Equipment

I went to Becon today to check out equipment since we're filming tomorrow. Unfortunately, Jim didn't have the camera I wanted (Sony a7iii), but he did have a Sony ZV-10 which I ended up checking out. I wasn't sure about the camera but now that I've got a chance to use it I feel better. It's also similar to the cameras I've worked with before so that makes me feel so much more comfortable. It comes with a 30 mm prime lens and a wider zoom lens which is great since the room is a bit small. 

Apart from the camera, I also checked out a boom mic/pole, RGB light kit, a dolly, tripod, headset, and uhhh I think that was it. Meaning that we're ready to film. Ah I'm nervous. 

The Last Supper

We're planning to start filming next week and I am nervous to say the least. Today, me and Megan got together to finalize any last things that we need. We went to Panera (my favorite place in the world btw), and we spent about two hours there planning things out. 

The first thing we did was finish the shot list, this isn't the first time we've worked together, and I feel like that time we learned the importance of actually planning our shots beforehand. So, we almost finalized the shot list aside from some scenes that we are missing in the script. It's pretty simple, I'm hoping that between now and when we film we come up with some more creative shots just so its not too visually boring. Also, I'll make a post on equipment later, but that's still a work in progress. After we finished the shot list, we brainstormed what other scene to put in between as rising action. To be honest, we really didn't come up with anything, but I usually get my ideas at 2 AM, so hopefully it'll come to me later, and that leaves tomorrow in class to finalize the shot list. 

After that, we texted our actor to see what clothes he owns. I wasn't a big fan of the result at first, but he has these black pants and black shirt that could be the introduction outfit. Then as time goes on, he starts to choose his own outfits. It adds a wide variety of outfits without having to buy new clothes, and also adds a bit of personality to him. Still not really sure what I want to do with his hair.

The last thing we did was plan out our next social media post. This one is just a quick meet the director's post where we introduce ourselves. The next one we were hoping to do was like a cool title post on After Effects, but then tragedy struck.

Yeah, that's right. Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, they did. I got home, content from spending an afternoon on the best place on earth (have I mentioned how much I like Panera?), and I go to open my laptop. It doesn't turn on. Okay fine, maybe it's just out of battery. I charge it for an hour. It still doesn't turn on. I'm about one more inconvenience away from having a full on crashout. I really need my laptop to edit, not just for this project but in general for my other classes. 

:( 

But. I feel like overall, today was productive, we got a lot done and I feel slightly better for next week, but there's still a TON to do before we are ready to film. 

Schedule

Favorite part of this project: making a schedule I will absolutely not follow! 

This is my personal schedule of all my extracurricular activities and all that:

Week Two 

2/22 - STN Practice

Week Three

2/28: Wind Ensemble Rehearsal 3-6

Whole week I'll be in Tampa for STN

Week Four

3/4: Wind Ensemble Rehearsal 3-6

Week Five

3/12: Wind Ensemble Rehearsal 3-6

3/12-3/13: Concert Band MPA

The rest I don't know. It all depends if we make states for band. 

Clearly, there's a pretty major problem week three. I've kinda tried to adjust my schedule enough so that that week will not be a major amount of time lost. Also, I'm aware that the probability of me actually following this schedule is very slim so the major thing that I want to stick to is finish the first (or second) draft script before going to STN, and finalize filming before spring break. 

Week Two (2/17-2/23)

Research, research, research!!! I will watch at least one short film and full-length film in the chosen genre and so will Megan

Finish first draft of script by the end of the week

Send out casting call to drama kids or any actors

Location scouting

Hold any auditions for main role if needed

Week Three (2/24-3/2)

Continue looking for actors

Make revisions to script

Begin prepping for costume design, set design, and possible makeup needed

Researching best equipment for production

Begin shot list and storyboard

Week Four (3/3-3-9)

Finish shot list and storyboard

HAVE A FINALIZED SCRIPT

Meet with actors

Research lighting techniques 

Start researching social media pages

Week Five (3/10-3/16)

Check out equipment

Start shootingg

Continue posting on social media

Week Six (3/17-3/23)

Finish production

Start planning reflection

Week Seven (3/24-3/30) SPRING BREAK!!!

Edit until I never want to see a timeline again

Reshoots if necessary

Continue social media and reflection

Week Eight (3/31-4/6)

Please be done with short film by this week

Start critical reflection and postcard

Week Nine (4/5-4/9)

Any final edits to film

Post last social media post

Publish everything

Actually looking at the amount of work I have to do is really stressing me out. I really want to stick as close to this schedule as possible, it'll make everything a lot easier. Maybe. Well, I hope. Honestly, my personal schedule doesn't look that packed so I know I'm definitely missing something because I never have time to get stuff done.  But I'm prioritizing this over everything else, so if I'll find a way to make time.

Hi...

So, the time has finally come. For my A Level portfolio I'm choosing to go with a short film. The options are documentary, film promo, music promo, and short film. I'm really not interested in making another documentary, as fun as the first one was. And even though the music promo option looks really interesting, I don't really know too many artists. I have no interest in the film promo package. I don't enjoy making trailers. So that leaves me with the short film package. I had a blast directing the film opening last year and I have more experience now so why the hell not spend the next two months doing this. Last year I promised myself that I would have a script ready by this time since I procrastinated so much on the AS portfolio. But uhhhh.....

Even though I planned to have a script at least done by now, I, in fact, do not. But it's fine. I have a big long list (it's not really that long but erm whatever) of possible ideas. I have like 2 or 3 ideas that I have pretty developed in my brain, and I already wrote a whole outline that I pitched to Megan and Stoklosa. I heard a lot of the critiques, so I'm trying to tweak the story around, it's just really difficult to try and change the original idea without losing its main thesis. And if this idea doesn't work, then we have backup ideas so that's good. I'm gonna be very secretive about my plot for the next week here though, just in case anyone wants to steal my idea (just kidding, I'll post the full outline once I figure everything out, that'll probably be a long post). I'm really happy that we already have a possible idea thought out so we can really lock in early. 

Feet

The other day, Stoklosa walks into class asking us our thoughts on feet. And like, I mean I’m aware that my generation is a bit weird about feet (from our vernacular to the way we dress ourselves, it’s rather odd), but I never expected this question to become a full-length class discussion. But either way, we’re talking about our opinion on feet right and then Zach jokes that someone should make a documentary on feet. And that kinda stays there for a couple weeks, marinating in people's minds for a while. Then finally, the time to start working on our documentary production project comes around, and to be completely honest, I haven't stopped thinking about feet since it was brought up, and lucky for me, neither had Zach or Vic. So as easy as that, we had our documentary topic chosen.

I'll admit (although I'm sure it's evident for anyone following this blog) that I'm usually poo poo from a butt bad at planning and pre-production, but I do feel like somehow it wasn’t that bad for this project (maybe it was just cause the people in my group can actually plan). In particular, we did a lot of research surrounding trends in Gen z, ranging from fashion to mental health (I'll link some interesting sources we found at the end of this post). A lot of the research we conducted was pretty eye-opening. Aside from reading a ton on the subject, I also asked a lot of my friends of their opinions on the topic, and I was shocked to find how averse they were to talking about feet. Like flat-out grossed out by it. After conducting our research, we began to structure out how the doc might look.

I would say that for structuring, Exit Through the Gift Shop was our biggest influence. We wanted the documentary to flow similarly to how Banksy made his flow. Start with more specific story (in our case, Gen z's aversion to feet) and then transition into a broader conversation (in our case, how our mental health may be affecting our views of our body, how social media might be making us hate our feet, and why the hell Gen z is so self-conscious in general). We also wanted to create a tone that was a bit light-hearted while not making the topic seem too comical (or too serious), similar to Sicko. I think what we struggled most on, throughout the entire production, was how we wanted to end the documentary. In fact, we're still struggling with that (more on that in another post.)

During our planning process, we also created a shot list for possible b-roll. None of it made the final project. We also created a list of possible interviewees, which was great because it really sped up the process and we were able to interview them somewhat early, and a list of questions to ask. 

Links for anyone wanting to read more about feet :P

When Did Everyone Get So Weird About Feet?

Why Gen Z Won't Show Their Feet | HuffPost Life

Why Gen Z doesn't like to show their feet - Upworthy

A moment that changed me: my feet appeared on a kink website that gets 20m views a month | Life and style | The Guardian

Gen Z Won't Let Anyone See Their Feet - The water cooler - The Last Forum 

How Gen Z is still falling into the trap of toxic body image | Metro News

 Last Minute Pre-Filming Preparation

    Today is the dayyyyyyy.

    My first (and hopefully only) day of filming. I'm finishing up any last minute things before I can bring my cast over. 

Update on Cast

    For the last couple of days I've been trying to contact anyone I know (and some people that I don't) in hopes to finalize my cast. I got added to my friend's giant Spring break group chat on Monday, so I just shot my shot and asked for actors on there. A couple people responded that they might be able to, but unfortunately, they cannot make it today. Yesterday was middle school MPA (band assessment thing) at my school, and I was volunteering until around 6 in the afternoon. I asked practically everyone else that was volunteering, but they also were unable to. (as you can tell I was pretty stressed out yesterday).

 And remember my last blog post where I talked about one of my friends who was willing to act. Well, he canceled on me. Figures. So as of a couple of hours ago I was castless. Luckily, I begged two of my friends to help me out and they agreed to. Can they act? Who knows. Then late at night yesterday, my friend texted me that she might have someone. She sent me her number and I contacted her. She said she could yayyy!! So that's my cast! Hopefully no one cancels.

Fake Blood

    A small part of my opening does require me to use some fake blood. I know that like Spirit Halloween sells some for costumes but unfortunately it is March and not October so that store is not open. I don't know where else you could find fake blood so I'll have to make my own. According to this article, the best recipe for fake blood (especially one that drips or splatters) requires Karo corn syrup, chocolate syrup, and food coloring. I went to Publix to get the ingredients and it literally took no more than 5 minutes to make.

Equipment

    At 5 today, I went to BEACON to pick up some equipment. Not really sure what like specific type of equipment I got, but I checked out a camera, lighting kit, boom mic, and tri-pod

. 

    

    My cast comes over at around 5:30ish. I am SOOO nervous. I don't have experience sharing my own vision, usually I work in groups, I'm scared that mid-filming, it'll feel dumb or I can't put what I am visualizing to camera. I also am really bad at expressing myself through words. I don't know. I'm just really nervous and excited. I do feel a little better knowing that I'm friends with most of my cast. Hoping for the best!

Casting!

   As I've talked about a...couple of times on here, casting has been the most stressful process for me in this entire project. For past assignments in this class, I've worked with other people who knew people willing to act, so having to find my own people has been stressful to say the least. The person I had my hopes on at first isn't able to, so I gotta contact my own friends and hope for the best.  

    I posted on my Instagram story a little earlier asking if anyone is willing to act in it. I only have 40ish followers (only about 30 that are teenagers/live near me), so I'm not really expecting too much traction, but you never know. 

Screenshot of my story

    

    Literally not even 10 minutes later, my friend replied to the story. I'm not sure how great of an actor he is, but I'll take what I got and I'm really grateful.

Screenshot of our conversation

        Tomorrow at school, I'll talk to the other two people I have in mind in hopes that they can too. 

    I'll film on Wednesday, which looking at my calendar, is actually great because I have early release on Thursday and no school Friday, leaving me loads of time to edit. Once I get home from school on Thursday, I'll edit all the clips together and add any necessary effect. Then Friday, I'll work on color grading the clips and adding credits and the title sequence. Also, since I'm filming Wednesday, then I can hopefully check out equipment from BEACON (I already contacted them, but they haven't responded yet). Yayyy everything's looking up now. 

EDIT (like 10 minutes later)

    Another one of my friends just answered saying that if I REALLY need more actors, she could help out. She doesn't really want to act, but since she's available (and if I find actors), I told her she could help me out on set. 

Revised Script

    The basic new story that I developed is that after the possession scene, the spirit of the dead wife mentioned remains in the character's body and she tries to get her (now dead) husband's spirit into one of the other teen's body. Not sure how the rest of the movie would go but yeah. Also, I changed the character's to be nameless for now since I don't have actors yet. 

Planning for the Future Because the Present is STRESSING ME OUT

    In class this week, we went over the purpose of CCRs and how to tackle the process of making our own. 

After we are finished with production of  our project, we have to make a Creative Critical Reflection. This basically a series of creative products in which we reflect upon our final project (it's pretty much in the name). It requires us to creatively answer a few questions relating to target audience, genre conventions, production process, and technology use. We watched a couple of past CCR that gave me a lot of ideas for my own. One that I particularly liked featured a format similar to Vogue's 73 Questions series. The other one that I liked was like a talk show format.

    This got me thinking about recent interviews that I've liked and I realized that recently, there's been this like surge of interviews featuring people eating chicken??? The example that first comes to mind for me is Amelia Dimoldenberg's Chicken Shop Date on YouTube in which the host (Amelia) interviews artists in the guise of them being on a "date" in a fried chicken restaurant..  Another popular one is Sean Evan's Hot Ones series, in which celebrities are interviewed while trying different hot wings until they can't take the heat anymore. These are so popular because of their unconventional format and charismatic hosts (at least I personally really enjoy watching them). I think a food related interview type CCR would be creative and relatively unique (might not age well but oh well). My hesitation on doing something like this is the fact that I would rather not appear on camera because I am unfortunately VERY awkward and not charismatic in the slightest (also my voice sounds so odd on camera, it would be a pain to edit).

Thumbnail of a Chicken Shop Date episode featuring Paul Mescal

    My second a idea is a bit more conventional: a podcast. I'm not someone who is an avid podcast listener (I prefer 3 hour video essays on YouTube about a topic I had never heard about before), but I am aware that podcasts have become an increasingly popular medium that is basically replacing talk radio at thus point. Usually when I listen to podcasts though, it's as background noise when I'm working on homework or cooking or something, so I would need to do a little research on how to best format it to make it engaging. The positives of doing a podcast is that I wouldn't have to appear on camera or have to do any video editing (which would be great because that's eliminating a process that I really don't enjoy). However, there are some downsides. Podcasts are an auditory medium, so it wouldn't be possible for me to show an footage to highlight what I am discussing, although I could use sound from the project to illustrate my point. I've done minimal research on this so far since my CCR is still kinda a long ways away, but I have found some websites that help you create engaging podcast websites such as Podbean and Simplecast, but I would need to find website without a hosting fee.

    The last idea that I came up with is a director's commentary type of video. The only director's commentary I've seen is the one featured in the La La Land DVD where Damien Chazelle and Justin Hurwitz talk over the entire movie to give insight on the process. Honestly, I thought this was SO boring, and only got through about the first half before I had to turn it off. However, I do enjoy watching those Vanity Fair interviews in which directors (or actors, choreographers, composers, etc.) break down specific scene (Denis Villenueve breaking down a scene from Dune and Park Chan-wook breaking down the hallway scene from Oldboy). I have a ton of DVDs at home that feature director's commentary that I could skim through to get inspiration.

Process/Schedule

    I'm still debating, but I might move back my project date a little bit more. I'm ready to film right now, but I am still having trouble getting actors. My personal deadline for filming is Wednesday though, so I can have Thursday and Friday to edit (I have experience editing, so I'm not particularly worried about how long it'll take me to edit). This leaves me with Spring break, and Monday and Tuesday of the week after to work on my CCR. My schedule is to start planning the CCR format this weekend and to have a hard plan by Monday. Once I'm done editing my opening (hopefully by Saturday), I'll begin writing the two scripts for the CCRs. Monday or Tuesday, I'll film the first one, edit it Wednesday, then film the second one Thursday and edit it Friday. I'm not doing anything this spring break, so I have basically that entire week to just film, edit, and write my blog. If I follow this schedule, it would leave the entire weekend and the two days of the other week to do any revisions and finalize editing. 

  

 

 Setbacks...Setbacks...Setbacks

        Let's be a little negative today! 

Equipment

    Ok so! I really want my opening to look good. I want it to have good lighting and the footage to look sharp. Right now, the only thing I have to film is my phone, which has great quality, but it doesn't capture footage white like I want it to. Last Thursday, I contacted BEACON in hopes to check out a camera and lighting kit prior to filming.  Unfortunately, they told me they would be out of town for the entire week due to STN. This puts me in a huge pickle because I have to choose whether to move my filming date back even more, which is a huge risk and leaves me little time for editing and CCR, on the other hand, I film with just my camera and hope for the best. I don't know what to do to be honest.

Credits

    My other little dilemma is how to structure my opening. Since I want to produce a horror, I actually do want to open with an at least tense scene (I don't know if I'll be able to scare anyone, but I'll try my best!) So, I have to figure out where to put my credits. I was thinking of having the entire sequence, and then opening to another scene where we roll credits, but I think that would be sacrificing time to develop the tone for my film. That leaves me with having the entire opening in the same setting of the get-together. I really don't want my film opening to be disturbed by the credits rolling in the bottom of the screen. I'll have to develop an establishing sequence to put the credits in and then start the action. So my problem is where to put the title. Do I open the scene with the title? Close it with the title? Maybe when the lights go out? WHAT IS MY TITLE? I have no clue. 

Actors

    I talked about this in my last post but might as well bring this up again. I have no idea who to get to act in my film. I have no idea how to ask other people to help me out. I'm also worried about the fact that the setting I have chosen to film in (my dining room), has many windows in the area, so I have to film at night to get the lighting I'm hoping for, and I don't know how many people would be willing to come to my house late at night to film :/

    I really need to solve these problems quickly because I HAVE to start filming by next weekend. And to be honest, I really want to start production on this! I think contacting some of my friends for help will actually really help me with these problems so I should get started on that soon...

 I'm Going to Lose My MindvcsukzmbDAKHZCIKAJ

    Disregard anything I said on Sunday, I was feeling a little silly. We're back to the original idea, yay!...This whole process has been a bit of a mess to be honest, I've been so indecisive with my opening, and I've changed it so many times at this point. This is my last idea though, it's this or this you know? I can't keep being wishy-washy about this while I'm losing time.  I had originally scheduled to film this weekend, but I'm falling behind schedule, so I'm pushing back to next week. My biggest worry at the moment is finding actors by next weekend because I 1) really don't want to direct my friends, it would be very awkward, 2) don't think any of my friends CAN act (unfortunately band kids are not particularly known for their acting skills), and 3) don't really know that many people (womp womp). Also, I have to time out the two minutes to see which one of my two credits ideas work better. Anyways, I finished storyboarding out the idea and writing the script (blog post about that tomorrow probably). Apologies for the nightmare inducing stick figures :/

    

    So yeah, I'm gonna work on test shooting and lighting the entirety of tomorrow because between club/officer meetings, band rehearsal, my trio rehearsal, district MPA on Thursday, and a Zoom meeting for a social media project that I accidently got myself into, this week'll be super busy for me. 

    Also, happy Oscars week! Rooting for Poor Things and Past Lives personally (I Bet on Losing Dogs or whatever Mitski said).

 It's Finally Slowly Starting to Come Together

What these past couple of weeks have felt like.

        

    So, I realized that I'm about to enter the fourth week of production and I still don't have a defined storyline for the actual film. I figured that as long as I knew what my opening would be, then I didn't need a full film, but now seeing my peers' groups and reevaluating my own progress, I'm beginning to understand that a "film opening" doesn't work without an actual "film". All of my previous research on horror, screenwriting, and storytelling has led me to one point: write what you know. And so, I am choosing to center my film around a theme of obsession. I don't consider myself to be an "obsessive" person (and this theme may not even be reflected in my opening), but I am aware that when I'm passionate about something, I can become quite...intense. So here it is:

    We open a little bit differently than I had intended. It's still a small get together of friends, but this time it's being recorded by one of them. The entire group is part of the seance. Like the original idea, it will go wrong, a girl gets possessed, the lights will begin to flicker, and when they come back on, she is dead. Then the camera will pan out, revealing that this footage is being watched by someone. The rest of the opening will be a collection of mise-en-scene elements to develop the character. We learn that he is a wanna-be filmmaker who has been researching this incident for a while. This is developed through shots of his surroundings: post-it notes, dvds, and papers. The scene ends with him contacting the person who posted the video, claiming that he is interested in doing an investigative documentary on the incident. End of opening. I literally came up with this idea a couple minutes ago, so it's possible I wake up tomorrow morning, absolutely HATE it, and revert to square one. Since my idea has changed quite a bit, I'm considering doing a bit more research on the topic, but luckily my idea hasn't changed enough for my previous research to have been for nothing. So far, I'm kinda basing my idea off Benny's Video, a movie about a kid so obsessed with video that he loses sense of reality and commits a horrific act, and We're All Going to the World's Fair. I haven't personally seen this Benny's Video (I will now though), but it's been in my watchlist for a while. I'm mostly interested in the set design elements during the opening that develop Benny's character. 

Stills from the opening sequence of Benny's Video

Stills from We're All Going to the World's Fair

    Rest of the movie: he gets into contact with the original poster of the video (who is actually in the opening sequence, we'll call them Riley), and begins to record a documentary surrounding the mysterious, unexplainable events of that night. At one point during filming, they have to re-do a seance scene, this time, nothing as drastic as the opening occurs. He isn't involved in it, only films it, but he begins to become very curious and takes the object before anyone notices. At this point, it's clear that this obsession isn't healthy, even though the documentary process so far may indicate this all being a hoax. He tries out the ritual (this is the climax), and becomes convinced that he is possessed. Riley begins to get worried at his deteriorating mental health and confesses that the original video was a fraud for popularity. However, he doesn't believe him and he continues to spiral. The film ends with him filming the final scene of the documentary: a murder that the "spirit" influenced him to do. 

Like I said, it's very possible that I'll scrap the idea by tomorrow morning, but for now, I really like this storyline and would totally watch a movie about this actually! Now to re-do my script and storyboard :(

 Group Meeting #1

    I really wish I could write more in this blog post, but unfortunately, we ran out of time right when I started presenting my ideas to the rest of the group AHHHHH. I did get a little bit of feedback on my lighting set-up (a research post on that is...imminent) which is one of my most pressing matters at this moment. I had originally planned to shoot the entire scene in red lighting, but one of my peers mentioned that it would look more natural if I shot it in a less stylist manner (I don't know how to properly describe it, but she meant to use flashlights and more natural lights to make it look like a casual get-together). She recommended looking into the scenes in Stranger Things in which the characters played Dungeons and Dragons in their basements for some inspiration.

Still from Stranger Things

    I really love this lighting set-up, I am a bit worried that since I am shooting on my phone, it won't be able to capture the footage well since it's so dark, but I'm definitely going to look into how to light a scene like this. Still brainstorming with this feedback, but I am thinking that we would open with one of the characters testing out this "ritual" and going fine and shooting this part in natural lighting. But when the main character tries it out, the lights go red to signify a tone shift; I am so bad at putting my thoughts into words unfortunately, but I hope this makes sense. Which brings me to...

The Script

    Before starting the group meeting, we watched Andrew Stanton's Ted Talk. He gave so much great advice for how to grow a story, but I'm particularly interested in two points that he made. He talked about building a character's spine, which is basically their motives, a story cannot move forward without the character's intentions and actions being made clear, right? I hadn't thought about this before, but now, I realize how absolutely essential this would be to my opening. What brought this group of teenagers together to do something like this? How did someone get ahold of this object? What are their relationships? Why would someone WANT to be possessed? So many questions!!!

    I'm still hoping to keep the dialogue to a minimum, so I want to express as much of the character's motives (acceptance, escape, etc.) through their actions and facial expressions. Andrew Stanton also said something in his Ted Talk that really resonated with me, "the audience wants to work for their meal, they just don't want to know that you're making them do that." Re-reading my first draft of the script, I realized that I was giving away too much frankly unnecessary, time-consuming information that could be better shared visually, for example, instead of outright saying the steps to do the ritual, I could just show them. Instead of developing the "villain" of the film, developing the characters would be crucial to building the rest of the plot. It would make so much more sense to show why the characters are doing this than rather having the characters constantly ask questions because frankly, narratively, why would they care? I'm going to create another, hopefully better draft of the script with the characters more fully realized (also, I need to create a "voice" for each of them, little quirks to the way they speak). I'm hoping that hoping that by fleshing-out the characters, their actions will feel natural, and the script will be easier to write. Getting to read my groups' scripts also really helped me gauge where I should be at at the moment. The main thing I got from getting to read the others' scripts is that I need the dialogue to seem more natural, like a group of friends at a party.

What I Still Need to Do

• Lighting and scene research. I have done some researching on seance scenes in horror, but I want to write a more comprehensive blog post particularly focusing on the production aspects of it. Fingers crossed this'll be done my Saturday. 
• STORYBOARD, I've done some general storyboarding, but the drawings are so bad that I honestly would rather just keep them to myself. Now that I've got a clearer plan of the scene, I hope to finish my final storyboard by the end of the week-early next week.
• Next draft of the script. This script will make me lose all my hair by the end of the year, but I'm beginning to understand that it starts to shape itself as time goes by, and this is still a learning process for me, so it can only get better (hopefully).
• Location. It's between my room and my living room at this point. My garage is a mess. I'll try out lighting and some of the shots in both locations and then compare.
• Plan out the 2 minutes...some of us *ahem* have a really bad sense of time.

    

 Progress Update...Do I Finally Have an Idea???

    I think I finally have a pretty fleshed out idea of what I want my scene to eventually become which is SUCH a relief because I've be stressing about coming up with a concept for the past two weeks. I've had so many interesting ideas in my head that I've really liked on paper but would either not translate well on screen or I just couldn't flesh out the idea. I've decided to go with something a little simpler, and very common for horror films: a seance (I'm going to research folklore and old stories to come up with a more original background than like a Ouija board seance). For what it's worth, I'm going to try to add my own spin to the idea, so it doesn't feel like a re-hash of any other horror movie. 

    

    I got home today really excited to start storyboarding it until I realized that I am unfortunately a very bad artist. I got through about like maybe three slides, but I decided that the drawings just weren't going to translate my vision. I have the visual story almost entirely imagined, so, for now, I'll just type in everything until I can translate it into drawing. Also, I was thinking of shooting all the scenes with just me (no actors, script, mise-en-scene elements) just to get a clearer idea of how it would look and to prepare before even beginning production. 

  

    So, the scene would open with some establishing shots. It's a small get together, there's four friends playing cards in a basement (I'll have to film in my garage, so we'll see how I'm gonna pull this off). We see a half empty popcorn bowl, close-ups of hands with cards, the friends laughing, etc. The final establishing shot would be an overhead shot of everyone sitting in a circle, the table and cards in the middle and the title fades in. We cut to the door opening and the last friend comes in. He's immediately the life of the party, the camera follows him into the room, he sits down and pulls out some artifact type thing (still in the progress of this). The camera lingers on it for a bit. The friends ask him where he got it and he pulls out his phone camera and jokily tells a creepy story of his dead grandma. As he tells it, the camera rotates around the table to get a close-up of all their reactions. We land back to the artifact as he slides it over to the girl across from him. She's the quietest of the group. Initially she's reluctant to try it out, but eventually gives into the pressure. The boy explains that she has to ... (initially the idea was to spill her blood on the object but I'm not sure how I would do that), and she does. The tone is still carefree at this point but as soon as she ... something shifts. She recoils in horror like if she's seen something, and everyone starts laughing. She starts screaming loudly, by this point they realize something is wrong. Her hand shoots up and her eyes begin to roll to the back of her head, the lights are flickering, now everyone is screaming, chaos has ensued. This goes on for a few seconds before the lights go off. Lights come back on and we're focused on a close-up of the boy's face. In the background, we see and hear the friends go to check on the girl. He doesn't stand up, his breathing intensifies, a ringing noise comes on, and the scene ends. 

    

    So yeah, that's what I got for now.

Kendall Roy image to represent how I'm feeling now that I've finally visualized an idea.

Obviously, I'm just getting started on this and there's so much research, planning, and eventual production left, nut I feel really happy with my idea so far. I also have some other visual ideas that I want to incorporate into it. I want to use lighting. I've never worked with lighting before, but watching past projects, I feel like it is definitely underused and often forgotten in productions. I was thinking that red lighting and lighting from candles will help enhance the eerie vibe. I also want to have less editing and longer takes, I'll eventually see how the project comes out filmed, and this is just a personal preference of mine, but I prefer longer takes with camera movement. I just think it looks more "cooler". 

Script Research (AKA Ari Aster Save Me...Save Me Ari Aster)

    I've never really written a script for anything, so I figured before I start working on any of THAT, I do a little bit of screenwriting research. I found this article by Studiobinder breaking down tips for how to write a horror story. Advice that they emphasize again and again is to watch and analyze other film and directors to shape you own vision. And so, I went down a rabbit hole of reading and watching interviews of some of my favorite productions. While most of the interviews I found had little relation and offered no help for my endeavor, I did find a No Film School interview with Ari Aster that offered some insightful advice. Aster discusses how he built his own fears and past experiences into the making of Hereditary. When asked about how his own life bled into the screenplay, he said this: "What's beautiful about filmmaking is that you're able to take more personal stuff, put it through the filter, and out comes an invention". 

What Am I Scared Of...

    I really like Aster's way of looking at horror, I do think that incorporating my own fears will be much more effective than doing a cliche rehash of another horror idea. After some introspection, I begun to brainstorm what I really find terrifying, so I guess here's a little storytime. When I was eight, my friend received a chainmail that, long-story short, said that she would disappear if she didn't send the message to a certain number of people. The message was so obviously fake, but I was an eight-year-old with an overactive imagination and bad anxiety. I think what terrified me so much was this feeling of having absolutely no control of what could happen next. For months, I was paranoid at any sound or shadow in the corner of my eye. It's fascinating to me is how after experiencing trauma (talking more in general now...not implying that receiving a prank message is traumatic), our brains become unable to separate reality from imagination. I know that horror film exploring trauma and mental health have become a little disliked by audiences in the last couple of years, but I truly want to use this my own opening. Obviously, it'll be hard to express a character's trauma in just two minutes (especially without professional actors), so developing context (showing the actual traumatic experience) will be necessary.     With the similar theme of confusing reality, I find the possibility of myself losing my mind to be absolutely terrifying. One of the most underrated horrors I've seen, We're All Going to the World's Fair, uses this fear to show a character's spiral. I loved We're All Going to the World's Fair so much because it's very ambiguous in whether the character's experience were real or if she was truly losing her mind. 

    These two fears seem really different from each other, and I might not incorporate both, but I do believe that both will make a great basis for a horror film. Just for brainstorming reasons, I was think generally that the film should open with the character viewing someone else losing their mind (maybe being chased by something that's not there) and have that be the character's catalyst for trauma. But for now that's all I've got.

Where Do We Go From Here

    I think this'll be my last research post for a couple days, I've done quite a bit of research thus far and I think it's finally time to get started. Tomorrow, I hope to get started on the script (and maybe even finish a first draft of it). I'm excited to see how all of this research will shape my story. 

Sources

Buder, E. (2018, June 7). “hereditary”: How Ari Aster pushed his horrifying film “as dark as it could go.” No Film School. https://nofilmschool.com/2018/06/hereditary-ari-aster-interview

Kench, S. (2023, October 30). Horror writing tips for Fiction & Film. StudioBinder. https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/how-to-write-horror/

 Scheduling

    A little bit of a shorter blog post today, but I started developing a production schedule. I chose to put it into my Google calendar because I started using it last year and it's really helped me keep on track with school and all my extracurriculars. Since we're still in the early stages of production, this schedule is open to change (and I am preparing for it to change a lot). So far, it's just a very rough outline of the production process; I've included a lot more details and tasks for the pre-production process because I have a more general idea of what I need to prepare before production begins. Once I find actors and finish my script/storyboard/shot list, I'll begin to detail a more comprehensive filming schedule, including shooting times and dates. Once I know what my story outline will be, I'll also start making a mise-en-scene development schedule (making costumes, set design, any props, etc.). As someone who is very much not organized and a big procrastinator (case in point, I'm writing this blog post at 10 PM on a Saturday night), I hope that creating this schedule will help me stay on top of this project. I really think that having a clear schedule + pre-production elements like shot lists and script will go a long way to making this whole thing run smoothly, if I follow this schedule and all goes to plan, I'll have my entire portfolio done in time without having to rush elements of it.

(Click on pic to enlarge)