with a little more thinking we came to a conclusion.

I decided to look up exactly how people can go deaf (which I talk more about in my next blog post) and one of the interesting things I found out is that it can be inherited!! From this discovery, we decided to include a parental figure into the opening scene, this parent is deaf and the only parent that the daughter knows. After the parent is involved in the scene, flashbacks will begin to start of all the happy times the girl and her parent have had, as well as how they bonded and got super close. Since this isn’t a main idea of the whole storyline, only incorporated to develop their relationship and the parents’s deafness, the flashbacks will be minimal. Although they won’t take up much time of the film, they’ll make a big imapact.

What exactly is that impact? Well, we figured that the story wouldn’t make as much sense without character development as well as the development of this girl and her parent. So in this case, the flashbacks are kind of explaining these two characters pasts without directly stating them.

Opening Credits

Yesterday, I begin brainstorming creative ways that we can layout our opening credits and I got it! The first thing I began to consider was the location that we've chosen to shoot at, this helped a kit with coming up with my idea. We're shooting the first half of our film opening at Peace Mound Park which is full of nature. The natural environment sparked my idea of staring the opening credits with our title and names on leaves scattered along the floor. Although this would work great, I started thinking of a better way to make the title stick out more. This is when I thought that we can put the title on a flower and the rest of the credits on leaves. Or maybe we can start with the leaves and our names, then place the title on a tree at the end. My vision is for this whole shot to be a slow pan across the items in which the words are on, making sure that the audience can view and read the words clearly.

There's a variety of ways we can approach the opening credits but these are the few details that I thought of. I'll have to share my ideas with Rachel in order to get good feedback and come to a final decision. Find out what we ended up doing when the video comes out!

Time To Upgrade Our Equipment?

Here's another slight dilemma. Our teacher gave us a resource in which we can rent out camera equipment for our film so we need to decide if that's a good decision for our film. Obviously, it sounds like a great idea at first because it's free equipment that can allow our film opening to have higher quality. Higher quality has the power to make the film more engaging and better understood which is a huge advantage in this project.

My only doubts are that since we're not used to the equipment, it may make the filming process a lot longer than it needs to be. Also, more time is going down the drain because we would have to make the trip to the place to get all the equipment and then stay for a tutorial on how to use it all. My biggest concern about renting the equipment is that we may break it accidentally which is a whole new problem we would have to deal with.

I'm going to discuss the pros and cons of this with Rachel just to get her input and I'll come back with updates!

Pros and Cons of Creating CCR

We learned a new part of the project, CCR. This is another individual part of the project my partner and I have to do which has it's pros and cons.

Pros: We don't have to go out of our way to meet up for it.
It's based on our own interpretation of the project so there's no room to butt heads.
The process is quicker since we don't have to work which each other and get distracted.
We can film and edit it ourselves with our preferred camera and editing program.
We can do it on our own time.

Cons: We can't help each other answer the mandatory questions.
We can't get help when we don't remember what we did to create a certain scene or why we did it.
We don't have each other to film for one another.
We can't bounce ideas off one another.

Concept Change...oh no

AT LAST! WE GOT IT! But it's a little late..maybe? After all the conflict over our ideas, we finally came to a solid agrEement and I'm obsessed with it! This idea started from our inspiration to revolve the film around a musician since Rachel has the ability to make her own music. Since we've been wanting to add a test to our opening, I suggested the idea about a musician who goes deaf...and Rachel loved it! This concept suits us perfectly cause we both love music and know how to do sign language.

Although we've realized that we're in a time crunch and we developed our concept a little late, I'm very confident in this project. Rachel and I have already developed parts of our story board with a location, exact shots, and angles. This concept is also more convenient because Rachel is taking on the lead role and we only need one more actor!

We plan to start shooting before March 20th and I think that we'll be able to shoot majority of it in one day. I'm so happy that we finally came to term with a concept that we're both passionate about, that makes the process so much easier!

What's Ahead For Us

After all this research on how we can make this project the best that can be, I think it's about time to execute. We need to meet up in class a couple more times in order to develop a storyboard, brainstorm a little more, and plan when we're going to meet up to film. Time is flying by and since I will be out of town for spring break, time is slipping away even faster. I expect the filming process to be at least 3 days and between homework, studying, and vacation there is very little time to get going.

Although it may seem like we have a lot against us, I think we're ready for the challenge. I believe that Rachel and I are pretty compatible since we've known each other for a couple of years and have done all our past projects together. We constantly have ideas bouncing off each other which is also an excellent trait in our partnership. Not only that, Rachel lives in the neighborhood right next to me! This makes meeting up more often way more practical.

I have a lot of faith in our project and what we're able to create in such little time. Stay updated next week as things start getting a little more hectic! 

Some More Inspiration

Last class, after the peer review, Rachel told me that she was able to draw some inspiration from the music video for "A Lot" by 21 Savage and J Cole. I had recently watched the music video so I tried to think back to what it consisted of and immediately knew what she was referring to. In the music video, a large group of people are sitting around the dinner people having a large discussion and as each person speaks, the camera pans to them and a flashback to their negative past is shown. I thought this was a real cool technique and something that we can definitely include in our film opening.

Since our main idea is to tell a story about a child who's life changes drastically due to a traumatic event, it would make sense to include flashbacks throughout the film. Here is more information on why flashbacks are included in films. Anyways, this technique would make most sense to include throughout the film to give more information to the viewer on why this child is changing and the details of the event that occurred.

Finding techniques used in other pieces has helped us further develop our film and make it the best that it can be. :)

What to do about sound

Sound is one of the biggest components in a film, especially drama films. It varies from diegetic, non diegetic, to most importantly, music (when necessary). Creating a film of your own can be tough for this reason because nothing can be copyrighted, everything must be created by YOU. Luckily for me and my partner, Rachel is musically inclined and can play a variety of instruments as well as sing. This is very useful for us and leaves us from going through the stress of trying to figure out where we can create sound without copywriting it.

Now, our only challenge is figuring out how much diegetic/non diegetic sounds we need and how to create them. I would say that this is going to be the most challenging part about our project, but I'm sure we'll be able to figure it out. We also need to think about how much of Rachel's background music we'll need in the film, which scenes to place it in, and how we want it to sound. Next time Rachel and I meet this will be our main problem to solve.

Here is a playlist filled with dramatic film music that we can gain inspiration from for out own film.

Peer Review

Today we had a peer review where we sat with a group of different people, from all different groups. Here is where we each go one by one, sharing our ideas and how we plan to execute them. Additionally, each person in the group gives their feedback after one of us pitches our ideas. Each person in the group I was apart of was very sure about their plan, but I can't really say the same. Although my partner and I have been brainstorming for a while and are almost certain about the concept we're revolving our film opening about, we're not completely sure how to put it all together yet.

On the bright side, I got a lot of positive feedback on our idea in general. A lot of the group members seemed to be interested in the concept which was comforting to hear. I mainly elaborated upon the idea about a child who's life changes drastically due to trauma, I chose to leave the other idea about adoption out because I feel like that's more vague and basic.

Overall, I think the peer editing was successful because it gives us an opportunity to get a few outside opinions on some things were not sure about. I think as the project continues to develop, the more effective the peer reviewing will be.

Why We Picked Drama

My partner and I discussed the pros and cons of Drama and Horror, discussed in my last blog post, and decided that Drama was the best choice.

Our main reason for picking the Drama genre is how creative we can get with it because that's what stands out. In class, Mrs. Marchetti told us that it's best to do what hasn't been done before, not just the same old thing. We did some thinking and researching on the past foundation portfolios and noticed that most people have already done film openings in the horror genre. Specifically, most film openings were revolved around stalkers or killers.

One of our main goals for this project is to create a concept that keeps the audience on their toes and as engaged as possible. We feel that drama is the best genre in which we can accomplish this.

Next week, we plan to begin developing our story board with as many details as possible so that it's easier for us to execute our plans sooner. We may create several story boards with several of our ideas just to see which one would come out best with what we have. A lot of hard work is going to go into this process but I think we're ready to take on that challenge.

Ideas...

My partner Rachel and I have been doing some brainstorming and minor planning. We've come up with only a few ideas so far.

Our first idea is to base our film around a girl that has completely changed her life due to a tragic situation. We've already established that it'd be best for us to get an actress for this role but if it comes down to it, Rachel may also take on the role. The film would start off with a scene of a normal life of this normal looking girl, possibly including a narrator. Towards the end, that scene would close and open up to a new shot of this girl who looks completely different than the previous girl, then she reveals that she is also the girl in the past scene, it's just that she's changed. We haven't come up with the reason for her drastic change yet but there's still time to discuss and plan that.


Our second idea was slightly inspired by the first. Rachel came up with the concept of a child who finds out that they're not their dad's child or possibly adopted. We envisioned the film starting out with a scene of the child adoring and boasting about their father and their relationship. We chose this to be the first scene so that way it can build up to the plot twist. Next, the child would be shown up close saying "this was all until I found out he wasn't really my father". These last words allow for a whole film to be created from this concept.

Research On Drama

1. Genre
1. Drama
2. Genre conventions:
1. Content
1. Realistic settings, characters, and stories
2. Purpose is typically to move the audience emotionally
3. Conflicts include realistic struggles depicting hardships, difficulty, and pain
4. A form of realization at the end/happy ending
2. Production
1. The use of gestures, objects or persons is needed to showcase the inner meaning that is beyond the literal.
2. A particular can be used in a scene to represent it’s symbolic strength
3. Production techniques are based on the concept of the drama
3. Institutional conventions
1. Marketing
1. Trailers introduce conflict but usually don’t reveal full solution
2. Main characters appear on film posters, talk shows, promotional tours
3. “Big” celebrities appearing in film help increase anticipation
4. Quotes from popular critiques embedded within the trailer
4. Film Sample #1
1. https://youtu.be/nSbzyEJ8X9E
1. A Star Is Born is an exceptional example of the drama genre.
2. The trailer portrays a realistic struggle, alcoholism, but doesn’t reveal what it resulted in.
3. Throughout parts of the scenes shown, an emotional appeal to the audience is portrayed.
4. As far as production goes, low lighting is used during the dramatic/intense scenes.
5. Two major celebrities, Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, are the main characters with increases audience anticipation.
   
   
   
   
5. Film Sample #2
1. https://youtu.be/27zlBpzdOZg

1. Bohemian Rhapsody is made up of several elements representing the drama genre.
2. Although the film is more like a documentary, it contains a realistic struggle as well.
3. The few conflicts are introduced throughout the trailer but no solution is revealed.
4. The film is revolved around a famous band from the past, Queen, which increases audience anticipation.