Filming over Thanksgiving Break

       We did not film over Thanksgiving break. This pandemic has taken a heavy toll on daily life and causes a lot of stress. School is extremely important but we acknowledged that we needed a break. Balancing school, a pandemic, and daily life in general is hard and hurtful to our mental health. Everyone needs a break especially in these hard times so we decided to not film over break. We planned beforehand so our not filming this week wouldn't negatively effect us in the future. We plan to film this weekend on December fifth or December sixth. If not this weekend most likely the weekend after. We most likely will be able to finish filming for the whole film in one weekend. That would be the most fortunate case as we would like to start and wrap up within the next two weeks. This is because midterms and winter break are coming up. Midterm week is stressful and so are the weeks leading up to it. We don't want to use up all of our actors' time and our own as well filming. We are not going to rush though, we will take our time with this film because we care about this project a lot. We have run into one problem over the break though. One of our main actors has informed us she cannot film with us. We have been searching for a replacement and have one person in mind who might be available. We are still waiting for confirmation and are trying to remain positive. If the person we have in mind ends up not being able to go we have a backup plan. Our backup plan would include getting rid of one of the side characters and having the actor who was going to play them play the main role. We are confident things will go smoothly and that we can adapt to the changes.

Soundtrack Ideas

 Since we have begun marketing and finished our screenplay and storyboard we have begun thinking about which music we want to have in our movie. The move is very romantic and has comedic elements too, so we want a score that represents that. We want to use copyright free music too. This will make certain things easier than using copyrighted music. For example, we don't have to wait for an artist or a label to respond to us. With copyright free music we can immediately put the music in our film. However, there are other aspects that are more difficult with copyright free music. For example, finding the music in the first place is difficult but also finding music that fits with the tone of our movie is even harder. We do have experience from previous project though. For our end of the year project last year in AICE Media AS we had to find uncopyrighted music. From this project we even found a song we might include in this project. We were thinking of including multiple songs in our short film. By doing this we hope to make our movie more memorable and the mood more impactful. For the happier scenes we were thinking of fun pop songs. For the funnier scenes, usually banter, we might put overly dramatic music to emphasize the banter is ridiculous. For the more serous scenes maybe a more mellow pop or R&B. For the romantic scenes we were thinking of songs that evoke happiness and peace in the listener. We don't really have a genre in mind for those scenes as we think the mood is more important than genre. We would prefer the songs to contain singing to make the meaning more clear. However, we understand that with many copyright free songs there is hardly any vocals if any at all. We hope to find music that is fitting for our movie and believe our score will be beautiful.

Marketing

       

For our film Misunderstandings we had to create a marketing strategy in order to reach the public. We had to do many things. First we created a website. In order to do this we used a website named wix.com. We had many themes to choose from and it was really fun to make the website. After getting the base for our website down we decided to make social media accounts. One member made the YouTube and Instagram. The other member made the Twitter and Facebook. We used the same profile pics and headers to create a cohesive brand throughout our social medias. We then had to add the other important facts to our website. For the pictures we had to google things since we haven't started filming yet. We used pictures we thought represented love and happiness as we hope our movie portrays that as well. We then had to insert the pictures and roles for our cast & crew. We asked in advanced to make sure our actors had their headshots for the website ready. We also had to figure our release dates and where the movie would be premiering. We also had to make our own movie reviews. This was a little difficult since the google results for movie reviews is mostly kids worksheets. Finally we found a blank picture and was able to edit our own movie reviews onto it. We also had to write a synopsis of the film and film festivals it had already been shown at. Overall this was a really cool experience and we are very proud of our website.

Storyboard for Short Film

      We finished the storyboard for our short film. We were able to get a better picture of what our film will look like. Since we are in quarantine we did this short film together over the phone. One group member printed and drew half the pages while the other was on the phone helping and giving feedback. Then, the member who was giving feedback printed the other half and did the drawing while the previous drawer gives feedback. The storyboard also helped us if the weather is not our friend the days we film. Umbrellas easily fit into the film since high schoolers often go to school even in the rain, so we will just film in the rain. The beginning of our storyboard shows Alicia, the main character, getting up and looking through her closet. These first squares show the layout of her room and how her bed, dresser, and closet are all right next to each other. Then when Alicia's friends call her we at first see a split screen between her and Audrey. In the screenplay it is written differently but we decided to go a different way where Gen would not enter the split screen until she starts talking. We thought this change would emphasize the joke she makes and make the characters more memorable since they are not all introduced at once. They end the call and in the storyboard the screen goes black. In the screenplay this is not clearly written as it just says the call ends. We decided we should have the screen go black and then transition into the next scene. We thought this would make the next scene more dramatic and that's what we wanted. These girls are supposed to be fashionable and have all the attention on them so we thought the transition from a black screen to this next scene would emphasize that. In this scene the girls also meet Eric and Willow. These two groups banter back and forth and we decided it should be filmed in a way so that the audience can feel the comebacks. We thought close ups could accomplish that because then it feels as if the little quips and comebacks are being said directly to the audience. Also, there is a close up that shows Alicia in front making a remark while Gen and Audrey are behind her. This represents the power structure in the friend group with Alicia being on top. We put a lot of thought behind this storyboard and are glad we were able to get a clearer picture of our short film.

Planning Blog for Short FIlm

             We are planning on beginning the filming process for our short film December 5th. This date may be subject to change, but it is what we are planning on as of right now. We can get all the filming done in a day but if not we can finish December 6th or the following weekend. We have multiple filming locations. The first locations are three bedrooms. These can be filmed at the same time since it is the actor's individual rooms so they can film themselves saying their lines. The second location will be a sidewalk. This sidewalk is located near one of our group member's house. The third location is Dairy Queen located near Fort Lauderdale High School. We have six participants including the group members since we have six roles in our short film. Since Covid-19 is still severely affecting Florida we will try to be as cautious as possible. Most participants don't leave their houses a lot unless for school and none of them go to large social gatherings. The first scene is relatively safe since each actor can film themselves in their own house. The other scenes will still be safe to film since we will most likely be the only ones their and our group is only six people. These locations are also outside in open space so we don't have to be close to each other besides filming. We will also wear masks when not filming. Our props include skateboards, telephones, food, clothes, and backpacks. The costumes will have two opposite aesthetics. The three main friends wear more traditionally feminine clothes consisting of soft pinks, blues, purples, yellows, and greens. While the main groups rivals the "skater" kids wear baggy clothes or jeans consisting of darker colors like black. We are excited to start filming and have high expectations for our film.