Short Film CR

1.  How do  your products represent social groups or issues?

With making a film, comes many elements that go unthought about. I do not believe when we film we intend to think through all the social groups we will be addressing when it comes to pre-filming. But the fact that social groups and issues are addressed based on the stereotypes of the chosen genre. The social groups and issues will follow. One way our products developed arising social groups, is by using the gender of a female as the antagonist in the film. In thrillers it is very common to see the roles of the victims to be commonly portrayed by women; they can be seen easily as emotional and unstable. Men are typically the protagonist and are portrayed in thriller movies as those who do the victimizing. Another common element is social class in which our product does seemingly address. Our character Tatyanna did take a different career path from her sister Bryanna which led Bryanna to lead an envious spite towards her own sister. This social group addresses the fact that the rich are often the ones to be punished, usually a clue they are stuck up or not grateful. With these discussed social groups comes identifying the issues that come along with it. Our products represent all of our outlined social groups very well, and we even challenge a fear convention in which I will discuss in the upcoming question. 

2. How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of branding? 

This is actually a very tough question, but, in our short film with the relation of other production work of course. We really wanted to stick to the theme of sisterhood and betrayal.  The protagonist is someone who Is jealous of her own blood sister, and ends up turning on her simply because of the difference in lifestyles. We really wanted the protagonist as female as well because it goes against your typical inferiority of masculinity. We kept everything simple with our postcard and even website to portray these details. Another sense of branding comes from the name of the film “My Sister's Keeper,” it really drives our theme of sisterhood and actually bounces off the entire idea of how such a close courtship can lead to betrayal and despair in the end. 

 

3. How do your products engage with the audience?

Engagement of the audience is by far one of the most important principles, I believe when it comes to creating a film. If it isn’t appealing to the audience, your views may drop along with your ratings of the film. A 5 minute film is by far the easiest way to keep an audience engaged because you don’t have to figure out a way to do so for hours with a regular length film. We actually used a modern take on it by including a quick flashback with TikTok videos created by the sisters, as a memorabilia to their fondness of each other growing up. Allowing viewers young, and even old, to even enjoy one of the most famous apps out right now. I think our product is also very engaging because of the story it has to tell, and how even the closest of sisters may have to watch their own backs. 

4. How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge convections?

When we originally looked into different genres to create a project out of, we knew thriller was going to be one for the books. It was the easiest and everything seemingly turned into thriller/ action when we sat down and jotted ideas; almost all the storylines we were going for pointed to thriller. Being that my partner and I are both sort of hip to the background of thriller we didn’t do much research but while we did look a few things up we found common elements that simply must be incorporated into our genre. Our product uses all the basic elements; suspense, female antagonist, cliffhangers. But the one way we do challenge the conventions is by using a female protagonist. In thrillers it is always likely the protagonist (the one trying to kill, steal, or harm the antagonist) is male. We thought by going against this will really thicken the plot and not be so stereotypical when it came to what was expected when watching this film. Also the protagonist and antagonist weren’t complete strangers, in fact they happened to be close sisters, when one grew spite of the other as the years went on and they took different career paths. One sister (Tatyanna) had a better life; nice job, car, house, etc. while Bryanna struggled to make her way. Lastly we included the plot twist in the end that revealed it was Tatyanna’s own sister who betrayed her by kidnapping her. 

Short Film Package

 My Short Film Package 

                                                        My Sister's Keeper

https://youtu.be/dVOGE4_mGnQ

https://laurahoward225.wixsite.com/mysisterskeeper

 

The Next Move

 SInce we have totally new actors 

Huge Problem

 This has to be the hardest film I have ever done. We thought that we were done filming and got all those shots we needed. The day after coming back from winter break our media teacher reminded us that we needed to have different angles and movements in the film. We had a big oh normal moment in realized all the shots we're in the same angle and move me. The biggest problem though was that our actors moved away. We plan to film ahead of time because one of our friends was moving away to college. Therefore, any retakes that needed to be done had to be done before she moved away. Now you were left scrambling trying to find new actors in re film the whole movie. Our solution was to use my partners boyfriend and sisters in order to refill. The only thing was some of them live in Georgia and some of them live in Florida. So, we had to walk through step by step on how to hold the camera in order to get the different angles in which movements to get them. Trying to film over the phone is not as easy as you think it would be you don't have as much creative direction because you're not physically there in order to get the perfect picture. Filming in Florida however ran previous smoothly because our partner was there with the sister and was able to be that director in that situation. We now have to rely on people outside the state to help us get our project finished in time for our release date. As stressful as this process has been, I have to say I now completely understand what people in the film industry go through. I'm not just talking about the actors and directors but also the people behind the scenes like marketing and social media. We should recognize all the other people other than just the actors in directors because without them the films would not be possible. I am grateful that I had a partner in all of this because if I was on my own already gave up a long time ago. Now we just have to get through these last couple of days and we should be able to release our film on time. One thing that I had did hope for was that we would be able to have a screening well other people immediate classrooms in order to showcase our room.

Editing

 Today I edited the rest of the film that we film over the past weekend. This time it was much easier than previously. I focused my time today on picking which takes to use. When I first tried to open the videos on my laptop it was not opening. I spent at least 10 minutes trying to open the videos before I went to my teacher. I admit I was starting to worried because I thought we were going to have a re-film everything we did on Friday. Most of what we filmed on Friday was a big chuck of our movie so it was worrisome. This part for me is the most time consuming because I have to watch four or five takes of the same scene. I was able to get some parts of the beginning scene cut. Most of what I have edited now is cut and ready for transitions and special effects. 

       After patiently waiting on pinnacle studios to load it popped up. So I took the flash drive and put it in the computer. This was where all our footage was. I got on the computer and deleted the sample footage. One of my teammates clicked the import button and we saw another tab pop up. We clicked the folder with our flash drive name on it. I then imported the stuff from the flash drive onto pinnacle studios. It took a great deal of time for the files to finish copying.  When the files finished copying the video was ready to be edited. Now it was time to decide what footage we wanted to keep.

      I dragged the scenes slowly to the editing strip. Then we trimmed a few seconds off each scene. Suddenly I hear that class is almost over. My brain stopped for a second. We had just started editing and class was almost over. So my group mates decided to edit on Imovie. We had to edit when we got home that night. So When I got home that night I called my group mates. We talked as one of our group mates edited the scenes on her phone. It seemed easier this way, rather then using pinnacle studios. After we finished editing, my group mate sent the video to all of us, so we could look over it.

Music Selection

 Since this our second time around making a film the music choice was fairly easy decision. We first toyed around with the idea of emailing some people in order to get permission to use some music to. We figured that the would be too much trouble as people are really take time to answer back emails. We finally came to the decision to use Walking on Sunshine. Since most our film is going to be natural sounds we wanted to stray away from using too much music otherwise the audience would not be able to focus on the action that is going on in the movie. Like I said earlier the hardest part about trying to get any music was asking for permission from people who own the rights to the song. 

Marketing Plan

 Before the platform release, advertising will only be located in the cities of the theaters showing the film. Transitioning to a wide release will call for an increase of the advertising. The out-of-home advertising includes billboards, bus advertising, and on-building ads. Print ads will be in various magazines and newpapers. On-building ads will be on large buildings on traf- fic-heavy streets or large highways in major cities. During the process of expanding to a wide release film the target audiences and the genral public need to become more aware of Many Faces. The cast members will all participate in a satellite media tour allowing cities all over the country to interview them. Pitches will be made to magazines and newspapers to persuade them to write about the upcoming film. Screening programs will be held at local college campuses with film schools including Chapman University, University of Southern California and University of California Los Angeles. As the majority of the crew on the film are women, there will also be screenings at women’s clubs around the Los Angeles area. These clubs include Women’s Twentieth Century Club and Woman’s Club of Hollywood. A premeire of the film will happen one week before it’s platform debut in Los Angeles. By inviting press to the premiere, there will be more coverage of the film. Publicity Strategy

Reshoot

 This blog was supposed to be posted a couple of days ago but I accidentally hit draft instead of publish... so let's go a couple days back. Today I went to Aldi without my group mates in order to re film some parts that needed to be re filmed. Before I went and I made sure  I talked with management before I did any filming on their property. I got the okay to film the mangers and started filming right away. Since I did not have my group mate with me I used my sister as my camera. I taught her all the basic movements that I would need her to do to capture my scene. I always joke that my sister was dropped on her head and is just sometimes a little delayed. However today she proved me wrong. She was catching onto all the movements and asking me questions about the different angles and how was I going to put all the videos. By the end of the filming day she said that this was a interesting class that she will take at her school next year. I was able to get all my re shoots done within 45 minutes since it wasn't too much to redo. This time I was able to do it without any complaints from costumers.  Once again like always I had the costumers ask to be apart of my "big movie" I think that has been my favorite part of this whole process. Hopefully this is my last time filming though it has not been enjoyable

Finally Filming Day

 We now finally have enough content to start putting together our film. We were actually able to get all of our shots done in one day but there is some re-shooting that we need to do in order to capture the correct story behind the scenes. We started filming around nine in the morning and finished around 12 in the afternoon. While we waited for one of our customers we went ahead and decided to film our opening scene which was Destiny at work arguing with the CEO. We also ran into the problem of Destiny and Ashleigh‘s dad not being available but fortunately her brother was on standby. So once we decided who will play the role as a CEO we successfully filmed our opening scene. We then had to move onto the scene where Destiny gets frustrated then contacts her sister Ashleigh. Because we are friends with all of our cast members it got pretty goofy, we definitely have way more shots of laugh than we do seriousness.  I really want to re-shoot a lot of the scenes because not everything went as planned. I believe when we do reshoot we do need to be a little more focused on the objective of the film and to really stick with our storyboard. We created a very detailed storyboard which outlines intricately things to portray all the right shots and dialogue for the scenes. We sort of went off tangent and seem to do it because it was last minute. So now when we shoot next week will will make sure we have enough time all of the correct scenery and cast members. We really do have a great story to tell in this film but our first time around isn’t portraying that message how we’d like, maybe even another recast. So we would take another day or two to reconvene and figure out what needs to be done as far as re-shooting. I am going to hot my editing process and I’m actually only going to use the scenes that we have to create a preview. So with that preview were now able to give something to our families and still be in the process of re-shooting and re-editing the actual film for the big day. 

Target Market

 We have a huge target market when it comes to this movie my sisters keeper. Of course the movie is PG-13 and we do not recommend this movie for anyone under the age of 13, for it is so thrilling that you must meet this age requirement in order to preview. On YouTube we have set up an age restriction requirement that requires you to list your birthday in order to watch the film. Females and males, ages 25-45, favorite genre of film is psychological thriller, frequent movie goer, enjoys trying to figure out what is going to happen next As a psychological thriller, Many Faces will leave you on the edge of your seat and mind racing impatiently to see what will happen next. With a rich and complex plot, the film provides the audience with a mystery to solve. You want to encourage them to see the film, without having to reveal the details of the story. You want the audience to be drawn in, and then shocked with the twist. The cast and crew of this film are not widely know, which will not bring in the loyal fan base as more well known figures in film. This film has the ability to hit individuals who have found themselves in a situation of having to shut out the past in order to cope with the present. 

Change of Plans

 Being that we were completely thrown off by the entire pandemic, somethings had to change. Due to some of our cast members traveling we had to completely change our cast. We also ran into major issues when it came to finding the perfect scenery for our abduction scene. Our original plan was to film in Dunkin’ Donuts where they have a reserved office space that was closed off by glass doors that would’ve been perfect for our scene. But again because of the pandemic they aren’t able to rent out the space at this moment. And that was only the beginning of our troubles. We later came to realize that we couldn’t seem to locate a parking garage that would be a good use for our abduction scene which entails Destiny being dragged into a car. So when idea that we came up with is Ashleigh’s home where her dad has a home office that is actually perfect for our storyline and our scenes. We also had to cut down on the amount of people that we are allowed to film with us, it will now only be myself Ashleigh and Jontae and Dwana. Because our schedules aren’t as flexible as we thought they would be we have to film different segments at different times of the day, separately. We even have Ashleigh and Destiny playing the director role in our own film. Even changing some of the scenery, we have made changes within our actual script and the way we want things that play out in the scene. There’s going to be a little bit different dialogue that was initially outlined in the storyboard in the script. As well as different shots, action movements, and even editing techniques used once we reach that process. We feel as if this will not offset our original idea of the movie but, will shine light onto the actual plot of our story, sticking more to our choice of genre. Because with our choice of genre there is lots of action that needs to take place, but also outlined to be clearly outlined as to what’s going on. Lastly we decided to use the parking garage of our local Home Depot, we want it to be busy to give the actual effect of Destiny leaving work. 

Recast

 not only due to the pandemic, along with the holidays, some of our cast members did travel and that sort of complicated the process of filming. It not only complicated but delayed our filming process. We reached out to other people to see who would be available on such short notice and we happened to come across someone. We needed someone for the scene where Destiny is being taken in the parking garage of her job. Jontae will play an important role in the kidnapping of Destiny, and he also fits the image we were initially going for. We also are having trouble getting together and filming scenes. It has totally been a hassle trying to get everyone together and film this movie. Dwana and I compromised the perfect plan that not only works for our busy schedules. But works best following post-pandemic guidelines that puts fewer people in one setting. So, to our advantage Ashleigh and Destiny has an office inside their home which greatly helps because we were troubled finding an office space. A lot is going to have to be done differently now that we waited so late to film, we do not want it to be a last minute thing. With this plan in motion Ashleigh will actually film our first scene which is Destiny in the office arguing with the CEO of her job. And this role will be played by her dad. With them doing that on their own that allow us to eliminate the abundant amount of filming we would’ve had to accomplish on the day we all get together to  film. The idea of Ashleigh’s dad being the CEO also helps with our storyline and would paint another plot twist/ cliff hanger as to why Destiny’s very own sister and dad and VP of their company would want to out  her. Sometimes especially in film, not everything turns out as planned but most of the time it works itself out ultimately. Although this filming process isn’t perfect we still have an outlined/detailed plan that will still produce a great film. We have  actually a few clips that we do want to reshoot so that will have to get done Friday due to our schedules. By Friday we should have all of our footage as well as partial editing done. Then by Saturday the whole film should be done and ready to put out for the fans. 

Thanksgiving Break

Although we could’ve filmed over our thanksgiving break, we chose not too. Some of us were traveling with family, and even in a pandemic, we weren’t able to get together this time around. I still feel really good about the position that we’re in as far as when the film is actually due. Only because the filming process can be done in one day if we really stick to our schedule, and my partner and I are both really good at editing. So it also doesn’t delay us or slow us down in the editing process. If we film over Christmas break we’ll have about two  and a half weeks to months only film but make sure our editing, music, sounds, everything is properly pieced together. Although we referenced in our “Planning” blog we would film on 11/23, things have seemingly changed. It worked out because we are actually in need of one more actor and we actually still haven’t decided upon who that will be yet.

Music Choice

 Since this our second time around making a film the music choice was fairly easy decision. We first toyed around with the idea of emailing some people in order to get permission to use some music to. We figured that the would be too much trouble as people are really take time to answer back emails. We finally came to the decision to use Walking on Sunshine. Since most our film is going to be natural sounds we wanted to stray away from using too much music otherwise the audience would not be able to focus on the action that is going on in the movie. Like I said earlier the hardest part about trying to get any music was asking for permission from people who own the rights to the song. Our last project it took nearly 2 months for someone to get back to us about one song. How we can to decide on walking on Sunshine I have no idea. We were throwing back songs ideas back and forth and my partner said Walking on Sunshine and somehow we both agreed. I'm really curious to see how we incorporate

the sounds and song into our film. 

Marketing Campaign

This was probably the easiest part of this whole process of the whole project. The whole creating a website and making social media pages for the movie made it real. Using the Wix website application was honestly easier than I thought. The first thing I had to figure out was whether or not to use my real name for the website. Naturally I did the the first thing I could think of and that was to make up a name. Laura Howard was obviously the most reasonable name I could come up with it. I got Laura from a television show I was watching earlier that same day. I got Howard from talking about sending our applications for Howard University. Once I was able to come up with my fake name everything else just flowed. I honestly hadn't even thought about the title of the movie since before this website. I got the idea for this movie off of lifetime. The most reasonable thing was to continue to get my inspiration from the by watching at least 8 lifetime movies with my partner. That is how we came up with the Sisters Keeper. We're able to get pictures of our actor together since they are real life sisters. Seeing the website come together with all the pictures was exciting to see. I was able to make the social media pages which was a different experience since we only had personal pages for ourselves. We really felt like marketing campaign managers for a real movie. This has to be my favorite part of this whole experience thus far. 

Storyboard

Planning our storyboard probably is the most challenging task for us right now. It’s like we know exactly how we want this film to play out, we’re able to visualize and everything; but putting it down on paper was so much more challenging. Especially knowing how to break up all the specifications of the scenes into 5 second picture boxes and not putting too much content into one square. Also some of our scenes were short so we had to kind of stretch/improvise the scenes just a little. Storyboarding is actually one of the biggest steps to filming for me because it gives you almost like a tentative schedule to follow. It is obviously always something that can be modified but for the most part you have everything you need to do outlined for you right there on the paper. So when it comes to filming day we can just refer back to the storyboard to see the specifications of each scene. Not only that but having a general idea as far as we hat shot, angle, camera movements, and what kind of sounds go in each scene. Which is very important. This is actually our first time working together and because of everything being virtual and social distancing it did become a little harder as far as communication goes to be able to successfully fulfill this projects every need. We’re also filming with some of our close friends as our actors so to keep the amount of people narrow, and not jeopardizing any COVID-19 precautions. The next challenge for the actual filming process is actually finding an office space/ scenery that is actually going to allow us to film there. The corona restrictions have altered a lot of places and companies and the activities that are able to take palace. We actually found one venue but they aren’t allowing people to sit down inside. Which means we’re back to square one with everything beside of course the scenes that can take place outside. We also may need a few extra actors but I do want to make sure that everyone is safe so we may film on different days with different people. Just to make sure no one especially our actors, are being put in harms way. Lastly, we do anticipate on recording over our thanksgiving break so that actually gives us another week to plan our our location and what days we want to film with who, and who belongs in the right scenes. As well as making sure we, the producers of the film are safe as well. 

Planning for Short Film

 

Planning Blog- Location- Office space at Dunkin Donuts and an underground parking garage 

Health and Safety- We plan to make sure to have our seatbelts while driving. Also while we are “using the knife we are using all the safety protocols. We take safety very seriously. In addition to these safety precautions, we will have a buddy system. So if anyone needs to walk off during our filming process someone will be with them. You could never be too safe. 

Props- In our short film we don’t really incorporate that many props. Since this is a fairly traditionally thriller film we will be using props like knives, ropes, zip ties, chairs, and cars.

Costumes-  Destiny will be wearing a business suit while Ashleigh will be in something casual. Most likely jeans and a tee shirt 

Participants- The main two actors will be our friends Ashleigh and Destiny each playing their respective roles. Jontae who will be playing the President that Destiny argues with in the beginning and Ashleigh’s dad who will play the mysterious man throughout the rest of the film 

Schedule-  

On 11/10-11/13 we will be doing our storyboard. On 11/23 we would like to start filming. We want a couple of days to film. Since we have a week long break for thanksgiving break we should have a couple of days to film everything and refilm if necessary. 

9 The Short and Full

 The two films while the same exact concept and plot or very different to me. Short is more of a computer emanation then anything else. The full link movie seems to have been recorded directed by professionals on a movie set. The use of camera angles and movements are in creating the mood and tone for the entire film. Nothing from eight directors standpoint that sets the movie a part for me is the setting. Using the dark and gloomy scenes while also showing a place that is deserted add to the effect of the movie. One thing that do you my Attention to the animation what is the use of numbers instead of names for the characters. As the numbers get higher, the sophistication of the creatures gets more complex and more refined. The basic idea is we're trying to show that these creatures are human, that they are the vessels of humanity,"They're mechanical in some way, made up of bits and pieces of leftover objects, and they have numbers. That seems so far removed from humans. So then the challenge is, how do we slowly convince the audience to see the humanity inside them? This seems what causes the confusion with the short film.

9 Short Film

The short film provided to be extermely confusing within the first 30 seconds.  From the beginning it doesn’t really seem to be beginning the more to start at the middle of the movie. I had to watch movie three times before I finally understood I started at beginning each time. I believe that the effect of this captures the audiences attention. However, this could also negatively impact the audience as they may Be confused and can’t fully comprehend the concept of the movie. To be fair the first time watching it I was not really foggy see what could’ve impacted my view of the film. I finally begin to understand the concept of the movie the third time after watching it. From my understanding there are those numbers who have different levels of complex complex acidity. As you can see 5 and 9 seem to be looking out for each other. After fathers killed nine seems to be after to avenge his death while keeping himself alive. Towards the end I forgot I was even watching a computer animation was actually able to enjoy the short film. If executing to make it seem like the audience is not watching computer emanation the screen writer and director we’re truly effective. 

9 Full Movie

 Shane Acker was one of the special effect wizards at WETA before this movie, and his digital animation background shows. The stitchpunks chase and are chased, they fight and fly through the landscape with flair, but there’s not a lot of substance to go with the style. Shane Acker’s Oscar-nominated short film, 9 is the story of nine little clockwork ‘stitchpunk’ dolls who are the only remnants of life on earth after a catastrophic war between humans and machines. They struggle to find their place in the new world while trying to learn about where they come from and what happened to make the world the way it is. The movie lacks in story and dialogue it makes up for in some delirious action sequences. Acker knows that he faces an uphill battle trying to get audiences to relate to his abstract characters with their numerical monikers. This goes into account the genre. It is a animation movie however this specific animation movie is not geared towards younger children. The affects of this could cause low attendance rate within the audience. You can tell that number is of great importance within this movie. The screen writer says that characters are abstract. The humanistic features add the touch of humanity to the dolls.