Day 32: Oh, how close we are to the end...

Hello hello hello! Today I'll be researching question #1 in preparation for my CCR!! Wow, I legit cannot believe how close we are to the end of the project, but I can't relax yet because there is still more work to be done. 

If you don't already know, here is the actual question:

• How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

To start, I should discuss the conventions of the COA genre and which conventions I used in my opening (which I have already researched on day 10 and basically just need to pull my information from there).

First of all, what is a COA film? 

A COA film usually explores themes of self-discovery and not fitting in. Main characters in this genre are generally teenagers who are trying to figure out their life in some sort of way. COA films also commonly used voice overs as their narration style to create a more intimate bond between the character and audience. It can also highlight the character's personality over their actions. 

Examples (that you might know!):

Ex: Charlie - The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
(Not fitting in)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010)
(Voice over)

My product uses the COA conventions such as not fitting in and voice over. In the opening, it is revealed that Maia actually gets bullied, because of her child-like character, which is why she doesn't fit in. I also utilize voice over as the main auditory technique to develop intimacy between the audience and Maia. 

My product challenges the conventions of a COA film because the main characters are usually not portrayed as childish as mine. Teens in COA films are usually seen going to parties and trying to be adults, whereas Maia is not. She is just trying to discover who she is as she goes through high school.

Though I challenge the conventions of a COA film there are also some conventions that I specifically chose to stick to because they are key features of films in this genre. The key conventions I'm referring to are voice overs and the theme of not fitting in. When audience members watch a COA film, they usually expect the main character to not be "normal", which is why the film is about that character. Maia is "different" because of how childish she is, though she is already in 10th grade. I also chose to stick mainly with voice over because I want the audience to connect and sympathize with Maia's character.

Finally, how does my product represent social groups? 

Well, my opening represents teenagers as a very broad group, through relatable experiences like sleeping a lot and getting bullied (which I hope is not a relatable experience for many). 

My opening also represents a certain group of teens that are more energetic and like to be creative. Through my set and costume design, I fully present Maia's personality of being bright, bubbly and still a little bit childish. There are many bright colors, fun shapes and a ton of stuffed animals throughout her bedroom which directly translates to her personality. Her phone case also represents her creativity and enjoyment of being happy. 

Thank you so much for reading and I'll catch you on the next one for week 6? (I've already lost count at this point...) Bye!!

Sources:

Heller-Nicholas, A. (2020, December 31). What is a coming-of-age movie? No Film School. https://nofilmschool.com/what-is-coming-of-age-movie

The Screen Academy. (n.d.). Teen movies genre. https://www.thescreenacademy.com/knowledge/genre/teen-movies-genre

Day 31: Flashback (OoOOOoooOOO)

Hi hello! Today I'm continuing to edit my project. As you hopefully remember, there is a flashback to Maia getting bullied. For that scene I was thinking about putting a filter over it and either making it black and white or just darker to represent the dark time. You can see the original below.

I ended up putting the "Ink" filter (on intensity 45) that Canva offers over both shots and here is how it looks:

I really like how it contrasts with the bright colors of the room to really signify the dark time and feelings that Maia has towards that moment. 

I also like that I v/o the "You will never amount to anything" instead of having the voice of the bully because I think it sounds better and makes it more convincing overall. I tried using the sound from the original bullying shots, but in the second shot, there was background noise. So, I tried muting that shot and extracting the audio from the first, but it made this weird echo-ey sound and I was not a fan. I'm just going to keep it like this for now, unless I can figure out another way to fix it.

Thanks for tuning in today and I'll catch ya on the next one!!

Day 30: Editing!! Yay!!

Hi again!! I hope you are doing fantastic today as I am beginning to edit!!

As I started editing, I realized that overlaying my title over the running shot might not be the best idea because it is SUPER busy and honestly hard to look at (as you can see below).

Because of this, I have to figure out a way to make it pop. I think that "Unfiltered" looks perfectly fine because there is a solid color behind it, but "Maia" doesn't make as much of a contrast as I thought it would. I thought of overlaying the title card on top of a drawing of a computer to match the blog vibe. But I just could not get it to look quite right at all. 

So, I went back to the drawing board and was just messing around with the placement of the title, without the computer drawing. I finally realized that I could just move the title down a bit so that the darkness of my hair contrasts with the hot pink of the "Maia", which looks like this:

I'm gonna be honest, I still don't fully like how it looks and I think something is just off and I can't quite put my finger on it. Tomorrow I have AICE Media Studies, so I'll ask my teacher what she thinks of it then.

Once I talked to her, she suggested that I put a black background under the title and then cut to the first shot. I tried it, but for some reason I didn't like it.

So then I tried a white background and still didn't like it.

The next suggestion that my teacher had was to have the actual blog of "Maia: Unfiltered" up and have that be the title card. I really liked the idea and created the blog, which you can view here. I pretty much just copied and pasted the script into the blog for the first post, and this is what the shot looks like:

I honestly really like this, so this is my updated title card!! Thank you so much for sticking with me through this long journey of creating the title... I hope to see you on the next one!

Day 29: Let's make some noise!!

Hello hello hello!! Today I'll be working on recording my piano piece for the non-diegetic/diegetic sound as well as creating a voice over. Thankfully, my congestion has disappeared and I can record my voice over today. It is critical that I record my voice over TODAY because I need to start editing this week. 

According to my schedule, I should have already edited and should have been revising this week. I'm so glad that I decided to add a buffer week into my schedule in case of something like this. 

As a refresher, here is the link to the voice over that I'm scrapping. You can read day 27 as well to understand a bit better why I'll be re-recording. In today's session, I'll be focusing on making my voice over sound calm, smooth, and make it roll off the tongue a bit better. In my last voice over, you can hear me trip over my words once or twice and it infuriates me to re-record, but I have to in order to create a project I'm proud of.

Here is my final voice over!! 

Next, I'll be recording my piano piece, and I've decided to play Waltz in A minor by Chopin. Feel free to listen to it below. 

 

 

I chose this piece because it's one of my favorite ones that I've been learning recently and isn't too difficult for me to record perfectly. It also isn't too long, but I think it will end up being cut off at the end of the 2 minutes.

I was recording at my piano with just my phone microphone and below, you can see my setup. 

After a few tries, I was successfully able to record my piece with no mistakes. You can listen to it here!!

Obviously, I'll be extracting the audio from both the voice over and the piano and lay it onto my project. With the voice over and piano being done, I am so relieved. I am so much happier with my voice over result compared to last weekend's result. I feel like it has more emotion and I wasn't tripping over my words at all.

The next steps that I need to take are to find sound effects for both the phone alarm and keyboard clicking. Earlier in the year, we had to create a soundscape project, and I mainly used Pixabay to find sound effects.

I decided to use my actual phone alarm sound because I could not find a good one for the life of me. I tried to screen record it from my phone, but it didn't pick up the sound, so I found it on Voicemod Tuna. This is the "Chime Time" alarm clock from Samsung.

Because this one is less specific, I was able to find the keyboard clicking sound on Pixabay. Here is the link in case this video does not work.

Last but definitely not least, I need to record my mom saying "Hurry up Maia!! We have to go!!" 

With all of my audio pieces ready to go, I'm (finally) ready to start editing!! I'm so glad I'm back on track and I'll hopefully be done editing by the end of the week. I hope to catch ya on the next one!!

Day 28: Group Meeting #2

Hi there! Welcome to week 6 of my portfolio project! I can't believe we're so close to the end of the project, because it feels like I've only been working on it for a week. Sadly, I'm not on schedule because I am not at all happy with my voice over, so I wasn't able to work on editing this past week. In the next post you'll see my final voice over, but that's not the topic of today.

Today in class we had our second group meeting!! This one was focusing on anything we can improve on with our projects and ideas for our CCRs. We weren't with the same group as last time but I did have Luke and some of the partners of other group members from last time. I got to learn a bit more about other projects as well as follow up with others.

(Left to right) Me, Amanda, Noah, Jade, Luke and Brennan

Brennan started and he's in Vanessa's group from the last meeting. Their story changed a little, as now, instead of being bullied, the main character is working on a project with another kid who doesn't show up on presentation day. Because of this, the main character decides to murder the other. 

Brennan was playing the main character and his group had just filmed this past weekend and he is going to be Adobe Premier Pro certified hopefully soon and will be able to  use many different effects. 

He was filming at a nearby park and said that if it was too windy in their shots that they would voice over the dialouge, if needed.

For his CCR he had a great idea, which was to be "in prison" as the main character and answer the questions as if he was being interrogated.

Luke went next, and I finally see the bigger picture of his opening now. Basically, there are two opposite best friends. The introverted one will be sleeping and woken up by his friend's call. The friend asks if the other wants to hangout and the answer was "No." Next thing we see is that the second friend was waiting outside the first's house hoping for a "Yes!" and leaves a note on the floor.

His film is called "To: Will" and I suggested that in his CCR he could be unboxing fan mail, like an example that we've seen in class, and the fan mail could be the CCR questions. The fans could also be offering their interpretations of what the contents of the letter is, because it isn't revealed in the film.

Moving on to Jade, who was in Emma's group from last meeting. She revealed that the girl in the mental asylum is there for an unknown reason, but we do know that her best friend died. Because they weren't about to go film in a prison, they created a jail cell in Emma's room. They had a dog cage and used that as the prison cell and also used slate grey backdrops. I thought that they solved this problem so well and the setting looks SO believable in the shots that I saw. Their film is called "Static" because of how unstable the main character is. 

Next up was Noah. His film is called "Straight-A's" and introduces us to a boy named Oliver who is basically two-faced. Oliver comes from a rich family and his family views him as the perfect child with straight-A's, kind, caring and all of the things, when really he's a bully who smokes (essentially the bad boy) and has straight-F's. 

He had this really cool idea that when Oliver is in his room, there would be chaotic music playing, like rock or something and as soon as he steps out of his room, there would be an immediate contrast with classical music. I think that it would be awesome if they did that because it really just re-enforces the idea of his contrasting personalities.

For his CCR, the group suggested that he could have a double-sided conversation with one of the personalities of Oliver interviewing the other.

Now onto Amanda! Though I wasn't in Amanda's group last time, because we are pretty good friends, I knew mostly what her film was about. She is also doing a film about taekwondo where the main character, Allie, sprains her ankle while doing a round-off back-handspring. Amanda actually does these kinds of things in taekwondo, so she will be using a bunch of action matches to make it seem like she's getting hurt when she actually isn't.

The name of her film is very clever, "Mind over Mat", like the saying "Mind over matter". We use mats on the taekwondo dojang floor to protect ourselves because we don't wear shoes. In her film opening, she has a stuffed animal named Lamby that represents the soft side to the hardcore sport. I suggested that for her CCR, she could be interviewed by Lamby and Luke added onto that by saying that Amanda could essentially use Lamby as a puppet.

Last but not least, I explained my film and showed some of my favorite shots from filming. I didn't get much feedback on my opening, which was fine because I haven't started editing yet, but I did get some good feedback on my CCR idea.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this in a past post, but Mia gave me the idea of doing 4 of Maia's hobbies while answering questions, like a Vouge 73 questions video. Amanda suggested doing something related to a blog, but we couldn't really work it out, so I think I'll go with the Vouge 73 questions idea.

Please feel free to check out everyone's blogs here and see what cool things they're doing!!

Brennan

Luke

Jade

Noah

Amanda

Overall, I think that today's group meeting was helpful and I really enjoyed hearing about everyone's ideas. I'm gonna be honest, I think that the last one was more helpful (and needed) because it was much earlier in the planning process. I think that if I was actually on schedule, I could have gotten better feedback on the editing of my opening, but that is completely my fault. 

Thank you for reading and I'll catch you on the next one!!

Day 27: Houston, we have a problem.

Hello hello hello!! Unfortunately, I've run into my first road bump, which I'm surprised happened so late in the game. 

Last week, I recorded my voice over, which you can listen to here as a refresher, but as I was starting to edit, I realized that I actually hate the way that it sounds. Here are a few of my problems with this version:

1. I feel like I'm rushing through the script and keep tripping over my words.
2. I think the mic might be a bit too close to my mouth.
3. I do not like the way I'm saying the script because it sounds too rigid if that makes sense.

Now, you might be asking yourself, "Maia why is this a problem? Just re-record it."

Well, theoretically that would work... if I wasn't congested and I sound like I'm sick. I don't want to re-record my voice over until my congestion is gone, as I don't want to sound sick in my opening. I also think that it's best to edit to the voice over so that I have the right timing for my shots. 

What can I do at this moment? Instead of editing this week, I can sift through my shots and choose the ones I'll actually be using so that it saves me time during editing. Instead of taking hours looking through each shot, I can simply just import the one that I had chosen. I'll insert a few of my favorites down below!!

page 1

page 2

I've also uploaded my story board so that I can reference each shot easily. I'll be referencing each shot chronologically starting after the production logo. For example, page 1 shot 3 would be the tight closeup.

page 1 shot 3

page 1 shot 5

(This one was the best bullying shot that we got because I wasn't smiling at the end and I really liked the angle.)

page 2 shots 1 and 2 (matchcut)

I'm actually pretty satisfied with the shots that I got and I think this has a lot of potential for a good opening. Hopefully my congestion goes away this week and I'll be able to film a voice over that I'm actually happy with, but in the meantime, thank you so much for reading today and I'll catch you on the next one!!

Day 26: And that's wraps!

Hi there! Welcome back to my journey of Maia: Unfiltered! This past weekend I finished filming and I'll start to edit later this week. 

I filmed on Wednesday (2/11), Sunday (2/15) and Monday (2/16). 

On Wednesday, I filmed at my taekwondo dojang, and Mia (you can check out her blog and project out here!!) came with her camera and helped me as well. I set up all of the shots that I wanted, but she just pressed the record button. On this day, we were only filming 2 shots which were the bullying ones. 

In many of the over-the-shoulder shots that we took, you could tell that I was laughing and smiling because you could see the side of my cheek curling into a smile near the end of the shot (which you can see an example of below). Thankfully, I won't be using the entire shot, but I hope I don't have to re-shoot.

As you can see, I ended up casting another character who is essentially one of the bully's minions to reinforce the fact that they are really bullying Maia hard. Though they don't look THAT intimidating, these were the most intimidating guys in my dojang, so they were pretty much my only options.

I also want to thank Mia for letting me borrow her wonderful Canon Rebel and tripod. She was an absolute angel sent from heaven for letting me borrow it for the past weekend, though she was very nervous about me damaging it. I, in fact, kept the camera in perfect condition to return to Mia the other day and she saved me from using my crappy phone camera. 

Using Mia's Canon Rebel really made this whole production start to feel more real because I had an actual camera in hand. When I was shooting with the camera, I felt like a professional and got even more excited about this project.

Thankfully, I don't have to worry too much about the audio quality on the camera because I'm mostly focusing on voice over. I'll be recording my piano piece hopefully this coming weekend to use as non-diegetic sound that turns into diegetic sound during the piano scene.

Remember the two shots from Killing Eve and Juno that I wanted to re-create for my opening? Well here are my versions!!

Killing Eve (2018)

Maia: Unfiltered (2026)

Juno (2007)

Maia: Unfiltered (2026)

I do wish that I got the tight closeup (second shot) a bit closer, but I think I can fix that while editing, which I'll start later this week. For editing my opening, I'll be using Canva's video creation tool because I'm the most comfortable using it out of all of the editing software I've tried throughout the year. I've used Adobe Premier, ClipChamp (Microsoft's editing software) and Canva. I actually use Canva quite often and I think it will be beneficial for me to use an app that I am comfortable with. Because Canva also has a huge variety of fonts (because I was provided with premium from my teacher) I think it's just going to be the easiest tool for me.

On Sunday and Monday, I was filming at my house with the help of Emma, my best friend. Similar to Mia's job, Emma helped me press the record button (and also to throw a plushie soccer ball at my head). Sunday was mostly focusing on the shots in my room and Monday we did all of the other shots (outside and with my younger brother).

Overall, I had a very smooth filming process, and I think I have some good shots to work with. Thank you so much for reading and I'll catch you on the next one!

Day 25: Introducing... MaiaMade Media!!

Hello hello hello! I hope all is well with you and I'm so excited to announce that I'm beginning to create my production logo!

As I've said before, I've decided to name my production company "MaiaMade Media" (LOVE the alliteration). For every birthday and holiday, I always make handmade cards for my friends and family. When I was younger, I saw that one of my family friends wrote "HannaMade" on the back of her handmade cards and decided to steal that idea because I LOVED it. Now, I write "MaiaMade" on the back of each of my cards as my little watermark.

Logically, I've decided to use Canva to create my production logo. I want it to reflect creativity with my logo, so I was thinking of using a paintbrush, or possibly music notes. 

I also created a Pinterest board with fonts and art that I could possibly use, because in the past I've found super ones on there before.

I started my logo design in school, but Pinterest doesn't work with the school wifi, so the first version was a VERY rough idea. I basically just picked a color that I knew I wanted to incorporate into my logo. Because I realized that Pinterest doesn't work in school, I decided just to wait until I got home to continue.

v.1

Once I was home, I decided to scrap the yellow gradient all together because I didn't really like it. Instead, I used some of the designs from Pinterest to create what you see below. I wanted to try and use the bunnies somehow, but couldn't figure out how, though I ended up using the notebook paper as the background in my final product.

v.2

After I deleted the bunnies, I thought it might be cool if I had a hand writing out "MaiaMade Media". I found the pastel pink and blue striped wallpaper for the background and thought I could fully lean in towards the DIY and scrap-booking type of vibe. I didn't really like how the hand looked and couldn't properly animate it to look like it was writing.

v.3

I also wanted to add a little star character, so I found one off of Pinterest and just replaced the bottom left star with the one I chose. I animated this star to wiggle around a little bit and I really liked the fact that it is looking upwards, as if it's looking at the font. The stars also reinforce the scrap-booking vibe because they are like stickers.

v.4

All I needed to do at this point was find a handwriting font that was legible and one that I actually liked. This brings us to my finished production logo!! I'm absolutely thrilled with it because I think it is so so cute and represents me and my "branding" if you will. I added the sound of a pen writing to bring in the idea from v.3 to make the logo a bit more interactive. This also kind of reminds me of the intro of a YouTube vlog in the best way possible. The scrap-booking idea that I ended up with perfectly reflects how I wanted to incorporate creativity like I said in the beginning.

I hope you enjoyed seeing the process of my production logo creation and I'll catch ya on my next post!!

Day 24: Let's do some DIY!!

Hi there!! Welcome back to week 5 of my journey on my portfolio project. Wow, I can't even believe we're already past the half-way point of this project. So far, I've stuck to my timeline (click the link here to view) very well, which I'm super duper proud of. 

I briefly explained that I created the star garland and decorated my phone case in day 21, but I wanted to go a bit more in-depth about it here.

How to make a star garland:

Inspiration from Pinterest

Materials:

1. Construction/colored paper
2. String or yarn
3. Scissors
4. Hole puncher
5. Tape or thumb-tacks (to hang the garlands up)

How to:

1. Cut out a template for all of the stars.
2. Cut out strips of construction paper large enough to trace the stars.
3. Trace the stars using your template.
4. Cut stars out and hole punch 2 corners that are across from each other.
5. Cut a piece of yarn/string that covers the distance that you want the garland to hang.
6. String the stars onto the yarn/string through each corner to create a garland.
7. Hang it up using the tape or thumbtacks.

Results:

You can click here to view the process of me making the garlands. I think that it might be easier to understand while watching me. Sadly, the video was a bit too long to upload directly to this post.

How to make a bejeweled phone case:

Inspiration from Pinterest

Materials:

1. Phone case (I used an old, crusty clear phone case)
2. Stick-on jewels (Amazon link to the one I bought)
3. Nail-file or sandpaper
4. Glue (Optional)

How to:

1. Start by lightly sanding your phone case so that the jewels will be able to stick a bit better.
2. Wipe off any excess dust.
3. Optional: Add glue to the phone case for longer wear.
4. Stick on the jewels wherever your heart desires.
5. Once you've added the amount of jewels that you want, you are done!!
6. Enjoy your new phone case!

Results:

This is how my phone case turned out, and it reminds me of Fancy Nancy so much. I'm absolutely obsessed and have been using it as my actual phone case, not just for filming, and I've been getting so many compliments. 

Click here for a video of me making my own.

Thank you so much for joining me on this process and I had SO much fun DIY-ing these things. I hope to see you on the next post!!

Day 23: What's so important about sound??

Hey there!! I hope you are doing amazing today. Today I'll be discussing my ideas for sound design. In order to properly develop my opening, not only do I need convincing videos, I need convincing audio as well. We live in a world where no matter how quiet, there is almost always a sound, whether that be A/C or wind. It is so so important to make sure that you think of every little detail so that your opening will actually be convincing.

For my opening, I'll mainly be using voice over, but I'll also be incorporating diegetic sound as well. My inspiration for the voice over as I type the blog is "The Perks of Being A Wallflower" opening. As mentioned before, Charlie is writing an anonymous letter while voicing it over to express his thoughts without actually saying it in the narrative world. I want to do something similar with my opening, as Maia is learning how to express herself through her creative endeavors including her new blog, crocheting, baking and more.

I've chosen to focus mainly on voice over for the opening to really immerse the audience into the world of Maia's blog. By using voice overs, I the audience will be able to understand what is going on in the scene as well as understand it is part of a blog post. The opening mainly focuses on introducing the character as she lists things that she likes to do. If this were a full film, every time she would write a blog, or do something she is writing about, I would use voice overs to remind the audience that it is part of the blog as a whole.

Here is the link to my current voice over, but it is subject to re-recording if I'm not satisfied with it while editing.

I also think that this is the best strategy to highlight Maia writing her blog post as well as explain to the audience what exactly she is writing about. 

I will also be using a bit of music that will start as non-diegetic sound and eventually turn into diegetic sound. As you know, I play piano, and I'll be playing one of my pieces for this. In one of the scenes, I'm playing piano and my brother messes me up by coming to play next to me. Before this scene is shown, I'll be extracting that sound to layer underneath the voice over. It will become diegetic sound once it is shown on-screen.

As I said in the introduction, it is so important to have a properly layered soundscape for any piece of media if you want it to sound professional. Layering sounds help make the piece seem more realistic and convincing for the audience. You already know that I'll be using a majority of voice-over as well as piano played by me. Because I don't have any parts where the sounds are directly coming from the narrative world, besides the piano scene, I won't have to worry too much about my soundscape. 

Though this is true, I do need to add the environmental sounds. For example, A/C noises are always there, but you learn to tune it out because of how minimal the sound actually is. Throughout my piece I will incorporate A/C sounds and for the outdoor scene, I'll be adding wind and possibly birds chirping. These sounds further establish the setting and enhance the audiences' experience while watching.

Thank you for reading and that's all for today!! Catch you on the next one!!

Day 22: character development

Hi again! I hope you are doing well and lets get into today's topic: character development.

As you know from the many times I've said it before, Maia is a super fun, bubbly girl. She is unique and cares about her family and friends a lot. She isn't sure why she's being bullied, but it might be because of her child-like personality as well.

Throughout the opening, I'll be developing Maia's character as a bit childish through the setting and props.

Many people say that your bedroom is a reflection of you, and in this case it very much is. Maia's room is very colorful and shows her personality through the wallpaper, star garland, and stuffed animals on her bed. All of those work together to express her uniqueness and her almost child-like self.

The stuffed animals around her room represent her love for cute, fluffy things. Throughout the room there are character plushies including Donald Duck, Martin Kratt (from Wild Kratts), Bob the minion, and so much more. These show her dedication to her favorite shows and movies, which can be translated into real-life with her dedication to her family and friends. She is shown giving her baked goods to her best friend, which shows how caring and compassionate she is.

Also, I think that by thinking through all of the small details like her phone case, shows her life in many different ways. Audience members might unknowingly connect the dots by thinking "Oh yea, she must've made that phone case because she said that she likes to do crafts." This further develops the character as a crafty person. The phone case that she chose also represents her character as unique. Some might call it tacky, but it is also very child-like. 

Through the DIY's I've been doing for this project, I've realized that I want Maia's character to be child-like. Her room is colorful and fun, just like her, but I want it to seem as though she is also learning to grow up in her childish room. These also might be a clue to the audience as to why she is being bullied.

I will also be using clothing choices to represent her bright demeanor. As I've mentioned in day 20, Maia will be wearing a white, blue and yellow crew neck sweatshirt and other colorful tops in the various scenes. This is to further emphasize the fact that she is bubbly and bright and expresses herself in that way.

Loosely inspired by this blog, I also decided to create a playlist for Maia, but this one just introduces you to her overall vibe. By listening to these songs, it might help you visualize her better.

 

That's all for today, and I hope you catch you on the next one!

Day 21: Set design!!

Hello hello hello!! I hope you are doing well and today's topic of discussion is all of the sets for my opening!

To begin, we must start with my room design. I'm keeping my room pretty much the same because this opening is a reflection of my life. I will be adding some star garlands which you can see the process of me making in a video below. I will be taking down the Turkish flag for the opening because it is BOLD. I also think it might take away from the actual content of my opening.

The bed will be used for the scene of me crocheting and sleeping.

This is my ideal spot for my first shot.

I'll be filming all of the shots in my house this weekend, including the ones in the piano room.

As you also know, I'll be filming 2 shots in my taekwondo dojang. I'm planning on shooting them closer to the left side of the mat because I want the shot to establish the taekwondo setting. I think that getting the flags and the bags in the background of the shot might make a bit more sense.

This is the side I'm referring to.

I'll be filming today after class in the dojang, with the help of my friend, Mia, who will be recording the process.

Additionally, I'll be filming outside somewhere, as I give a box of baked goods to Emma. It'll probably be outside of mine or her house, but that is still undecided. 

Overall, I'm super duper excited to start filming. I am still waiting for a few more things before I can film in my room though, including the phone case (I'm waiting for the jewels to arrive.) and the star garlands (which I need to string on). I am also waiting for the striped sweater to arrive because that is the main costuming piece for my opening. Before I publish this post, I'll be uploading the videos of me making the phone case and garland as well so you can see the full process. 

Access the projects here! The videos were way too long to upload directly onto the blog, sadly.

I hope to see you next time and I cannot wait!! Have a fantastic rest of your day and I'll catch you on the next one!

Day 20: Meet Maia (and the others)

Hi there!! Welcome to arguably the most fun part of pre-production!! Today I'll be discussing costume design for each character, as well as introducing you to each of the actors.

To the right, you can see the mood board that I put together with the help of Canva and Pinterest. You can click here to see the Pinterest board, which has pretty much the same pictures, but I'm linking it in case you want to see them closer up.

Maia is a bubbly, eccentric, unique girl which nobody can parallel. I want both her costume design and room design (which I'll go into more detail in a later post) to reflect that.

To begin, I want her to come off as very artsy and just a bright girl. For the opening scenes, I'll be wearing a similar outfit to that of the outfit photo in the mood board, but slightly different. Though I really wanted to find that magenta striped long-

sleeve, I COULDN'T FIND IT ANYWHERE. So, I settled on this white, blue and yellow long-sleeve from Amazon instead. I'll also be pairing it with a pair of baggy low-rise black jeans, even though you probably won't be able to see them at all.

Because I really want to hook the audience in with my opening, I'm trying to be super thorough as I can with every single detail, so that anything that anybody notices is on purpose.

I'm going to be decorating my phone case like the one in the left top corner of the mood board. In one of the last shots, she will be sleeping and then subsequently snoozing her alarm, which will be on her phone. The phone case represents just how extra Maia is, and also reminds me of Fancy Nancy.

Next, I decided that because Maia likes to do her nails, she should definitely have her nails done for the filming of the opening as well. In the storyboard, I envisioned that there would be shots of her typing on the computer and then a matchcut to her playing piano. This really made me want to have nice nails that represented the character so that I could really sell it. I found this inspo on Pinterest and I thought that it perfectly represents the character of Maia.

As you know, she is a unique girl that goes with the flow and loves color. Each finger of the nails are different in their own ways but still come together to form a beautiful masterpiece when seen together as a whole hand.

I also am not sure whether I'm going to put my hair up in two low space-buns like this picture, or just have my hair down. I think that in the portion of the opening where I'm introducing myself/typing up the blog, I'll have my hair down, but in the shot where I am sharing baked goods with my friend, I think it makes more sense to have my hair up, because I was just "baking" and needed to have my hair out of my face. I'm still not sure yet, so let's see what I end up deciding. 

Without further ado, the cast of Maia: Unfiltered!! 

(in order of appearance)

Of course, we have to begin with Maia, who is the main character in the film, and you already know all about her, so there is no need for me to repeat it again, because you'll get bored.

Maia (me)

The next character we have is the bully. He is only seen in about 5 seconds of the opening, but is a major character to help the audience understand a bit more of Maia's background.

Bully (Alejandro)

Next, we have my little brother, Han, who will be playing my little brother, Han. He annoys me in real life, as well as my opening, as little brothers do.

Little brother (Han)

And last, but definitely not least, we have Emma, who will be playing my best friend. Realistically, you won't really be able to tell that she is my best friend because there is only one shot of her and me together. Her shot will be a two shot medium shot, where I'll be giving her a box of baked goods that I've baked for her. While that shot is on-screen, the voice over is saying that I love to share my baking with my friends and family. 

Best friend (Emma)

I also wanted to emphasize the fact that Maia is EXTRA colorful and just an extra person in general. Because of this, in all of the scenes, Maia will be wearing bright colors. Her supporting characters including her little brother and best friend will wear colors that are complementary to whatever she is wearing. My friend, Mia, helped me decide on this because we agreed that Maia's support system should complement her character. 

Maia's little brother will likely also wear a bright complementary color to whatever she is wearing in that scene. I decided on this because since they are related, the bright colors represent that.

On the other hand, the bully will be wearing a taekwondo uniform, which is all white and has a black collar, but this is solely because I want the costume choice to make it a point that the setting is in taekwondo. In the voiceover, Maia also says that she's been doing taekwondo since first grade, and the bullying scene reinforces the fact that getting bullied there is a big deal to her.

That's all for today, I hope you enjoyed and I'll catch you on the next post!!

Day 19: Storyboarding 101

Hi there!! I hope all is well, and I cannot even fathom how deep we are into this project already. Tomorrow wraps up week 3 of our portfolio projects and today I finished my storyboard and script! Well, my script isn't an official script yet, but I'll be doing some research as well to transform it. 

Storyboarding is an essential part of creating a film, short story, or anything that you need to film or animate in general. Creating a storyboard, no matter how artistically talented you are, helps you easily visualize the final product, and each of the shots you need to get. 

When visualizing Maia: Unfiltered, I started by having no idea what I wanted it to look like. One night, I was trying to fall asleep, but I started to see the idea actually come to life. I rushed to my desk and quickly jotted down all of my ideas so that they wouldn't escape me before morning. On the left, you can see that version of my storyboard, but today I finished the official one. 

Below, you can see the completed storyboards, with a rough description of each shot. Once, you see the script, hopefully you'll be able to see the vision a bit clearer. As you can see, the first shot is pretty much exactly like the shot in Killing Eve, as well as the tight closeup from Juno (shot 7).

Finally, moving on to the screenplay. To write a proper screenplay, I watched this video by StudioBinder on YouTube.

Then, I used StudioBinder's Screenplay writing tool to write up my script. After watching the video, all of the tools on the screenplay tool made sense to me, and now I hopefully have a full-functioning script. In the video, they mention that each page of the script should represent roughly a minute of the production, and my script is exactly 2 pages, so it should amount to 2 minutes (Perfect for this project!!) Now, I've created my official script and having the full script done in the exact formatting as professional scripts, makes me feel so official and excited. I've inserted my full script below.

I found it really interesting to learn about the different parts of a screenplay and the fact that I found most interesting was the one about "Rainbow Scripts". I think it is so cool that there is a specific color of paper per script revision, which can build up to create a rainbow script. Both the storyboard and script are subject to change, but right now, I'm very happy with how they turned out.

I hope you enjoyed today's post and I'll catch you all on the next one!

Day 18: Media theory!!

Hi again! I hope you are doing well! Today I'll be researching and discussing ways to incorporate media theories into my film opening before I write/draw up my final storyboard and script.

At the beginning of the school year, my teacher gave us a paper filled with all of the media theories that we should memorize and start to include in our Media Text and Context essays. Of course, because I am developing a media text, I'll choose a theory that applies to it.

Below is a picture of the handout. 

After looking over the handout, I've decided that I want to try to incorporate a representation theory, specifically, Gauntlett's identity theory. My opening focuses on my character, a teenage girl, going through the struggles of being bullied, daily life, and just being a teenager in general. Many teenagers, not just girls, go through rough patches, where they are struggling to find themselves and figure out who they truly are. 

Because of this, I think that Gauntlett's identity theory will apply perfectly to my opening. He theorizes that the media does not create identity but reflects them. By seeing a teenager on-screen, that is also struggling with something, audience members will be able to relate and really form their identity as teenagers.

Also, I could apply semantic codes to the actual computer I'm going to use in the opening. My computer is blue, which is a unique color for a computer. The color represents the uniqueness of the character herself, but the actual computer and blog represents her outlet and her introduction to independence. 

By creating a blog on the internet, you are setting yourself out into the world. Anyone who has access to the internet will now be able to see what you post, making you extremely vulnerable. Maia is putting herself out there and exploring who she is, which is what the blue sort of represents. 

Now that I have my theory picked out, and how I'm going to apply it to my opening, I think I'm ready to create my storyboard. Thank you for reading and I'll see you on the next one!