GROUP MEETING

Today, we got into groups of five, I think, I didn't count but I got to hear what other people were saying and I was also able to get feedback. Hearing what other people had to say about my project helped me get more ideas and try to make the plot of the story better, or make any changes within my project. I also liked giving feedback to the people in my group and help them get more ideas or recommending anything that they should add to their story, or how to help them make a scene they weren't sure on how to make. Like for example, one group member wanted feedback on how to make a scene in where the character was I think riding a bicycle and then he has an accident. It was something similar to it, but we all gave him recommendations on what he could do and I really liked all the ideas that the people were coming up with.  I also liked their blogs and how organized they were, which also gave me ideas of what I can write about on my upcoming blogs.

I was talking about my project to them, and honestly, I may have a story board but my story was more twisted than the whole gossip about the two lockdowns that happened last week, and I think that says a lot. However, I am very proud of my blogs, as I feel like they need the requirements and they have a lot of content in them. I asked my group members fro feedback on my story, and I 100% agreed with them. They said that the backstory would be too much and I may have to cut down some scenes to make it all fit in 2 minutes. But one of the group members said that he thought that if I pulled it off, it would look great because in a way, it can show you guys that I know how to like "manage the space" in a way to make it all fit in 2 minutes in which I knew what he was saying, but I thought it was still too much. Other group member suggested that I just start the film opening were all the family members come back from the graduation party, which was initially my first idea. After taking all of their critics, I started thinking on the suggestion they gave me an how I could improve my story.

The teacher called me over to give me feedback on my project. I was a bit scared to be honest, I thought she was just going to say that my idea was not going to work but she gave me suggestions. Also, she told me how my blogs have a lot of content in which she said it was good, but just wait until I start including summaries on Great Britain's performance on the World Baseball Classic for my Cambridge examiners. Yes, I will still be talking about the project, I just think it's fun to sometimes go out of topic and talk about the things we enjoy. Anyways, my teacher told me that the idea was too much, and I agreed with her, and my group members also told me this. She also said there was something missing, which she was not wrong because ever since I started working on the storyboard with my cousin and we felt like we had a story, I still knew there was something missing I swear she's like a psychic. So we started focusing on colleges and how the film opening could be about making decisions. So we were speaking for a bit , until she gave me an idea on how it could be the same college theme but different. 

So the idea was that the film opening is going to start by having like a party of the main character going to college, it could be like a graduation party, or something like a get-together before the main character her goes to college. And then there would be like shots of the main character talking with other family members, and then I think I want to put music in the background. Not that white music they put at like the gyms. Those are some weird remixes. I am talking about Spanish music and I'm going to try to find good music that is not copyrighted. If I can't then I guess I would go and email the record label. I don't know if the party is still going or not, but the end would be maybe her seeing that all her colleges rejected her, but she knew that. And something the teacher said was that I can do this project in Spanish and just wait until I tell my family members. But honestly, I kind of want to see them struggle with the language, it's funny how they speak, and besides, my mom really needs some practice since she's presenting her citizen exam so she better pass that thing, or else I am next and I don't want to take it. 

STORYBOARD

I just came back from the place where the fifteen's birthday party were and I am absolutely exhausted. I'll admit it, I has low expectations for this party, but it turned out to be a fun experience. Although I had a good time, I could not stop thinking about this project and on top of that, I had to study for a math test. While on our way back, which was literally 5 hours, I was trying to think on the story line but I just couldn't come up with anything. So I told myself to chill out, that everything is going to be fine and my cousin would help me get new ideas and that it would not take too long, since we already had an idea of what I wanted to do. Well, this was an expectation, not a reality.

As soon as I got home, I called my cousin and we started working on it. It was super hard for us to get an idea, since he was kind of stuck on still doing the pregnant stuff an I wasn't e big fan of it, since I thought it was basic and I think a lot of comedy/drama movies have this topic. So we went back and forth with the topic of college and being pregnant. We would get ideas but something just wasn't clicking, like there was something missing and that the story needed some type of conflict to it, and the most important thing that I had in mind was to keep the audience guessing. Because I didn't like the pregnant idea, we completely stop going on that direction and started to think about something else.

I started to think about college, and how the "plot twist" would be something like the main character didn't get accepted to the University she wanted to go and everyone was upset. My cousin brought the whole thing of creating fake universities and a "theme" for them. Was he was trying to say, was that in what ways are the universities known for. Is it because there's rich people? because of their parties? So I came up with the idea of maybe the girl getting accepted to a "bad school", being like a 99% acceptance right. So we started to go off that. Then we planned on the family members saying why she would go to that school if she's smart and that she has potential. And this is where we planned the plot twist, which would be her having a boyfriend in that school, but they don't know that. She's also going to lie about her not getting accepted into this "prestigious" school, in which the gossipy cousin finds out and kind of confronts her. When we had our whole story, I did a story board and this is what it looks like and yes, I know that I can't draw, but I tried my best.

COSTUMING OPTIONS

 I still my story line yet. I was supposed to talk with my cousin on the phone today on Friday to have the story done but he was working and it was just going to be complicated. And I could off called him on Saturday or Sunday but I have a fifteen's birthday party. Why can't I call him earlier then? Well, let's say that the place is 4 hours away so I have to get ahead on my blogs. I also proposed to him if we could do shooting schedule instead of the storyboard but what he said was right. He said that first we need the story, establish the main characters and have a theme, which I have not thought about it. Besides, he is working and he doesn't know if his family can be part of the film next week, or my family because they are also working. So we got on a call on last time and I told him that it would be better if I do costuming options today, even though we don't have a story line and on Sunday, when I come back from the place, we will do the storyboard without any issues. He was also thinking on coming to my house so that we could work on it and ask for my family member's opinions, but I think we would be too exhausted. 

So far in our story, the main character is coming from her  graduation, or it could be from getting her junior ring. For this types of events, people usually wear something formal because there is just no way the girl is going to a graduation with a bikini. This is the picture that I had in my head of the dress that I want the girl to wear. It doest have to be exactly the same thing, but something similar to it would be fine. And I I think I shouldn't be white necessarily. The dress could be pastel tones such as light pink and blue. I was also thinking about Cassie from Euphoria, how she is a sweet little girl and her pastel color palette, emphasizes her personality more. Even though I don't know what the character's personality is going to be yet, I think I want her to be soft, but not too soft, since she has a crazy family, and I think this color would perfectly suit her personality. Unless when I plan out her story line she's the complete opposite and ends up being a rebel, then her color palette would completely change. But for now, this is what I want her to be like. Also, I does not have to be a dress. It could also be a formal jumpsuit that would fit the occasion. But for now, I'll stick with the dress and if I find something formal other than a dress, I'll use it. Below, is the color palette that I would want my character to wear.

This is what I was planning on the family members to wear. No, they are not all wearing white, but this is an idea of what I want and besides, I do not want it to look equal in a way that it looks like we all went to jail because they are all wearing the same color, I want diversity were all the family members are wearing what they want to wear, as long as it is formal and it fits the event. This pictured remind me of when my whole family had a photoshoot and we all had to wear a white t-shirt and jeans. It was annoying, but the pictures came out good. Anyways, same thing with the main character it is a formal event, therefore they will have to wear formal clothes. And they don't necessarily have to wear this. My mom and my aunt and I think my step-sister would be in it too, they could wear jeans with a different colored top, appropriate for the occasion of course. Or they could also be wearing a dress. Now, I am not worried about my Mom and my Aunt having something appropriate, but I am pretty much worried about my step-sister. Let's just say she's a bit of a free spirit and she just likes to show which I don't mind but for this story, she will have to find something that would fit with the story.

This is an idea of what I want the guys to wear. And like I said, no it doesn't have to be all white. Family photoshoot has been over for a month now. I think this is perfect for a graduation, since it is formal and fits the occasion. And they would wear another type of shirt also, it doesn't have to be like the one in the picture. It could be a polo shirt, with a different color, like blue and pair it with jeans. Or they could wear the same outfit that's on the picture with a different colored shit like beige. I simply do not want everyone to look equal and like I said before, I want diversity so that it looks different but in a good way. I don't think I would have issues with the boys whatsoever about the clothing. I think they all have something formal to wear, at least I know my brother and my dad do, but I'm pretty sure my uncle and my cousin have something to wear. They are all going to have a neutral palette, as we want the crazy cousin to stand out.

This is what the "crazy aunt" is going to look like. In this case though, it would be my cousin doing this role, in which I think she's perfect for it. She's is going to have super flash clothes like this one or similar to it. Trust me, I have experience and this is how my actual Aunt dresses and is the most gossipy person ever. I've already been through this. Every single time there is a family reunions. She has the biggest glasses ever, the most horrific and shiniest shoes there is out there, and a scarf, It is always the scarf I swear. And she is also the loudest one in the room and wants all the attention for absolutely no reason. Oh, and it is always taking pictures of everything, even when her phone storage is full. So, I wanted to recreate someone like my aunt in my film opening, since these are always the type of family members who always cause some type of conflict, and I need conflict on my film. In contrast from the other characters, her color palette would have very bright and vibrant colors.

FINAL PLANNING

After stressing out about not having an idea, I finally came up with one, with my cousin's help. So after looking at comedy and drama prompts, we came up with one. But the idea didn't just come up in the top of our heads at first. So, I was reading some of these prompts from screencraft.org and after going through a bunch of them, the first one that thought was easy to do was one that said something along the lines of "Call random numbers for fun" and well I kind of had an idea of starting the film with two people calling random numbers and then, they accidentally call the wrong number and something happens. I though this would off been perfect, since I was thinking of using my cousin and my step-sister in which they could off been great since they are so funny together. But I knew I needed that plot in which would want to make the audience crave for more and for this story, I really didn't have that turning point in which a character faces a problem. But then I also thought that the idea was kind of basic do I decided not to stick with it.

So we were still looking at story prompts, and my cousin mentioned something about family dinner. At first I was like "eh, whatever" but then, I got an idea. So, I thought about how sometimes we have family reunions and the music is like super loud and how people gossip about family member and stuff which I mean I am guilty of this. And then you have a drunk Uncle that I don't even know if they remember what they did. And plus I grew up in a Hispanic household so each family reunion we have, the gossip gets better. So then, I think to myself, why not recreate something like this? And then I started to come up with a bunch ideas, which wasn't that hard since I've already experienced it and I have so many funny memories that I have while on those family reunions and I think it's an advantage that my family is just funny and they do stupid stuff all the time, which in my opinion, makes the process so much easier to plan and tell them what to say.

I was planning on starting the film by inviting family over because the main character is graduating from high school. I also think I want to be the main character but I still don't know yet but for now, pretend that I am. So I sit down with my family and they are just asking me regular questions, until we hear a knock on the door. I go get the door and it is that annoying aunt that nobody invited. In this case, that would be my cousin. So she's going to be super loud and walk in and sit with us and people are going to start whispering things like "why is she here" or "who invited her" and that's when the chaos starts. After this we don't know what to do yet but my cousin and I came up with some ideas. So one could be that that cousin tells everyone that I am supposedly pregnant but I think that's a really basic one, but I'll have it in mind. My idea was that the same cousin would do the same thing but when she comes in the house, she brings the main character a graduation gift, and the gift bag would say something like "boy or girl" and then it will be her saying she has to go to the bathroom really quick and all family members start to freak out. She then comes back and asks everyones what is going on, just to find out that that was the only gift bag she had so she used it. This are just ideas though, but I am still working on this concept.

Although I said this would be an easy thing to do with my family, since they have already done this before and they are familiar with it, there is one issue. All of my family members speak Spanish. Only my two cousins, my brother and my step-sister speak both. And yes, I knew this before deciding that I wanted to do this idea, but I think is the fact that they don't speak English what is going to make the film opening funny. They would have this funny Spanish accent and well in my opinion, it would make the film 10 times funnier. On the other hand, the hard part would be teaching them how to say a sentence in English and for them to not actually get the pronunciation right but to say the sentence in a way that the audience could understand what each one of them are saying. My mom and my Aunt I am pretty sure they could get it, but it's my Dad and my Uncle who I am worried about. And I want my dad to do funny stuff since he's basically a natural, but I don't know if it would work the same by him speaking English. But if it works out, this could turn out to be such a good film opening. 

For some inspiration and how I want my film opening to look like, here are the link to some videos that I think can help me during the planning process:

LeJuan James

Jesus Garcia 

FINAL RESEARCH

I told you guys I would come up with another idea. And that is exactly what I did, but I didn't come up with this one by myself. So this weekend, I called my cousin to see if he could help me get an idea, and maybe help me in the filming process. I told him what the instructions were and the idea that I had with the thriller genre. He said that idea could be possible but it was just too much and we needed something simple, in which I 100% agreed. So we just started to look at story prompts to see if we could come up with something. But first, he asked me what genre I was interested in and I had no idea what to answer, since I only did research on thriller. So we started looking at genres and the only ones that caught my eye were drama and comedy, since I thought they were going to be way easier to film and I have two cousins that could be great on this. After looking at story prompts and getting ideas, my cousins and I came to one idea that I think would work out great under this category. But, before I tell you guys what it is, I'll go more in depth about these two genres, since it is what my film opening is going to be based on. 

A comedy movie is meant to be humorous and entertain the audience, and in almost all the movies, the main character has a happy ending. A comedy movie usually makes the audience laugh through the use language like sarcasm and very inappropriate jokes but it is always the uncomfortable scenarios the characters are being put in and how they deal with them. Drama is kind of the same thing, but it just involves the characters with a lot of conflicts. The difference between these two genres are that Comedy is meant to make people laugh and have a happy ending. On the other hand, a drama movie has more of a serious story line and it often ends with a sad ending. However, comedy and drama can be put together and make a good film, since a comedy often has a character deal with a lot of conflicts, but one way or the other they will resolve it and have a good ending. 

This is absolutely one of my favorite movies ever. This movie is a rom-com and although I don't plan on using romance on my film opening, this is a good example of what I wanna do. No, I'm not booking a trip to Africa. The movie starts with Lauren and Jim going on a date in Hooters but it goes terribly wrong. After that they keep having encounters and they just completely hate each other. Until one day, they both are going to a trip to Africa because Lauren's friend broke up with her boyfriend and gave her the tickets. The boyfriend is Jim's boss in which he gave the tickets to him. What they didn't know is that they would be sharing rooms, since it was meant to be a honeymoon. They got to Africa and then they realized this, and plus they hate each other. After this a bunch of conflicts arise, since they are supposed to be doing things together since apparently they are people, which creates uncomfortable situations between the two.They are also involved in some funny situations. My favorite ones would be were Nickens sings to them. I would put one video but I think some of them are inappropriate so I'll just put a link. At the end they end up falling for each other and they all live happily ever after. Okay that was cheesy but it was similar to that. I love this movie

Omg. My all time favorite baseball movie ever. THE sandlot. Where do I even start. So this movie is sports/comedy film about a boy (Scott Smalls) moves to San Francisco and his mom tells him to go out and make some friends. He goes out and tries to be friends with the boys who play baseball in the neighbourhood, but only makes a fool out of himself. The boys end up making fun of him except Benny, which is the leader of the group and also my boyfriend. At the end, he ends up accepting the kid as they needed one more guy on the team. Smalls got ever and everyone on the team started to like him. However, they only had one baseball to play with and when Benny hits a home, Small starts panicking and tries to jump over the fence and try to get the ball, but the boys all stop him, saying that there is a beast on the other side and that they would never be able to get the ball back. He then says that baseball was his dad's and that it was signed by Babe Ruth. They all rush to get it. But no luck. After getting in a bunch of sticky situations while tryin got get the ball, Benny decides that he would do himself. And he was successful. They became friends with the Beast and they found out they could just knock on the owner's door and they could get it back. This movie involves a lot of conflicts and funny situations, which makes this movie great and fall in the comedy genre. And here is the link for my favorite scene on the movie.

Doing this research helped me be more informed about the comedy/drama genre and the common elements that they have which makes it fall into these genres like uncomfortable situations and the type of language that they use to make the situation funny. I will definitely keep these in mind while I'm still planing the story with my cousin. I am not that stressed out as I was thank god because know that I think that I actually have a good idea that could work very well. But I still want to plan a little bit more because of now, I have ideas and I am set on one but I did don't have a clear storyline, which I would have this week when I do the storyboard. 

CHARACTERS

I was thinking go other ideas, and I think I would most likely not stick to this one. So definitely by next week, I'll have a whole different idea that I will go into more in-depth probably on the next blog. But for now, I'll stick to this one until I have the other one. So, I am only doing one character in this film, since in the original, the main character had a brother who was also there in the hospital with her and he was also in her "dream reality", but for the scene that I was planning on doing, I really didn't need the brother, unless I put him in the hospital as he is waking her up from her "dream" but I feel like that would be too difficult, as I already don't have the setting of a hospital bed and I would have to play with the lighting and I think imitating a hospital room at my house would be pretty difficult, unless maybe I find a YouTube video on it. With that being said, this is character that think would fit the genre if I were to do a film opening on this.

When I was thinking of my character, Lily Collins was the one who came into my mind and I absolutely love her in the movie "Love, Rosie" although I would love for her to be on my film opening, there's just no way to contact her and well, I don't have connections like that. But just imagine someone similar to her. So my character would be a brunette, her height wind be around five foot and four inches, and she would have brown eyes. And her personality would kind of change throughout the movie, although you would only see the side of her from where she's scared at first, but after that, she would realize that she's in trouble and overcome those obstacles by being brave. My character would also be very intelligent, as she finds strategies to hide from the people that want to kill her because she is a "witch" so therefore, she will have to learn to survive by doing this. And this woes also be more emphasized by wearing clothes that are mid/dark bluest which represent her as being intelligent, trustworthy and loyal. As a coincidence, Lily happens to be wearing the color blue in this picture I looked up of her so this could be a really good reference of how she will look like with this one of blue. As you may or may not notice, my character does not have a name. I mean I can't just call my character Lily, but now that in am thinking about it, it wouldn't be so bad. If I can find a really good vintage last name to go with it then it's set. However, in the project i did with my group we had a name for her, which was "Catherine Squire" but I just want to switch up, just because I didn't want to use the same name.  So I did some research and this are some of the ideas that came up. 

Now, I am not a big fan of these names. The only one that kind of convinced was Beatrice. But it wasn't enough and I just wasn't satisfied I mean I tried putting Beatrice with old last news like "Barsham" or "Albury" but that is definitely not it. But then I thought about actually using the name of Lily and that to me was actually not a bad idea. And no, it is not because the girl in the picture is Lily Collins. Now that I had my first name, I had to find a last name for her and after looking up old vintage last names, I made my decisions which actually wasn't as hard because I felt like "Lily" could go with any last name, but the names were pretty weird and I just didn't like them but I had to make a choice. But after looking at my options carefully I decided that my character's name would be "Lily Ackford''. I think it goes great with the name and although it is a weird last name, I like it for my character and I think it fits her. 

Title Fonts

After two mental breakdown I had in one day, I decided to just take it easy and pray that a good idea would come to mind. No, it has to come to my mind wether I like it or not, because I would just end up doing the treadmill video our teacher showed us once and although it was cool and very different, I would not end up choreographing a treadmill routine. No way. so for now, I am just going to show the fonts that I had in mind, why I made the options of choosing those fonts, and potential options that I might use for my videos even though I still don't know what to do but I promise I will have something. 

After looking at fonts in fontspace.com, I came down to a few options that I can use for my title. But before deciding on this font, I made research to be nice informed and pick the right font for the genre of my choice. Even though the article I read about was about fonts in books, it still gave me me an idea of what font should I use and why is it appropriate for the genre that I am working with. The font would also be something that would catch the audience's attention and make then want to know more about the film. 

This is an example of Sans Serif font, which is very common in the triller/mystery world. Some of the fonts that are very used in this genre of fonts are Futura, Helvetica, and Gill sans. As you can see in the cover of this book, one of the Sans Serif fonts is used to make the title look bold and stand out. This would be good for a thriller movie because this type of fonts will intrigue the audience, as it is big and makes a statement. Now, if I do this font it is not going to look like, I mean in the way that it is structured vertically. I would put the title horizontally and I plan on doing it in a close up of the face of the girl being scared. I am not sure if I would put the color in black or red, as I will have to figure it out while I am editing, and depending on the lighting that the scene would take place on. Since I think on making these scene with medium dark lighting, I think it would be best to put the title on red, since it would stand out and it would give kind of the creepy/mystery vibes. I'm not saying it would stay like this and that I am not going to change my mind, because again, I still don't know what to do but this is the vision that I have so far.  

 

This is another font that I think it is so cool and it might be my favorite from this article that I read. To me, this font generates that sense of mystery and spooky at the same time and I really loved that ''IT" it's in red and it stands out with the all white background that is simple  plus the clown's mouth and nose help create build more suspense, as the audience would be intrigued by this imagery. This is perfect for a book cover and it would definitely attract people, however it is not a book cover that I am doing. I could be using this font for the title and I think I like it even more than the first one, bit I am just throwing out ideas. I think this font is perfect for my film opening as it also bold and can grab people's attention easily, and if I do end up picking this font or something similar to it, I would most likely put it in red, since it gives those kind of creepyish vibes and it makes it stand out. I would still put this on the same shot that I described in the first picture. 

Overall, this were the fonts that I really liked. And although this were examples of book covers and how these fonts can be used for the thriller genre, reading this article and looking at these examples helped me  be more careful and think about the font more before deciding which one would be the most adequate for my opening film and it also helped me be more informed on the genre of thriller. I also learned which fonts are the most used for this genre and why are the reasons that they are commonly used. With this in mind, I started to try out a bunch of different fonts that would fit the genre. 

This are the font options that I came down to. The first one I really, really liked. It definitely gives those suspense vibes and it goes I think it would look good with the film opening. The second one is good and it think it looks great with the red but I think the title is more elegant rather than suspenseful. I don't know, I might be wrong I just don't think it is the best decision fro the film opening. And the third one. Well I didn't hate it but I wasn't a big fan of it neither. In my opinion, this font won't work because I think it is more for the horror genre and to me, it kind of looks childish. The fourth one is my absolute favorite one. I was trying to look for something that was similar to the book cover of Steven King's "IT" that  you guys saw on top because I really liked it. I tried it with the title and I think it fits perfectly. Even though I am set on this one if I get to stick to my story, I would like to try out the first font just to see what it looks like and to play around with it.