Group meetings pt.2

Today in class we did we had another group meeting. My group was Brooke, Jack, Sebastian, Vanessa, and myself, of course. The group meetings are always good because it is a great way to get feedback on your work, give advice to others, get ideas from others, and see your progress compared to others (which sometimes makes you stress less about how much you have done lol)

Brooke talked first about her project, which she is doing a documentary on dance. She explained how she wants to show the more technical side to dance, like the movements, story, and emotions. This was a little similar to my project which I thought was interesting. I liked this idea and think it can end up looking really cool. We suggested that she uses not just the dancers, but also an instructor or professional, which could add more range and variety to the interviews. We also suggested that she adds more to her blog, like a different font and more pictures. This will make it more appealing. She had not started filming, the magazine article, or posting on social media, but she said she created the account. We also suggested that she gets started doing all of those things because the due date is coming up. As mentioned before, hearing this made me realize the progress my group has made. Haha.

Jack went next and explained that he was doing a music video for the same band that he did his documentary project on. This was a great idea and I think that it will turn out awesome. He said that he had already filmed most of it and just has a little bit more to film. He told us that he filmed part of it at this like abandoned location that has a lot of tires and had to convince a guy to let them film there, but he said the guy was chill and was cool about it. This sounded really sus to me, but this just makes so much sense for Jack. He said the next part he was filming in his garage and the band was just going to have a bunch of rubber ducks thrown at them. Again, so Jack. He said the music video has no story, but I think that this makes sense with the band and style. On his blog we saw his digipak, this had rubber ducks on it, which he was putting in his video, too. It looked really cool, and I thought he did a good job creating it. He asked what we thought he could include in it, and we suggested a pop out like origami rubber duck, he liked this idea. His blog also appealing; it popped out at you with black and purple, it really matched a band vibe. I am excited to see this music video and final digipak.

It was now my turn to go, which everyone liked some of the ideas that we had for editing our video. They thought it was a great idea to transition through the ages and change the filter or coloration to darker as she gets older. Jack suggested that on our postcard that the back be black and white. I liked this because it is a picture of our character towards the end of the short film, which would be in black and white. They also suggested changing the color on our postcard to make it more visible; switch the red title to black and the information from black to red. They thought my group has been making good progress and that our social media is consistent.

Sebastian is doing the two movie trailers and is going for like a thriller comedy. He had a similar idea to my group, by changing the coloration to like a greenish. I thought this would work well for his idea. He had not started to film; however, he had a complete shot list and script for both trailers. He was planning on filming this weekend, and having both of those things complete will make it super easy to do. I believe he said he was using Twitter for social media, which I think that he should just make sure to include some pictures. We also suggested that he include some more pictures on his blog, but I think he will include more once he films.

Vane was the last person to go, and her project looked really great from what we saw on her blog. She had already filmed and took pictures for her key art. She used a professional camera and the quality looked amazing. She is doing the trailers and making her film about a false reality. The key art reflected this perfectly. She had three options on her blog and was not sure which to use. Two were in a bathtub and the third was in front of those circle things that look like they are moving but actually are not, this was really trippy. We liked them all, but she thinks she is going to use the one of the bathtub ones. I have a feeling that her project is going to look really professional, and I am excited to see it. I do not remember if she had started on her social media, but I am not worried about her doing so.

Of course, we forgot to take a group picture, so I do not have that to include. Sorry, this is just a lot of writing. This was group meeting was insightful and collaborative.

(Pretend this is us)

and WERE BACK

Now that Spring Break is over, it is the final few weeks of our project. The first thing that we immediately discussed was when we would finish filming and whose postcard we would use. We decided that we are going to continue filming tomorrow (03/29) and see if we are able to finish. I think that we are at a great place with filming, and we have already started to edit. We are making good progress and are working efficiently.

We also discussed our postcard. Both Eugenia and I worked on this over break and had nice visuals and ideas. I continued to mess around with this in class and Eugenia and Ana liked what I had made. We will probably end up using mine for the FINAL piece, but we had an idea to post it to our Instagram to try and get some feedback on our ideas. 

It was really awesome to hear and get conformation that our work is coming along well and our "fans" are excited to see how it turns out. I am too! I think that this topic is very visually appealing and that we have a lot of cool shots. Despite the deep purpose, it is visually appealing. 

Here is the progress on the postcard that I made in class today.

Here I added dates, a film festival, and director names. For the film festival, it is for the most part local (Chicago), and is for short films. I put the categories that we could be entered for that would be the most achievable.

I have not added anything here yet, but we plan to have our social media here and maybe a quote. I made it a little transparent to change the tone.

This is still a work in progress, and I will continue to work on it!

Postcard

As we are at the end of break, we really want and need to get started on our postcard. I know that Eugenia has started to come up with some ideas and outlines for our postcard which is great! I also wanted to start putting together some ideas, which are for the most part the same.

I had screenshotted these two pictures from filming that I think could work well for the postcard, one of which is similar to our current Instagram profile picture.

The reason that I think using these two pictures our work well is because of the juxtaposition that they include. The top picture is the action that everyone sees, however the bottom shows the struggle behind the sport.

Here are some ways to incorporate them...

or...

These are just rough ideas and we still need to discuss as a group. When we meet in class, we will start to discuss our ideas and see what we think work best. We also need to determine what information we will include on our postcard. This includes film festivals, dates of release, where we are releasing, and other information.

See you after spring break!

Marketing

As mentioned previously, over break we wanted to focus on posting on our Instagram. We have recently added new posts, which included some background and fun facts of our main character, as well as little teasers that we made from some footage.

We want to grow our Instagram by gaining more followers and posting more frequently.

These videos were posted as an Instagram reel. According to Instagram, reels include creating, watching, and sharing short, entertaining videos. You can create multi-clip videos up to 90 seconds, and get creative with easy-to-use text, AR filters and audio. The most important part as to why we are using reels as opposed to regular videos is because of the explore tab on Instagram. The new Reels tab-a space to encounter shareable moments as they happen-or find reels in someone's profile. You can send reels you like to friends in Messenger or share them to Stories. This is a great way to expand our audience by using hashtags to get on users explore tab.

Here we did a little intro for our main character. We just included some fun facts about the actress to show possible engagement with the fans.

Spring Break Plans

SOOO... this week is Spring Break and we do not have school. Because of this it is going to be a little bit more difficult to communicate and find time to work on our project, however, we plan to still find the time to get stuff done.

We plan to continue posting on our Instagram with photos and more behind the scenes! We are working on creating little edits of some of our filming to post on the Instagram as mini teasers. We plan to post a few of these, pictures of our cast, and BTS of filming. This is our Instagram currently, and I will do another blog about our recent posts!

We want to start brainstorming some ideas for our postcard and possibly an outline for our plans. We are most likely going to use Canva, which has a variety of options for us to use and be creative with our print component. When we go back to school and are all together in class, we will be shifting more our focus to this.

We want to film a little bit more over break. This of course may not happen because of what I explained earlier. However, if possible, we plan to get what we can. After break, we will get the remaining footage and filming complete.

Finally, we want to start editing what we have, so that when we do conclude filming, we already have a foundation and outline for the rest of the footage. We have not discussed who will be editing the entirety, however, we can all contribute in some way towards the editing. I think it is better for one person to do most of it, therefore it is consistent and the "vision" of the final product is not altered.

BEHIND THE SCENES

I do not want to share too much, but here are some behind of the scenes!

Here is a picture of filming a scene with our main character. We took this on our first day of filming.

(this video will not be included vertically)

Here are some videos that will be most likely be included in our film. These will be included in the parts with our character at her youngest age. 

We still have a lot more filming to do, but we are at a comfortable place where we know we are on track to not be stressed. We are going to start editing what we have and start on our print component. Next week is spring break and will be difficult to communicate without class time and do our usual work, however, when we have the time, we will be working on our project!

Meet the cast!!

Here are some pictures of our cast! This is not everyone, but some of the important roles that you may want to keep in mind! We took these pictures on our first day of filming. I will be sure to include some behind the scenes and some clips from filming in the future! 

These three girls are playing our main character. Each are playing the same role, just as a different age in our main characters life. They will be in most of the film so get used to seeing them!

 

These girls are playing another one of our characters. She will be playing one of the teammates? (idrk gymnastics terms) and friends of our main character.

I will post some more behind the scenes in future days!

STARTING TO FILM!

FILMING HAS OFFICALLY STARTED! 🎉😀

Our first day of filming was today, March 13. We were able to get some good footage of our main character for the end of the film, and as her younger self. This means that we are filming out of order, but this will be an easy obstacle when editing because the characters and scenes are separated by age.

Our first challenge was how busy the gym was, which meant that we could not film a lot of dialogue, as it would hard to understand the characters. However, we were able to get a lot of shots of the characters performing skills, and of course the character failing at the skills. The main character we are using is super outgoing and comfortable in front of the camera, which is great. We were able to get a few shots with dialogue of her and I think they turned out well. She was not awkward, and I thought that was really important if someone is going to be a main character. The girl that we are using for her as a little bit more grown up was very excited to get to be in our film. She kept wanting to be in more scenes and asking what she could do next. It started to get late, and some of the girls needed to leave so we were not able to continue filming. 

An issue that we have during these upcoming weeks is that Eugenia's team has their biggest competition next week and are in practice mode and taking everything seriously. This makes it hard to find time to film because we do not want to interrupt their practices. We are glad we got a good amount of footage today, which we can start editing and using for our social media. We plan to edit and work on our print component in the meantime until we can finish filming. We may be able to over the weekend, while during the rest of the week, Eugenia can try to get some shots during her practice. She will update us on when the best times are.

Script and Shot List

This script is just a broad example of what we want our actors to follow. We plan to use this to guide the actors with lines and adjust the lines to how what we think would work best. We also do not think we will film in order, so we can still change the script and shot list. To be honest, some of the lines will also be added while filming to see what will fit best. 

For the shot list, these are just some ideas and what we want to try and include. These are some of the shots that we plan to have in our film.

SCRIPT:

Coach: Now that you're on the beam I want you to do a backwards kick, I want the dismount to be clean girls, toes pointed arms straight  

Girls stand in line and perform the stunt (main girl does it perfect everyone else has flaws) 

Other classmates look annoyed at the girl.

Coach: Well, done ______, guys look at how she kept her toes pointed and core tight, that's how everyone should be doing the kick. Now I need everyone to practice this skill for the next 10 min.

Girls go into their own group; main girl goes with her two friends.

Friend 1: Hey that was super good, how did you get the kick down so quick. 

Friend 2: yeah, please show me how, I can’t keep my arms straight while I'm in the air. 

Main Girl: I don't know I guess I'm just naturally good at gymnastics.  

Main Girl: Gymnastics is so fun and easy, I love it. 

Girl says easy, very excited about being there and being good. 

~Transition~ 

Coach: Girls, I need you guys to be looking better, this is not good enough for competition,  

Coach privately talking to the girl during practice. 

Coach: I'll suggest you stay after practice, and practice your technique, for competitions because right now you're not good enough 

Main girl: Okay I get it. 

Looking at a professional gymnastic  

Main Girl: Why can't I do that. 

Main Girl: Why am I not good enough. 

Looking back at herself in videos 

Main Girl: This is not good enough, I hate it.  

In the car  

Main Girl: I can’t keep coming to gymnastics anymore. 

Mother: You have to keep going, look how far you have gotten 

Main girl: But it's gotten harder, I can't get the routines right. 

Mother: You just need to practice more, you can’t quit over that, it's a dumb reason 

Main girl: It's not only that- 

Mother: Stop, you aren't leaving gymnastics, I've paid too much for you not to continue, come on you're going to be late. 

~Transitions~

Main girl trying a technique over and over again, after so much she stops and becomes sad from her failures. 

Coach: Hey, what are you still doing here, we ended practice two hours ago… do you need a ride home

Main girl: No, I am fine thanks, I been trying to get the new technique down, I haven't been able to 

Coach: I understand, your legs were not straight enough during practice. I expect you to be better at this, you were the best when you started, what happened. 

Main Girl: I promise, I'll be perfect for the competition. 

Coach: You better if not you're out of the team.  

Main girl: I can't do this anymore. 

SHOT LIST: 

• Over the shoulder shot from the little kid looking at their coach explaining the skill. 

• Mid/long shot of the little kid doing the skill perfectly. 

• Mid/long shot of the rest of the girls doing the same skill just not as good. 

• Same sequence of shots but in another event. 

• Close ups of the main girl's face showing the excitement of being in the gym. 

• Close up of girls rolling her eyes at the girl. 

• Mid shot of them rolling their eyes and showing them getting annoyed at the girls “perfection.”

• (More shots of her as her younger self enjoying gymnastics)

• transition from young to old: showing them doing a skill when they’re younger and zooming into their hands or feet and then when we zoom out, they’re older. 

• (Shots of everything getting harder, her friend's kind of doing better than her) 

• Over the shoulder shot of her looking at a video of a professional gymnast doing what she does. 

• Over the shoulder shot of her analyzing the videos of her doing gymnastics. 

• Two-shot of coach and the girl having a talk. 

• Series of different shots of her practicing on her own to be better and improving on her own. 

• Over the shoulder shot of her looking at her phone 

• (Still enjoying gymnastics but kind of falling more and not doing it correctly) 

• Transition from middle to older, show her falling. 

• Close ups of her falling (like stick it) 

• Long shot of someone coming in and finding her after practice 

• Two shots of them two having a conversation

• Different sequence of shots showing her crying and talking to herself wondering why she is not good enough. 

• Mid shot of her having a breakdown to her mom or parents that she can’t do it anymore, yet her mom forces her. 

• MAYBE: A shot of her and her mom in the car, telling her that she has to keep going and stuff. 

• MAYBE (for the very end, do a close up with a zoom in and then put a bunch of flashbacks of when everything was simple and easy, and t just ends)

Postcard research

Here are some examples of the print component of our project. I was able to receive some inspiration from these and what I plan to incorporate into ours.

 

This postcard is for the film Holy Motors that includes the name of the film and additional information regarding it. In this postcard, the first thing I noticed was the limo and the bolded title. Not only is the title of the film big and bolded, but also in a bright color across the entirety of the postcard. This postcard includes actor names, production credits, the director/producers' names, the film festival it will be shown at, a website name, social media, its ratings, feedback, and age recommendations. Despite having a lot of information, the print is still simple and easy to access. I found this piece to be very cool and intriguing, as it shows many different aspects of the film, like the characters and locations, as well as a color scheme that I assume would be continuous throughout the film. Some inspiration I want to take from this postcard is how it was instantly eye catching and has elements that really pop out to the audience.

 

This postcard is for a film called Sausage which includes the film name and other informational text. This print does not have as bolded or eye catching of an image compared to the other example, however, it uses bright and engaging colors. From this postcard, it can be assumed that this is probably a lighter film and probably for comedic purposes because of the playful colors and font. The animated characters on the postcard are most likely the main characters in the film and play a big role, considering that they are being featured. The director's name is included on this piece, which most likely means that whoever it is, is recognizable. There are a multitude of film festivals shown at the bottom, as well as awards that the film has won. I think that more information could be included, like who plays the voices of the characters and if there is any, the social media usernames. I like the simplicity of this postcard while still being visually engaging and informative.

Transitions

I do not think that I ever discussed what we are planning to do with transitions and exactly when the color grading would be taking place. 

We plan to have three different actors playing the main character...

So basically, the beginning of our film is going to be a young girl who succeeds over her peers at gymnastics. She is confident, happy, and optimistic about her future in the sport. The other girls are jealous and envious of her success. This is when she the colors will be bright, no color grading, just the authentic lighting over the gym.

Then we want to place a transition, which would be through a skill in gymnastics. The now young teenager will start to have difficulty with some of the skills, which she is not used to. This is when the color grading to darker hues will begin. She starts to become down on herself and question her skill level compared to others. 

After this transition, she will now be the oldest point in the film. This is when she is completely pessimistic and upset with her performance. She does not find joy in the sport and only finds it bringing her down. By the end of the film, we plan to have the color to be mainly black & white. We hope that this can convey the message and purpose of our film.

Ultimately, when the tone and mood changes, so will the colors.

Color grading

Color grading is post-production process used in filmmaking and video editing to alter the appearance of an image for presentation. There are various attributes of an image like contrast, color, saturation, detail, black level, and white balance, which can enhance the production. Color grading and color correction are usually terms that resemble this process and can integrate the generation of artistic color effects through creatively and the making of different layers. (Color grading - Wikipedia)

Color grading helps you create a mood or coherent sensibility with your color palette. Different from color correction, which makes your images look exactly like they appear in real life, color grading conveys a visual tone. (What is color grading and how do I use it? - Adobe)

We have not decided who is editing yet, but for previous projects I have used Davinci, so that is what program I watched a tutorial on.

DaVinci Resolve Color Grading Tutorial (click link for video)

Now why am I doing this research? 

As mentioned, the beginning of our film is going to be colorful which is reflective to the young girl being excited about the sport. Throughout the film as the mood begins to change, we want to lower/change the saturation. This will go from bright to an almost black & white color. I think that this is a great idea and will add a lot more complexity to the film. Someone actually had recommended this in Ana's group meeting. I hope that this will work well and correlate with the concept that we are going for.

I had talked about in my last blog post how we want to show her throughout different ages and the progression of pessimism as the other girls begin to pass her in skill. This will be where a change of color will be shown.

It is still up for debate on how we want to end this film. The reason I bring this up is because we end this with the girl being content, the color will go back to how it was at the beginning, however, the film could become completely black & white, which would show the slow degradation and really captivate the message that we are trying to send. Personally, I would love to end this on a happier note, however, for the sake of complexity and thought of our purpose, I really think that ending the film with no color (especially after starting with a so much) would add a lot to the piece.

Setting

Clearly, based off our film's topic, a lot of our film is going to be shot at a gym.

Gyms are usually very bright and gives off a lot of positive energy. This is good for the beginning of our film, as the girl is going to be radiating that energy. As time goes on, these colors are not going to reflect our character. We had an idea on how to mirror this change in tone... stayed tuned for that post.

We plan to begin the film at the gym, showing the character striving in the sport as a young child. It shows her happy and confident in the gym, highlighting the hope for her that this will continue to be a true passion for her. We want to show her continuing to grow up in this gym, by using girls of different ages (all acting as one girl), and the progression of frustration as this confident begins to decrease. I think that it is important to use the gym in a majority of the scenes as a reminder as to what is causing this stress. 

We also plan to have some shots be taken place at the character home. This will highlight the self-reflection and the hole that the girl has fallen into. Being alone allows her to think about her performance and show her desire to be as good as the others around her. I think including her being alone at the gym while watching the other girls can also show this reflection.

Insta

 Find us on Instagram at....

@reachingthebarfilm

At the moment we do not have any posts on our Instagram, but we plan for our first post to be a teaser that Eugenia made at her practice the other day. It is simple and gives our audience a glimpse of what our film will be about... which is gymnastics.

Now that we have created our social media, we want to focus on posting on it frequently. Our group plans to discuss and map out our posts to make sure that all match the aesthetic of our film. This may be easier if we have one person controlling and posting on the social media page, but I am going to see what my group members think about this. 

We plan to start filming next week... so stay tuned for more posts and more updates as the days go on!!!

This week we are going to start creating a script, shot list, and list of characters.

Reaching the Bar

We did a little brainstorming and finally created a name for our film. We did not want something basic but did want it to do with gymnastics.

I was trying to think of something that is related to gymnastics, like equipment or skill name. Then Ana said making it something about the bar. This is not only gymnastics equipment but can also represent the 'bar' needed to be reached to succeed. After her idea, I said 'Falling off the Bar,' which could represent the girl basically losing her sanity from the sport. We then though of Reach the Bar, to represent her trying to reach this expectation.

Now that we have a name, we can create and post on our Instagram. Our first post is a video that Eugenia made the other day at practice. It is her friends in the video getting prepared to perform on bars, which is ironic and worked out perfectly, maybe it was her showing us the video that gave us inspiration. We want to use this video as a little teaser for our social media for what our film is going to be about. It is simple, yet hints at our short film.

We plan to create a Tik Tok page, and as mentioned before, use this to post fun content and maybe even grow our audience. We want to post on our social media giving updates on BTS, pictures, videos, updates, and more teasers.

We made a profile picture place holder just in the meantime until we have more content.

Where are we marketing?

 

Social Media

OR

There are two platforms that I think would work best for our short film. Personally, I think that Instagram and Tik Tok are the two best options. Here is what I am thinking about both...

Instagram:

Instagram is a basic social media platform used to market films and productions. We can post videos, pictures, BTS, release dates, teasers, and much more. Instagram is one of the most used and popular social media platforms and is a great way to engage with our audience. I personally think that Instagram has a lot to offer, and we would be able to post anything we need to.

Tik Tok:

Tik Tok would be harder to include phots and basic updates for our audience. HOWEVER, since we are going into this project with no following, no audience besides the class, etc. it is very easy to get followers on Tik Tok. Because of the Tik Tok algorithm, videos can get on users 'For You Pages' and continue to grow. This would be a way to gain a following and attentions for our film.

I personally think that we should do both an Instagram and Tik Tok, but mainly focus on posting on Instagram. I think that Instagram is the easiest to post anything we want to with no limitations. We could use Tik Tok to create fun videos and post behind the scenes.

We decided that we are going to start on Instagram. We want to create the account, but we need a name first, so I will update this when we come up with a name :)