location scouting

 Soo spring break is coming to an end and we really needed too figure out where we could film the bathroom scenes since we decided in the school is a big no no. So we decided to go look at bathrooms to see which would be the best for the school aesthetic we are looking for. 

Regional was our first idea and one look inside we realized it was extremely nice which is unfortunate because a school bathroom could never be as nice. 

Next we went to town center because Juan and I were going delusional and thought that the public bathroom in town center had stalls, spoiler alert it didn't. So we went for no reason at all so it was also a fail. 

But then we found the most perfect bathroom is was the right amount of disaster to pass as a school bathroom and look secluded enough that we can film, so Vista's park bathrooms were awarded the highest honor of being our film location that we were going to use next weekend when our entire group is back from break. 

planning for the upcoming week

 OK, so we finally finalized everything behind the scenes, so now we must film. So, Nicole isn't getting back until Tuesday, so we're going to have to film after that. Because Nicole will be getting the camera and tripod from her TV class then me and Juan aren't in, so we're probably going to have to wait, and instead work on the social media page. On how to be more interactive, I know that we are planning on doing a questionnaire with the tally marks. like something like the photo below but an argument probably about a color so that its something that doesn't take to much attention away from our film but can be a fun little argument.

Filming wise though 

Monday-Tuesday 

- work on social media page

- edit script 

(check it to make sure everything is okay)

Wednesday - Friday

- filming 

- mostly film all the school scenes 

(so we can have that done)

- see all that changes necessary

Saturday  (maybe Friday)

- got to the park and film all the bathroom scenes

After that we can start editing and working on the critical reflection.  

I don't know what to tittle this

 Realizing that our project is coming close to the end I wanted to See other people's critical reflections to understand what I'm going to have to do in the upcoming weeks. So for people who don't know what a critical reflection is like I didn’t Basically this is a reflection on like all the project and how the project turned out, and what kind of the decisions we made are supposed to mean to our audience how they are supposed to feel and what we try happen and what turned out looking at the end.

So, while looking at other people, I was thinking about what I would say my Reflection I definitely would want to mention the fact that we really want to stay with like our brand of the bathroom graffiti type. As well as mentioned, the fact that this project has made me realize the importance of needing to keep organized and keep to a schedule because we've been a little willy nilly with ours Which I'm hoping is changing this week so that we can keep this project going. 

Realizing that the fact that we have two weeks left of the project is leaving me feeling a tad stress but what can you do, so I just got to power through these two weeks and hopefully end with this project as something I'm proud of.

actors

 OK, so actors, we first thought about this friend we have Linda, but after a couple of conflicting scheduling. We realized that it'd be easier if we put her in the secondary role where she's writing, but she doesn't have to be the main focus where we are able to have her in the film in her schedule as well as I think Nicole and her are able to film during their TV class together witch would make scheduling the filming ten times easier.. So that does leave the big question on who is going to be the main character. After. Booking for Summit, we realized it'd be easier to film with someone in our group, Which somehow ended up with me being the one who's going to act in our film. Meaning I got to dust off my acting skills I used to have when I was in theater. So now that we have like one of the actors from our group. Being the one in the film. It's going to be easier scheduling wise as I don't really have a lot of conflicts in the scheduling section.  

time to lock in

OK, so time is running out because it's spring break just started so it's time to lock in. Basically for this project we Decided to go with the public park idea to film During the week, As well as we need to find a way to Right on the bathroom walls without actually leaving a mark there so that we don't vandalize. Someone came up with the idea of tape, but tape is like too small and it's kind of blurry. Maybe we can find washable markers. That was one of our original plans or find some less shiny plastic to put on top of the wall so we can just write on there without it looking like We are not.

So another thing we need to lock in on. Is the script I said this in the last post and I'm thinking of a storyline. Where They're writing to each other and one of them stops because of other people's comments on the wall. And so the dialogue is a lot more minimum than what we are thinking, Instead focusing on music to convey the story as well as their writing on the wall I wanted to find a way to make this look a little more realistic So kind of write down like a template of what we wanted As they're answering back and forth. 

Group Meetings part #2

 So talking to others on their projects, ended up being extremely helpful as we got some suggestions on locations. First we were struggling with where to film the scenes where she is writing on the bathroom walls since we didn't want to film it in the school bathroom so we got the great recommendation of going to the park and seeing if any of the bathroom we could use to film because no one goes to them during the school week so filming in there might be a good location. 

Another thing is how we expecting to make the story less flat since what we have so far seems to be a story without a rising or falling action so we are going to have to find a problem I think it probably will have to be without of our characters stops writing on the wall leaving the other confused about what's happing. we as a group still need to workshop a bit the script since its almost done but not completely. 

Needless to say i enjoyed talking to others and see what they were working on and it was awesome to hear feedback on my own project because at this point it is much appreciated. 

social media posts

 Ok so the sudden realization we needed to lock in hit today so i started to work on the social media heavy because we hadn't been focusing a lot on what we wanted to post before until today we needed to start coming up woth a lot more than we had for social media so that we can have a good campaign for our film on social media. 

 

The picture above shows what we want the first slide of the presentation it to look like since we don't have an actual Instagram page we were thinking to show the first page as if later showing each slide with post we would have as if you were scrolling on your pone someone's page.  The phot below this one is a template on how we are planning to do one of the post of meet the directors, since we were thinking that it would be fun to have a get to know the cast behind the film and also it shows our brand to the audience. We need to make more posts on behind the scene as well as have a more interactive posts because right now working on the first few post was really about creating a brand and now we have to see what can make this short film seem more interesting. 

Print component research

 All week last week I was helping in drama production so I'm a little exhausted this weekend and slept a lot when I should've been working on this project today. Okay so we need to film this week so I decided to start looking what we can for the print components so that we at least have a templet so that we don't have to take a lot of time looking for it later and we can find it later, so first we needed a film festival and when i looked in to our genre i found this list:

Now the date can come later after that  but looking at others they have two photos that are cohesive in this part that give the same aesthetic front and back so, ill have to find something to use as a design for the back to put the location time and date as well as any other credits we need for it. As well as find a way to add our social media page i think a QR would be cool so maybe we can contribute that. As we film and see a cool shot that would look good for this we can change it later. 

ok we need an actor

We had in mind an actor for the project but after talking to her for a bit realized our schedules don't match. So we need a new actor ASAP, Though we do have a member in my group who could act and that would solve a lot of our problems except this member is leaving the other week for spring break so that would limit us completely to this week and I'm not sure if we would be able to manage this, but if w need to film in school we need to do it next week and fast.

We are using a program (celtex) to write the script and we are almost done with that, so hopefully we can all just focus on this project and be able to finish filming soon so that we can get back on track with what is going on. Its hard to get everyone on the same page so choosing to do this as a group was more difficult then i thought it would be but I know will pull through, if we lock in. Hopefully? 

this is brainstorming ideas for the script

Posting

 Hi, okay today i was working with some help with people a way to create a tittle post logo thing. We decided to go with a purple and pink aesthetic and we wanted to also have the writings on around the logo different handwriting so we asked people to write what you would regularly see on the bathroom wall on a sheet of paper. 

For other posts we are working on making a meet the director post, and I think this would be a nice image to use for the print section (where we have to create something to hand out for festivals) because it is a nice image that is able to express a lot of what the film is about, but maybe if I can get a good photo will use that instead.

After this i realized we really need to start filming because first its a crucial part of the project but secondly to do all the post on Instagram and all the other of the components. 

Talking about

 Today my group and I talked about what we are planning to do with the Instagram. We thought to do a 9 post grid post but we thought that was too much so we ended up with going with 3 but we aren't sure if we make the tittle the middle post or different post. But it usually brings a lot of attention to the posts because its big and since it goes for multiple post it draws attention as son as you open the page. 

We came up with drafts but on Canva it was hard to make it look good the best one was another groups member draft, but its still doesn't look perfect, and I don't know what to do it to make it look better (im unfortunately terrible at working on Canva) so I'm not know where to start. But we really need to stay on top of the social media because I feel that we are lacking. 

reschedule

 Okay so after the group meeting i realized that we have around 4 more weeks of the project and I don't want to say we have to speed run the project but we definitely need to start to move the project faster. so as a group we decided to reevaluate our scheduled to fix it to make up with us running a bit late on the project. 

Week 3/10-3/16

- Make initial social media posts (tease name and reveal name)

- Finalize plot outline 

- Create story board

Week 3/17-3/23

-Social media introduce creators and actors

-Use weekends to film or after school hours throughout the week

-Film at least enough to create a teaser 

Week 3/24-3/30

- Spring Break (which two of us are leaving for so we cant film)

- Discuss prior to leaving visions for teaser

-  edit teaser 

-Post teaser

Week 3/31-4/6

-Finalize shooting and refilm if necessary

-Edit full trailer and post

-Edit full short film throughout the week

-work on print 

Week 4/7-4/9

-Finish everything we haven't finished

-Write our Critical Reflections

-Cheer after we're done and cry that it's over

group meetings

 I'm going to be honest. I feel so much better to see what the rest of my peers are at in their project, because I don't feel like I'm falling behind anymore. But I've also come to the realization we all need to start to come to finalization by the end of the week. Our short films need to find a good location to film, especially with our need to have a very specific place to make our story make sense, a bathroom, so location is extremely important.   So my group has to come out where we want film by next week because in that i feel like we are falling behind.

A suggestion that I thought was interesting was to create a voice over for the writing so we could make her writing seem more interest, because unfortunately a lot of people don't want to spend most pf a short film reading, or are too slow in reading (that I know happens to me all the time when watching things). As well as he need to come up with a more in detailed plot that i already feel like we needed cause we have an idea but we keep going in circle about what we want to do, like what they are writing.

oscar nominated short films

 So earlier today I got dragged by a friend to go watch all the Oscar nominated short films, and I thought about using it as learning experience and after many tears (because why were they all soooooooo sad) I  realized that a lot of the films were based on something already known to the majority of the audience. 

. 

This short film A Lien is based on the way ICE separates families in the US. and how a simple film with one location can get so many people sobbing their eyes out. That's when it hit me that to create a good short film isn't about getting the best dialogue (although this is extremely helpful) its being able to find an idea that many can relate to themselves in any semblance of a way. Although many people in America aren't immigrants (though a lot are) they are able to feel for this family being torn apart. They did this well by in the first scene establishing the family and characters, for our short film we have to find a good way to establish the characters to make them relatable and i think that is something we have to try hard to think about. 

As a group we thought hard on the plot but we haven't thought about the characters individually which I'm now starting to realize its a big mistake and its definitely something I'm going to talk to my group about when we talk next week because were trying to establish a well thought out story and you cant do that with out knowing your characters. The fact that we haven't even figure out the names is something i want to figure out when we get into class.