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!!