Well, FINALLY!

 WE DID IT!!! Well- not actually did everything, but the hardest part is over. We have officially filmed EVERYTHING! I feel as though we are very behind with this which worries me, but luckily all of my CCR research and planning had been done during our limbo week where we couldn't get anything done due to our casting issues. So now, let's recap everything we did this week since my last blog post!

On Thursday, we invited over a few extras to do our party scene, and we got a lot of footage done then. The most filming we did was on Saturday, though, since we re-filmed and finished all of the therapist office footage, which is sort of the 'meat' of the film. During all of this, I again was making a ton of social media posts. I'm most excited about the character poster one I had made on Thursday, I feel like it does a great job at promoting the film.

I also worked a lot on finishing the meet the cast posts, and scheduling all of the future posts, so you will be seeing a lot of that in the future! I'm so excited to share more of my work, and all of the troubles me and Mariana had with our casting and filming schedule paid off. Although this wasn't the ideal situation we are still getting it done!

Mariana also did the post card, and I added a bit of extra touches, like a QR code to our social media in the empty spaces that looked a bit awkward on its own.

Again, the bulk of what I did is social media related, but it has been a crazy amount of simultaneous work when it came to filming days. On Saturday it was the hardest, because we filmed one scene where Mariana couldn't film so I had to do that instead of making any social media posts of BTS content, which was slightly annoying since there were some great opportunities there. Then, since all of the filming was done at my house, I also had to help adjust the lighting and set as we went on filming to help portray different locations. Since I had just moved, it was very difficult to locate everything we would need for this film and I was glad to see we could get it done.

Even though everything felt last minute, we got it all done! Now Mariana is handling editing while I continue the long process of making even more social media posts until the project is finished. But for now, that's a wrap!

Ready, and FILM! FILM! FILM!

 Hello! Today was....LONG. Starting off my morning with the SAT was not on my bucket list for a day that I knew was also full of filming, but we do what we have to do! This begins the marathon of me and Mariana's filming, since we are definitely behind. Since my main job is maintaining the social media, I have to make sure to record as much BTS content as possible these next few days!

So today we filmed the scene where Cameron comes home from the party and gets confronted by her mother. Also, maybe I forgot to mention but the gender of Cameron had to be swapped due to our issues with our lead actors dropping, so we had to swap a bit of the casting around. This honestly wasn't a huge deal since the name Cameron isn't heavily associated with any gender, so we didn't have to change much of the script.

Now Mariana is playing Sarah, which sort of helps us out because she had to be present for any of the filming either way, so we don't need to work around even more people's schedules.

While we filmed these parts, I also simultaneously made Instagram posts for every single thing we had done. Today, I made more of the meet the cast posters, and behind the scenes posts, both reels and images. Something I did was take a ton of pictures of the filming process as we went because I noticed a lot of other groups just made some behind the scenes 'dumps' where they got to show a bunch of random photos from the filming process. Again, a big thing for me is keeping our digital presence sort of 'real' and welcoming, so I thought this would be a great addition to our Instagram page! That's all for now, update when we finish filming everything!

Group Meeting 2!

 Today we did our second group meeting! This honestly both freaked me out and calmed me down, but it was overall very productive and I'm happy we did it. We went around and just said the basic plot of our films and what we had done, and this is where I was like "Oh shit, I'm in trouble..." Luckily, the group did a great job at helping each other out, and they definitely helped give me a reality check and put me back on track.

The first person who presented was Aneesa. Compared to the rest of us, her group was definitely ahead of the game. She was telling us about the social media aspects of the project more, since that was what she was in charge of. She had a ton of great ideas on how they were posting everything on track and showed us how they tackled this part of the project. The biggest takeaway I had from her was the ability to schedule posts through an app, which I was actually looking for (I mentioned it in a previous post!) This will be super helpful to me since I desperately need to make a strict posting schedule that I don't want to worry about on days where I get super busy and forget about posting. 

Then Emi went! She was also in charge of the social media of her groups project, so a lot of the information was similar to Aneesa's. I also follow their account on our film's social media page, so I have been seeing what they are up to. Something I took away from her was her very specific brand identity when it came to the social media page. I definitely want a stricter brand, so this was a great example of what I could be doing.

Adriana was next! I remember her film since she is working with one of my friends who was also a part of my old group from the previous group meeting. They seemed to be very on top of their filming schedule, regardless of the similar issues we had run into, so I definitely want to get to the same point as her, and she really helped open my eyes as to how behind me and Mariana are filming-wise. 

Vicky was similar, I also had one of her group members in a past meeting, so I remember the film, and she seemed to be in a similar spot as Adriana with their filming. She told us about a photoshoot she did for the postcard they made, and I have been thinking of doing something similar for the social media aspects of the film, so that was super helpful.

Then I went, I told everyone about the many issues me and Mariana ran into and what we had done, and surprisingly I was pretty ahead of the group when it came to social media. Obviously, some people, like Aneesa, had most posts done already and they hadn't been posted, but some groups hadn't even started on their social media accounts yet, which, as bad as it sounds, felt like a huge weight off my shoulders.

After me was Samara. It was a bit hard to find anything from her project that I could take away and incorporate into mine, since she did a documentary, but it was also great to hear about a different type of project and how she was handling that. She gave a lot of great insight when it came to editing, too, which I will definitely share with Mariana, since she is editing it.

That was everything from today! I can't believe we will be done next week!

Back to social media!

 Alright! So today I got about 3 social media posts done. Since I made myself a template it was super easy to get them done and when I get more headshots from my actors I can just speed through these types of posts, but for now I have three of them! Right now, I have Me, Mariana, and Brandon. I am going try to post every day from now on, which seems a bit unrealistic, but I think there might be a way to schedule Instagram posts, so I can get a lot done at once, and then I can upload daily without needing to worry about the posts until I make new ones.

So obviously I started the posting with me and Mariana's posts, since we are the crew and I feel as though it makes more sense for an audience to see the cast first, and then the crew (like a film's post-credits). For the aura colors of the cast, we are making them relate to the character's personality traits and stories. I am a bit worried about how cohesive the posting looks, but because of the color scheme progression it will probably work, since the post after mine will be for Cameron Martinez, and then Sarah, and finally Dr. Black's post will go after that. 

I know it seems weird that I don't have Cameron and Sarah's done while I have Dr. Black's done, but I just don't have the headshots for those two actors yet, and getting those posts done will be super quick. So now I need to think about the next posts, we are planning on filming on Friday, so I hope I can get character posters made and behind the scenes images. That will definitely make up a lot of the posting until we decide how to advertise "future events"

That's it for now! We'll see how the future posting unfold!

Set ideas!!

 Alright, so now that we’re planning our actual filming process, I need to think more about set! For one of the scenes (the party) we are planning on using my house. I have multiple areas where I think the party scene could take place, but I think the living room will be best for this scene.

Right now, my living room is decorated pretty cozy, and for the party scene we are definitely going to need to cover that up. The problem is that the bookshelf definitely can’t move anywhere. By filming at night, the sunlight won’t be an issue and then maybe that darkness can help cover up the bookshelf, since with the sunlight it’s already very in the dark. 

That being said, a lot of props will have to be used to help bring the party look to life. Pizza boxes, solo cups, bottles of soda, etc. will be perfect for making this look like an average highschool party. Next, I need to worry about lighting. From last year’s projects, I already have a ton of different items I can use to help with the lighting. I need one that can change colors quickly, instead of one solid color, so it looks like a high energy party, even though we’re inviting 14 highschools over to be extras after SAT day. I think having a light that pulses through different colors would look perfect for making it look like a highschool party, but sometimes instead they have the lights off. I want to play around with that look too, but I’m not sure how to make that translate properly on camera. I’ll update as I figure things out!

Posting....Posting....and more posting!

 Today I am going to be making some of our Instagram posts! The first ones I want to make are a sort of 'meet the team' type of post, where I can introduce me, Mariana, and the actors! Something we are going to need for this post is headshots, so obviously that is the first step! I reached out to the actors for headshots, and since not everyone had them, I am going to hold off on these types of posts for a bit. The thing about this is, it's hard to make a page look good if it's constantly one graphic after another.

My solution to this will be to begin with my own. This is the template I will be using for my own personal description, and I will switch the formatting around a bit to give at least some contrast when it comes to the others (The image of the person came with the template I found, so it's gonna stay for now until I find a good headshot and send it to my laptop). Me and Mariana are figuring out whether we want the description to be a direct quote from the person or more like a bio on each person.

The pros of doing a direct quote would be making the posts feel more personal and connected with our audiences, but it wouldn't do as good of a job of giving an actual explanation of each person's role in the film as a bio would.

I think that we should do personal quotes, since the bios seem more resume-like, and they obviously don't need to showcase that since we are all already involved in the film. Using a quote helps add some personality to the film, and we can use the quotes to maybe add some hype to the film itself, since we are giving the audience direct feedback from the cast and crew. I need to ask Mariana what her opinion is, though. I'll update as we get to more posting! 

Filming day one!

 Hello! Today we filmed our first few scenes with the Dr. Black (Therapist) and Cameron Martinez. We decided we want to revise the flashback scenes, so we are still in the process of writing those. For now, let's talk about what we did today!

Filming these scenes was a bit of a struggle, because we had to first figure out our location, as I was mentioning last post. We weren't able to go to an actual therapist's office, and neither of our parents work in a place that would work as this type of office visually, so we had to use one of our homes. Organizing this to look good enough for the scene was hard, but luckily, we got it done!

We honestly just begun from the beginning and stopped at the point where we wanted to revise the script, just because we feel super behind and want to get as much done as possible. We also took a bunch of promo photos and behind the scenes photos so we could post more on Instagram. Luckily, since our actors do theatre, it was easy to get good takes where they were genuine, so we got to play with the characters a bit and let them take their own liberties. 

This film is going to rely mostly on editing, so it's not going to look that great until we are done with editing entirely. Honestly for where we are in the project schedule, I don't feel great about our progress, and we need to play a ton of catch up for me to actually feel confident.

Me and Mariana are going to Florida State Thespians Festival the 18th-21st, so a lot of the work we do this week will be for the other two components rather than the actual film portion, because we won't be able to film any more while we are out in Tampa. 

I really hope the two of us get more done during the rest of the week, but for now, that's everything and we need to relax and enjoy our spring break and Thespians competition.