The Big Finale

After weeks of hard work, sweat, tears, and little to no sleep, I proudly present our film opening to our movie, "1%".

Creative Critical Reflection

What Would Mickey Mouse Do

Discuss editing struggles

Spring Break!!!

discuss issues of filing

Blue is Not Always the Warmest Color

In the mist of my research, my group member Fabiana

The 5 Stages of Grief

This post is not what you're thinking.
However, I am currently grieving my evident loss of sleep.

Today, my group and I met up at Victoria's house, as we often do, to discuss the ideas gained from our peers during our in-class group meetings on Friday. In light of this, Fabiana shared an amazing idea, proposed by another one of our classmates (thanks Conner!), that we are planning to incorporate within the story line of our film opening. As I have previously discussed, the pace of our film opening speeds up as the "impending doom" of our main character's situation quickly approaches via her phone battery dying. This will be depicted as her phone goes from 5% , and with each intensifying sequence, drops until it gets to 1%. While discussing this concept, Connor proposed to Fabi that it would be interesting to portray the 5 stages of grief within our character while simultaneously showing her phone dying. This juxtaposition of her experiencing the stages of grief with the dying of her phone makes our approach in our portrayal of our narrative more unique and authentic. It, likewise, acts as a method of getting our audience to better empathize with the main character and what she is emotionally going through by visually stating each stage with the correlating battery percent.

Stage 5: Denial - 5%
With each stage, we have planned to create a freeze frame with a sound motif to signal not only the change in grief, but the fall in battery percent. Additionally, we have written the script to mimic that of the main character's thoughts in the form of a voice over. Within the voice over, she will be explaining how she struggled to learn about the 5 stages of grief in class, but how she can finally understand the concept.

Stage 4: Anger - 4%
In the anger sequence, we will use a series of shaky camera movements and fast cuts to change the sudden tone of the scene. Close-ups of confrontation will be used to depict her resistance to the situation she has been forced into.

Stage 3: Bargaining - 3%
Small pieces of dialogue will portray the bargaining aspects of grief such as begging to let her [the main character] go or trading things for her freedom. Additionally, behaviors such as bringing the hands together in prayer will be shown to show her desperation in finding a way out, even by turning to her religion.



Stage 2: Depression - 2%
The mise-en-scene elements of this scene will reflect that of the stage. The saturation will gradually lower as well as the small pops of blue that we have chosen to include to symbolize sex trafficking awareness.


Stage 1: Acceptance - 1%
Acceptance is not only the last step within the stage of grief, but it is the last visual/scene being portrayed within our film opening. Its significance is that it is essentially the start to the main character's story and is the gateway to the start of the plot.

Maybe I Should Get Out More

Fear is quite an interesting thing. It messes with your mind and as a result, it messes with your body. It's like being in the dark, unable to see. You could be in an empty room, in a completely safe space but, the mind does wonders when in comes to creating a frightening imagination. You start hearing things or seeing things that aren't there and then all of a sudden you are effected physically. The heart begins to race, the palms begin to sweat, and boom - fear becomes the established emotion.

Weirdly enough, I like being scared - in a love/hate type of relationship. I can feel as the adrenaline is released into my blood stream and my heart begins to pick up speed. It's somewhat reassuring to know that my body is equipped to recognize when to take flight or fight. However, I am what you would call a "scaredy cat" with the tendencies of a control freak. The minute I feel fear creeping up from behind me, I try to shut it down (because in all honesty - who really wants to feel fear). I tell myself that there's nothing to be scared of and the second I begin convincing myself, the feline part of me panics and assumes that since I'm trying not to be scared, that there is every reason to be scared.

I came to this realization while wondering around the property of an abandoned health institute - which just SCREAMS "you will feel fear". I went with Alex and Vicky as we were location scouting this morning. It had to be 11:22am when we arrived at the weed invested gates of "Plum Village Health Institute", or what remained of it. Fabiana couldn't make it because she had church - the irony.

 

Here's a picture of us before making the decision to - what I must admit - was the scariest and most "high school teenager" thing I've ever done (going to an abandoned health institute).

But, we decided to check out the location because it seemed like the perfect place to shoot the second segment of our film opening where we will make it evident to the audience that the main character has been sex trafficked. 

From My Peers to my Ears

So let me start off by saying that it was extremely hard rolling out of bed this morning (and when I say “roll”, I mean I couldn’t even physically bring myself to get out of bed). I just allowed gravity to take me and ended up falling onto my hard wooden floors. On the bright side, my unexpected start to the day did indeed wake me up. Nothing says “good morning” like the cold, hard embrace of my bedroom floor.

I didn’t even go to bed late! I was just that tired.

Today didn’t even feel like a Friday. It was just one of those days that felt more like a Monday, so I wasn’t in the most desirable mood when I walked into Mrs. Stoklosa's 5th period AICE media class at 7:40 am. However! the day did improve once the class was put into groups for peer feedback. The students in my class are brilliant, and it amazes me how creative and unique each of them are. As a result of this, I really enjoy peer critiques because I know how much they all aid me in the process of improving my portfolio project.

During our meeting, the biggest advice put forward by one of my classmates is to keep our project mature. When representing such a serious issue, it is imperative to stay true to the factual concept through accuracy and appropriate depiction. Therefore, my group and I have been doing extensive research in order to avoid stereotyping/enforcing misconceptions about sex trafficking and those affected by this global issue. Another suggestion given by one of my classmates is to really clarify the idea that our main characters hardships will follow after her phone gets to 1% and then dies. The commencement our of film begins after the 2 minute film opening when the main characters phone dies further establishing our film title “1%”. Additional to this, the pace of our film opening will intensify with each time the main characters battery percent falls (e.g.5% to 4% to 3%). While discussing this aspect, my classmates suggested showing the percent, not just through shots of the phones screen, but by allowing the battery icon to be present in the frame at all times (as shown below). This will be done in post editing to show the icon at the top of the screen to better allow the audience to understand the significance of the phones lifespan being symbolic of the to main characters diminishing hope.

I'm only Bilingual.. or so I was

Eu só falo duas línguas! which translates from Portuguese to "I only speak two languages!"

My family is from Brazil and even though I was born in the US, I grew up speaking two languages. However, when researching for our portfolio project, I had no idea that I would gain the ability to decipher yet another language. Sex trafficking language that is.

With the aim of keeping our project professional and representative of the global issue that is sex trafficking, my group and I have been studying the slangs and dialect typically used by those who take part in the trade. This process has been essential towards making our script as it allows us to stay true to the topic and eliminate any stereotypes of how sex trafficking operates.

In the grand scheme of things, it is easier to understand sex trafficking as the multi-billion dollar criminal industry that it is. It functions in a tedious, organized fashion that enables the business to continue to grow and spread at an alarming rate. According to polarisisproject.org, in the US alone, over 34,700 cases of sex trafficking has been reported since 2007. The key word here being "reported". Like I have previously stated, this industry is one that operates in a strategic way and therefore, the language used by sex traffickers reflects in this manner. The selling and buying of humans is not an activity that goes unnoticed, but it is done in a way that enables it to be subtle. For instance, when police officers/government agents are investigating a sex trafficking case, they go to various lengths such as tapping calls in order to gain probable cause. In doing so however, they must understand potential words/phrases that hint to and/or suggest other suspicious activities.

Some of these words include the following:

• Bottom - a female that is assigned by a pimp to monitor the other girls; reporting if any of the girls have violated the rules and assisting in activities such as booking girls/other victims. For example, in the film "Eden", the bottom was a victim named Abbie that had been one of the older more "loyal" girls.

• Branding - a method of keeping track of the girls and who owns them; can be a marking, tattoo, or carving on a victims body.

• Choosing Up - the process by which a pimp claims ownership of a girl; made when a victim makes eye contact with another pimp.

• Family - when a group of individuals is under the ownership of the same pimp. 

• Kiddie Stroll - location of where prostitution takes place, usually with younger victims.

Sources:
Common Sex Trafficking Language. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://sharedhope.org/the-problem/trafficking-terms/
Sex Trafficking. (2018, November 09). Retrieved from https://polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/sex-trafficking

My Search History

 

Sex trafficking research can be a difficult concept to explain to your mom once she’s stumbled upon your search history. My conversation with my mom, and I kid you not, went a little like this:

Mom: "Hey sweetheart, umm so I needed to use your computer for something and I'm a little concerned"
Me:"What about mom?"
*completely oblivious to the fact that I left 300 tabs open about sex trafficking*
Mom: "Are you in some sort of trouble? because if I need to go to the polic-"
Me: "OOOOHHHH"
 *comes to the realization of what my mother is talking about and then proceeds to explain why I am researching sex trafficking*

Over the past view months, I have come to understand that the mise-en-scene and accurate representation is key when it comes to illustrating a story of any kind. Therefore, when my group and I decided that we wanted our main character to be a victim of sex trafficking, we knew that our costume and set design had to match that of real life sex trafficking cases. By definition, a victim of sex trafficking is an individual under the age of 18.

The Visuals

Now that we have solidified our idea, we are getting to work. In the process of making our film opening, my group and I have decided to meet up today and create our storyboard.

1% with 99% to go

Throughout these series of blog posts, I want you all (my readers) to get to know me better.

So here are some fun facts:

- my favorite part of flying is when the plane lands (the bumpier, the better)

- my cheeks sweat when I drink lemonade (they just get really damp-like)

- I'm some-what artistic, as in I like to paint and draw, however, I can never think of what to draw

Going off that last fun fact, I always end up staring at a blank canvas and end up googling, "What to paint" or "How to paint ___". Some people , unlike myself, are capable of just knowing what to paint. They wet their brush, dip the bristles in paint, and off they go.
DISCUSS SYMBOLISM AND MISE-EN-SCENE ELEMTS - BLUE BLUE

Ideas, Ideas

Today in class, my group and I decided to narrow the scope of our genre to a psychological/ suspenseful thriller. In response to this, we have each chosen to watch the two beginning minutes of four different thrillers.

Here is what we have chosen to analyze:

Fabiana - The ButterFly Effect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waf3Q9kEGFI

Vicky - Se7en
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD7w2l88dl8

Alex - The Black Swan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0BbfVV_RVs

Me - Gone Girl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyYkttbnPK0

During our viewings we each disscussed the pace of the listed film opening, how the central character is being focused, what shots/edits are being used, credit placement, dialogue, setting, colors used, etc. that make up a thriller. While watching the 2 initial minute of “Gone Girl”... 

The Hills are Alive...with the Lingering Smell of Garbage

I love reading and repeating cheesy quotes. One of my favorites is “it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey”. However, in order to embark on said journey, you first need a destination.

Especially if the location is essential to the plot of your 2 minute film opening.

In the planning process of our portfolio project, my group and I have agreed that the setting of our film will be significant to accomplishing the authenticity of the plot and how we hope to present this narrative to the world. Despite the fact that our film opening is that of a fictional story, it is one that centers around a very non-fictional concept. Sex trafficking is an extremely serious problem and the tone of our opening is intended to reflect that same seriousness. According to my research, victims of sex trafficking are often lured into the industry via coercion, force, or fraud. These tactics often include physical and sexual abuse and traffickers transport individuals in various ways. The modes of sex trafficking transportation often takes place in the most obvious of places such as harbors, train stations, and bus stops. However, it occurs in the most subtle of ways. Thus, we have decided to shoot the initial minute of our film opening at Vista View Park.

Vista View Park

A park is the perfect location for the atmosphere of our film. Vista View, in particular, is not often busy and therefore allows us to film in a location that we can depict as isolated/deserted. Additionally, Vista View is referred to as "The Hills". This is a unique characteristic of this park because South Florida terrain is not in any way Hill-like. "Fortunately", the park used to be a landfill (YAY) but is now a green, flowed filled park where the occasional Floridian can run up the un-occasional Florida hill.

An issue that Vicky pointed out in the atmosphere of the park is that it is extremely green, which contradicts the mood of our film. As a solution, we are choosing to post edit our footage with a grey, dull filter and modify the saturation levels to depict the hopelessness of our main character's situation.

We plan to shoot on top of the hill and use close shots to further enforce the isolation of the scene.

P.s.-
The Date is set!
We are shooting on Saturday March 16th.

More Like Sunday Night Fever

In life, I’ve come to realize that nothing really ever goes the way you plan... especially when your trying to work on a project with an 102.3 Sunday Night Fever. But, like most obstacles, we just have to power through it. Even if that means downing a cup of Tylenol and putting a wet rag on your forehead to distract from the on and off chills that bounce throughout my body.

Sex Education, Mind Mapping, and More!

There's this new Netflix Original called "Sex Education" that I've been binge watching lately and have really come to enjoy. It's definitely not a show to watch with your parents (I learned that the hard way), but I should've known by the title to think twice before clicking "Play" in the presence of my mother. Anyways, the characters within the show are all so peculiar however, one character that I have find I oddly relate too is *takes a deep breath* the main female character's secret best friend, Aimee *exhales*.

Aimee's personality, overall, is bubbly, positive, and all too naive despite the actions she takes yet, my favorite quality of hers is that she loves "mind mapping". In any situation, whether it be a serious conflict or if she's giving some simple advice, she pulls out her notebook and a pen and says, "Let's do some mind mapping". Thus, in honor of Aimee, I decided to do the same and began mind mapping to get my creative juices flowing. 

Planning is an essential part of any project, especially one that expands over the period of several weeks. Thus, in light of figuring out what 

Brain Thunder

One can not brainstorm without first hearing thunder.

 

Today in class, my fellow peers and I gathered around a round table, as if we were at the "first" supper, and sipped on the wine of our imaginations. One by one, we shared ideas, critiques, and suggestions regarding the planning and production of our film openings which I really enjoyed and appreciated. As a student in this day and age, I often find myself noticing that I am not put into many situations that enable my mind to run wild and free. I tend to conform to this box of systematic learning and replicate what I've been taught rather than understanding and applying this information in my own way. So, when I first began to work on my portfolio project, I kinda had this "Oh, shoot" moment in realization to the fact that I would now need to "think outside the box".

And in this moment, with my blue ink pen in hand, I got to work and composed a brilliant 2 minute film opening, written in complete detail and edited to perfection............just kidding. My initial brainstorming session went a little something like this (and please bare with me): I really just sat there for 5 minutes straight, staring at a blank piece of paper, asking myself "how does someone bring them self to write, direct, and edit a story of any kind?" Then, for another 5 minutes, I had a mini panic attack because seriously!! HOW does someone truly produce a film opening, let alone make an entire film???


Despite my first obstacle faced within this process - which was really nothing more than just 10 minutes of my internal conflict -  I finally gained the reassurance needed by consulting with my group about what genre we want to portray in our film opening. My group, whom consists of Alex, Fabiana, and Vicky, and I have decided that we want to gravitate more towards a suspenseful genre such as a thriller. At first, Vicky suggested doing a Drama, while I wanted to do a Horror film opening. Deciding to do a Thriller became our "happy medium" which our other group members agree will be an interesting genre to portray. Although we are yet to come to a definite decision about the content of our opening, in class, we did discuss some elements and techniques that we would like to incorporate within the intro of our scene. Since our genre is a thriller, we hope to capture the  innate attention of our audience by including only digetic sounds while keeping the audio to a "minimal to none" factor. Silence is often an element of film that is not typically used, however when it is used, it entices viewers to pay closer attention as if by saying "you don't want to miss this", while also building suspense and anticipation. For instance, a perfect example of using the element of silence to capture audience interest is the 2018 Drama/Thriller "A Quiet Place", directed by John Krasinski. And when I'm telling you that this technique leaves an impact on viewers, I remember watching this film in theaters and being able to hear a pin drop within the room. I have never seen so many people so captivated and willing to remain quiet for the entire 1 hour and 31 minutes of a movie.

Additional to maintaining silence within the opening of our film, some visual approaches that we want to incorporate are using tight medium shots/close-ups. The purpose of doing so is because my group and I want to create a more personal connection to the audience, while also limiting the vision of the viewers. In a recent Ted Talks I watched (which I have linked down below), the presenter stated that "we connect through stories" and this statement really resonated with me. Enabling a story to possess the trait of relatablility is what differentiates it from a decent story to a great one. I want my portfolio to be more than just a grade, I want it to be meaningful and enticing and something that people can remember. This will be done by ensuring the audience has a more intimate relationship/perspective on the character and what he/she may be going through. Using tight shots also limits the POV of the character while eliminating dramatic irony to further establish the suspenseful tone of our thriller film opening.

Link to Ted Talks, title "Andrew Stanton: The clues to a great story"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxDwieKpawg

Genre Research - Action

Genre Research – Action

Genre Conventions – production techniques

The plot of an action film tends to be fast paced and chaotic. Due to the various stunts and violent scenes included such as fighting, explosions, and even frantic chases, the budgeting of an action film must be likewise, just as abundant to adequately produce the film. Additional to the budget, equipment necessary for shooting scenes like I have mentioned, typically include wide shots, dolly shots, and crane shots to capture the entirety of the many different things that may be happening at once in a scene.

The location of an action film usually is one that can allow for an establishing shot. Establishing shots are used not only to give audience a distinct location of the film, but to overall set the mood and build up to the chaos of the plot in a large scaled area. For instance, locations like landmark cities, such as New York City, Paris, London, and Tokyo are all cities that have been used in action films to fulfill the purpose of using an establishing shot.

Common Characteristics of the Action Genre:
- Explosions
- Gunshots,
- Loud noises that allude to danger and violence.

Film Sample #1 - Fast and Furious Franchise

Film Sample #2 - Deadpool 

Genre Research - Romance

Genre Research – Romance

Genre Conventions – production techniques

The target audience of a romance-themed film is usually geared to reach a female audience and invoke emotions within the viewers watching. The plot centers on this concept of “Girl meets Boy” with hardships in between and tends to end with a “Happily Ever After” resolution.

To begin to understand the genre conventions of a romance, it is essential to gain insight to how set designers/directors build the tone of the story through visual characteristics such as the setting. The setting of a romance film typically starts by taking place in an urban location such as a school, city, beach, coffee shop, etc. All locations share, what I’ve come to call, the “chance” factor whereas the two main love interests can encounter each other by “chance”.

Other techniques that enable the mood of a romance plot to be established derive from auditory queues. These various sounds immerse the audience to connect with the characters on a more personal level. For instance, soundtracks of romance films tend to include soft sounds and soothing lyrics at different times of the plot. During times of separation between the main love interests, diegetic sound such as sober background music may be used to reflect the inner emotion of each character. An excellent example of a score used to associate the connection between two characters in a romance film is "Bella's Lullaby" from the romance-drama, "Twilight". During the film, it was established that Edward, the main male love interest, had dedicated a song for Bella, the main female love interest on the piano. This score, which I have attached below, would most often play when Bella and Edward were apart to remind the audience of their deep connection and lasting love despite the conflicts between them. 

Here's the link where you can listen to "Bella's Lullaby"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7-3_h0vxXA

A auditorial feature that is not often used in films of various genres, but one that I have come to notice is commonly used within romantic films is Epistolary Voice. This is done when the advancement of the plot moves forward through the reading of letters via the main character's own present voice or via a voiceover. A few romance films that deliver dialogue using Epistolary Voice include: Pride and Prejudice, Letters to Juliet, and Dear John.

Common Characteristics of the Romance Genre:
- Props include those of romantic gestures such as flowers, gifts, and other symbols/tokens of appreciation and love of the main lovers portrayed
- Mise-en-Scene includes soft/natural lighting to set a romantic and innocent tone. Colors that represent love, passion, desire, etc. such as hues of pinks and red are often used depending on the context of the scene.
- Costume design depends on time period, however in a typical romance film characters wear casual dressing based on the era established. Female characters are often depicted through a more delicate lense are therefore wear clothing such as dresses of lighter colors such as white, yellow, etc. These colors can mimic joyful periods in the plot if a comparison needs to be later made in the story.

Film Sample #1 - 10 Things I Hate About You
The film, 10 Things I Hate About You, can perfectly represent the romance genre through its various features. To start, the location of the plot is a high school "chance" setting in which the main male character, an outcasted "angsty teen", is paid money to attempt to date an ill-tempted, hard to love girl named Katarina Stratford. In the mist of taking on this challenge, the male character, Patrick, attempts to swoon Kat with gifts and romanic gestures such as singing "I Love You Baby", by Frank Sinatra, at her soccer practice. At first, Kat is hesitant and even disgusted by these acts however, comes to fall for Patrick. Likewise, although his intentions were not pure at first, he comes to fall for Kat.

Film Sample #2 - Titanic
If I'm talking about romance films, why not include one of the most infamous ones of them all, Titanic. The film takes is based on the real life tragedy that was the sinking of the Titanic ship however, in this film, the audience follows the short-lived love story of Jack and Rose - two teens aboard the ship who found comfort within each other. The biggest contributing romance factor that I noticed throughout the film was the Mise-en-scene. Often, the main female love interest, Rose, is portrayed in a very feminine, poised way. This is not only done to represent that of her high class societal status, but to make her appear susceptible and naive to the deep love she ends up having with the male love interest, Jack. Rose's costume design often shows Rose wearing delicate colors and outfits to additionally represent her innocence. But, at the night of her losing her virginity, she wear a dark red sleek/mature dress to symbolize her passions and desires with Jack.

Here is Rose in her red dress:

Citations 

Dow, G. (2017, January 06). Codes and Conventions of the Romance Genre. Retrieved from https://prezi.com/thwwuf9t8fjk/codes-and-conventions-of-the-romance-genre/Suji94 Follow. (2011, January 17). Typical conventions of Romance. Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/suji94/typical-conventions-of-romance

Suji94 Follow. (2011, January 17). Typical conventions of Romance. Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/suji94/typical-conventions-of-romance