Creative Critical Reflection

Link to Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B7a7xblur9cIdk9SaXVwOHJjSU0

Fighting Innocence film opening

Here is my final product, I hope you all enjoy watching it! I had a great time creating this piece and hope you enjoy watching it al much as I enjoyed the experience.

Link to Google Drive https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B7a7xblur9cIdk9SaXVwOHJjSU0

This is my last blog post before my video and CCR is posted, eeek! Although I am relieved that this project is over, I will admit I liked being given the freedom to create my own product was a great and accomplishing feeling. I was able to research something I am passionate about, and that is somewhat relevant to the times we are living in today. Although any children of the world are not directly fighting as soldiers in a war, there are parts of the world where war is occurring and children are forced to mature at a faster rate. Children all over the world, more specifically in third world countries, are facing traumatic experiences daily and having to fight their innocence in order to keep going forward.

Transitioning to a different subject, I do have one more challenge associated with my film, the ending. I have edited everything up until 1 minute 47 seconds. However, I still have one scene where the protagonist is interacting with her brother at breakfast. The scene does fit within the timeframe, but I am not sure if I should include the scene because of some technical errors I am having with it. The major issue I am having with including the scene is the fact that it is too rushed in my opinion. The characters don’t even say good morning to one another, but the rest of the scene is usable. So far, I had my parents watch it and my mom said to add the footage, while my father says to stop the film there. I am looking to get opinions from my peers over the weekend, and I will decide then. As of right now, I feel that if I take the time to work around the mistake, I would be able to include the scene in my opening. Thank you for reading, final product in my next post!

Editing and SATs

It has been a long week to say the least. It is the week before spring break, and also a week before this project is due. Today I took my SAT, which went great by the way, but my brain is now struggling to process information. After that glorious experience, I have to edit once again for who knows how long. The reshoots were a huge improvement, and the voiceovers are working well to establish the somber mood of my opening, which eases my stress.. a little.

 I have also come up with a rough draft name for my movie. Right now it is "Fighting Innocence" because this film is all about child soldiers repressing their human emotion and being forced to grow up too soon, therefore, fighting their own innocence. I like the name and so far it is the only good thing in my day right now. There is a lot to accomplish in a short amount of time, so I will either have a mental breakdown in the next few days, or I will hustle and succeed. Hopefully I choose the ladder.  

Mission Accomplished!

I am very happy to say that I achieved all of my goals for the weekend. I was able to reshoot the mistakes I made with my cousins, and my cousin finally did the perfect voiceover for my piece! Not to mention that I also was able to get the voiceovers for the news reporters! I am very proud of myself for doing everything I said I was going to do, and keeping on schedule. Now, I will have to edit the piece once again, but this time with footage that doesn't make me cringe. I fixed the lighting in many of the new shots, and my cousin was a lot less giggly during this filming session. I am in a very happy and relieved state right now, but I know that editing this beast will still be a challenge. For now, I will revel in my victories of this weekend and prepare myself for the week to come.  

This is going to be a long one, so get ready!

Ok first I will share the great news that was just shared with me… the due date is extended until April 11th! Although this does change my schedule a bit, it takes a huge weight off of my shoulders due to all of the mistakes that I have found while editing. Which brings me to the bad news.

   First of all, I have stuck to my schedule and I edited for two hours yesterday. After editing, I realized that during the more emotional shots my cousin is hiding a smile, or the lighting changes dramatically. That means that I have to re-shoot a good portion of the film. Also, the voiceover that I am trying to have my cousin record is not living up to the vision that I want in my film. And the last issue I have is the news reporter voiceovers have not been filmed yet, I am a very shy person and I do not like asking adults for favors, but that is definitely something that I will need to get over in order to make this project as successful as possible. As you can see, I have a substantial amount of obstacles, but luckily with the time extension, I will be able to fix them.

    I have already scheduled a re-shoot day with my cousin on Sunday, and I am going to coach her. With the voiceover on Saturday, since she will be at my house for my father’s birthday. In relation to the news reporter voice overs, I will either be asking my youth group leaders on Friday, or some close family members who go to my dad’s birthday party on Saturday. Either way, I have made it a goal to get the remaining shots and sound effects this weekend in order to stay on schedule.

    Despite all of the challenges that I will have to overcome this weekend, I have made little victories in my editing process. I was able to find music that matched the mood I was going for perfectly. The best part was that it is royalty free music! Here is a link to the creator of the video, and a screenshot of the video and the rules stating that I am allowed to use the music for my project.

    Let's be real here, I have run into quite a few problems, more than I should have at this point in the project, however with the time extension and determination, I will fix the issues and do this project to the best of my abilities. Until next time!

Rules stating that I am allowed to use this music for my project.

Schedule

After I finished filming on Saturday, I began my editing process on Monday. I will start off by saying that editing is not a strength of mine, hence why I started early. Moreover, I made a schedule in order to pace myself accordingly with the editing process. Since I have AP and AICE tests soon, some of my teachers are increasing our workload in order to prepare for said tests. Without a schedule I would probably end up imploding with stress, therefore, a schedule was the best thing I could do in order to avoid a mental breakdown. Now comes the hard part, sticking to it!

Outline of my film

For my final blogpost of the week, I am going to be brainstorming an outline of the rest of my movie. After meeting with my teacher, she suggested that I use a portion of the film opening to introduce the actual start of the film as opposed to just introducing backstory. I took her advice and filmed the beginning of the movie, but now I feel that I have to make an outline of the film, in order to give both myself and those reading the blog a direction in which my film would go.

Filming day!

Hi there! this blog post has a link to a vlog that I made about my day of filming with my younger cousins. I thought that this would be a more entertaining way to watch my filming process rather than me writing about it. Enjoy! 

https://youtu.be/3Hw7QvorDK0

New Ideas!

Yesterday during class, my teacher took our class to the media center and placed us in groups of about 6 or 7 people. In these groups, we presented the ideas we had for our final projects, as well as our research, and got critiques and suggestions after we were finished.

This was incredibly helpful in my creative process and gave me many new ideas for how to approach my film.

Initially, I was going to begin my film with the protagonist getting out of bed and doing her daily routine from there. However, my friend Nate informed me that he had read an article about cliche movie openings, and starting a film with a character waking up was definitely at the top of the list. In order to avoid that, Nate suggested I start the film with the main character sitting in front of the television flipping through news reports about the war. This idea was much better than my initial idea, therefore, I now have to change my original storyboard to fit the new beginning.

Another helpful suggestion I received was to watch the movie “Beasts of No Nations” which is about the experience of a child soldier. This will really help me delve deeper into my narrative world by seeing what child soldiers go through as opposed to just reading about it.

New and improved storyboard thanks to Nate's suggestions

Although my storyboard has changed, my script remains the same since there were no critiques on it, and I feel like it accurately conveys the suspenseful and somber tone that I want to set throughout my opening.

Lastly, my next mission is to make the sounds for the film, and get copyright free music for the opening in case the voiceover itself is not enough in terms of setting the tone.

Here is a list of sounds that are needed for my movie so far.

• Remote clicking
• Birds chirping
• Stepping up the stairs (can be done live when filming)
• Teeth brushing (can be done live when filming)
• News reporting music (hopefully can get a version that is not copyrighted)
• Gun shots
• Chanting (can be done on Friday)

           

Making Progress

             This posting has both the first part of my storyboard (badly drawn, but I can understand it) and the first draft of my script. I used the research I found in my previous postings to help make my script as accurate to real life as I can possibly make it.

             In addition, one thing I discovered during this process is how useful it is to write the script before you do the storyboard, especially in a drama. Since a drama relies mainly on the script and characters, I was having major difficulties drawing the storyboard. Thankfully, one of my classmates reminded me of my research about the importance of the script to determine the actions of the film. Therefore, I decided to write the script first, making the rest of the storyboard much easier to visualize and create.

Overall I think I have a steady foundation and list of shots that will display my creative ability to the Cambridge judges, as of now I will start filming next week and creating the foley sounds next week as well. Hopefully everything goes as planned, fingers crossed!

I found a solution!

My mind is a little more at ease after viewing more drama openings that have to do with war and action. One of the examples is the opening of Saving Private Ryan (1998) which present me with an example of how a war film should begin. After watching the opening of this film (which was a lot to take in), I did not get any inspiration for my opening per-se because everything in the opening scenes is way out of my budget range, and ability. However, I was able to view a realistic version of war in which these children will have to face when they get sent off. Therefore, this opening scene will help me with my script writing for the film opening.

One thing that I must do before starting a film like this is research current world relations and the psychological tendencies of children when placed in a life or death situation, which obviously differs from adults who are currently in combat. In this article, I discovered that children choose to repress their emotion after facing trauma, and those who do act upon their grief are just seen as misbehaved children. This information helps me because I plan on there being a reason as to why children are fighting now instead of adults. One of my reasons may be that if the children choose to repress their emotions and follow orders at a young age, there will be a significant reduction in crime, which may have been at an all time high at some point in the dystopian society.

I am also going to be using various news reports (that I will create myself) and a voiceover in order to simultaneously introduce the audience to the main character, and the world they are living in.

My 12 year old cousin Azul will play Madison, the 11 year old girl who is one month away from deployment. The film will center around Madison and her family struggling with letting her go, and take a peek at the social movements made to stop the wars, as well as the reason for why they started in the first place. Overall, I believe a dystopian society does not correspond to the genre characteristics of a drama, however since the war is not the focus and I do not plan on showing the massive fighting scenes, that this idea will work.

I found this article that shows the manners in which child soldiers are made to become emotionless and ready to fulfill any command. Moreover, this other source also gave me reasons as to why children make better soldiers than adults. As sick and twisted as this was to read, I need this research in order to delve deeper into my fictional world and to give enough backstory in my opening.

I plan on showing my storyboard in the next post to give a clearer picture of my vision for this opening. One thing that I do need to be cautious of is not to overwhelm myself and make a choppy and awkward film opening. My goal for this film opening is to intrigue the audience with the idea of a dystopian society, and introduce them to Madison.

Townsend, M. (2016, March 05). How Islamic State is training child killers in doctrine of hate. Retrieved March 16, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/05/islamic-state-trains-purer-child-killers-in-doctrine-of-hate

Children as soldiers. (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2017, from https://www.unicef.org/sowc96/2csoldrs.htm

Institute of Medicine (US) Committee for the Study of Health Consequences of the Stress of Bereavement. (1984, January 01). Bereavement During Childhood and Adolescence. Retrieved March 16, 2017, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK217849/

(2016, May 03). Retrieved March 16, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5p5j_K0CsY

Good news and bad news..

Ok. So there is good news and bad news. The good news is that I decided to make the film about the children who were sent to go to war at the age of 11. The bad news is I have no idea how I’m supposed to make this a drama. What I mean by that is, I don’t know if the dystopian world is too unrelatable and unrealistic to be called a drama. This idea may fall under the action/science fiction range which would mean that all of the research I did last week would be for nothing. So now, I have to come up with a solution for my predicament.

Either I change the genre of my film, which is very inconvenient considering all of the research I put into researching dramas, or I focus more on the character development rather than the actual war going on. The main focus in a drama is to write a strong script and have relatable characters present throughout the film. Therefore, I believe if I make these characters relatable enough, then I may be able to justify the action portions in my film, along with the dystopian society.

 

Finally made a decision

After researching the characteristics of both types of films, viewing some openings, and discussing the pros and cons with my peers, I have decided..drum roll please… I’m doing a drama!!!!

Although I figured that making a faith-based film would be a lot easier based on the research I presented in previous postings, I want to challenge myself with creating an original drama openings. I also feel like I will have much more freedom when it comes to actually coming up with the idea for the movie, which is logically my next step.

I have two ideas thus far that may work for this piece, one has to do with a high school student who is struggling with what to do in the future in regards to college and career. It would follow the student on their typical daily routine, slowly revealing the anxiety and stress that he/she has to face, and have it go from there. I came up with this after taking my SAT and my tendency to always worry about the future. The student may have one of those stereotypical problems that will help them relate to the audience more. For example, an overbearing parent, or a sibling that sets an unrealistic goal for the protagonist to follow. Although this seems rather unoriginal, if I focus on the script and development of the character within the begining of my film, I hope to make the audience want to continue watching.

My other idea is more of a challenge, especially for me, a first time director.  It has to do with a dystopian society that has been fighting a world war for decades and has people drafted for the army and placed in training camps at the age of 11. This does sound like an action film as opposed to a drama, however, my focus will not be on the war, it will be on the emotional toll that one family goes through with having to send their child to war. My inspiration for this film came from a novel I am reading in my english class called The Things They Carried which had to do with the Vietnam war and the effects it had on the young soldiers. The majority of people alive have experienced some repercussion of war or have heard war stories, therefore this idea will be popular and easy to market to a mature audience and young adults.

It’s pretty funny how I had to make a decision between two genres all week, and now I have to decide between two ideas! I am once again going to do research on the demographics and potential marketability for each of my ideas, as well as seeking advice from my fellow peers. I am very excited for this project and what I can potentially create with my ideas.

Still undecided!

After talking with my teacher regarding the separation of church and state law, I was informed that a faith-based film would be acceptable to do. This information both helped me and hindered me at the same time since I am still undecided on what to do. Although I am still stuck, I have done more research and started watching several film openings for each genre.

Drama

In regards to the drama genre, I have found one common characteristic is to make the characters relatable to viewers, therefore, the logical next step was to research who the audience was. According to a slideshow I found, the target audience for a drama was young adults and mature audiences regardless of gender. The main appeal for a drama is how the script is written and how relatable the characters are. If I were to do a drama I believe it would take a great deal of research when I have to come up with my characters and the dialogue for my opening in order to make them appealing to the target audience.

I went on artofthetitle.com and viewed some drama film openings, in order to view first hand what would be expected of me were I to do this film. I viewed 3 film openings:

The Neon Demon (2016): This opening was simple, it had a medley of soothing tones paired with unnerving music to create a contrast that everything may appear perfect on the outside, it is far from perfect on the inside. The majority of the opening sequence were credits and the names of the actors and director. I must admit that this opening was devoid of many techniques that were taught to me throughout the year and is not something that an independent director should do.

American Hustle (2013): In this intro, there is much more variety. At first there are the credits as simple as any credits are, and then it is followed by a long shot of one of the protagonist putting on his toupee. After that, the audience gets a glimpse of a luxurious house and the two other characters come inside. The two male leads have an altercation that prompts one man to mess up the main character’s toupee, which he had worked so hard on in the previous scene. Overall, the shots and camera angles were not as structured as most movies. Instead, the opening focused more on establishing a relationship between the characters, and intriguing the audience to see who they are throughout the movie.

Children of Men (2006): I also saw this film opening in class and loved it because it did a fantastic job of setting the tone and atmosphere for the rest of the movie through the newscast of the death of the youngest man alive, and the mise-en-scene throughout the first two minutes. The director is able to capture the cruelty of a war torn dystopian society within the first few minutes of the film, which is ultimately what I am trying to achieve during this project. This introduction would kind of be the one I would mostly lean towards (not the explosion of course) because it seems like it is the easiest one to get done with the timing that I have.

Faith-based

When it comes to faith based films, I learned that the faith-based film industry is not as easy as I had once believed. Although these films have a more defined target audience, it is difficult to make a faith-based film that truly captures the message the director is trying to create. By that, I mean that many films in this genre focus too much on spoon-feeding the readers the message of the film, instead of letting them think critically and figure out what that film is trying to tell them.

Despite the challenges this genre presents, studies from moviemaker show that faith-based movies are rising in popularity in the box office. One example would be “God’s Not Dead” that made 8.4 million dollars opening weekend with only 2 million dollar budget. More faith based films are coming out this year like “The Shack” starring Octavia Spencer and “Silence” that was released on December 23, 2016, starring Andrew Garfield and Liam Neeson.

I went on YouTube and viewed three film introductions for faith-based productions. The three films I decided to view were:

God’s Not Dead (2014): In this opening, there is a lot of country scenery being showed, and since the majority of the film takes place on a college campus, there is a lot of aerial shots of that along with students living their lives on campuses. Moreover, in the background, there is an upbeat worship song that then leads into the title of the film ‘God’s Not Dead’. Since all of the shots in this project must be captured by me, I do not think I will be able to capture such breathtaking shots, unless I get a hold of a drone, which is highly unlikely at this point.

Miracles from Heaven (2016): In this film opening, there is soft music playing in the background as a series of nature shots appear. The nature shots consist of a farm, some trees and a forest. About a minute into the opening, a voiceover begins talking about miracles, hence the title. And finally, it shows a country wife played by Jennifer Garner getting her family ready for church service. This is a rather unoriginal and stereotypical representation of the lifestyle of the “perfect christian family” however, sometimes that is what a film needs in order to appeal to their target audience. One idea I drew from this film was, if I were to do this genre, to do a voiceover and soft music instead of trying to gain access to a copyrighted song.

90 Minutes in Heaven (2015): In this film opening, there was asynchronous sound of heavy rain while the credits were rolling, and the scene slowly fades into a man driving in the rain trying desperately to see where he is going. Throughout his struggles, there is worship music playing in his car until he gets struck by a bus on a bridge. The first lines of the film are “I died on January 18th, 1989.” which sparked an interest in me as a viewer and made me want to keep watching. If I do go a voiceover route, as I previously mentioned, I too must make sure that the first words spoken in my film spark just as much interest as these words do.

Overall, I think I have enough information on both genres to make a decision as to what I’m going to be doing for my project. I will just have to sleep on it and let you know tomorrow!

Buffam, N. (2015). Drama. Retrieved March 09, 2017  from https://thescriptlab.com/screenplay/genre/drama

Malysa, S. (2011, June 02). Characteristics of Drama Genres. Retrieved March 11, 2017, from http://www.ehow.com/info_8528738_characteristics-drama-genres.html

Hoffman, M. (14, April 15). The Christian Film Genre: A Dangerous and Pretentious Label. Retrieved March 10, 2017, from http://www.cinemablography.org/blog/the-christian-film-genre-a-dangerous-and-pretentious-label

Honeycutt, H. (2016, February 11). Box-Office Prophets: The Rise of the Faith-Based Film Industry. Retrieved March 10, 2017, from http://www.moviemaker.com/archives/moviemaking/directing/box-office-prophets/

Ebonypeart Follow, E. (2013, February 22). Target audience. Retrieved March 10, 2017, from https://www.slideshare.net/ebonypeart/target-audience-16706479

Art of the Title. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2017, from http://www.artofthetitle.com/

Hello everybody! My name is Shantal Fierro, but I prefer to be called Shanty. A few things about me, I live with my mom, dad, brother, grandpa, and I have a pekingese dog named Teddy. My interest in film began when I was young and my dad would take my family to the movies every weekend. I was captivated by the way the directors and the crew could tell such amazing stories and make such awe inspiring productions. Although my favorite genres to watch are action movies and documentaries, I found myself being drawn between two genres for this project: Drama and Faith Based.

In order to decide which one to do, I am doing research on both and will model some of my findings in this post.

I found this article on Indiewire about the characteristics and necessities for each genre. For Drama I found that the script needs to be strong and that there needs to be something that attracts the viewers into watching the film. The site also stated that this genre is better for experienced directors, which has kind of put me on the fence about making a drama. For Faith-Based movies, the most important aspects are the plot itself, the core audience, and the title. If all of these aspects mesh well together, the film has the potential to appeal to larger audience. Also, the director does not need to be as experienced in faith-based movies, just able to tell a good story. Although this is very tempting, I am still unsure about making a faith based movie because a drama is so much more intriguing.

Another pivotal aspect that will determine whether or not I do faith-based or drama is the separation of church and state. I do not know if faith-based film openings are school appropriate and therefore I will have to discuss that issue with my teacher.

As of now I have two ideas and know the basic foundations for each of them. I plan to study each one more in depth for my next blog post and have my decision made by the end of this week. Fingers crossed!

Brown, Colin. "Here’s What You Need to Know to Sell Films in Each of 12 Genres." IndieWire. Penske Business Media, 14 Oct. 2013. Web. 08 Mar. 2017.