Storyboard / Planning

     Hey guys! So, my teammates and I worked on the storyboard this week and I wanted to show you guys but first I'm going to explain a little further. In this storyboard we will show you guys a visual representation of what our film will look like. This is not the exact way our film will like but we're going to guide ourselves through the storyboard. This is technically a sneak peak of our film, hope you guys like it.

    Here is our storyboard. To explain a little more about the storyboard I wanted to say that it took us a while to get it done because while we were doing it we realized that there were more things we needed to plan, like exact places, times, etc. While doing this we gathered more information that we needed and our storyboard came out. I hope you guys enjoy it and I will be showing you guys the filming process in later posts. 

    I will also be including in this blog post our planning schedule so you guys have an idea of when you guys will getting newer posts relating the opening film. We will be recording really soon and I will be posting here a lot about it. We planned the days for the next couple of weeks whenever we would be recording so we could keep ourselves organized. 

    We will be working in between the schedules and individually too so I will also be posting things I research on my own. I hope you guys liked the posts and I will be posting again really soon so stay checking to find out more of what's happening with our blog. 

Research #2

    Sound is going to be a huge part of our project. Majority of our production is going to be based in sounds. Sounds are really important for creating an atmosphere for the film. This and many reasons more are why I decided to talk about why sounds are important in this blog post. 

    Sounds aren't just door openings or music, sounds are what makes the whole movie. It can vary from a pencil writing in a piece of paper to a song being part of the movie. In thriller films sounds are mainly used to create a sense of tension and suspense, this can get the audience to feel scared or frightened. Sounds can help create the feelings that the director is trying to convey through the movie. Music is used to create or build up a climax when the scary part of the film is coming up. Sound can impact the viewing process. There's everyday sounds that these films use like water running, alarm clocks, and text messages, these sounds just connect the viewers to the film cause these are sounds that we're all used to. There's many different types of sounds and some examples of these are synchronous sounds, and asynchronous sounds, these are sounds that are used in almost every film. We probably don't realize but sounds are what drives a film which is why we need to pay attention to the sounds we're going to use in our film. 

    We will have to make a lot of foley sounds that will be part of our film opening and I was talking to my teammates about some music that we could use for our opening and that we need to email the artist for permission. We came to the conclusion that we would need to get together in a safe way to create some of these foley sounds and to start the process of creating our film. My teammates and I will need to look at examples of sounds we will use for our thriller film so we can create them. 

    I'm leaving a video that shows diegetic and non-diegetic sounds that I found really interesting and I think you guys should watch it to learn more about it. 

            Diegetic and non-diegetic sound 

    I liked this video as an example because it shows what my teammates and I are going to have to do. We will have to use diegetic and non-diegetic sounds in our film. I thought it would be good to talk about sounds in this blog post because sound is going to be an essential factor for our film. My teammates and I decided that we will working on our foley sounds really soon. I will be explaining more about the process of our sounds and what we will be creating so keep checking here and you guys will find out. Hope you guys liked it! 

    Keep checking up to see the next posts. 

Research #1

    Starting now we will start to work more on the film opening so as I said in my previous post I decided that doing research on color and how it can help our film be better would be good. The colors that we use and edit into our film are really important because they can create a feeling that will connect our viewers to the film. 

Why is color so important in films? 

    The reason why color is so important in all the films around the world is because it makes the audience feel. Many will ask how this is possible but color connects the audience, due to the fact that many attach certain feelings to colors, directors use this to target the audience's feelings. Color can also show a character's journey, the colors might start bland, grey, black and they can end up being yellow and bright, this shows how the character can go from being sad or depressed to happy. Color has become one of the best storytelling tools in the film world. In the thriller films the directors tend to use darker colors, this is because the darker the color is the more sinister they make the film look. Another really important factor is lighting, this is important not just in thriller but in every genre and film. Depending on the lighting being used in the film it can create a feeling of suspense or tension which can have the audience at the edge of their seat. 

    I used this picture as an example because we can see all the different tones of the same color that are being used. All the different tones create a different feeling. It can vary from energy, passion and power to danger, war, blood and others. 

  

Here I will be leaving you guys a video that can explain it further: Colour in Storytelling

    My teammates and I have decided that we will be doing way more research to see what colors we can use for our film. As of now I just wanted to explain why using the perfect colors are so important in the films. Starting we have decided that for the very beginning we will be using warm hues, to create a mood of comfortability between Lucy and Maya and as the film goes on we will go on towards darker colors and come color combinations to create a different feeling. 

    In my next post I will be talking about sounds and why it's important for our film. Stay tuned to find out more! 

Week three of portfolio project

     It is time to start planning out out what we want the first steps to our film to look like but first we have made some changes to our characters and the plot. Now, there's only going to be two main characters, Lucy and Maya. Maya and Lucy will go on their daily jogs and Lucy will be the one found dead, Maya will find Lucy dead but there won't be any evidence of this murder, the only one that saw it and knows about it is Maya. The reason why my teammates and I decided to make this change is because with further research we realized that it would be way more interesting and it could leave our audience wanting more with our film opening which is the whole purpose. For our setting we have decided to do it at Markham Park, in the back there's a space perfect for recording where it's a road and barely anyone passes through it so it'll be perfect for recording our scenes. Also, since Markham has a lot of woods it will give the perfect mystery vibe. I know that I had said before that we were going to be recording at the Everglades but we came to the conclusion that it would be safer for us to record at Markham and we have easier access to the park. 

    Now talking about planning the next steps of the project my teammates and I have talked about doing further research. This is relating to the sounds, colors, and other techniques we might need for our project to be the best. In my next post I will be talking a little more about each one of these but for now I just wanted to tell you guys the little changes we made! We will also be working on the storyboards this week so stay tuned to find out what's coming. 

Plot and technical elements

   Our plot is based on Maya Millers going on one of her daily jogs with her friends and suddenly hearing a scream, she finds a body, someone had died. She's really worried and she calls her friend Lucy Suco who was far behind her. When Lucy approaches where Maya is, she sees nothing. Maya thinks she's crazy because she's seeing a body that her friend isn't isn't but she proceeds to believe that someone got murdered. Lucy thinks Maya is hallucinating because she doesn't see a body or blood. There isn't any official evidence or report of this murder but through the years Maya continues to believe that she saw a dead body. The relationship between Lucy and Maya starts falling apart because Maya is completely sure that she saw and heard someone die and Lucy just continues to believe she's crazy.

    Our main scenery is going to be the Everglades, we think this is the perfect place to record our film because it connects with the jogging and is a far/big space. We will be creating our own sound effects that will relate to our film. The costumes are going to be very basic, regular sport clothes, headphones, glasses, and others. We will be incorporating many more technical elements along the way but for now this are our main ones. 

Characters

    My teammates and I decided that we were going to be the characters. Our story/film is mainly based in our world nowadays so it's going to be easy to get in the roll of our characters. We haven't decided any names or who's going to play what roll but we have an idea of what each one of us is going to do. Our main character's name is going to be Maya Miller. The reason why we're choosing this name is because in Sanskrit it means illusion and our film is related to hallucinations and illusions the main character is having, which is Maya. Our main character is going crazy with her thoughts because she's viewing things that other people around her aren't. The name of our other main character is going to be Lucy Suco. They're close friends that always go jogging together, they go to school together, they spend every second they can together. The relationship they have is really important for our film because it shows how the different points of view can target each person differently and it's going to give an interesting beginning due to the fact that both different points of view are going to be shown. 

Genre Description

    What is Drama? 

    Talking more about the genre, drama is one of the top most used genres in our world. It's very entertaining for a lot of people. Drama is a fictional representation through dialogue and performance, meaning that it is a way of expressing through dialogue. In this genre there's a lot of conflicts, especially in between the characters. There are many different types of drama, there's dark drama, docudrama, docu-fiction, comedy-drama, hyper-drama, light drama, satire, straight drama. There's also action drama, crime drama, drama thriller, fantasy drama, horror drama, life drama, romantic drama, science fiction drama, sports drama, war drama, westerns drama, family drama, melodrama, historical drama, medical drama, and teen drama. There are all different categories of the drama genre, these are the ones that rely on emotional; and relational development of realistic characters. Most of the drama films are real life based which catches a lot of people's attention. The drama genre is really famous because it contains a lot of human struggles that target a lot of people, these films are honest and straight forward. 

Week two of portfolio project

    First things first, things took a turn in how I though I would be doing this project. Before I said that I was going to work by myself but now I will be working with my teammates Patrizia and Abril. I changed my mind because we came up with an idea I really liked and I thought it would be good to work as a group. This is still a really serious project and there's no time to play around. Now, things are going to get better. My teammates and I decided that our genre would be drama. In my next post I will be explaining more about the genre itself. It took us a minute to decide what specific genre we wanted to do but as soon as we settled, we came up with an amazing idea. We also talked about the characters and the plot of our film which I will also explain more in the next posts. Stay tuned. 

New Project

    The portfolio project I will be working on with my class mainly consists on creating an opening of a film. Some people might think "it's easy" but in reality it requires a lot of work and effort which is why I need a lot of preparation for it. I will need to do a lot of research and figure out what I want to do in my opening, who I want to cast, the purpose, etc. I will be needing to have all this information by next week or so if you guys stay checking up, it'll all be posted on here. I will be working individually just because I think this is a serious project, meaning that there's no time to play around and I can do good by myself, I wanted to challenge myself. Next week I will be updating you guys on what I will be working on!

Some changes

    Hey! I just wanted to tell you guys that my posts are going to change a little in the next couple of weeks. I will be working on my portfolio project in my AICE Media Studies class and I will be including posts about my progress and the project itself in here so everyone can see. I will be working on it for the next 8 weeks and I'm really excited to see what's next to come. I know the last couple of posts have been about different topics and I haven't been that consistent but for the next couple of weeks I will be posting at least twice every week. Stay tuned to find out what's going to happen through the next 8 weeks. 

Music Marketing Project #2

        This project was very fun and interesting overall. Since the start I realized it would contain a lot of creativity and work but I was still excited to see what would come with this project. The research was one of the very first things we did and it was really interesting because we got to know other artists and bands like "Daughter", they had their own unique ways of marketing their band which gave us ideas for our own project. Looking at all of the case studies we did on the different artists we came up with our own and we knew what we were going to do since we had the knowledge of what other artists did too. 

         When we got to the brainstorming and planning of the project thats where the fun and the conflicts came to the table. We had to be creative and find ways to make our artists as unique as possible and it was kind of difficult since my teammates and I didn't agree in everything, this was good because we wanted the best thing for our project. After we came up with what we were going to do we had to plan our video. The storyboard helped us visualize what we wanted our video to look like. While recording we made some changes that we thought would be better for our video and filming was pretty fun. I didn't realize how much artists have to plan their videos for them to come out good. 

        Filming was fun but also stressing since some of the scenes weren't coming out as we wanted them to, at the end we figured out ways to make our video better and it was successful. Editing the project wasn't my part but I did notice the differences from the original scenes we had film and the video itself. It was really interesting seeing how our video came out because putting all the scenes together really made me realize what we were creating. The day of presenting came and I was honestly kind of nervous, we started off well but I felt that we were missing some more information in our slides that we hand't noticed we needed. Overall I think that our presentation gave out a good idea and it showed our artists and brand well. 

        This project taught me how important it is to keep yourself organized. For example, we had to plan out the days we were recording, the days we were working on the presentation and when we would edit our video. Planning was something that played a big role in this project since we all had to put effort into our artist. Also, this project made me realize how important team work is in team projects. It is important that all team members put an equal amount of effort into the project for it to be successful. Some aspects that I think will be helpful when developing my Cambridge portfolio are: organization, creativity and effort. These are all valuable components needed to be successful in assignments and in life.