Today we did our second group meeting! We discussed everything about our films production and such, and I got a lot of great feedback from the group that will definitely help my project improve!
The first person to present her film was Brynn. She had trouble coming up with a film name so we had given her some suggestions. What we settled on for her was "20 Questions" since the film is a Romcom about a girl getting a mysterious message from a boy in her math class asking to play 20 questions. The film is shot in her house and she mostly focused on using lighting to convey meaning in the opening. She said the film is meant to represent girlhood and femininity. She is also filming her CCRs today which is ahead of the rest of our group!Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Group Meeting #2
Saturday, March 8, 2025
CCR TIME!!! (Question 1)
Now for answering the first question, how does my product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
First let's discuss genre conventions. My film had utilized a multitude of genre conventions considering Psychological Dramas. First of all, all of the films I have seen in this genre also take the approach of specific color schemes to make the main character specifically stand out. A good example of this (Like I had mentioned before) would be The Joker. I had also taken a lot of inspiration from the opening credits of films like these (ex. Whiplash). Though, I had challenged some conventions, too. The main thing I had challenged was the main character being the protagonist. In my film, the main character is actually the antagonist of the film, even though that isn't specifically brought up in the opening. I had also made the psychological issue of the main character something a lot more abstract (I mean, I don't think films usually have a clown that only one person can see putting tape over people mouths...) But in all seriousness, I think I stuck to the genre pretty well, even though I took a bunch of my own creative liberties with it too.
The next part of this question is representation, and that is a big one for me and this film. I had specifically planned out for the two main characters to represent a new oppressive government and revolution. Though, it's a bit hard to make that clear within the opening. The whole concept of the film itself is representing how some countries take away freedom of speech for their citizens. The whole point of the silencing is how Charles, the 'new government', doesn't listen to things he doesn't want to hear. There is slightly more to it than that though. While that description is baseline, I could honestly argue instead of it showing Charles not listening, it shows Charles genuinely not allowing that person to express that idea anymore after they speak out against him. This is why within the opening I show Jackson, the revolution, rip his tape off. Some people will put their lives, or in the case of the film friendships, on the line to actually be able to voice their opinion. While the film itself may have a less serious tone, it represents a much larger issue.
Thursday, March 6, 2025
Time to edit!
Finally it's time to edit! As I've most likely mentioned before, I'm still relatively new to editing, so this has been a challenge for me the past few days. Figuring out everything on my own was super difficult for me, but I'm glad I got it done. To edit this film, I used Adobe Premiere Pro.
For the sake of my project, I had watched a ton of tutorials on YouTube for more techniques than just basic ones. My top concern was the final clip of the opening with all the overlapping audio and video. Luckily, I was able to figure it all out with the tutorials. Since a lot of this film is back and forth between the actors, I definitely utilized shot-reverse shots a lot here. While doing this, I filmed in the exact spot one character was while I filmed the other one as they both would say their lines that come before and after each other. This made editing a lot easier for me, too, since I didn't have to cut out unnecessary silence in the beginnings and ends of clips.
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
A million problems to solve
Monday, March 3, 2025
It's filming time!!
Today was filming day! FINALLY all my actors were available to film! Luckily, school wasn't an issue today since all my actors were able to come at the same time after school and they were so easy to work with it was so quick! Jumping into filming from weeks and weeks of planning was honestly a bit stressful. Thankfully, my actors made it so much easier. They all gave me their input on some of the acting choices and really made the characters their own.
My actors also made the whole process super quick since all of them do theatre outside of this film. They really knew how to understand the characters and also memorize their lines. Of course, we still had some slip ups here and there, but it made the whole filming process a lot more bearable. Not saying I hated it, but it took a lot of stress off me since they made it feel more like a hangout with my friends while still taking it seriously.
Group Meeting #2
Today we did our second group meeting! We discussed everything about our films production and such, and I got a lot of great feedback ...
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I finally finished the script! To be so honest, this has been in the works for a long time, even before I fully knew my project idea. ...
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Representation in the Media is very important since it can change the entire portrayal of the reality created in the work. In the Hunc...
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In this film, The two characters I want to focus on developing most are Charles and Jackson. Overall, I want it to become obvious who th...