Planning - Project Proposal

    Hey everybody! Welcome back to the blog! Today's post is slightly different, since it's my project proposal. In today's post, I will be discussing my team, target demographic, representation and themes, and the materials (both hardware AND software) that we'll be using.

The Team

    My team for the project will comprise of myself and my friend Tejal. Both of us are extensively involved with our school's TV production program, and we've even collaborated on films before. So, I naturally chose to team up with her and produce our brief together. We work very well together, and have collaborated on almost every step along the way, and I can only foresee greater cooperation between us.

Target Demographic

    Like Tejal has mentioned, our likely target audience is young adult women, since romantic dramas - and romance films as a whole - are typically engaged with by women. We also plan to include relatable scenes and settings like a meet-cute at school and other situations that could connect to a young adult and/or teenage audience.

Potential Social Issues and/or Representation

    The social issues we plan to address/represent are the following:

• Social Class and Conflict
• The two main characters are from different social and economic classes, and we want to ensure that conflict is present in the final product since it's a crucial aspect of the story
• Stereotypes and Cliques
• The two main characters both fit into surface level high-school stereotypes, those being the jock/preppy guy and the goth/punk girl. But, we really want to convey the theme that they aren't defined by those preconceptions and are much deeper, more complex people beneath the surface. This will also help create intense emotion and powerful drama, making our plot more complex as well.
• Familial Conflict
• We want the antagonist of our film to be the conflict between the characters and their families, with themes like disapproval and the question of what bearing family can have on your own life.

Hardware and Software

    Because of our involvement with our TV program, Tejal and I have access to relatively high-end equipment. We want to use one of the best cameras at our disposal: the Sony FX30. It's an amazing camera that we've both used before, and we agree that it will be the best fit for our project so that we can make something of high quality. We also plan to use the Canon 24-70mm Lens and the Rokinon 35mm Lens for wide shots and closeups respectively. These lenses are also some of the best we have, and will create really beautiful looking shots. The combination of background blur, careful framing, and great camera quality will hopefully lead to us creating something that we're really proud of.

    As for editing software, Tejal and I will be using Adobe Premiere Pro. Like I mentioned in a previous blog post, we both have plenty of experience with the software. And because school computers already have it readily available, it will be the most beneficial and convenient option by far.

    That's it for today's project proposal. Hope you all enjoyed, and I'll see you in the next blog. Stay tuned!

Planning - Mise-en-Scene, Casting, and Locations

    Hey everybody, and welcome back! Today's blog post is all about how we're going to handle the logistics of our film. We want to plan actors for our characters, where we'll shoot each scene, and how we'll set everything up. Let's dive right in!

Locations

    Locations are extremely important, because if your setting doesn't match your diegesis, you won't be able to properly convey your story. We need to consider where each of the following scenes will be shot for our film: Jackson's House, Jessi's House, and their school. 

    The school is the easiest, as we can just use our own high-school (which we've used several times before for short films). For Jackson's house, Tejal and I agreed that we'll use her house to convey the fact that Jackson is quite wealthy. For context, Tejal basically has two houses on her property (yes, I'm serious). Then, for Jessi's house, we're going to use her guest house (see?). Both these options are really solid because they're close together (so we can film the scenes consecutively without travelling and in the same day). The school is also a good option because we have plenty of time before and after school to film when the campus is mostly empty (or at least not as busy as usual.

Costuming

    We want to make sure our actors' outfits fit their characters, so we have to plan ahead of time what we want them to wear. For Jackson, we want him to wear a quarter-zip and jeans to convey the feeling of wealth and fit the general "preppy" look. As for Jessi, we'll use more dramatic clothing items like tall boots, lace stockings, leather, and colored hair extensions. Tejal will be providing those since (spoiler alert!) she'll be playing Jessi.

Crew

    We also need to establish our cast and crew so that we have a set team (other than myself and Tejal) well before our filming dates. The actors are outlined in the following list:

• Jessi: Played by Tejal
• Jackson: Played by a TV program actor (and good friend of ours), Alejandro Bennett
• He has a lot of experience acting, and he also fits the vibe of the character, so he's a really good option
• Jackson's Friends: Played by volunteer drama and TV kids
• There is plenty of overlap between the two, so we'll have no trouble finding extras who are able to actually act
• Teacher: Played by my AP U.S. History Teacher, Mr. Sheets
• He's pretty cooperative with TV, and he definitely fits the vibe of a teacher, so he's perfect for the role.

That's it for today's blog! See you all in the next one - stay tuned!

Planning - Script Writing

     Hey everybody, and welcome back to my blog! Today's post will be about writing our script. Tejal and I worked together to write it, so without further ado, let's get right into it!

    The length of our brief is supposed to be two minutes (since it's only the opening of a film, nothing more). So, because each page of a script roughly translates to one minute, that means we have to write two pages.

    We already have the general idea for our script, that being, as Tejal put it, " a girl who is an outcast and a guy who is a popular jock that both judge each other for their social cliques but eventually fall in love due to their differences." I truly couldn't have put it better myself. With all that established already, we outlined what we need to write for our brief. Since it's only the opening, we mainly need to get exposition and establishing characters out of the way. We only want to setup and tease the story, not lay it all out in front of the audience right at the start. So, Tejal and I got a word document opened up and we focused on basic description to "set the scene."

    As for our characters, Tejal and I decided on the names Jessi and Jackson. The names feel quite appropriate for modern day high-schoolers, which will help with the relatability of our script. I myself know multiple Jacksons and a Jessi, so it fits perfectly. And speaking of names, we settled on a final name for our film (credit to Tejal for this fantastic idea): Different Worlds. The driving feature of our story is how these two characters come from such diametrically opposed worlds yet still fall in love, so the name is perfect!

    Now that we got back into scriptwriting, we left the first half dialogue-free. We were partly reassured by Addisyn Kostzer's brief from last year, titled "Jezebel," that an opening doesn't necessarily need dialogue. So, because it's describing setting and actions, it didn't seem like an issue. We then wrote the next scene, which did have dialogue this time. This helped to further establish the characters, but now through what they say instead of what they do.

    We ended up finishing the script today, which was really solid progress made. Now that we've given our characters names (so they aren't Jock Guy and Alt Girl anymore), it feels like the story is really coming to life. I can't wait to see how our actual finished product turns out. That's all for today's post, so I'll see you all in the next one. Stay tuned!

    Also, for those who want to read our script, I unfortunately can't attach it here (who knows why) but it should be attached in Tejal's post, which is linked below. Enjoy!

https://tejalisawesome29.blogspot.com/