Production post #1

Production post #1

Dani and I are to begin the process of filming this week. I am filled with excitement but also very anxious. In order to film our opening scene, we needed to purchase some equipments to create our main prop. The list of times includes red string, thumbtacks, cork board, and black gloves. All these items are truly crucial to our production.

Cork Board 

The most essential part of this entire scene is the detective/murder/mistery board. The board will include all the photographs of Sofia and Luke. This will initiate the feeling of suspense in our film. The audience will be left with the questions like  "Who is making this board?", "What is the importance of these items?" We will leave with the audience with a sense of intrigue, and throughout the film, we will answer these questions and build on the suspense. 

Black Gloves

 The back gloves are a big part in this scene. In the scene, we use the black gloves to hide the identity of the person who is obsessed with Sofia and Luke. They add mystery to the identity of the person and to the overall plot. 

 

Red String

The red string is literally what connects the whole scene together. The red string will be what is leading all the pictures and memorabilia to one picture of Sofia, where it is quite obvious she did not know it was being taken. The string will signal the audience to pay attention to these details since they will appear again in the film.

Casting

Casting

We have finally casted our actors for our film opening!!

Initially, we had some trouble finding people who would, first of all voluntarily help us with our project and do a good job, but also have a flexible schedule that also alligned with ours. After a long search we finally decided that Sofia Bruno and Adrian Rendon are best fit for this task.

These two actors reflect our characters in the sense that they are together in real life as well as their personalities.

Sofia - Played by: Sofia Bruno

Luke - Played by: Adrian Rendon

We have planned to get together with them very very soon to film the second scene of our opening. We believe these two people to be trustworthy and responsible and we know they are going to collaborate with our project. Although neither of them have acting or TV experience, our scene does not require in-depth acting. In contrast, it requires them to be comfortable around each other, which they are, and film in a homey atmosphere.

Them together:

Costume and lighting

Mise-en-scene

Costuming

All three characters will be wearing regular, rather comfortable attire. Sofia and Luke will be wearing more comfortable clothes since they were in their home making breakfast before Jess arrived. Jess will be dressed a bit more presentable, since the purpose of her visit is to introduce herself to her new neighbors and make new friends.

Here are some inspirations for their clothing:

                 Sofia                                          Jess                                                 Luke

 

Lighting

While filming the first half of the opening, we will film in a dark room with a bright white light. This light will not be pointed directly at our prop but enough for it to be clearly seen. The darkness of the room is to set a tone of suspense and mystery. Although the room will not be shown at all, having any other source of light, apart from our selected one, would take away from the mood we are aiming to set.

These are perfect examples of how we would like our board to be lit.

 

Audio

Audio

Audio is something we learned about in October and even did a project on. Our project consisted of us creating a scene but only with audio. We were instructed to include Foley as well as online audios. This project was extremely effective in teaching us how edit audio, create Foley, and adjust volume and timing. Because of this project, I can confidently say that audio will not be a big issue in our project.

Sound project

For the first scene of our opening, an eerie, mysterious, sort of ominous instrumental music will be playing. Since there is no dialogue for the beginning scene, we believe this will fit accordingly. We are yet to select the song but we are searching for a non copyrighted audio to avoid any further issues.

Concerning the remainder of our film opening, this will be something somewhat new to us. In all our previous projects, we have never included dialogue in them, so we will have to experiment in order to execute this correctly.

A potential microphone we can use is this wireless mini microphone. This item is very effective and easy to use since it small and has a clip. I have used this item previously to record myself while playing volleyball and it never fell off. My only concern is that since I

have only previously used it while it is clipped on the outside of my shirt, perhaps if it is clipped on the inside of a shirt, the sound will be muffled of hard to understand.

Character Development

Character Development

In our film opening, we introduce a total of 3 characters. Considering they are only shown for the second half of the opening, their characters will not be fully developed because of time restraints.

Our first, and main, character is Sofia. Sofia is an extremely common name that about 24,934 people in the U.S. have. We decided to use a common name for our main character to emphasize the abnormality of the situation. Meaning, she was an extremely normal person and this happening to her is extremely unexpected, emphasized by the commonness of her name. In the opening, Sofia is shown as an ordinary girl in her 20's living with her boyfriend.

Our second character is Luke. Very similar to Sofia, Luke is an ordinary guy living a typical student-athlete life with his girlfriend. the name Luke, is ranked 31st most popular male names in the U.S. The commonness of his name was utilized to further portray the normal life they were leading up until the third character was introduced.

The very last character that will be included in our film opening is Jess. Jess' introduction will be rather odd compared to Sofia and Luke's. The shattering of a vase and the ringing of the doorbell at the same time shows that right when Jess arrived, the trouble began.

All three characters will be wearing regular, rather comfortable attire. Sofia and Luke will be wearing more comfortable clothes since they were in their home making breakfast before Jess arrived. Jess will be dressed a bit more presentable, since the purpose of her visit is to introduce herself to her new neighbors and make new friends.

Here are some inspirations for their clothing:

Sofia

Luke

Jess

sources: https://www.mynamestats.com/First-Names/S/SO/SOFIA/index.html

Storyboard

Storyboard

Our storyboard is a representation of our vision for our film opening. Although it is not the most detailed or pretty, it provides a general idea of what we envision our project to turn out like. The entire first page and the first box of the second page of the storyboard depicts our opening scene. This scene will show the film credits as well as a black board with pictures of a girl pinned on and connected with red string. This is much better explained in my "project idea" blog. The second square of the second page of the storyboard is a black background with the film title centered. The remaining boxes of the storyboard represent our second scene. In this scene, the main characters are introduced and at the very end, it is hinted that one of the characters will cause trouble. This is explained in my "script" blog post.

media theory

 Media Theory

    The media theory that my partner and I would like to include in our film opening is Todorov's Narrative Theory of Equilibrium. Although Todorov's theory includes more than three parts, we were only introduced to equilibrium, disequilibrium, and new equilibrium. I believe these three parts will fit perfectly with what the plot of our film would be. Considering we are only being instructed to create a film opening and not a short film, not all three parts of Todorov's Narrative Theory of Equilibrium will be shown in the duration of our film opening. 
 

    The first part of Todorov's theory is equilibrium. This consists of the audience being introduced to the characters and the plot initiation. Regarding our opening, this would be included in our second scene when two characters are introduced in the very first shot. They do regular everyday activities which would provide the audience with the context of their relationship. 

 

    The second part of Todorov's theory is disequilibrium. This includes the initial disruption, something that disrupts the protagonist’s life and occurs before the climax. Once the protagonist has identified the disruption, it is their goal to work to repair the situation. This part of Todorov's theory will not be completely included in the opening. At the very end of the second scene, one of the protagonists will sense that something is weird after a random encounter with a new character. This new character would serve as the disruption since they are not part of the protagonists' daily lives. 

 

    The third part of Todorov's theory is new equilibrium. This is regularly at the end of a film once the protagonist has solved their problem. This part of Todorov's Narrative Theory of Equilibrium would not be shown at all throughout our film opening since it is shown at the end of films, not the beginning. 

    Media theory handout we received while learning about them: 

Other sources:

https://media-studies.com/todorov/