Filming

Yesterday was a turning point for my short film because I started filming for my opening! I had been wondering who would be the main protagonist in the opening and one of my cousins agreed to be my actress.

I had given her the screenplay so she could look over the lines and read it in its entirety so she could understand the overall tone of the piece and make it her own. Originally we were going to have her dialogue filmed in my kitchen, but it was hard to find lighting that was nice and accentuated her, so we decided to film outside on my porch instead.

We filmed for about an hour, which seems like a lot for just about a minute of the opening but I really wanted to get her speaking from different angles and I wanted to get certain close-up shots for the more emotional lines.

I filmed with my iPhone 4 but I was pleasantly surprised at the quality. I uploaded the clips to Google Drive and of course it's not perfect high definition video but it's pretty nice. I'm going to be reviewing all the different clips within the week just in case we need to reshoot anything..

The location I ended up using worked well because it was very beautiful and scenic with the lake and nature behind, and that will help contrast with what the character just left behind in Venezuela.

Here are some pictures of my cousin while reading over the lines!

Screenplay + Shot List: check!

So today and yesterday I worked on finishing my screenplay for the opening and I wrote a shot list so I could start filming. I wanted to write down every single shot I wanted so that I wouldn't forget any part of it.

As I finished my screenplay, I read it out loud to verify that it wasn't going over the two minute range, and it worked out well! The total dialogue came out to about a minute and thirty seconds which leaves plenty of time for establishing shots and credits.

Some of my next short-term goals are to write and record the fake news bits that are the main sound element before the dialogue begins, and I'm going to have that done before this time next week.

Day 1 of Screenplay Writing

As can probably be guessed from the title of this post, today was my first day researching screenplays and starting to write the screenplay for my opening. 

For some reason, when deciding how to go about preparing to film the opening, I knew I had to make a screenplay of some sort in order to stay organized and make sure every moment of the opening had meaning. 

I first had to refresh my memory on the format of screenplays. Even though it was for my eyes only, I wanted to try and mimic the structure of a professional one. For reference, I found a website that is an archive of short film screenplays (http://www.simplyscripts.com/genre/short-scripts.html). I read over two scripts in their entirety and got a feel for how I should go about writing my own.

And with that, I began writing. My goal is to have the AS opening screenplay done by this weekend. After that, I have to write some scripts for audios I will be recording and I also plan on writing an informal shot list of all the ones I want to get done. 

Hello! + Decision Making

I wanted to take this first moment on this new blog to welcome whoever is reading this. Throughout the lifespan of this blog, you will be able to view my journey in creating my final media portfolio for this class, which is quite bittersweet. I have learned so much this year about how important and influential media is to everyone in the world, including myself. A double-edged sword, media is a powerful tool that can either inspire and inform us, or manipulate and coerce us. The beauty of media is in this day and age, we can so easily alternate between being the consumer and the producer. In this way, even someone like me can have substantial influence.

With this in mind, I take this final media project seriously. The guidelines of this portfolio are ambiguous enough that I have an abundance of artistic freedom, and I aspire to make an end product that has significance and puts even the smallest piece of myself out there. For this, I thank you all in advance for reading what is to come and I encourage you to leave as much feedback as possible.

Anyway, yesterday I began work on the AS portion of my portfolio, which is the two minute film opening and everything that goes along with that. I had several "themes" in mind that are personally important to me. Because of this, I knew I wanted to make it a foreign film opening, specifically channeling a Venezuelan foreign film feel (my country of origin), but I also constantly remembered my limitations. Of all of them, one was most important: I don't live in Venezuela, therefore it would be hard to film exterior shots or any type of shots that contextualized the story effectively.

How would I make a "foreign" film when all I have available to me is the U.S? I decided I had to get creative and come up with a hybrid solution. I took to my own experiences for inspiration and decided to make the main character of the opening an immigrant.

In essence, the opening would serve two main purposes:

• to establish the main character
• to present the driving conflict

The film would be in Venezuelan Spanish with English subtitles and would began by juxtaposing Venezuela with where the main character moves, the United States. The visuals would show the US (perfect houses, kids playing outside, full supermarkets) and the sound element would bring in Venezuela (poverty, kids getting killed by gangs, scarcity of food) through radio news reports the main character would be listening to. I eventually came up with the general outline that the film would introduce the main character as she moves into her new home, and the conflict would come in soon after when she calls her mother who lives back home, leaving the viewer wanting more.

Basically, the first day was just a series of decisions being made. With a concrete idea in place, I made a calendar for myself of deadlines to follow so I could stay on track and leave time for the A portion.