Choosing a Title

 For the past few weeks I haven't put much though to what my title should be for this film opening. But then one day it just hit me as I was listening to one of my favorite songs. Let's look at the aspects of my idea before introducing it's name.

This film opening focuses on introducing my main character Persephone. Persephone is a 16 year old girl who bottles up her emotions and fails to focus on her mental health. She appears to be this airy, relaxed, happy person, and she can be, but in reality it's a mask that hides her true feelings. The film as a whole would build up to Persephone having a realization that she can't bottle herself up anymore and that she has to let her emotions out and take care of herself. Though she has had this sudden realization, her problems will not be magically solved because that's not how life goes. Now taking this general plot let's talk about this song I mentioned earlier.

This song is a solo song by Kim Seokjin aka Jin of BTS. The song discusses how he was hidden behind a smiling mask and how his true self was stuck in a storm, but he comes to realize that he should love himself and not mask how he's truly feeling or who he really is. Through all his problems, insecurities, and imperfections, he loves himself and will no longer hide behind a mask. I love this song and as I was listening to it, I realized how similar it was to the plot for my opening. 

The song name is "Epiphany", and inspired from this song, the name for my film is...drum roll please... Epiphany. Ta-daaaaaa. I hope that revealing of the title was dramatic enough because that's what I was going for hahahaha XD.

Here's a link to listen to "Epiphany" by Jin of BTS:   Epiphany

Playing Hide n Seek With Filming Locations

 Ahhhh where to film, where to film. Seeing as we're currently in a global pandemic, I have to utilize my immediate surroundings. 

My neighborhood is fairly big with a playground, several lakes, a pool, and basketball court. The neighborhood is kept neat and tidy as well. so an obvious location for me to film is in my own neighborhood. 

I will also be filming in my backyard and in my house. More specifically, I will be filming in my own room in my house. I want the scenes in my house to have dimmer lighting and my room is perfect for that, since it's always dim and gloomy, just how I like it :]. Since the backyard is... in my backyard HAHAHA, it's of easy access to me and easily at my disposal. My backyard is a nice size with healthy grass, so not only is it convenient but the visuals will look nice as well.

Group Meetings PART 2!!!!!

On the 16th, we had another round of group meetings. This group meeting was just as productive as the first one. There were six people in my group this time and some of their ideas were very good. The first girl is doing her project with a group of people and they chose horror as their genre. They plan to film it in the perspective of the killer as well which we all agreed is different and interesting. She also said that her group was thinking about not showing the killers face to add mystery. We gave her feedback on this aspect; she was told that they shouldn't rely solely on POV shots because it would be repetitive. We offered her to use over the shoulder shots and also shots skewed away from the killer's face, or even using props that cover the killers face. I also suggested to play with lighting so that the killer's face has a shadow over it and the viewer can't see his features. For this girl there wasn't much else feedback we could give so we moved on to the next person.

The person was making a drama/coming of age film with a partner. Their idea was a little bit messy and he was focusing more on how the film would end rather then how it would open, so we told him he should clean up his idea a bit and think about the opening rather than the ending since our project is a film opening. His general idea was a boy who's struggling to figure out what he wants to do after high school who has a best friend who's life is all planned out and well put together. We did compliment him on going with an idea which is close to what we know and relatable. Other than telling him to clean up his idea a bit we were done with his feedback. The next person is also doing a horror movie. This is one of the people I had in my first group meeting. I liked his name for his killer a lot because it's honestly pretty funny but the idea of the character is creepy. The killer name is The Rubberneck, he explained that this name was chosen because rubberneck is described as tilting ones head to stare at something in a foolish manner, and the killer will tilt his head like this when string at his victims. We liked this idea but he was having trouble with choosing a filming locations. He said he wants to film in an isolated forest and he also said he found a place he liked however, he doesn't know whether he'll be trespassing or not. We told him to first find out if he could use the space and if not then to use a big park in our local area so he doesn't get into trouble.

The next girl is doing a coming of age/drama as well. I liked her idea a lot. She took inspiration from two animes, which I currently have on my 'anime to watch list ;)', Your Lie in April and A Silent Voice. Her idea is to have one of the main characters be deaf but be a piano prodigy. The second main character, a girl, will walk and hear the playing the piano and fall in love with her, and after chasing after the MC they realize that she's deaf. I loved this idea because it not only represents the deaf community but it also represents the LGBTQ+ community. We asked questions rather than giving feedback. We asked her if there was going to be signing in the her opening and if she had someone who knew how to sign. She said she got two people form the higher levels of the ASL class we have in our school to help her. She also said she would only give one or two lines of signing as to not create a lot of difficulty for the actor playing the deaf MC. The next person who went was me. I presented my idea and my character and how I was mainly going to focus on introducing the main character and hint at her poor mental health. I was told that I could hint at how her home is the root of my problem by having parents yelling in the background. I though that was a good idea so I'll most likely run with it. 

The last person to go was a girl who also has a partner for her project. They're doing a teen comedy with a hint of mystery. her idea is basically two girls who are having a sleepover and when they wake up they have no idea what had happened last night. They find their house trashed and people sleeping everywhere and when they walk outside they see that their car is stolen. Then it's going to rewind and take the view through how the girls got to the point where they find out that their car was stolen. This idea was great too. We told her there could be hints as to who or how the car was stolen. That was the only feedback we gave for her. After this we were done and we told each other good job and then class ended. Overall it was a good group meeting and we each got helpful feedback.

Soundtrack

Ahhh music, one of my favorite things to discuss. I've been looking for music to use in my film opening but the non-copyrighted music I've found isn't what I'm looking for. What I have found is the song New Flesh by Current Joys. The song is perfect for a Coming of Age film and I would really like to be able to use it as background music as I introduce my character Persephone aka Percy. The song has a calming vintage vibe which I absolutely love. Listening to it feels as if I am living in an 80s coming of age film and I would love to represent that feeling by including it in my opening. I will however look for back up songs to use if I am unable to use Current Joys' New Flesh. I will keep you guys updated on which song i will be using for my project, until then bye bye :).

Here is a link to a lyric video on YouTube of New Flesh: https://youtu.be/RaNnztBVD7w

Here is a link to the word doc where I created my draft of the message I sent the artist:

NewFleshRequestWordDoc

My Filming Weapons of Choice

 In this post I'm going to list off the equipment I'm going to be using to create my 2 minute opening. 

My main piece of equipment is going to be my phone. I don't have a video camera, so my next resort is to use my phone. I have an iPhone XR and since this is a newer apple product, my camera quality won't be terrible. I will also be using my phone to record any foley sounds I need. I have the Voice Memos app as well as the app Dolby On. However, I don't recommend Dolby On because there is a limit of how many sounds you can record. So, I plan to solely use Voice Memos. 

For lighting I'll be using a ring light. About a year ago my sister bought a ring light to take picture with, so I will definitely use it to my advantage to light my shots. The light is also a tripod for a phone and camera, so that will come in handy when filming. I also recently got LED lights for my room, which I have already installed, so I'll be using those for colored lighting. I may also use other devices like my iPad, or even my Army Bomb. An Army Bomb is a light stick that the BTS fandom, Army, uses at concerts. It has a bright white light, and with the BTS Official Light Stick app you can use a curser to pick a color for the light stick to display. The more I think about it, my Army Bomb may be a great tool to use XD.

Below are pictures of the Army Bomb, color wheel picker for the Army Bomb, a screen shot of the Voice Memos app, and the LED lights I purchased, as well as link to to Amazon, where I bought the lights.

 

LED Lights Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JP5375R/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Army Bomb: I bought my Army Bomb on the Weverse Shop App. It doesn't have a website, only an app. It's the offical Big Hit(the label BTS is under) shop where all their artists have their merchandise. The website Cokodive also sells the Army Bombs as well as more merchandise from different Kpop groups under multiple labels.

Cokodive Link: https://cokodive.com/

Shooting Schedule

 I am planning to start shooting this weekend after I get a new battery for my camera and I have more LED some lights going in that I need to set up, I was getting these lights for my room anyway so they're coming in handy XD. I can wait to film the scenes that include the LED lights, but the battery is the most important factor, so I plan to get a new one tomorrow, Wednesday, March 3.

Schedule:

3/5-3/8: Here I plan to film my scenes outside, I have more daylight on the weekends then I have during the weekdays considering I have school. If something comes up, I will move the filming of the outside scenes for 3/14-3/15.

3/12-3/14: I'm going to film the scenes that take place inside my house on these days because by then I should have my LED lights.

3/14-3/15: Outside scenes, foley sounds and reshoots

3/16-3/21: Foley sounds and reshoots 

3/21~: Throughout filming, I will be putting clips together to see what I what I'm missing, what could be better, and what I should tweak, but from 2/21 and on I will fully devote to the editing process.