Final Project

 Bye bye Cambridge people! 

Short film: 

https://youtu.be/pgJe_8TbVNA?si=LVfzQCZbgsx2NV8h

Social Media Page: 

https://www.instagram.com/sessiononeshortfilm 

Postcard/ google drive with everything: 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PiTy_W1ICFeU-1XIC7WrvPhf1-jvGVTX?usp=sharing

Critical Reflection

 The short film, Session One, works to develop a heartfelt story as the protagonist, Cameron Martinez, retells how her sister, Sarah Martinez, left the family and starts her grieving process in therapy. Through the use of post-modern elements we are taken back to the night it all happened and what caused Sarah to leave. Session One develops a theme acceptance despite grief, internalized guilt, and other personal battles that the protagonist faces. 

Session One is a drama film inspired by various dramatic films ranging from the 1986 hit Stand By Me, to the HBO original show, Euphoria. Research for this film was extremely varied as the main goal was to research certain techniques and conventions of a dramatic piece rather than focusing on plot. This was mainly due to the fact that the plot for Session One was not developed until after research was done and it was decided that we would develop a drama. Research was primarily focused on 3 main aspects: lighting/color technique, costuming, and drama conventions, I researched 6 films total, 2 for each topic, not including additional research that was done specifically regarding short films. 

Lighting and coloring techniques were researched extremely in depth as these were the two elements my partner, Audrey, and I were most interested in incorporating into our project. One piece of media I researched was the show, Breaking Bad. This media text uses various color pallets for different characters to develop their arc as the series goes on. This was technique was specifically applied to the two sisters in Session One. Cameron, the more rebellious one is costumed in dark colors such as red and blue specifically in flashback scenes while Sarah, the more reserved one of the two, is mainly seen in more neutral colors such as pink, grey, and white. However, present-day Cameron's color pallet is much more neutral, yet still dark to symbolize the grief and guilt she feels about her sister leaving, wearing gray and dark green. 

 This piece of media also used color to highlight a change in location or time period such as a flashback scene. This technique was especially interesting to me as when deciding upon the drama genre I wanted to incorporate some sort of post-modern element such as flashbacks. Breaking Bad uses a yellow-hue filter to indicate to the audience that the scene is occurring in the past and in a different location. During production, I tried to incorporate a similar concept through lighting techniques found in Euphoria. Such techniques inspired the production process by filming most of the flash back scenes at night, adding more shadows to the overall look of the scenes, and filming the present-day scenes while there was still sun out, to create a contrast between time periods. Although, Euphoria uses such lighting techniques to illustrate the characters' emotions, we went in a slightly different direction when applying these techniques.

Furthermore, when researching short film social media pages, I discovered a short film entitled A Friend of Dorothy's. The social media page for this short film is extremely well developed and is consistent in both the type of posts and the color pallet of each post matching that of the key art for the film. This was a huge inspiration for Audrey and I when developing the Instagram page for Session One as we strived to create a very cohesive social media presence and overall branding. This was done by using the same font throughout every social media post as well as using this font when designing the post card and in the credits of the film. The overall brand is also very consistent with associating the characters, particularly Sarah and Cameron Diaz, with specific colors, which are present throughout the film as well as any  social media posts that features the characters or actors and the post card.

A Friend of Dorothy's

Session One

When developing a social media presence, we realized that this would likely be the biggest form of communication we would have with our target audience so, it was crucial that we used this as a main frame for engaging the audience. The target audience in specific would be mainly teens and young adults with an age range of about 15-25 years old. This is because this film would likely attract those who are going through a big change or a developmental stage in life as well as those who have delt with grief and seek comfort in stories similar to their own. With this in mind, it was important for us to maintain a very respectful social media presence as the film is centered around a very sensitive topic. We did this by prioritizing promotion on the actors, as well as important moments or quotes from the film which help to emulate the overall theme of the film. 

However, having a young audience in mind, we realized that there had to be some incorporation of more light-hearted content. This is where behind the scenes clips came into play. Behind-the-scenes clips/bloopers were posted in order to create a more light-hearted and relatable social media presence as well as to keep the young audience engaged with our content. 

postcard back

Moreover, the postcard was also a key element in engaging audiences with our product by providing a QR code to a link tree with all of our social media pages as well as information on how to access the film, further pushing the social media outreach. The postcard also includes information on the film festival Session One would be released at, as well as the time and location. 

Session One deals with the heavy topics of grief and guilt, knowing this it was important that these topics were properly represented within our products. This was done within the script of the film by incorporating moments in dialogue in which it is clear that the protagonist, Cameron, begins to develop this internalized guilt of her sister leaving even when it is never explicitly stated that it is her fault and rather she develops these feelings on her own. Furthermore, the dialogue, specifically between Dr. Black and Cameron, is extremely effective at developing the idea that although such feelings are completely valid, it is important to know that the feelings can't and won't last forever, and with time, any wound can heal. 

In a critical light, the products did a great job at developing the stark contrast between the two sisters; however, it would've been more effective if their sisterly bond was represented more effectively. Not only throughout the film, but within the social media and postcard, the main 'theme' highlights the differing personalities between the two. However, I feel the film may have been more effective if the more positive side of the sisters' relationship was shown. This would add a greater depth to Cameron's feelings as it would give context as to why she now feels remorse following her sisters leaving; if their relationship was all bad, there wouldn't be as much motivation for Cameron to feel this way and eventually decide to go to therapy.

Taking a step back to look at my final work, I realize that Session One could have used more time to develop properly. The overall message that we wanted to portray was clear although not as poignant as I would have liked. With more time, I would've further developed the relationship of the characters with revisions to the script and created a more interactive social media page by posting things fans could directly be involved in such as polls asking what else the audience might like to see and getting interviews with the actors. The overall brand was well developed through the film itself, social media presence, and post card, however I would have liked to have been able to add little intricacies and details further develop the story.

Postcard

 Hii! So I know I haven't mentioned the post card much but it's been in the works for a WHILE. I've had the design idea for what I wanted it to look like for a while but I had to wait for filming and to take character photos but it's finally here! 

The postcard is actually where we got the idea for the Instagram page for each member of production to have an 'aura' behind them. I liked the the two lead characters to be associated with a certain color and then incorporating that idea when introducing the entire team just sort of stuck! 

original concept idea (sorry it's side ways)

The concept I had in mind when designing the post card was to highlight the clear differences between the two girls (Sarah and Cameron Martinez) not only the differences in their physical characteristics but also personality differences. This would be highlighted through costuming, color grading, and the differing 'aura' colors.  

The idea of having the two colors differentiating the two characters actually ended up really sticking to us and Audrey and I decided to incorporate those colors into post-production.  

We decided to incorporate a QR code on the back which would lead whomever scans it to a link tree to all of our social media platforms as well as information on how to access the film!

Anyway here are the final results of the postcard (simple, yet I'm really happy with how they turned out.): 

back

front

CR Research (part 2)

 H blog!! OMG I'm scared we are so close to the FINAL week I mean we are nearly there!! Anyway, last week I began doing my research on my the critical reflection that I must write to conclude my portfolio project. This research honestly helped me a lot to better understand the questions by breaking them down and analyzing what answering each question entails. 

Last week, I analyzed questions 2 and 3 so this week I will be doing my research for questions questions 1 and 4. Once again here are the questions: 

1. How does your product represent social groups or issues? 

2. How does your product engage with the audience? 

3. How did your research inform your product and the way they use or challenge conventions? 

4. How do elements of your product work together to create a sense of branding? 

And let's jump straight into it!  

Question 1: To answer this question I must first have a clear understanding what sort of social groups/issues are acknowledged within the product and how successful we were at representing such topics. This question is extremely important as representation is a crucial part of the media sphere. The main topic being presented in my product is the idea of grief/guilt. This is an extremely difficult subject to represent as such experiences are extremely subjective. Regardless of this, because of how extremely sensitive such topics can be, it is important that they are represented correctly. 

Question 4: This question is honestly very similar to question 2 in that branding and target audience often go hand in hand. However, to answer this question I must first describe that the brand is and the goal we have for brand to be. Then, I must analyze what sort of elements were used to develop it. This includes color schemes, overall themes, social media presence, and the overall marketing of the product. 

example of social media presence

Thats a WRAP

 Hii! We FINALLY wrapped up with filming last week which means I can fully focus on editing. I'm very grateful that we have so much content because it gives me so much to work with and I would honestly rather have wayyyyyy too much to work with than be scrapping together what I can find. 

Filming was honestly super successful because we were able to get a lot of social media content as well as filming content. During filming we also went ahead and took picture that would be used for the post card so stay tuned for that! 

I've started by editing the party scene which I figured would be the most difficult as that scene required the most shots and playing with angles A LOT to make it ACTUALLY look like a party given that many of our extras were not able to make it to filming so we had to work with what he had. 

Honestly, learning how to edit has been a pretty big challenge but I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out. I'm glad I started looking for sound effects/ music prior to having started editing because this would have otherwise taken me so much longer. Anyway, I've found that although editing is pretty difficult, you eventually just find the patterns of adding clips, cutting them down, adding transition, etc. etc, and reach a flow state. I'm hoping to finish up with this by the end of the weekend and show it to Audrey on Monday at school so we can make any changes we feel we might need together. 

Good night! 

FILMING!!

 Hi guys!! We FINALLY have footage to show. Today we filmed the scene between Cameron and her mom (starts on page 4 of the script.) **NOTE: Cameron was originally written to be a guy so many of the directions use he/him pronouns when referring to the character. 

Today honestly went really well, it took us an hour and a half to get ready and film everything we needed to get. I learned my lesson from last year and shot each take at least 3 times. The overall creative process was very productive as the actors were well informed on their characters current situation, feelings, and motivations to carry them through the scene. Audrey and I were able to effectively communicate with each other and with the actors to get exactly what we wanted out of each take. 

Our main concern was getting the right angles for each shot to make the overall film look as seamless as possible and so editing wouldn't be a TOTAL pain. This is why it was really important to me to film every shot at least 3 times and I often had our actresses repeat their previous line before getting a new shot. 

Overall, I'm so happy we are finally almost done with filming (only 2 days left yay) especially because it was definitely a big weight and Audrey and I's shoulders with all the casting and scheduling issues but yay we're here and we can almost see the finish line!

Group Meeting #2

Hii! Today we had our second group meeting and it honestly went very well. We all shared our ideas and progress with each other and gave each other advice. The general consensus was that we all needed to keep developing the print components of our projects. Below I'll attach some notes we took during the meeting before elaborating on each persons progress.

  

 David- His short film is about a guy who can teleport by flipping a coin and tries to do a kind act along the way but it keeps back firing on him. David is almost completely done filming. Over spring break he filmed in Madrid and London.  His main concern was working on further developing the social media for his short film.

Ryan: His short film is about a school custodian who finds a body at school tries to cover up a murder. He is completely done with the filming portion of the film and has begun editing and has even made a teaser (which was really good). He also composed his own music for his short film. Most Instagram posts have been designed but not posted yet. During the meeting the group helped him fix the layout of his post card.

Lauren: She is doing film promo for her project. Her film is about a girl who is consumed by OCD and her desire to be perfect. She filmed the majority of her trailers over spring breaks and is now almost done filming. The Instagram posts she has created fr her film promo are very well developed, she has a consistent color palette and theme throughout all the posts that correspond with color palette of the trailer she has created for her film promo. During the meeting the group helped her with the thumb nails she had created for the her project as the text has hard to see do to the lack of color contrast between the background and the text so we suggested certain colors she could use that would fit into the color pallet but still make the title of the film stand out more. 

Nico: His short film was basically explained to be similar to the film "mean girls" except they are witches (we didn't get much explanation beyond that). He has most of everything filmed with just a few scenes left to do. He explained that his biggest issue was the script and that he had to re-write it multiple times. Instagram posts are tarot card inspired to match the theme of the film (very creative).

Andrew- He explained their short film (I honestly didn't really understand it but it's a dark comedy having to do with cult-y, religious, anti-christ-y themes). Anyway he explained that his team member and he gave divided the work load among themselves so that each person has no specific aspect to focus on and his is the social media of his film. He also explained how they were pretty behind and were able to catch up with filming quite recently. Furthermore he showed us the postcard he designed for the project and explained that it was made to be used within the film so he will likely use the one he designed as promo and design another actual postcard for the project.

Researching sound elements

 Hi!! So I've realized that even thought we haven't finished filming just yet does NOT mean that we can't start on post-production elements such as sound! So I have taken the liberty to start searching for copy-right free music to use in the film. My two main concerns are party music and some sort of mellow music for the end of the film. 

For party music I want to find something that is especially energetic to match the montage of "party-esq" scenes. I started doing some research on some copy-right music to get inspiration from. I decided to pull some inspiration from 'Clarity' by ZED and 'Time of Our Lives' by Pitbull. That being said I knew finding something with a similar vibe would be difficult.

For the more mellow music that accompanies the end of the film I wanted something that sounded very soft and almost sad but still hopeful to illustrate Cameron's journey through grief. If possible I want it to include piano because...I really love piano and I think it would be very fitting. I have taken some inspiration from songs such as  'Suburban House' by Lana del Rey and Holly Macve, 'Thinking of You-Acoustic' by Katy Perry and 'Hey Jude' by The Beatles. 

With all this in mind below are some copy-right free tracks I think we could integrate into our film. 

Party Music #1 

Part Music #2 

Party Music #3 

Mellow Music #1 

Mellow Music #2 

Mellow Music #3 

Mellow Music #4

CR Research (part 1)

 HII! So as we are going into the final few weeks of my portfolio project I decided now would be a good time to start on my critical reflection of the overall project. This year the reflection is a 1000 essay compared to last year (AS level) which was 2 videos. I'm honestly a lot more happy about having to write an essay than making videos (I struggled so much last year with those) because I feel like it'll be a lot easier for me to express myself as well as discuss and analyze my portfolio project in this way. 

The critical reflection is 'split up' into 4 questions that I must answer in an essay format. I put split up in quotation marks because my goal is not to answer each of the questions separately but more to analyze my work while having these questions as a guide to follow throughout the essay. 

The four questions I will be answering in my critical reflection are the following: 

1. How does your product represent social groups or issues? 

2. How does your product engage with the audience? 

3. How did your research inform your product and the way they use or challenge conventions? 

4. How do elements of your product work together to create a sense of branding? 

Below I'll attach previous notes I've taken about writing a critical reflection which I will further elaborate later on. (For this blog post I will be focusing on questions 2&3) 

Question 2: This question asks for a thorough analysis and description of the specific target audience of my short film as well as discussing how all 3 components of my portfolio project work to engage this audience. This question will mainly be an analysis of the choices Audrey and I made when creating the short film, designing the post card, and developing the social media page for our project. This analysis will include what kind of groups we attempted to bring in and how successful we were in doing so as well as specific examples of what we did to engage with such audiences.

Question 3:  This question is mainly focused around genre and conventions. Answering this question will require discussing specific samples that I reviewed (including short films, social media pages, and post cards) as well as specific techniques and how they influenced the product. This research needs to be analyzed in a way that explains exactly why and how this research was done and how it contributed to developing the genre of the film and how certain conventions were illustrated or challenged with in the product.

 

Goals for the week!

 Hi Cambridge friends! So Audrey and I have been trying to play catch up butttttt we might have just run into one more set back. So you see... as you all know, Audrey and I began filming early into our spring break but we ran into some problems and decided to scrap the footage. Given this we decided to take on filming again this weekend BUT the actor who was supposed to play Cameron was unavailable. Now we are in a dilemma in which he is that he goes to another school that keeps him very busy all week. 

Audrey and I discussing our little problem

Because of this Audrey and I decided to find another friend that would be able to star in our film. We also decided that if his schedule is busy this whole week we may have to switch Cameron to be girl and have one of us play the character because we are already extremely behind in filming. 

So! Our goals for the week is to re-start and finish filming so that we can begin editing into week 7. For now while we figure out the the whole filming situation I have also begun designing the advertisement card which will not be complete until I have some footage and am able to take some character photos of Sarah and Cameron Diaz. 

Anyway, that's all for now!

Script is DONE!!

 HII! The script has finally been complete and I am so excited to finally be sharing it with you all. I think the script was so far has definitely been the most difficult part of the this process because Audrey and I really tried our best to make the script as realistic as possible which is often times very difficult when it comes to dramatic scenes which our shirt film is comprised of. 

I think the most difficult scene to write was the party scene in which Cameron is assumed to be under the influence. This was especially difficult to write given that I didn't want it to sound like the actor was 'acting drunk' instead the audience should just believe or assume this based on their words and mannerisms. Cameron's lines in this scene in particular are pretty non-sensical which is what I was trying to go for and I think I did a good job at executing the idea that he is not 100% in his right mind in that moment. Furthermore, for this scene especially it will heavily rely on the actors choices which will be discussed when we film. 

As I previously mentioned, Audrey and I wanted to edit the transitions between the present day and flashback scenes to make them flow better. We did this by creating lines that seamlessly flow into one another as Cameron re-tells his story and also by incorporating voice overs into the more emotionally deep scenes. Overall, I think we did a very good job with the script and I'm very proud of us so yay!

Session One Script

Rewriting the script

 Hi! As I mentioned in my previous post Audrey and I are currently working on re-writing the script as there were parts of it that didn't really flow correctly specifically the flashback scenes. 

The main problem was that the transitions between the scenes in the therapist office to the flashbacks were very awkward and didn't really feel natural. For example, the first scene that transitioned into the party the lines that would transition the scene were too important to be brushed off or faded out as the party commenced so we had to find a way to either cut the lines or extend the scene to transition more easily. 

Furthermore, we just felt like a lot of the dialogue in the party scenes felt very stagnant and just not natural. We are planning on rewriting these scenes as well but we also know that our actors will use their creative liberties to make the scene really come to life. 

Anyway, below I'll attach a little chunk of a revised portion of the script, keep in mind that the script is not 100% concrete and we trust out actors to take the liberties they need to enhance their performance.

Spring Break Filming!

Hi!! So luckily Audrey and I were able to begin filming today since we realized that we would be pretty behind if we didn't at least get SOME filming done. So, we decided to meet up with Brandon (Dr. Black) and Jayden (Cameron Diaz) to film the scenes that occur in the therapist office.

Unfortunately we did have a few limitations as to where we could film as we couldn't film in an actual office so we really had to play with the angles we used and the spots where we filmed in since we had to film at home and tried to make it look as much like a therapist office as possible. Our day of filming was very successful we were able to get a lot of different shots and were able to do it efficiently and stay organized. Our actors were easy to work with as they both already have experience in acting so we were able to give them more creative liberty and it honestly felt like were all working on the scene together instead of us simply directing them. 

I know I had previously mentioned in my blogs that I wanted to wait until we were completely done with the script to start filming but, after finishing writing we realized that there was a lot of revision to be done regarding the party/flashback scenes (I'll discuss further in another blog) and we realized that we could not afford to be even more behind so we decided to it'd be best to start filming what we could. I have a feeling while editing the flashback scenes we will probably find other scenes with Brandon and Jayden that need to be realized so we will likely have another day of filming with just them. 

Anyway, Audrey and I are leaving for Florida State Thespians tomorrow morning and we won't be back till the 21st so hopefully we can take this time to work on some other elements of the project instead of focusing on filming. Honestly, Audrey and I have a lot of catching up to do but I have faith that we will be able to in the upcoming week.