Film Opening Project: Every Detail Counts

 Clarification Through Props/ Set Design: The Bedroom

    Hey everyone! As you all know I am continuing my journey with the Film Opening Project with my partner Natalia, and with the many components that this project requires, we decided to take some time to focus on props and set design. So, for that reason, I decided to dedicate a post for these two components.

Why do props and set design matter? 

    Props and set design are key players towards building the personality of the main character. These two components are important as the give hints to the audience that link towards a variety of aspects that relate to the main character. So, when me and Natalia decided to talk about how to let the audience know more about the main character (Stella), before formally introducing her, we came up with a list of ideas to place emphasis on her character. 

    There will be two sets that will be utilized throughout the filming process. One is our school's auditorium, which resembles a movie theater (perfect!), and the other set will be the bedroom scene shown right after the insert of the film title. However, I am dedicating this post towards the props for the set design of the bedroom in particular, since we are still working on location scouting for the auditorium. 

The Set 

    While I knew that the bedroom scenes would only be a few seconds long, I still feel that it is important to plan out the props in the scenes since I would like the prop choices to properly represent Stella (the main character). Below I have inserted photos of the exact bedroom I will be filming these scenes in...

    I also included this picture to zoom in on the specific part of the room in which I want the majority of the props to go. 

    There are two reasons why I felt this spot would be best to film. The first reason being the spot of the wall and the night table. For the idea of the photo wall, this is the only bedroom wall white enough space for a photo collage. Also, the night table is an important prop to the set, so this spot would be very convenient for filming. The second reason for choosing this spot is because of the lighting. The biggest window of the room is on the opposite side of this wall, so it would help the lighting look more natural during filming. (To clarify, these pictures show how the bedroom looks like before the addition of the props).

Props/ Inspiration

    Keeping in mind that Stella is an aspiring actress, we decided to first brainstorm room decorations that could match her dreams, but also her bright personality. Since photo walls tend to be a very popular room decor choice for women (even I have a photo wall), I felt that she should have a photo wall, but of things related to the acting industry. This would include film posters and a collage of photos with the acting "aesthetic" to be shown as her form of manifestation for her dreams. 

    However, we cannot keep taking all of the credit, as our inspiration was drawn from Pinterest. So, to keep our ideas organized, I created a Pinterest Board with photos that inspired our thoughts. Below this, I have incorporated part of the Pinterest Board I created, but the full board can be found by clicking this link: Stella Bedroom Pinterest

    This Pinterest Board however only contains bedroom decor in relation to the photos that would be hung on the wall, since it is what I had the most ideas for. 

    Besides the film related posters/ photos, I also thought of including inspirational photos/ quotes on the photo wall, and I have reasoning behind this choice. With the insecurity that Stella has with her dreams of becoming an actress, she feels that she needs lots of support to keep herself determined, despite her harsh journey she will have to overcome along the way. Since she wants to keep herself motivated, she purposely hung up several inspirational quotes that she reads every morning, reminding her of what she wants to do. Below are examples of some inspirational note cards that I own that I will incorporate to the photo wall...

Extra Props That Hint Towards Stella

    While the props I mentioned above do hint towards Stella's love for film and dreams for pursuing acting, I felt that I could use more variety in props that could hint even more towards Stella herself. Since the name Stella means star, and actresses are usually referred to as stars, I felt that I should incorporate some small details with inclusions of stars, so that way later on, the viewer can puzzle these props together with the meaning of her name, as well as her dreams. Below is a list of all the possible props including stars that may be featured in the film opening...

- Phone wallpaper of stars

- Star jewelry on the nightstand

- Stars on the lamp

- Inspirational quote with stars (one example is actually shown above)

- Star stickers on the nightstand

    While I haven't exactly chosen which one of these I will use, or how many I will use, items on this list will definitely come in handy soon.

    The last but very much important prop that will be used in these bedroom scenes will be a crumbled up acting audition paper sitting on the nightstand. This prop will be the biggest hint to give to the audience that would basically confirm the character's passion and dream. The reason it is crumbled up is to show how much she has contemplated whether or not to go to these auditions, as well as symbolizing how harsh her journey for pursuing this dream will be. This prop will also be linked to a calendar prop that will highlight the date of the auditions, confirming her desire to act while giving the viewer a sense of time.

    Anyways, I hope that this blog post cleared up the current situation on one of our set designs and hints through props. Stay tuned for my next update on our journey!

Film Opening Project: Thinking in Advance

 Introduction to the Creative Critical Reflection (CCR)

    Hey everyone! I am back with a new update on me and Natalia's journey through the Cambridge Portfolio Project. So, as you all may know, me and Natalia are currently working on the actual film opening itself, as we work on actually filming what we have on our storyboard next week. However, in the back of our minds, we knew that after the film opening was completed, we would have to worry about completing the CCR for the project. It's hard to not think about even when our teacher told us that we should only be working on it after finishing the film opening. 

     However, in my AICE Media Studies AS Level class, our teacher decided to teach us a lesson talking about the Creative Critical Reflection (CCR), to help us better understand what we must do. My teacher dedicated an hour of our class towards teaching us about the CCR and went into depth about every part of the CCR. This lesson answered all of the questions I had in my mind in regard to the CCR, which made me feel relieved. I obviously took notes on this lesson so that I would not forget any important information and can use my notes for when I actually begin to work on the CCR. For this reason, below I have inserted photos of what my notes for the lesson look like...

 

    As you all can see, I tried my best to keep my notes nice and organized so that way I don't get confused looking back at them when I actually have to begin working on the CCR. Right now I am considering making a podcast and a talk show as my two media products, but I am not entirely sure yet. However, I am trying to not get too ahead of myself because I still have a whole project to film before that. But I will definitely come back to working on the CCR when I am done with the opening. 

    Anyways, stay tuned for my next update!

Film Opening Project: Crossing Challenges

 Dealing with Delays

    Hey everyone! As you may know based off the schedule that me and Natalia made, we haven't made any posts related to our production process when this week was the first week of filming. So, you all may be asking yourself questions like: "Did something happen?" or "Did plans change?"  To be entirely honest, we have run into some delays for production due to issues with location scheduling. 

How did this issue come up?

    Me and Natalia had planned to film in our school's auditorium, but when talking to administrators if we could film after school, we were told that we couldn't film this week after school due to the school holding a performance every day after school in the auditorium and hosting other activities in the afternoons. However, it would not be an issue to film next week, so for that reason we have to hold off our filming process until next week. 

    At first, we were both caught off guard because we weren't considering this to be an issue for our project, so when were told that we couldn't until next week, we knew that would give us less time to film and less flexibility to do what else we needed to do. So, after being told about this setback, we knew that we had to make changes to our weekly plans. 

What are we doing for this week?

    Instead of waiting until next week, me and Natalia decided to be more productive with our time, so we decided to focus more on planning and go over the outlines and storyboards to make sure that we are satisfied with our ideas. We are also going to pick out the outfits that will be worn in the film opening based off of each characters' aesthetic and costume design (which you all can check out in my blog post on costuming options). 

    I am glad that me and Natalia were able to think about the bright side to this situation, as we were proactive and did not let the issue affect our spirits in any way. For this reason, we will continue discussing our options and what we can do with this remaining time, so stay tuned for our next update on the journey!

Film Opening Project: Discussion With Classmates

 Group Meetings

    Hey everyone! I am back with a new update on my film opening project process, but this step is a bit different from usual. For every other blog post, the information on the posts usually come from either me and Natalia's ideas or research, but today we received insight on our current progress from some peers. 

    We did this through group meeting in our AICE Media Studies AS Level class, where our teacher split up the class into groups to let us talk to each other about our project. In my group, we shared the URLs to our blogs while explaining our ideas and any issues we have been having to receive feedback from other classmates. I gave some feedback for each of my classmates' project, but in this post my main focus is to tell you all about the feedback I was give. 

What advice did my peers give? 

    When it was my turn to talk about my progress, I first gave everyone the URL of my blog so that they can read through it before I begin explaining it to them, so the idea is a bit clearer. I started off by introducing the genre I chose, drama, and the research I did for the genre. I briefly went through the blog posts I made that had to do with my research, and then moved on by describing the plot and the characters, as well as the thought process behind these decisions. I then made the connections back to my blog and showed them the blog posts relating to our schedule of the process. 

    I then moved on from talking about my ideas and moved on to any things that I was having trouble with or felt that I would have trouble with. I began talking about postproduction, like editing the opening or the credits. I expressed my doubts on where I should place the credits. My first option was placing the credits in between different segments of the opening, since I feel that it may make the opening flow better in a way. I also thought about just placing the credits in the beginning of the film opening, since the opening is more of a story rather than a montage, so I felt that a montage suits the spread-out credits rather than a consistent story opening. 

    My peers discussed it with me and helped me realize that credits at the beginning of the film opening may suit my film opening better. So, I definitely felt relief to have a final decision on that. I also expressed my concerns on using Adobe Premiere Pro as my editing software for the film opening project, since it has been a while since I last used it( its been 4 years!), and I have had trouble saving clips on that platform.

     However, my group reassured me and said that there are many great tutorials on YouTube to watch, going from basic techniques to more advanced ones. They also recommended that If I do not feel 100% sure about using Adobe Premiere Pro, then I could also switch to iMovie, which is known for being an easier platform to handle. While I have for sure decided what editing platform to use, this discussion gave me more options for the postproduction process. 

Future Plans

    With the feedback I was given, I know have a better idea of what my next steps should be, as well as how cohesive me and Natalia's ideas are for the film opening project. I will definitely look forward to more group meetings, as my teacher did tell the class that we will be having more group meetings. Anyways, that is how the group meeting went and I am excited for the next one. 

    Stay tuned for my next update on this journey!

Film Opening Project: Costuming Options

Costume Design

    Hey everyone! I am back to continue sharing with you all my journey with Natalia as we work through the film opening project. As you all know, we only have a few days left until we begin the actual production process. So, we felt that we should finalize our ideas in terms of the costume design for each character. 

    Costume design is a very important part of any film, as it gives the audience more of an idea as to how the character will be like without them being formally introduced. That is why we spend much time emphasizing this in our posts. 

    As you may remember, I already dedicated a post towards introducing Stella (our main character), which included the inspiration for costuming, but for this post I wanted to clarify the costuming options for every character that will be featured in the film opening, which is Stella, her brother, and her father. So, for the characters, I created Pinterest boards to help illustrate their aesthetic.

Costume Design: Stella

    As mentioned in one of my previous posts, Stella's aesthetic consists of colorful clothing, yet softer colors like pastels or baby blues and pinks. This styling is used to highlight Stella's youthfulness, in contrast to her inner conflicts. She also wears funky earrings and shoes with pastel colors to match her clothing. For the actual film opening, me and Natalia were thinking about putting her in a pink top with a light-colored shirt to match this aesthetic that we would want to present to the audience. While I have a screenshot of part of the Pinterest board I made, the full board can be found by clicking this link: (38) Pinterest

Costume Design: Brother and Father

    To create more of a dramatic contrast between Stella's family and Stella herself, we decided to give them contrasting styling to give Stella more of a "star" appearance. For this reason, the brother and father wear casual and sleek styling, consisting of blacks, blues, greys; cool tones in general. While we used this styling to make Stella stand out even more, we also did this to add a symbolic element of the depressing reality surrounding her that highlights the harsh journey that Stella must go through. While I have a screenshot of one section of the Pinterest board, the full board can be found with this link: (38) Pinterest 

    Hopefully this has further clarified the styling for each character and the reasons behind these decisions. Soon enough, these decisions will be put into action during the production process. Anyways, stay tuned for the next step of our project!

Film Opening Project: Outlines and Storyboarding

 Outlines and Storyboarding

    Hey everyone! After meeting up with my partner Natalia and discussing more about our film opening in depth, I decided to share a very important part of this process with you all, which would be outlines and storyboarding. We knew that these two components serve as the foundation of our project, so we had to make sure that we were both on the same page for how exactly the film opening will be shot. 

Our Outline

    During our discussion, we first shared any ideas we had and while we were discussing, I took note of some of these ideas on a paper. This paper served as our mini outline of ideas, because I felt that this outline would help us better understand what each other's thoughts are. The outline is a bit messy because we had lots of ideas that we didn't want to go to waste. So cut us some slack please! Anyways below is a picture of what our mini outline looks like...

    As you can see from our outline, we had several ideas to consider before finalizing what we wanted. Throughout the discussion, we first established what would be the beginning and the end. We decided to add the credits at the very beginning of the film opening while the title slide would be the last thing that the audience would see. 

    But for the actual first scene, we decided to show Stella and her family on their way to the movie theater as they go through the hallway. However, we originally thought that they should already be inside the movie theater in the first scene. For the ending scene before the title slide, we decided to make it either a long shot or an extreme long shot (this is still up for debate even after our discussion) of Stella by herself in theater to show how emotionally involved or captivated she was by the actor/ actress on the screen. 

    After having a firm stand on the beginning and ending scenes of the film opening, we then spoke on what would happen in between, scene by scene. This took a few hours to go over and talk about, but after having the scenes sorted out, we moved on to the actual storyboard...

Our Storyboard

     To be able to clearly illustrate our plan, we had to create a storyboard, so that's exactly what we did.

Below this you can find the images of our storyboards...

     I won't have to explain much of each scene, since the images of the storyboards do the talking, however, there are a few things regarding the storyboard that I feel are important to go over. Anything highlighted in green, the arrows or the parenthesis, may represent one of two things. If there is a highlighted green arrow, this goes for directions for camera movements. 

    For instance, if the arrow is seen pointing upwards, during this scene, the camera should be moving slightly upwards. Same thing goes for the other way around. However, if there are green parenthesis, this just means that the information in the parenthesis is important. This doesn't mean that what is not in the parenthesis isn't important, but whatever is highlighted is definitely a key aspect to the plan.

    Another thing I would like to point out is the actual writing shown on the storyboard. Each scene is shown as a frame on the storyboard, and the writing on top of the frame is the type of angle /shot of the scene. The writing below the frame is the description of what is supposed to be happening in the frame. So, in other words, the top deals with the technical side, while the bottom deals with the plot. 

    One thing we are missing in terms of the opening is the few seconds that occur after the opening itself, like the actual beginning of the film itself. However, this will be our focus for next week, so I'll keep everyone updated on that!

    We believe that this process is key towards creating a successful film opening, as it will allow us to stay on task while filming and acts as a guide for the production process. That is why we are relieved to say that we have completed this step of the process. This work will definitely pay off when we begin filming soon. 

    Anyways, stay tuned for my next post with more updates on our journey!

Film Opening Project: Target Audience

 What Audience Are We Appealing To?

    Hey everyone! After careful consideration on how to clarify the approach that me and Natalia have towards the film opening project, we decided that it is very important to talk about our target audience. As you all now know, we have chosen to go with the genre of drama, and in order to make sure that our film can be successful in the media world, we did some research on our target audience in order to be able to come off as more appealing. 

What is a Target Audience? Why is knowing this important?

    Like the name may suggest, a target audience is a group of people that the media text is aimed towards. In order to make fitting adjustments to our plan for the film opening, it is necessary to identify our target audience so we are aware of how exactly we should be marketing our film. Identifying our target audience can determine how successful the production will be, whether or not the film will make or break in the media world. 

Who is our Target Audience? 

    Since our genre is drama, drama tends to rely on emotional appeal, which is why our target audience leans more towards women, since a variety of themes relating to dramatic ideas like romance and tragedy tend to be highlighted more by women in comparison to men. As for the age aspect of our target audience, it would be from women of ages 16-30, because it is around this time wear people tend to change from teens to adults and mature throughout this age range. 

    Also, drama tends to have several sub genres, including romance and inspirational stories, which are two of the more popular sub genres. For this reason, women from the ages 16-30 tend to experience these aspects in life mainly during this period of their lives, which is why our inspirational drama film would be appealing to this audience, making them our target audience.  

How Will This Affect the Rest of the Process?

    Since our target audience is on the younger side, the majority of the marketing process of our production would have to take place through social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok. The reason why I feel that it is important to mention this now is because in a few weeks me and Natalia have to begin considering what we will be writing for the CCR, since it asks about the distribution of our production. However, this isn't the current thing I should be worried about, but it is something that we need to keep in mind for later. 

    Anyways, that should hopefully help create more of an idea towards me and Natalia's research on our target audience. So, stay tuned for my next update on this journey!

Resources

“Audience Expectations and Target Audience.” A2 Media Studies, 2014, maddiemedia.weebly.com/audience-expectations-and-target-audience.html. 

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