Storyboard Draft Complete

For today and the next 2 days my group will be meeting up to get more work done on our opening. Today's meeting was based solely around our storyboard and what direction we think our opening should go in. It took us a while since we took so many snack breaks but in the end I am pretty happy with our storyboard and now that we have it done our filming should be much easier. During our meeting we also discussed the room layout and how we want to design it. We ordered some props, one big one being a clothing rack to have on the side of the room.

Below is a collection of our storyboard and some of our planning papers. There is a lot of pictures so I did not want to clutter my blog page with all of them

Planning Papers Album

Group Meeting Feedback

Today in class we had the opportunity to discuss our current film opening progress with our peers. Getting an inside look at how other people are furthering their projects gave me a better idea of continuing with my own production. I think one of the biggest things that interested me was hearing other peoples problems. Now, this may sound counterproductive as learning about others problems won't help me create my opening. However, through learning about some group members struggles (one big one being set design) I am going to talk with my group and figure out how we can navigate further. With our current schedule we are set to begin filming on Sunday, after hearing about problems with others setting up their sets the day of filming I am going to try going to Oliver's house a day early to get our set finalized.

Plans in motion

Today my group was able to all meet up and finish our 1st draft for our film opening. This is really big for us as we are staying perfectly on schedule and organized. We also decided on a filming location of Oliver's spare room in his house, the room is mainly empty which will allow us to create our ideal set without many problems. Between the 3 of us, my group has a good amount of mise-en-scene elements for right now. We may have to do a small amount of shopping to make it exactly how we envision it though. That is pretty much the extent of our work today, I will be uploading pictures of our first storyboard draft tomorrow when I get them. I hope everyone is enjoying watching our journey and I hope you will not be disappointed with the final result!

Our story, but for real!

Im back again! This time i wanted to bring in the real story of Essena O’Neill that relates to our film opening plot. In case you haven’t read my previous posts, my film opening for my aice media studies class is going to be based around a online model and her toxic relationship with social media. This isn’t a crazy out of this world idea, here is it happening for real (Article) the model that speaks out against how people can become obsessed and absorbed in social media said “Without realizing, I’ve spent the majority of my teenage life succumbing to social media addiction, social approval, social status, and my physical appearance,” O’Neill wrote in an October 27th Instagram post. “Social media, especially how I used it, isn’t real. It’s a system based on social approval, likes, validation in views, success in followers. It’s perfectly orchestrated self-absorbed judgment.” This is perfect for how we want to present our story and we can continue to look at this her story as a reference.

Back to the beginning

Big updates on the opening! My group has collectively decided that we will stray away from our current film opening dealing with a schizophrenic character. We have come to this decision after getting outsider opinions and realizing the difficulty to properly convey the message while having correct representation. We are not at that level yet to stray that far out of our comfort zone but hopefully by the end of the year we are confident enough to take on more ambitious projects! Our revised idea is dealing with the perception of what you present yourself to be to the public and who you actually are. We are going to do this by telling the story of an Instagram model coming to terms with this and realizing the toxic relationship they have with social media.

In our new film opening idea we really want to introduce the character and the characters relationship with social media. Our current idea is that the character is struggling with seeming happy all the time on social media and in her posts. This is much easier to convey than a character dealing with schizophrenia and our new idea is much more relatable with a wider audience. This weekend my group is meeting up to discuss in more detail and I should have some first drafts of our storyboards up soon. We are thankfully still within our scheduled planning period so no corners will have to be cut for us.

Music Permissions

Hello! In this look into our project I want to focus on music! Music for our film is going to be really important in juxtaposing a sense of calm over the intense tone of the video. If we decided to not put in music there would be a lot of super quiet parts that feel.... well awkward to watch. Implementing music masks that awkwardness and will allow the viewer to to continue watching comfortably. Out of what we have found, the best music by far is FTA by Whitney. The problem with this is it is copyrighted music and we will require artist permission to use it in our video. However, with Whitney being a relatively new indie band (Formed in 2015) we are hoping they would be open to giving us permission to use the song in our film opening. Their use of the piano and guitar in the song is perfectly interlaced to create a feeling of homeliness. Have a listen for yourself below.

Plot Update!

With this week coming to a close, I met up with Oliver during lunch today and narrowed down the main plot idea and how we are going to present it. We want our film to be about a characters acceptance and overcoming of their schizophrenia through their art. Schizophrenic art can be really interesting as a lot of the time it has a uncomfortable feeling to it.

Schizophrenic Art

The idea of using art as a coping mechanism isn't an out of this world idea either. One girl, Kate Fenner draws her hallucinations and what her voices tell her to cope with her condition and bring awareness to it. In our film we want to focus a lot on the art as a form of catharsis. Oliver's drawing style would be easily adapted to fit this.

Oliver's Art Portfolio

Our group plans to have the storyboard draft done by the end of this week and then jump right in to wrapping up planning and begin our production. Updates coming soon!