Edits of the Fonts (Editing Part 2)

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Aside from the visual aesthetics and sound aspects that we have to edit for our film opening, we must also add our title and a credit sequence at some point throughout the opening. We want the credits to be scattered throughout the beginning montage and we actually have two options where we think that the title could be placed in. However, all this is for naught if we don't have good visuals with which to implement these credits, and, by this, I mean we need a good font.

Sofia last week took some time to scour through programs like Canva to find a font that she thought we could use for both the title and the credit sequence, and she found a lot of good options. In her own blog she talked about five specific fonts that she found and these were Alice, Della Respira, The Seasons, Amatic SC, and Sunday. After talking about it, we decided that Alice and Sunday were two of our favorites for this project. We thought that both of them were fun and quite whimsical for the teenage summer aesthetic we wanted, yet they still held some of the seriousness we are including in the themes of our film. Here are how Sofia tested them both out with the title of our film.

Alice                                                         Sunday

Since we had to decide between both of these, and we couldn't, we actually reached the conclusion that we didn't really need to pick between the two. Sunday looked much more like a font fit for a title—the uniformity of the capital letters, the uniqueness of the letters' serifs and spacings—while Alice keeps a little more to its seriousness and simplicity—the inclusion of lowercase letters and the simplicity of each character. It was because of this that we decided we'd stick with Sunday for the title then switch over to Alice for all the other credits, so that they'd be easier to read and they wouldn't be in the way or the first thing that draws your eye when they come on screen, allowing us to keep the focus on the scene happening at the moment.

With this decided we can now move forward to including them in our film opening as we continue to edit the project. This will begin happening next week as this week is almost over and we need to shoot some new scenes and re-shoot some of our poorer shots from this week during the weekend. It'll be very exciting to add all of our credit sequences since it will look all the more professional and I'm personally very excited for the title as it encompasses the entirety of this project.

Editing Part 1

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Now that we are largely done with filming, aside from only a couple of scenes we're looking to re-shoot on Sunday, it's time to put all of our individual clips together as part of the first step in editing. This is a very important part in editing because, not only am I making one singular, long video, I am ensuring continuity within the film. It connects each small video in one fluid story line, connecting every idea and finally starting to see our vision coming to life. 

It's been a pretty slow process to put all of our clips together because they have to be trimmed in such a meticulous and precise way that ensures a stray 'action' cannot be heard and that there is no hesitation from the actors waiting for a cue before they start acting. Sometimes they are trimmed too much and an action or a line is cut, and sometimes they weren't trimmed enough and the dialogue does not flow as seamlessly as possibly. Besides, the entire opening has to be around 2 minutes long so we also have to ensure that all these small little videos add up to that time frame and that we aren't ridiculously over or under that time. Regardless, though, it has been very fun to begin to see what the final product could be like. We are still some ways from being done, but, after weeks of planning and preparing, seeing the story in its entirety at last is quite satisfying for me and Sofia, and it only excites us even more to finish it all.

So far this week, aside from putting the individual videos together, we also began to play around with the way our music would play throughout the opening. Like I said in an earlier post, we are using StudioHeta's "This Is A Restart" to play through the beginning montage of the opening, so we had to see the volume at which it would play, as well as if it would fade in or out in certain moments or when it would end altogether. We are still unsure on how exactly we want it, but we will keep playing around with it as we continue to add other sounds and finish other edits. 

Editing this week has been very fun to do, and it only continues to excite me as we draw closer and closer to the end of this project in only a couple of weeks. We still have quite a bit of work left to do, but I think that it should all flow easier from here on out.

Here is a quick time lapse of the beginning process of editing this film opening.

Filming Days 1 & 2

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Day 1

Long awaited, the first day of filming has arrived. We had some trouble finding a date to finally begin filming because we had to find a day that not only accommodated Sofia and I's schedule, but also both of our actors' as well as our set since it was only available certain days. However, it finally happened and we began to film this afternoon.

Our day of filming began right after school. Well, sort of, because I got very sick over the weekend and I almost did not make it to filming at all, but fighting through the fatigue and coughing, I made it. While Sofia and our actors waited for me, however, they went ahead and tried on the costumes that we had chosen out for them last week to make sure that they fit, as well as the jewelry options we had for them. At my house I also found some other bracelet and ring options that I thought could work, so I also brought these with me when finally I went to Sofia's house, our set. 

We did need to change one of the scenes from our original storyboard however and this was the scene with the mom because the actress that was originally going to be the mom did not match well with the actress that is playing Lily, and we could not find anyone that could fill in. Instead, we changed the scene so that the mother would not be home at the moment and the characters would be interacting with Lily's annoyed younger brother, played by Sofia's brother. However, we needed to wait for him to get out of school because his school does not release until a little after 4. Until then, we played with our actors, positioning them in the places we planned in our storyboard to see if we liked the planned shots and set up our props around the house as we needed them as can be seen in this video

Prop Set Up

We chose to film all of the indoor scenes today because we just got hit with a cold front, again, and it was much too cold to be in our summer attire biking outside. So, we turned on the heating in the house and filmed everything from the moment the girls walk in to the very last moment of the film opening.

Filming went rather smoothly today with nothing much too serious to note. Only a couple of shots were re-shot in account of some giggling, lack of continuity, or simply because we wanted to try something new. 

Day 2

Today, the temperature has increased once again, making it possible to shoot all of our outdoor scenes, which make up the majority of our film opening in a sort of montage. 

Once again, we started right after school, and, now that we had the costumes picked out, we started a lot sooner. This ended up being good for us as well because, today, we needed as much sunlight as we could get, and with Daylight Savings time, we were short on time. Also, the day ended up being pretty cloudy so we were worried about it not looking as sunny as we wanted it to, but the clouds were moving quite a bit so we did end up being able to have large patches of sunlight shining through.

Most, if not all, of the shots from today would need both of our characters biking around so we also first needed to make sure our bikes had air in the tires so our actors wouldn't die or something, I'm not quite sure what happens when the tires aren't pumped. Once both of our bikes were ready, we started filming.

The biggest issue with our shots from today, however, were that most of them took place in the middle of the road and they weren't exactly empty streets, so we had to wait or be interrupted quite often for the sake of not being run over. Because of this, we also did lose quite a bit of daylight so we ended up deciding to need a 3rd day to film because it was much darker by the time we filmed these last few shots than when we started which would make us lose continuity.

The majority of the scenes that we filmed today didn't have many lines so it was mostly a matter of camera work, which made it a very simple day of filming once we sorted out all the other quirks we had in the mix.

Here are some behind the scenes clips from both days:

Day 1: Medicine Scene

Day 1: Final Scene

Day 2: Biking Around

Day 2: Timelapse of Walk to Location

Day 2: Mailbox Scene

And a clip of me almost getting run over, but anything for the shot (sound on):

I get the shot, but there's a car behind me

Production: Choosing Costumes

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Like with the process of making our props, it was very difficult to develop our costume design. We had to find  costumes and outfits that looked to be from the early 2000's since our story is set in 2005. This was difficult because neither Sofia nor I own very many clothes that were in style then so we had to get creative and try to find something outside of our closets.

We have two very distinct characters that each have their own distinct style that represents their personality, as well as their age and the era. Jackie is a very creative and art oriented person, and her clothing should reflect her need and her want to express herself and her interests/passions through her appearance. Lily, on the other hand, is a very easy going person, she goes with the flow and isn't too worried about her appearance.

Our first plan to get costumes was to visit a Goodwill store in which we could find second hand items that were more in style 20 years ago, but we were unable to in the end due to a multitude of reasons, mainly we had no way to get there. So, we had to quickly get much more creative and resourceful. Luck was on our side, however, when Sofia remembered that her mother had a large bag of clothes that she no longer wears and was planning to donate them, and these clothes were almost exactly what we were looking for. We found a couple items that would work well for the characters, but we ran into another issue here. Her mother also had a large stand of necklaces that fit the time period fairly well—longer than usual and often bulky—but not all of them worked as well as we wanted them to, so we had a limited selection from which to choose. Because the necklaces are mainly for Jackie due to her personality, the choices are even more limited since the outfit we found is a dark color, and many of the necklaces' colors don't stand out too well. Lily's clothing is a little simpler, though, mostly because we don't want to give her too much jewelry since it doesn't seem like her personality. For her clothing, we chose a white top that is very flowy and simple, much like Lily's character, with minimal accessories to contrast Jackie.

Also, when I say that we have yet to choose a specific outfit is when we run into our final problem. We have not been able to meet with our actors yet, so we do not know for sure that the costumes we've chosen will fit them properly. If they don't we'll have to find a way to make their actual clothes work within the time period.

Here are some photos and videos of Sofia and I looking through possible clothing options as well as trying some on to see how we could style them.

    

Production: Making Props

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In a previous post I talked about some important props that we would need to make for this project. These were some of the classic yellow bottles of pills for the medicine our character takes near the end of our opening, and the actual pills of course, and the envelopes that they would receive that signify their acceptance into the university of their dreams. It is very important that we make these props as realistic as possible because, if they look cheap or fake, the whole production won't look as serious or professional as it should. Especially because we've chosen to use a different time period to ours, albeit only 20 years ago, many things were different then to now, so we have to, not only make sure that our entire mise-en-scene looks real, but also specifically the way that things looked 20 years ago.

One of the biggest changes from then to now is that now we have the overwhelming use of the internet in almost every aspect of our lives. So, to accommodate for this, most universities will send an email to access their webpage where admission decisions are available for students, but, in the early 2000's, the internet was only just starting to pick up and this wasn't common in the slightest. Because of this, we couldn't simply have our characters get a quick email on their phones and move on, we had to have some physical form of mail that our actors could actually hold and open. As my research in a previous blog post explains, students would receive a large and thick envelope from schools signifying their acceptance into that university, our characters will receive such envelopes, thick enough to contain multiple pamphlets with information and such. We decided that they would be applying to NYU, the New York University, since it is a prestigious university, hence their excitement, and it would mean that they could move to New York together, a great opportunity for them as best friends starting college. 

We met up this week to start the actual creation of them so that we can begin filming this coming week. We made the packages using some large envelopes of size 8 1/2 x 11" that Sofia's dad had from work. On them, we printed the university’s logo and address as well as each character's name as recipients and their addresses and city. We stuffed them with a lot of papers that we could find so that they would look bigger and thicker as well as some magazines and comics I had around my house to account for the amount of paperwork inside them. Specifically for Lily's, I typed up a letter of acceptance that she is going to pull out of the envelope and read to Jackie. For this, I copied some letters of admissions to NYU that I could find on Google, Pinterest, and Instagram and edited it to fit our purposes. Here are some photos and videos of us making them!

The second very important prop we had to make was the medicine bottle I mentioned earlier. Obviously we weren't going to make a bottle from scratch, but we were going to put some items together to make them play as the medicine Lily would take. Here's what we did.

Sofia has this carousel sort of organizer in her house where her family stores all of their vitamin bottles as well as other medicines they take, and my family has some of the classic yellow bottles as well, and, luckily, one of them has recently been emptied, so we're going to use this. Because Lily's character is ill, she would need to take many medicines, which is what the organizer's job will be: to show a lot of small bottles together where we're going to say is where Lily stores them all. Now, we obviously can't have our actress take any of these pills, so I'm going to take one of my family's empty containers to Sofia's house when we begin to film and I'm going to put some Altoids mints into the bottle and these are going to be what our Lily will take near the end of the opening. These actually turned out to be the perfect fake pills. Check them out.

We're Officially a Company

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We're officially a company! Though not really, of course, but we have created the name and logo for our production studio that is producing this film. The production studio is usually one of the first credits to appear in the credit sequence in a film opening, and it is really important because it allows the company to establish their presence right off the bat. It builds their brand and identity to do so, and having a logo along with their name only strengthens their professionalism within the industry. Oftentimes, production companies will have the same logo, introduction, or animation to label themselves, but other times, and my favorite times, the companies customize the logo dependent on each film, so there is unity throughout the entirety of the film. When creating our own production company logo, I took inspiration from this approach.

Besides simply including the production company name, we  wanted to include some sort of visual element that tied with themes in our film. Once we had found the name for Lily, which has great meaning in flower terms, we wanted to stick to the language of flowers for more inspiration. The name of our film, which we had yet to reveal, is When the White Seed Falls; and it was inspired by dandelions, which symbolize the passage of time, strength, resilience, and growth, an almost exact mirror of the emotions and themes of our film. I explain all of this simply to explain that the visual element I wanted to add was a flower. For the name, however, we wanted to include a funky combination of our initials, so we had SF and AC and I played around with their order until we landed on SAFC Productions, and I made it purple since it is Sofia's favorite color. Here was our first draft of the name only:

Once I added the flower, we decided to implement one of my favorite colors with it to complement the purple of Sofia's. I tried green or red, and when it looked too busy we ran a like through the back of the text to make it clear to read.

Canva was also making me have an unreasonably hard time coloring these flowers, the colors would not match the one I was clicking with the one on screen, and even deleting them all fixed nothing. Despite this, we also tried out a blue flower background, and it looked pretty cool.

It was then that Sofia reminded me that movies also have cool animations with which these title screens are introduced, and Canva has a wide variety so we tested out all of them, and ultimately decided the 'scrapbook' animation went best with the type of film we are making, so here is my testing it out.

But enough process. Here is our official production company logo.

And also, because it was funny to me even if it almost made me cry, here is a sped up version of Canva being difficult: Click here.

Learning About Editing

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We've been talking a lot about production and pre-production planning in this blog, but something else that is very important to this entire process of creating a piece of media, such as this film opening, is the editing. There is no movie, short film, or anything that will feel or be in anyway complete without even a simple editing technique. Whether it be putting smaller clips together, adding music, transitions, color tones or effects. Without editing, the video looks incomplete and lacks depth of meaning. Editing allows a piece to look complete and demonstrates how much thought and intention was put into giving the film a meaning or purpose.

Editing this portfolio project is going to be very important to ensure that our idea that we want to create is thoroughly expressing the story, the emotions, and the idea that we want it to. So, before we even began to film, I wanted to make sure that I knew how to edit with more intention that simply putting clips together and calling it a day. Throughout this school year, when we've worked on other projects, I've edited with different editing platforms to see what I found was best to work with. I tried Adobe Express, Microsoft's Clipchamp, and even Apple's iMovie, but I wasn't a big fan of any of these when working on them. I mean, don't get me wrong, they get the job done fine, but I just kept thinking back to my 8th grade Film Class where I learned the basics of Adobe's Premiere Pro and how much I loved working on it due to how much you can achieve with it in a fairly easy way (unlike DaVinci Resolve which I found to be egregiously difficult to work with, though maybe that was my fault also, oh well). Premiere Pro had such a wide variety of options available to apply to your film, and they were all so easy to find and manipulate to my liking that I think it is one of the best editing software I've used. However, it has been almost 5 years since I first learned how to use it, and it has changed a lot since then, so I decided to go on a Premiere Pro journey to re-learn how to use it (and hopefully learn more and better) so that we can edit our film opening on this program.

I started off by watching 2 YouTube videos that showed a tutorial on how to use Premiere Pro. One was a quick 10 minute intro that talked about the very basics of the program, but I already knew about most of what it talked about. Then, I watched a longer, more in depth video tutorial while simultaneously following along editing a video of my own. This video I followed is Gavin Herman's Premiere Pro Tutorial for Beginners and it is very thorough in teaching the basics of what is needed to use Premiere Pro.. I think that I really benefitted from following it because I had forgotten too many things from last time I learned to use it and he explained every function in great detail, which makes my life so much easier. The video covers how to add transitions, text, sound, how to work with green screens, manipulate color, key frames, and so much more that I won't even use in this project, but it's useful to learn anyhow. 

Watching this video showed me my struggles with audio editing and ways that I can fix any issues I may encounter while editing this portfolio project. I'm glad that I was patient enough to watch the entirety of the hour long video thoroughly rewinding and replaying the parts where I was confused or stumped. I think that I understand how to edit better now, but I will edit mini videos I find on my phone as practice until it is the time to finally edit this film opening.

Gavin Herman's video, which I may turn to for further reference when I get stuck on something specific:

Audio and Sound

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Another extremely important element that many films need is sound. I say many films and not every film, however, because sometimes a creator will purposefully leave out any type of audio or sound to enhance the film, such as how the series of A Quiet Place did, but in most cases, audio helps to build the realism that helps the audience connect with the storyline, as well as to add meaning and deeper emotions oftentimes through music. 

In our project we plan to implement the diegetic sounds that one can hear on a day-to-day basis, such as footsteps, birds chirping, leaves rustling, the bike pedals and chains, as well as sounds happening inside the house like the family moving about and such. These types of diegetic sounds allow for a more immersive and authentic feel in the film, and it helps to build the idea that it's not only fiction but that the story could actually be happening and that it's maybe only a video recorded in someone's house or that you're actually there in person over an entire production that was put on with a specific purpose. We plan to include all of these sounds through a process called foley, in which each of these sounds are recorded separately, often with other objects that produce the desired sound, and then put together with the visuals of the film through editing. We had an entire project on this earlier on in the school year so I feel like we are prepared to do the same now.

Our storyline also includes some dialogue elements that our two main characters will say between themselves that will help to build their personalities and characters and, also, to move the plot along as their words will be important to the central storyline and themes of the film.

Finally, and my personal favorite part, we wanted to include some upbeat music that was typical from late 90's and early 2000's coming of age films specifically centered in summer in the beginning of our film opening. Our plan is to have our two main characters riding their bikes through their neighborhood until they reach Lily's house where they will start talking as they open the mailbox. We wanted to find some copyright free music, however, because we thought that looking for music that was copyrighted and we needed permission to use would only add time and stress on us since a lot more can go wrong and we want to make this project as stressful free/low as possible. So, we looked through some websites that we had used in the past for the foley project I mentioned earlier that our teacher recommended and I think we hit gold. We searched for a variety of key words including "2000's happy music" and "'90's upbeat songs" and more of the sort, until we stumbled upon a song called "This Is A Restart" by StudioHeta and it is the perfect mix of upbeat and relaxed, it's happy and it's even a little nostalgic. The moment we heard it, we knew we found the music we wanted to include. Hopefully all goes to plan, and we can use this piece with no problem. Here it is now, make sure to listen to it, it's pretty cool.

Click here: This Is A Restart by StudioHeta



SOURCE:
StudioHeta. (n.d.). This Is A Restart by StudioHeta. pixabay. https://pixabay.com/music/indie-pop-this-is-a-restart-190868/

Let's Talk Locations

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Aside from props, which I discussed in my last blog, the location is another very important element to consider when you're planning on filming. Having the right location means that a scene won't look too out of place since the background matches the storyline. It wouldn't look right to have a cooking show in a living room or a skiing movie at the beach. The right location allows for a more authentic feel where the audience can be properly immersed into the environment you, as a creator, are creating. In our film opening's case, the storyline is continuous which means that we really only need one location to film in over a couple different ones that all have different things happening in them.

Because we wanted a very summer-y feel of two friends simply enjoying their last summer before college, we thought that our extremely suburban city was a great place to film in. We only needed to choose whose neighborhood was a better fit. My neighborhood is very big and would have been a great area to film in, but we ultimately chose Sofia's because her house and her street were better fit for the shots we had in mind that we wanted to include. 

Image from YouTube, citation below

We wanted to have a scene like this where there's two (well three in this case) kids riding their bike down the street, and in this scene from Stranger Things they are running away from some people but our bike ride scene would be a lot more happy and upbeat, but the streets around Sofia's house allowed us to ride the bikes around and end up at her house in a fairly simple way but one that had more interesting possibilities than mine, which is honestly pretty boring in that it is simply one long street. 

Now, it may be asking, "but couldn't you film the street shots and the house shots in different places and fixed it in editing?" and the answer is yes, but our cars may actually thank us that Sofia's house has a more open floor plan that has a view of the entrance and the kitchen pretty much all in one pan of a camera, whereas my house is built in a more odd pattern that did not serve our functions.

So, due to the importance of the location, I'm glad that we were able to find one that worked in our favor so easily. This project has many elements to worry and stress over and I'm glad that we were able to get the location scouting out of the way so quickly. I think it will work perfectly in our opening.

SOURCE:
YouTube. (n.d.). Stranger Things - Season 1 Episode 7 Scene: Bike Chase - No Background Music | 4K 2160p HD. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvUlY_4MnNo

Prop Time

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A  movie without props is like having a salad with just lettuce. It's boring. The idea of it is there, yes, but, it's pretty bland. Props have a variety of roles in a film, which makes them so important. They can be help to authenticate a scene by having a real life environment the audience can be familiar with; they can, similarly, help to set a scene, setting, and time; or they may aid in the overall characterization of a character. Props are what make a film or a scene feel real, like what is happening is actually happening regardless of the fact that it very well may be aliens destroying the Earth. Of course, my props won't be anything near as apocalyptic as that example, but they're going to be equally important in developing the plot and setting the scene. So, let's talk about it.

The two props I will be talking about in this specific post are, in my opinion, the most important props for our film opening. These are the large envelopes that the characters will be receiving which signal their acceptances into college, as they did in the 2000's, and the bottles of medicine or pills that Lily will have in her house, hinting at her illness and, ultimately, the climax of the would-be film. 

Image from Happy Schools, citation below

College admissions happen very differently now than they did in the early 2000's. Now, an email is quickly sent to you instructing you to check each university's handy website that'll direct you to your admission decision letter in which you'll receive the classic "We are pleased to offer you..." or the "We regret to inform you.." lines. However, 20 or so years ago, emails weren't the common thing they are now. Colleges most generally sent out envelopes with the actual admission decision letters through the mail, and the anxious seniors had to wait for them to be sent out and to make the journey to wherever they lived in order to know whether they'd been accepted into college or not. A big difference, aside from the long wait to get your letter, is that it was quite obvious to tell of the college's decision before you even got to the classic lines I mentioned above. This is because acceptance envelopes were actually bigger and thicker than the rejection envelopes since they included all the necessary forms and information about starting at that school, and rejected students didn't need that information, unfortunately. The day that the letter arrived in the mail, it was probably a nerve wracking experience to open up the mailbox, but getting that large envelope was such an exciting experience, I'm sure.

For the purposes of our story, both of our characters are sure to get the large envelopes of acceptance. They check their mailboxes, open their letters, and get excited together when they are both accepted. This will be such an important part to our film's storyline because it will indicate the bright future that they are both hoping to live together as they are able to go to university together as they've dreamed for years. It sets up the hopeful note that all their dreams are coming true, and excites them, and the audience, for this future they are building. The moment of their admission, and their subsequent reaction, also begins to build a bond with the characters as the audience inevitably gets happy for them after they celebrate together. Overall, this specific prop is very important because it starts off the plot of the movie and part of the conflict that will be occurring and begins to develop the characters due to their reactions.

Image from PopCrush, citation below

The second important prop that will be used in this film opening are bottles of medicine. These will be the classic yellow bottles of pills that almost every pharmacy sells with prescription medication as they will be easily recognizable for what they are without needing to actually name them or their use. Because one of our main conflicts in this storyline will be the passing of Lily, we need to hint to 1) the fact that this will happen, a.k.a. something is wrong, and 2) how this will happen. Near the end of the film opening, Lily will take one of these small containers and take one of the medications from inside, which handles both of these points: the "something is wrong" is the fact that she is ill, and this will be the reason that she will die later on in the story. Having these prop bottles allows us to set up the main conflict in the story in a somewhat subtle fashion that introduces the audience into this story. They won't be outright discussed or referenced in anyway, but it is the indirect display of them that will leave the audience guessing and with that sense of dread at the fact that they most likely know what this story could lead to.

These props are going to be key to the development of the storyline as well as the characters as we introduce subtle hints of the major conflict of the plot and not so subtle characterizations of both of our main characters. 

SOURCES:

Dg-Editor. (2020, February 24). The Importance of Props in Film. Dick George Creatives. https://dickgeorge.co.uk/2020/02/the-importance-of-props-in-film/

11 Awesome College Acceptance Letters shared in Instagram. Happy Schools. (2013, October 21). https://www.happyschools.com/college-acceptance-letters-shares/

Miller, J. (2025, January 27). Why Are Prescription Bottles That Ugly Amber Color?. PopCrush. https://popcrush.com/why-prescription-bottles-orange-amber-color/

Characters? I Hardly Know Them

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Because we made our film opening so character-centered, it is now very important that we actually talk about these characters: who they are or will be during this film. Our story has two central characters, though one more so than the other, and Sofia and I have worked hard to develop both of these in depth so that we have complex characters whose feelings and attitudes towards life have reasonable logic behind them. Basically, there needs to be a reason why each character acts the way they do especially in the face of trouble.

Our first character is Lily. She is an optimistic young girl who is about to go to college. She is sweet, excitable, passionate—sunshine personified. Though Lily is not quite the main character in the story, she is central to the storyline as the major conflict in the "film" would revolve around her—and her friend's reaction to said conflict, obviously. Her name is, I think, my favorite part of this character because it just has an underlying meaning to it that we actually came across accidentally, though it ended up working out quite well. We found the name Lily while looking for cool or fun names that were rather typical from the 90's or early 2000's and, actually, Lily isn't overly common for the era, but it was seen quite often nonetheless; and the name means "innocence," but the flower, specifically the yellow or orange variants, represent joy, warmth and optimism. What's more, Lilies bloom from late spring/early summer to late fall, which we thought was unfortunately fitting for the character that will die before beginning college in the fall.

Sofia and I also made a mood board for Lily's character so that we could ensure that we were both visualizing somewhat the same person and so that we actually had a visual representation of what she is like over just the vibes in our head. We made her out to be this bright and lively person that loves outdoor activities, flowers, all things yellow, etc. We included some books as well because her major in college would have been elementary education since she is very animated and dedicated, if she hadn't, well, died.

Our other character is named Jackie, short for Jacqueline, which was also a relatively common name for the ‘90s. Unfortunately, the reasons behind this name are not as in-depth as Lily’s because we wanted to find a name that we thought matched her personality, fit during the time era, was to our liking, and worked well with Lily’s since we had already established her name, and these were just too many requirements to have only to also have her name be something meaningful. So we used Jackie as a sort of placeholder name that we ended up liking fine for the character. As a small upside, however, when searching to see if we found some sort of hidden meaning for this name that worked in our favor, we found a flower that was named as such, the Jackie Plumeria, which we thought would fit into a flower theme with Lily's name. However, it turns out that the flower is only named as such as it is a variant of the Plumeria flower that is sold at a nursery called Jungle Jack's in California, so it ultimately didn't feel important enough for that to be a meaning we considered for the name in the context of our character.

Like with Lily, we made a mood board that represents who Jackie is. Turns out, we had very different ideas of who she was in our heads—I thought her to be a very physical art kind of person, as in mainly draws and paints, but Sofia thought of her more as an art person in every art field—so we made the mood board by mixing both of our ideas into a person we both liked and agreed on. We decided she'd be a very creative person with interests in both music and art, majoring in art in the college, with a very "black cat" personality that slightly opposed Lily's bright and sunny personality.

We wanted both of our characters to have a strong and individual person on their own, but that could complement each other's personalities very well as they will have been friends for years in our story. However, we didn't want them to be total opposites of each other because that would be too drastic and we didn't want to play with an "opposites attract" type of relationship because they can be quite intricate to develop. They had to have some things in common or similar enough that they could be their own person but that it was clear that they could be good friends together. I'm very excited to see how this will work once we actually put them on the screen with out actors, props, and whatnot. I think it'll be very fun.

The Actual Story Idea this Time

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Sofia and I have been working on the storyboard for our project this week and it's been challenging since we have to make sure that what we include can be feasibly done when actually put into action with our camera work and actors and abilities. So, it's no longer an idea, it's actually becoming something visual as we plan exactly just what we want to happen in our film opening shot by shot. It'll be extremely helpful to have this once we actually start with filming and all things production because it helps us get an idea around what we have to do without getting lost and being unorganized. 

Our storyboard, and most storyboards really, is not overly intricate or detailed. It is not expertly drawn and every movement is not often showed but it does manage to explain how each shot is going to go overall whether it be a mid-shot or a close up shot or if it tilts, pans, or zooms between each different angle. The storyboard is a very broad idea of the concepts to be explored in the actual film but it is so helpful to have, so here is our storyboard for this film opening:

My Film Opening: The Idea

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We have finally settled on an idea of what our film would be about so that we are able to have a good introduction for the story we are presenting with our film opening. However, this idea didn't just come from thin air. Sofia and I really like movies from the 90's and early 2000's that are so iconic we enjoy them to this day, largely because they are fun, but also because they tend to really stick with you after having watched them, whether it be because they had an interesting storyline or because their message is so meaningful you don't stop thinking about it for days, or years, after. These are such treasured movies that we wanted to try our own hand at making our own meaningful story, though, of course, for the purposes of this project, we won't get further than 2 minutes in. 

Our idea for our film consists of an emotional coming-of-age summer film, which was inspired by my personal love of these films and Sofia seeing my original vision for this project (though we've strayed quite far from this original idea) and agreeing that it was a fun aesthetic to play with. The basic premise of our story is that of two best friends as they are getting ready to start the new chapter in their lives of going off to college, but their plans go off the rails as they are faced with a terminal illness that will end with the death of one of them, leaving the other to cope with surviving and having to live the through the dreams they hoped to achieve together. Our goal with this story is to have a film that would be very summer-y in its colors and in its mood, but that it has themes that allow for relatability with the audience (though I hope not many people relate to the death of their best friend) and emotional depth. 

Inspiring this were a series of summer teen movies I watched over last year's spring break mostly, though, like I said it tends to happen, there was one movie that I saw years ago that I still think about to this day and that is Bridge to Terabithia. 

This movie, though not quite the summer film Sofia and I are aiming for, is a beautiful and heartfelt film that deals with topics of friendship, childhood, grief, and loss. I first watched this movie in middle school and it has not left me in these last 6 years and I doubt that it will anytime soon. Seeing how Jesse goes from being the lonely kid in school to forming a friendship with Leslie that turns into such a strong bond that, when she dies, he feels at such a loss and he doesn't know how to manage or control those feelings, and, even worse, he has to return to school knowing that the best friend he'd ever made is not going to ever be there again. This just an experience that, even as a viewer, just wrecks you because the film has made you feel so deeply for these characters that their loss is yours also. This is such an inspiring film, not only as we try to create something similar for our project, but also to me, as a writer, because the emotions go past the screen or the paper into a part of us that only such stories can reach, and I truly love that.

For the visual aspects of our "summer" film, however, I was more inspired by a wide variety of films that I watched over spring break last year, as I mentioned before. Among these are Before Sunrise, Mamma Mia!, The Spectacular Now, Summer of 85, and Fireworks. Thinking about it now, these films had such strong visuals of summer that I was watching them during spring break because I wanted to feel that it was summer already, and they delivered. It was such a pleasure to watch them, and I could feel as if I, myself, was in Vienna or Greece or France or Italy as the characters enjoyed a life free of responsibilities or other torments. So, these aesthetics really stuck out to me in a way that I wanted to watch more, but I was running out of movies I was able to watch, sadly. However, this project allows me to create my own, which is even better so I'm really excited! Here are some of the posters for these films that helped me and Sofia visualize what we want out of our project.

Media Theories in our Project

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As part of the class, this year, we've learned about different media theories and how they are used in film to convey a specific message or to engage with the audience in a variety of ways. There are many theorists that have worked with media, and they each have different reasonings to support the way that media is created and the way that audiences interact with it. We've studied how some of these theories are seen in popular films recently and now we have the opportunity to apply some of these theories into our own film opening for our project.

Sofia and I would love to include at least two of the theories we've discussed in class and these are Todorov's Narrative Theory of Equilibrium and Roland Barthes's Hermeneutic or Enigma Code from his Narrative Codes. The Theory of Equilibrium states that the audience is introduced to the characters in the beginning of the story and the Enigma Code is seen when a narrative withholds information in order to develop mystery or leave a plot point unexplained. We're thinking of including these theories because we wanted to focus our film opening on developing the characters that the film would be centered around and their relationship—which reflects the Theory of Equilibrium—and, to introduce the conflict that would take place throughout the film, we want to use the Enigma Code by withholding information of the reasons behind why the friend will die later in the film, as I will explain in a future blog post. We plan to do the latter by having a comment or a question go unexplained by this character to create confusion with the friend, the other main character, and with the audience in general, and we plan to do the former by focusing solely on these two friends as they begin the journey in their life that is preparing to begin college or university studies. 

Below is a photo of a list of some of the theories that we've been exploring in class as well as two other ones I have handwritten unto my paper so that I have a wider range of examples of theories often seen in media, especially in film. It is very useful to have such a list because the information that I need is all in one singular space and I don't have to keep finding what different theories exist in media or what they each mean or do or even who is behind each of these theories. 

Group Meetings: Reflection #1

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Today in class we did something a little different. As we start week 2 of our portfolio project and our ideas begin to become concrete, it is often needed that someone else outside of our group questions how certain items are going to work, or parts of the story that are confusing. This works as a sort of "reality check" that allows each group or person working on their own project to ensure that their ideas are plausible and that their story is clear in what they want to convey. It often happens that when we're working with our ideas and our project we think we have a solid story, but then someone else listens to it and there's a key detail missing; or we have a cool idea we'd love to try to use in our project but aren't really sure on how it could be done in practice so someone else helps out, two brains think better than one after all.

So, the whole class split into 3 groups, with no one being placed with their own group or partner. My group consisted of Carolina, Andrea, Lydia, JP, Mateo, Eli, Amanda, and, of course, me, and we all had very different ideas of what we wanted for our projects so it was very interesting to see what approach everyone was taking, and, when the ideas/genres were similar, it was fun to see how each person would go about creating their own project that will be incredibly different from the others within the same genre. For example, both Carolina and Eli were working within the mystery/thriller genre but Carolina wanted to work with the idea of an asylum where her main character would be wrongly imprisoned after being named "insane" and a "murderer." Eli, on the other hand, wanted to play with the idea of a therapist seeing many patients who had witnessed a specific traumatic event, but all had different recollections of what had transpired. Carolina had the majority of her plot planned out, with only a few questions regarding flashbacks or transitions that we helped her clear up, and was even looking into some props and costume ideas that she could use such as a hospital gown. She also shared a website that has a guide for film credits to help us when including ours in our film openings. Here is the website: Click Here!. Eli had a less solid idea for her plan but knew the direction she wanted to go in.

Also within the thriller genre, JP's idea for his opening was one of a young boy who had been getting bullied, but then the bully is killed at the hands of this young kid. He had less questions about his story because his team has a very solid plan already, but they were unsure about how to go about the actual "murder scene." Carolina originally suggested that the boy could throw something at the bully's head but Amanda reasoned that only showing their shadows of this would be easier to produce, and we suggested that, so it would be clear that the bullying was the reason he killed him, they could include a voiceover of certain words that the bully said to the kid that really bothered him, as though it was his thoughts or his mind.

Andrea chose to go in a post-apocalyptic/dystopian direction where she shows the world or a city war-ridden and dead as a woman searches for food, which has become increasingly difficult to find. Then she wanted to somehow change the scene to show the past and how the world turned into the disaster that is first shown, so we said she could have this woman be the main character of the film and use a match cut to connect her to her scene of the past, which she told us was a family trying to survive the war happening outside, and she really liked this idea. She also shared this website that she found, called Copyright Alliance, to help us when we search for our music to ensure that we are using music with its proper credit, or, if we cannot get such credit, to know that it has a copyright claim to it. Here is the link to this website: Click Here!

Lydia and Mateo chose sci-fi and crime as their genres, respectively. Lydia thought of having some glasses that allow her character to see into the future, and when they do, they look to see themselves 5 days into the future, dead. So, now, her character wants to figure out how it is that they died, later finding out they were actually murdered, and find out why. We suggested that when they see themselves dead they could act panicked and show that their death really freaked them out and that she could end her opening with someone knocking on the door of their house, hinting that this person could be the probable murderer. She liked some of our ideas and I think we inspired her to include some of them into her project. Mateo wanted a The Godfather (1972) type of film where it is a crime family as they celebrate an important event. He wanted to focus his opening on developing his characters so he wanted to include a narrator voice, the main character's, explaining who his family is and what type of family is (a crime family). 

Most similar to my own project, was Amanda's, who also wanted a coming-of-age film, however, hers focuses on Taekwondo. She wants her film to feature a girl who is very passionate about the sport, but as she attempts a particularly tricky move, she injures herself. As Amanda herself practices Taekwondo, she actually had a very solid idea and plan for how to produce her film opening and the only thing she had questions on was on a brief montage she wanted to include before her character performs the tricky move. She wants to use some footage she has of herself from when she was younger to portray the character reassuring herself that she could do the move by thinking of how many years she's practiced Taekwondo, but Amanda didn't know if she wanted videos or photos or both and how to include them so we suggested for her to use mainly videos with maybe a couple of photos here and there, but that she should play around with filters and color settings to give these flashbacks a more "memory" look so it's clear her character is reminiscing. 

For me, the meeting was pretty helpful because the group suggested that Sofia and I should use seasons to help portray our main characters emotions and mental health. In happier moments, we should use summer and, in darker moments, seasons like winter or autumn. They also suggested that, in order to hint at the abandonment that one of the characters would feel after the passing of her friend, I should use symbols that represent each character before and after, as well as use little hints in the opening that something is not quite right with the friend, such as pill bottles or other medicinal objects.

Overall, it was a very fun and useful activity that I think we all greatly benefitted from and I'm very glad we did it! Here's us!

Study of Credit Sequences

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Introducing a story and hooking the audience is not the only job that film openings have. It is very important to give proper credit to the people that worked on each film because every person dedicated their time and effort into each piece they work on and telling the public what everyone worked on is only fair. So, film openings often include the name of the production company that is behind the entire creation of the film, the producers, main actors featured, editors, directors of many arts (photography, cinematography, art, etc.), writers, etc. However, there are hundreds of other jobs that take place in the creation of a film, but they aren't all listed in the film opening, otherwise we'd be waiting for the movie to start for a really long time. Not to mention, the way that these credits are incorporated in the beginning of a movie helps to further set the tone and the mood for the rest of the film opening and story in general. Sometimes they are simply placed in the sky as the camera pans down to the setting where the story is taking place and other times it is incorporated into the actions of the character as the movie begins.

The Holdovers (2023)

The Holdovers has a very interesting credits sequence in that it copies the style of 1970's cinema, the year the film itself takes place in. Because of this, the credits are stretched through almost 6 minutes of the film's opening and, contrary to my earlier statement, credits numerous artists and people in this beginning scene as opposed to in the end credits where more recent movies tend to include the majority of these acknowledgements. The film begins with the names of the production companies, but it shows them in a "retro" style, evident by the classic Kodak colors they are seen in. It then fades to a black screen that is not quite black but more so a dark gray that is quite grainy, as videos shot in film often are, which further accentuates that 70's style. The credits begin to play in the foreground of a chorus group of young boys as they rehearse and then it switches to to different shots of the town that they are currently in, it looks quiet and peaceful, which is accentuated by the background singing. Once the boys wrap up, the scene cuts to a series of long and wide shots of the town with more peaceful singing in the background. Each shot shows different people going about their day, when the scene closes into someone's house and it is seen they are some sort of professor as he grades a paper. The credits come to an end as the scene cuts to a school lunchroom and the music fades out. During these long sequences, the credits play subtly in the foreground, not getting in the way of any shot or being too over the top. They only add to the calmness of the town as the soothing music plays. 

Grease  (1978)

Grease's title sequence is also very interesting because, like The Holdovers, it imitates the era in which the story takes place, in this case it's in the 50's. The credits sequence is completely animated which allows the sequence to take on a happy and bouncy mood that resembles the film's overall tone with its musical aspect. Each character and their respective actor is shown through a comical representation of each character so that they will be easily identifiable when the movie starts, even if this time they'll be real people and not only cartoon ones. As important aspects of the characters are shown, there are also visual representations of things that will happen later on in the movie (like how the cars that are shown throughout the credits will eventually appear in the movie) and, more than that, spread throughout the credit sequence are also drawings that date the year that the film will take place in with historical and political references from that time such as communism and MLK and, as the cartoon characters ride in their cars around town, the time period is further cemented by the inclusion of the buildings in background that are so clearly from the late 50's to early 60's due to their style and pops of color throughout. This approach to a credit scene is very interesting because it tells the audience so much about the story without a word being spoken or an actor making an appearance. It is a very fun and stark difference from other credit sequences and it immediately has the audience hooked, intrigued, and having a good time.