Some Shots & Angles

    Hey guys! Sorry I waited a couple of days until this post. My teammates and I were talking about the shots and angles we would need for opening film. We met up through facetime and discussed the whole opening film and we wrote down all the angles we would need and why we would need them. I will be including a picture here of the paper were we wrote everything down and I will be explaining it further. 

    So in this picture we can see all the shots that we will be using in the opening of our film. First we will be using a establishing shot if the sun rising so we can set the time for the film which will be really early in the morning. Following, we will start doing some close ups of Maya getting ready while also doing close ups of things around Mayas room so we can show how organized she is and so we can show her environment. After all these close ups we will cut the scene and we will have a long shot where Maya picks up Lucy outside her house to go for their daily run. There will be a mid shot after of them in the car to establish the relationship between the two characters then, point of view shots so we can see each of the characters points of views/surroundings. After that we will have a establishing shot of when they get to Markham to show the change of setting. Now, there will be a series of consecutive shots of Maya and Lucy running, in some of these clips only one of them will be running, there will be close ups and mid shots in this scene. After all of these shots we will have an establishing shot that will show Lucy tying her show, Maya running and a car passing by that happens to stop in front of Lucy. A close up of Maya with a serious face will be next, this will leave the audience in wonder. 

    I will be showing more about the shots in following posts, and I will be including some of the recording process also. Hope you guys liked this week's posts. Thanks for checking in. 

Character Development #2

    Now we will be talking about the other main character to our opening film. As I did in the previous post I will be including a picture of the points we touched in the conversation my teammates and I had when we met up. I will be talking about Lucy and her character development. In the previous post I mention that we changed Maya's last name, Lucy's last name remains the name. Lucy Suco is the main character's best friend. Her life is different than Mayas.

    

    My teammates and I discussed what Lucy Suco would look like. Since we had to make her look like one of us (due to the fact that we're playing the characters) we thought that adding a little touch to what she looked like would be fun. Patrizia, my friend that will be playing Lucy will be painting a part of her hair red, she has always wanted to so we saw a good opportunity. Lucy has dark brown eyes and she likes to dress all black or really dark colors. She's really adventurous, finding what's out there in the world is her first thought every morning. One of the reasons why she's like this always is because her parents are never really around, they're always working or trying to find ways of making money so they can support the family. Lucy's really wild and she likes taking a lot of risks when it comes to day-to-day activities, she'll always be the one to say "I'm down for anything". As every other rebel kid she doesn't pay a lot of attention in school meaning that her grades aren't the best. She has that one friend that she is always with and that's Maya Walker, they exercise together. Walks and runs are their favorite hobby. 

    That's what we have so far for Lucy Suco but we will definitely talk more about her in future posts. In my following post I will be addressing the kinds of angles/shots we will be using to film our opening so keep checking to be updated. I'll be posting soon. 

Week four of portfolio project / Character Development

    Hey guys!! So for this week my teammates and I met up and did some character development. We thought it would be good to share the way our characters were going to be developed since the characters are a really important part of our story, technically they're the whole story. This first post will be talking about Maya Walker. First, we decided to change her last name because "walker" connects to the plot of the movie and it's also a really good last name. Since Maya and Lucy go on walks/runs almost everyday we thought it would be a good idea to include this in one of the character's names. 

    I will be including a picture so you guys see exactly what we did. It was really basic but we were just throwing ideas out. I will be elaborating the ideas here. 

    We decided to talk about the color of her hair and eyes so you guys could get an idea and maybe try visualizing her, she's 16 years old. We did some little background information also and we included that she had American parents and that her mom had died recently. Her mom dying affected her relationship with her dad and now they're distant, we also included this in our list. She is also an only daughter which makes her feel lonely at times, she even talks to herself. Her and her dad recently moved away to another state due to her mom dying, this affected her since she would have to make new friendships and get familiarized with new surroundings. Due to all of this that has happened she goes to therapy. She isn't the best at making friendships because she's shy, she has a hard time opening up to other people but she cares a lot about others. Her family is wealthy so she doesn't have a need for money. Even though she has gone through a lot she tries to exercise every morning with her friend Lucy and she tries to keep her life organized. 

    This is what we have so far for Maya Walker. We will be talking more about her personality and feelings in later posts. For my next post I will be talking about Lucy and developing her character so stay tuned to find out more about Lucy. Talk to you guys soon! 

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.