CCR Research

Hi blog! Today we did some research on the CCR, so here is some stuff that I noted.

This year's questions are slightly different from last years, but lucky we are freed from the SHACKLES that was having to make the videos to answer the questions. Instead, we are writing a 1000 word essay, which in my opinion isn't enough words, because I could talk about what we did to bring our short film to life for thousands and thousands of words.

I honestly have not been super focused on what exactly I am going to write regarding the CCR yet because I have been spending most of my free time working on the social media or filming with my group, so I am glad that it is finally time to tackle this portion of the project. When I think about last year's, I think that 2 weeks was more than enough time for me to figure out what I was going to say, so especially now that it is in essay format, it will be even better than having to memorize a script and decide how to make it both creative and informative.

Anyways, Today I am going to focus on two of the questions and next week I will focus on how I am gonna tackle the other two.

Question 1: How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

So, for this one, I am going to have to break down the question into two parts, the research, and the challenging of conventions. For the research part of the question, I think it is best to approach it with mentioning specific productions that we watched that inspired our story or techniques. I will mention how we made some blog posts regarding the movies and short films that we watched to gain inspiration as well as the social media research of other short film makers accounts and finally, the postcard research. 

I am also going to mention certain techniques that we used, such as the montage all being from the same point of view, which ended up running very smoothly, but I will mention that more in a later post. This question also requires me to mention the genre, since thats what it means by "conventions". Since we chose to do a short film with the coming of age genre, I will lean into how we showed the passage of time and mention the target audience a little, but more-so in another question. Our actors are also clearly in a growing stage of their life, so I will emphasize that as well. 

I will tie all of the information together by mentioning our choices with bringing it all back to how we chose to make our short film DIFFERENT from what we researched, because yes, inspo is important, but individuality and unique choices are what will truly make us stand out.

Question 2: How do your products engage with the audience?

For this question, we are going to focus more on the target audience that we briefly mentioned in the previous question. Target audience would actually be a great way to transition between questions now that I think about it, because the structure of the essay is almost as important as the actual words themselves. 

This is also the question that we will talk more about what decisions we made regarding our social media and how it engages with our followers. For example, we will mention our "meet the cast and crew" posts and our reels that allow for the audience to feel more connected to our production and us as a team. We will show behind the scenes of the postcard so that if someone was to see it, they would feel special to have gotten one themself or would want one if they didn't. I also think it is important for us to mention here some things we wish that we could have done better.

Finally, for this question, we will mention some feedback that we got from peers and how we implimented that into the final product to make it connect to the audience better based on genuine outside opinions. I think this question is way more straightforward, and I have a clear vision of what I want this question to discuss. 

Here are some photos of the notes that I took regarding the questions:

Filming Complications

 Hi blog!

Soooo we reached a little setback today. For our actors, Stephanie (Steph) and Estephania (Este) we wanted the first day of filming to be pretty light so that they could get to know each other and build a relationship, since they are supposed to be best friends in the short film. With that being said, we were planning to do our getting ready and gift giving scenes today.

We got the room all set up, introduced the actors, spent about an hour just bonding so that we all could get to know each other, etc. When we finally set up a great shot of Steph walking down the stairs (one of our first shots), the camera stopped working. To be more specific, we didn't have a battery for the camera. So, of course we tried to figure out what we could do so that the day was not a complete waste of time. 

Renn called his friend who is also in CBTV, Esther, and asked her if we could use her battery because she owns one of the cameras that we checked out from the school inventory. Renn drove over to Esther's house, got the new battery, set it up, and once again, it did not work. At this point we were really stressed because we had set aside about 3 hours to do this, meaning that we would need to spend all that time on Sunday, when we were planning to film the rest of the entire film.

We all just decided to go home and try to make it work, but Renn, Vicky, and I talked and decided to change the day to next Friday, so that we don't overwork ourselves in one day. 

Even though today did not go as well as we expected, good did still come from it because now we have a much better understanding of what needs to happen when we really film it. Also, we are all much more acquainted as a cast and crew now, which will make Sunday run even smoother than if he barely knew each other.

Here's a video of Renn explaining what went wrong:

World Building!

 Hi blog! 

    Today Renn, Vicky and I got together to build the set! It went super smoothly, and I am really happy with how it came out so far. Basically everything is there, but we have a few things that we need to add. For example, we didn't realize that we needed to move some of Renn's real plants into the room like we originally planned, so we will do that tomorrow before filming, since we are shooting the opening then. We also needed to make sure we had some more options for the fake plants, so I will also go get those.

    In the room we are filming, there is a huge whiteboard mounted to the wall, which worked great, so we are using it as an opportunity to highlight her busy life. We knew from the beginning that instead of working around that whiteboard, we wanted to use it in our film. On the left of it, we put a bunch of wall decor that is very evenly placed, since Dahlia as a character is very polished and "type A", so we imagined that her room would reflect that. In the beginning of the film at least, there is very little clutter, and the room as a whole is tidy and orderly. Of course, we are going to counter this as the film goes on.

  Around the white board, we put some hanging string lights because in the modern-day teenage girl's room, that is a must. It also helps draw attention to the board and adds a cool lighting aspect for our nighttime scenes in Dahlia's room. Speaking of the white board, we wrote down some stuff that your average junior in HS student would have to do. We wrote "study for math quiz", "extra credit (lang)", "Bio PSET", and "Buy the Great Gatspy for Lang". This list is pretty short in the beginning because she is pretty organized, so she is not yet overwhelmed. We all agreed that I should write on the board since I have pretty neat handwriting, and we didn't have Steph there to write it herself (she is acting as Dahlia).

    For the wall decor, I made a Pinterest board of things that her character would be interested in. I thought that it fit her character really well to be super interested in music, so we included little pins from Taylor Swift, The Beetles, Gracie Abrams, and Conan Gray. We also put several pictures of plants on there as well to match not only her color palate of green and purple, but also to match the icon of our film being a potted plant. We also put a calandar on that wall as well to assist in showing time passing throughout the film, since it is a major aspect that we need the audience to understand. On this wall as well, we put hanging dried roses, since it is something that Dahlia would definitely keep in her room, even though the plant is dead, she still cherishes it, since she is sentimental.

    I designed some honor roll certificates (thank you Canva), and we hung them up on the wall to highlight the aspect of Dahlia that is a high achiever and very academically focused. This also balances out the wall, because the majority of our decor was on the left of the whiteboard, so having that on the other side makes it look more intentional and pleasing to the eye. I am thinking of putting the medals right next to the honor roll stuff so that it acts as a visual of the duality of her life. On the left, there is the more creative, artistic, plant-loving side, and on the right, her awards and acknowledgments.

    I almost forgot to mention, we also hung paper cranes over the entryway from the door in her room. This little detail was super important to us, and we knew that we wanted to include this from the beginning because it shows a lot about a person. They were patient enough to make all of the individual cranes, and it was so important to them that they strung them on their ceiling. Every person I know that has stuff like this on their bedroom ceiling is a very creative person, so we were applying our own knowledge of how someone's room reflects their personality.

  In the corner of her room, there was an adorable little window seal, which we put a little seculent there that is thriving, to show that her interest in plants has been a thing, it is not a new obsession. We also put some trophies that cannot be mounted on the wall, but we thought were still important to include. Also, the trophies are different shapes, showing that she is well-rounded and has a variety of interests that she is good enough to win awards for.

Sprout the Plant

 Hi blog!

So, we have been having some trouble deciding what we wanted to do about the dilemma regarding how to show the plant growing when, unlike the short film, we do not have 100 days to wait for a seed to grow and record every few weeks. So, our solution was to use fake plants and cut them, however this would cause problems as well, since we would have to film in the complete opposite order. However, it would not be a huge deal, since we only need about one shot of the plant, since it isn't in every scene, it just gives us a marker for how much time has passed.

Anyways, Vicky was looking on Amazon for another option, and found a pack of fake plants that come in multiple different stages, which is perfect! Here is a photo of what they look like:

We are going to use real plant soil to make it look as realistic as possible, and we will have multiple of each plant to make sure that if anything goes wrong, we have multiple options.

Regarding the plant pots, it is a major plot point that Melia gifts Dahlia a pot for her birthday, and that is what we see sprout in for the majority of the short film, before in the end where she gets a bigger pot since it is growing too big. This is a metaphor for how once you outgrow certain aspects of your life, the next step is to find a new thing that works for you, don't confine yourself to what you know if it isn't fulfilling you anymore.                                                                                                                                                                               Today I went to the store and bought the smaller and larger pots, and I will decorate them later this week. I got 3 of the smaller ones, since it will be shown on camera multiple times, and if I mess up, I will have multiple tries. I will make a post with a picture of the final pots next week!

Citations:

Baost. (n.d.). Baost 10pcs artificial bean sprout fake vegetable plastic green plant flower arrangement home kitchen decor. Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Baost-Artificial-Sprout-Plastic-Arrangement/dp/B087TB1P7F

Mise En Scene Bedroom Elements!

 Hi blog! Have I mentioned how excited I am to be in charge of the Mise en scene of our short film? I feel really creatively free and have so many ideas.

So, I am trying to put myself in Dahlia's mind to decide what this 16 year old girl would put in her room. While on call with Vicky and Renn (for 2+ hours btw), we made a list of a bunch of elements that are very Dahlia. We kept this list realistic to what we could actually attain for this project, so some of our ideas ended up getting scrapped, but here is what we ended up with:

- kennas headphones 

- hang paper cranes from the ceiling (making on production day)

- kennas color lamp 

- kennas posters/printed new ones

- kennas calendar 

- kennas playbills 

- vickys fairy lights 

- kennas trash can

- vickys/kenna squishmallows 

- kennas trophies and medals 

- kennas dried flowers

- renns plants

- vickys lego flowers 

- print out fake certificates

- yearly honor roll corner (need to design)

- printed photo of dahlia and melia (frame from kenna) (photo printed from vicky)

- kenna gets the pot (x2)

As you can tell, a lot of this stuff is mine, and I am more than willing to rearrange my life for the bedroom to look as good as possible, because since Vicky and Renn are doing most of the cinematogaphy and editing, I want my contribution to be super well executed. Here are some photos of the items that we are going to include.

  

You may be thinking, "Kenna, when are you going to put up all of this stuff in that bedroom, that will take hours". But don't worry, we made a plan for our official production days, we are going to spend Tuesday (the 24th) setting up the room and meeting with the cast and crew together to officially introduce the actors. Next on Thursday (the 26th) to start filming the party scene, Friday (the 27th) to film the nighttime moments and likely the final argument. And finally, our bulky filming day is going to be on Sunday (the 29th) to film everything else and if we need to reshoot anything from the previous days, we will do that as well. I am super happy we got this out of the way, so we have solid plans in place.

Finally, to give you an idea about what we are envisioning for the bedroom here is a mockup that I made on canva with the actual photo of the bedroom. Of course, we will adjust it to our needs, but it is a good baseline for now until we have actual access to the bedroom. I want the paper cranes to hang over the entrance as you see here, since they are highlight Dahlia's creative side, and the to do list is going to constantly be changing throughout the film to highlight her more structured academic side.

Title confirmed/Social Media Planning

     Hi blog! It is officially spring break, but that doesn't mean we are taking a break from working on the project! We have so much to do, so we all called and worked out what exactly we wanted to do about the concerns that I mentioned in a previous blog post. 

    We started by working together to develop our social media by coming up with solid branding through color schemes. Here's what we chose to do. The colors pink and purple represent our two main characters' individuality (Dahlia=Purple and Melia=Pink). So, we are going to include those colors when we make posts specifically about meeting the cast and their characters, but I will get more into that later. Anyways, the white represents adolescence and the innocence that the two characters have as young girls. But most importantly, our main color is going to be green to represent life and growth, since that is the main theme of our story. This also represents our third "character" Sprout (no longer named Tom). We are also going to make a post introducing Sprout as if it was a character, since a major theme of our production is personification of plants.

    I also made a list of what posts I exactly want to have. I got heavy inspiration from the research that we did a few weeks ago on similar social media pages. Here are our ideas:

    Speaking of sprout, I forgot to tell you, Sprouting is the official title for our short film! We think that it is a super cute play on the adolescent stage of life and growing up while still being a play on plants. And we chose "Sprouting" over just "Sprout" because we all agreed that making it be more of a verb than a noun made sense, since the story itself is about the act of growing up, not just being young.

    I also officially made the account! The name is @Sproutingshortfilm on Instagram. We chose this social media site because it allows for us to do both reels and posts, and reach a teenage audience very easily. We also like Instagram because it is super user friendly, and we all have a bunch of experience with it personally aside from this project. Having this experience will allow us to create quality content and not worry too much about how to use the app. 

    The bio includes a quote directly from the end of our short film, "Everyone's just growing up" which is perfect because it gives the viewers an immediate understanding of what the theme of the film is. I also included a point that this is an AICE Media Studies project so we can potentially gain followers of people looking to support our project. Finally, I included some emojis that I think represent our story really well, the sprout emoji in our handle name and the succulent emoji to represent Sprout the character.

Filming Location Secured!

 Hi blog! We officially worked out all the details for where we are going to film! 

So, lucky for us, Renn's brother is currently in college, so his room is empty and being used as a guest room. The reason this is so amazing is because we can put up the room, leave it, and come back to it being the exact same without it having to function as a real bedroom and worry about external factors. This wil also ensure that all the little details that we put in stay consistent between filming days. 

However, on the less fortunate side, it may not look as lived-in, and appear too staged, which would cause a lot of issues when it comes to the flow and time skips in our film plan. Also, it is facing a window which could make filming difficult, with the natural lighting playing a big part into how the room is lit. We have very little control over how we can manipulate the lighting with light kits, so we may have to film out of order to maximize our shooting schedule time, and limit the amount of days that we spend on production. Overall, there will most certainly be a lot of challenges to face, but I have a good feeling about the location.

Since our film is going to involve many plants, we made sure we had access to some before we bit off more than we could chew. That being said, not only do i have several cacti in my room, but also Renn's mom has a bunch of plants in their house already, which makes moving it into the set super easy and effective. We are most likely going to use a pea plant for our main one, since they grow somewhat fast and we have access to several of them in different stages.

As for the party scene, we have the idea of filming at the Weston Hills Neighborhood Clubhouse, as it has a lot of space to film, and is close enough to a road that we could shoot a scene on the curb like we had planned. However, we also want to have strobe lights from the party in the background and we are not sure if that will get to happen or not, since it is a public space.

I believe that is all the info I have regarding our filming locations for now!