Short Film Package

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJDc3zNI1ms&t=50s

https://misunderstandingsm.wixsite.com/website

Critical Reflection

1. 
   
   1. How do your products represent social groups or issues? 

My product represents the normality of minority groups. The actors in the film are very diverse. Many tv shows and movies have mainly white casts. By including dark skin and mixed races, this is a way to incorporate more diversity into the film. This can help represent more people into the media world and give many others opportunity. In film production, many all-Black cast films or mixed casts get awarded mainly because they aren’t a white cast. However, this should become a norm in production. Having diverse casts is a way to add more diversity in media and normalize the talent many minorities have but don’t have the opportunity to show. The film also represents same-sex relationships between the characters. The idea of having only LGBTQ+ relations in the film breaks the stereotypes that many people have. This is a big issue in modern societies that are normalize opposite-gender relations. This “default setting” or assumption of straight orientation can be very damaging to the LGBTQ+ community, especially those who conceal their sexuality. I wanted to break this “straight” stereotype since there’s such a broad spectrum in the LGBTQ+ community. This is also a way to help equalize and speak out for these relations, genders and identification in the modern worlds. There’s been a huge misconception and violence towards people in these categories. By representing them and destroying this closed idea, this can majorly benefit many people and lives. 

2. 2. How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’? 

There are many influences of our production that supported the branding of our film. Since our movie was based around teenagers and high school, I tried making the film more modern. My partner and I had this idea for the main group of characters to be the “It Girl”. This is essentially an iconic personality or expression of a character in a film. Since the most famous “It Girls” were around the late 1900’s to early 2000’s, I wanted to add some of the editing styles and scenes into the short film. One of the most famous scenes was the “Mean Girls” phone call scene. I really liked this idea and adding it to the film it brought together the aesthetic of the friend group. Another idea was a confrontation scene between rival friend groups. My partner and I really liked the idea of having two different friend groups having a dramatic but also entertaining confrontation.  Since many films portray the main character as disliking the other group, we had many ideas on what the ending. At the end of our film, this is where the story completely changes, and the romance part comes in and plays a role. The main character confesses her love to the girl in the opposite group. This gives a shock to the audience since they were portrayed as having no interest in this character. The other girl also plays off the confession and leaves the audience on a cliffhanger. 

3. 3. How do your products engage with the audience?  

My product engages with my audience in numerous ways. First off, our cast is very diverse. In mainstream media, many shows and movies that are labelled with a “diverse cast” are still predominately white. All of the actors in my short film are a mix of Asian, Black and Hispanic actors. This is promising to be portraying more diversity in many areas. The plot of the movie is also based around LGBTQ+ characters. This can appeal to many different groups and create a sense of representation for them. Many of the jokes and lines match with the interest that our generation use. For example, astrology has gained popularity in the past few years and to include that into the film can relate with many of the teen and young adult audience. People relate others behavior to different astrology signs. Also, the pronunciation of the different signs many people make fun of. I included these jokes into the script so the audience can feel the similarity of the film with what they see on social media. My partner and I decided to do create rival friend groups. The main friend groups in the film have a completely different aesthetic. Many groups nowadays tend to stay within the categories that match them and their aesthetic. By having different groups with different interests, this can be a way to relate with many people. 

4. 4. How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions? 

I’ve researched about genres that related to my film. The main genre of the film is Romance with comedic elements. My short film is based on a teenage love story. The main twist I wanted in the film was for all the characters to be in LGBTQ+ relationships. My partner and I created the other characters in the film to be in relationships. We did this since the love confession with the main character was a short scene at the end. This also gives a hint towards the ending since the main character hasn’t found their love yet. This uses conventions in romance and gives a unique perspective but still fitting in with the high school life. The only way our film challenges conventions of romance is our own character not searching for their interests. In most traditional romance movies, many of them have a specific person in mind from the start of the film. In my film, our character reveals their love interest at the end without any suspicion. In the comedic aspect of the film, I created jokes that resembles modern humor for teens and young adults. In romcoms or comedy movies, many of the jokes are stand up corny. Our film challenges the comedic elements since most of our jokes were in spite of the other friend groups. The jokes essentially make fun of the other characters in a humorous way that younger generations relate to. 

The Finishing Touches

      My partner and I have discussed how we should edit our short film. Since I had the editing software, I called my partner so I can still receive feedback and her input on editing. I arranged all of our clips in the order of the script. I cut any loud noises, long pauses, and mistaken lines out of the film. I then started to edit the 3-way phone call. This was difficult since iMovie only allows a 2 scene split screen. I had to slow down one of the scenes of the characters in the call so it would be able to give enough time for the other character to say their line. Originally, I did the two friends on the split-screen and put the line of the main character after it. I showed this to my partner and we both agreed it wasn't what we pictured it. We wanted to have an iconic phone call split-screen like in Mean Girls. I further researched how I could do a 3-way split-screen on iMovie. I was trying to use another editing software to do the 3-way split screen but the features were either too complex or time-consuming to do. My partner suggested that I should do a split screen with 2 of the characters and save that clip and do another split-screen with the last character. I was concerned that the clips would be different sizes when I put it on the last split screen. However, upon editing this scene, when I put the last character over the split-screen it automatically laid that clip in the middle of the split-screen. This made it look like a 3-way split-screen already which was very convenient for the editing process. We’re not completely done with the film yet. I still need to add sound effects and our titles in the film. We still have one scene left to film but we’re planning to do it soon in time for the deadline. The last scene doesn’t need any fancy editing it’s just a big part of the movie.

The Second Filming Day

      We rescheduled to refilm on Sunday, January 4th. We had to shoot many of our scenes so we decided to start early at 11. We waited for our crew to show up but decided to film the beginning of the film in the meantime. For the beginning of the film, we mainly needed our female for those scenes. We planned to film in the same area so it would be easier and so we can see the footage and see if we need to refilm. We filmed our main actor in bed with her alarm going off then going to look for clothes. We had to shoot this several times because the alarm time was off or a wardrobe malfunction happened. After that, two of the other main actors showed up. We filmed the phone call scene individually but since all of our actors were there, it was difficult to have a continuous shot with disruptions. We refilmed which lines were necessary or last said to save on time. After we shot the phone calls, all of our actors have arrived. The only scene we needed with all of our actors was the sidewalk scene. This was also difficult to shoot since many cars and planes would be around and picked up on the audio. We also filmed this several times, picking up from the lines we left off on to manage our time. Lastly, we needed to film the pool scene. Since we only needed the original 3 actors from the phone call scene in the pool scene, we had our other actors stay away to not risk disturbing the audio. This was slightly easier to film since it was in a secluded area. We decided to film several times in case we needed extra time on footage or if there were any mistakes in the original shot. We revised all of our shots to see if we needed to reshoot any more. Luckily we didn’t need to and decided to celebrate with snacks and cake with our crew! However, we still have one final scene to film which is the Dairy Queen scene. We’re planning to do it on a school day since most of our actors are back to school in person and there's a Dairy Queen next to the school which will be easier for attendance purposes.

The New and Improved Plan

      We've faced many obstacles trying to situate our filming schedule and script. As previously discussed, many of our actors had to miss out on the original filming week. Some also weren't available to film in general. My partner and I went through many tasks trying to recruit new actors and change our script to fit the number of people we had. Our original filming day was set for Saturday, December 5th. Due to all of these circumstances, we decided to change the filming day. We talked with our cast and decided that Saturday, December 12th was better to film. However, that day many of our actors failed to show due to personal issues. We've decided to film as much as we could that day. After that, we've edited the scenes and decided on what we still need to film. However, we didn't want to film over winter break so we can rest from school. I've been talking with my partner and we've concluded to film possibly on January 3rd 2021. We thought this day was good since its after all of the holidays. We've contacted out actors in advance to see if they're available to film. Currently, we're waiting for their response to the new filming schedule. This gives us an idea of what we can film that day. We've also planned to film one of the scenes on a school day since the setting is close to our school. Many of our actors are also attending school in person after winter break. However, that plan is very vague and only an alternative if we do need another filming day. Hopefully this improved schedule will happen smoothly with less problems occurring.

Scenes That We Still Need

     After our editing, we've concluded the scenes we're going to film next shoot. Our opening scene is one of our biggest challenges. For that scene, we have three of our actors talking to each other on the phone about school. We had the vision of doing the iconic Mean Girls phone call split screen. We were originally planning for each of the actors to film that scene separately in their own room. However, we decided to do it together to ensure it comes out the right way. It's also easier to help our actors film the scene as well instead of doing their own thing at home. We were planning to film one of the scene in the bedroom, another one in the bathroom and the last one in the living room, to give the illusion of the characters being in different houses. Our other scenes is this sidewalk scene where most of our characters are having a confrontation interaction with each other. We were going to film this scene outside of one of our crew members houses. Their sidewalk is mainly secluded and open to allow all of our characters to comfortably film. We didn't want a place with many cars to pass by to distract our actors or mess with the audio. Our last scene is at Dairy Queen where four of our actors are talking and confessing the love for the two main characters. We've changed the scene to be easier to film for our crew. We took out the main characters friends in the scene. We didn't want to keep them there filming when they didn't need to. Their characters in that scene aren't that important especially since it's where the plot twist happens. We created a new scene to have more dialogue for our other actors. This helps even out the importance of the other characters so none of our actors feel excluded. We hope we can film all of the scenes in one day.

Editing Blog

      I'm going to be editing the scene that we have. We've filmed on December 15th, but came across many obstacles. I will be editing the scenes to see if we need to reshoot. I have the editing software iMovies on my computer since I don't have a school desktop. I will be using iMovies to edit the rest of the film. The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the major difficulties that we've faced this year. In order to be able to edit the film with my partners input, we need to be on call or FaceTime to communicate with each other. First, we tried to cut out any of the long pauses or lines that we didn’t need. We wanted each scene to roughly be a minute long to match the five minute time limit. We had two scenes from the shoot to edit. Each one was roughly 1:45-2:00 minutes long. This wasn’t short enough to match the time limit. We then decided to cut out any long lines that over-exaggerated the scene, since it was also not needed. This cut the scene down to about 1 minute and 30 seconds long. We replayed the scene to see how the outcome was. There was many cuts throughout the scene and we didn’t prefer it since we wanted the scene to flow nicely. With all the cuts, it effected the camera movement and sometimes the audio. My partner and I decided to try and reshoot that scene on the next filming day. If we don’t have enough time then we can try and salvage one of the scenes we’ve already filmed. Hopefully the scenes that we get next shoot can flow nicely with what we already have.