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!

Critiques/Changes

Hi blog!

On Tuesday, Renn, Vicky, and I went up to Ms. Stoklosa to ask for some guidance regarding our plotline. We showed her our script (you can see it in a previous post that was dedicated to the creation of it), and she did think our storyline could have some cool different paths that we could go with it, so I am going to discuss some of those really quick.

Love Interest (Michael):

So, the main "conflict" of our film is that Dahlia has a crush on Michael and she feels like her best friend, Melia, is ruining that shot for her. When we were having our group discussion, Ms. Stoklosa was not a big fan of our conflict being based around a man, as it did not seem like a very creative way to go about having two very close friends fight. We 100% agreed with her, especially since all three of us are very passionate about what we create, and it seems like the easy way out. In the beginning, it felt like the best option, since we could focus more on the techniques and not worry so much about the plot, but we decided that it is more important to have a strong, unique plan for the plot, which may be more work, but having that on top of great technique, we will be that much prouder of our results at the end of the day.

Tom Clarity:

So, if you noticed, there is a "character" named tom that gets older throughout the film, and Tom's age sets an understanding of how much time has passed. Tom is the plant. In our discussion, it was brought up that who Tom is wasn't clear, so to combat this, we are going to take a sticker that says "Hi, my name is" and write tom on it, and put it on the pot of the plant. This also allows us to show Dahlia's handwriting, which allows the audience to further understand a more quirky side of the character while still making the Tom aspect more clear. Instead of buying multiple plants in different stages, we decided to buy a fully grown plant and cutting it when it needs to be smaller.

Argument:

This somewhat ties into the whole Michael dilemma, but it was also mentioned that the argument felt depthless, and a bit petty for two girls who are supposedly best friends. I did agree with this in a way, however I do think that the way it was written was really well done. Renn wrote most of the script while Vicky and I looked back over it and made several tweaks, but I thought the character was very clear, the conflict was the main concern among this comment. We also decided it would be a better idea to call it a confrontation instead of conflict, since we are getting rid of the whole Michael side plot, and made the main disagreement based on how Dahlia is always busy.

Ending:

The ending will most certainly be up for interpretation, as we all agreed we wanted to leave the audience to sit with a clear feeling. Our problem was that we had so many potential connections, and we didn't know which one we wanted to convey the most, so how can we expect the audience to walk away from the short film feeling a certain way when we don't set what we especially wanted it to be.

We are so grateful to have gotten these figured out, and we feel much more confident going into production based on the notes. Here is a photo that Vicky sent us, as she wrote down the notes on her phone during the group conversation.

Postcard Research

 Hi blog!

Since we chose the short film, the print aspect that we are required to design is the short film post card. It is important to remember that the purpose of the post cards is to advertise the short short film as well as how to get in contact with the creators (instgram handle, email, phone number, etc) so that they can receive feedback. It is also very important that there is a clear brand on both the front and the back, the layout is easy to understand, and the date, location, and time of the short film are all included so that it can be best marketed.

This one for the film "Mulberry Child" is somewhat strong. The key art definitely gets your attention, and you can sort of tell the genre from the font, which is a good thing to keep in mind when noting the audience. They also included the line "Will the past haunt your future" which gives us a better idea that the girl and old woman in the postcard are the same person. Also, they included their film festival logo which is very smart, however they did not say where it was streaming or when, which can be confusing for viewers. Overall, I  am not obsessed with the layout, but there are many key elements present.

This is the one that I included in a recent post. I really strongly enjoy the layout of this one, it is neat and has just enough space for both the photo, credits, title, showing info, and contacts. The font is very eye catching, and it immediately gets your attention. However, you do not know much about the short film from the post card whatsoever, which could lead to it being forgetable and blend with other short films shown at the film festival that day. The contact for facebook was really well done, and the idea of including a Q&A was really creative. Overall, this one was very nice looking, well organized, and had all the right information.

For this one, I will give it the benefit of the doubt and say there most likely is a back that has more information (hopefully), but this is a great example of what not to do. There is the title, and beautiful keyart, however the only other thing on there is the creator and the film festivals, no socials, no location, and no extra fun ideas. I do think that you can tell the story will be eerie and a bit odd from the post card, so the branding is strong, but overall compared to the others, this one is lacking in many areas.

Citations:

kavyamediastudiesa2. (2017, February 20). Postcard advertisements. A2 Media – Short Film. https://kavyamediastudiesa2.wordpress.com/2017/02/20/postcard-advertisements-research/

Tupling, A. (n.d.). Postcard ad. MEDIA BLOG – Alastair Tupling. https://alastairwt.weebly.com/postcard-ad1.html

Plot Explained/Script Written!

 Hi blog! We officially decided on the plot that we want so here is me describing it to you as well as including our script so that you can look at what we have!

So, our protagonist's name is going to be "Dahlia" and her best friend is "Melia". They have opposite personalities, Dahlia is very quiet, yet driven, and when she is with Melia and she is comfortable, she gets more outgoing, as all close friends do. Melia is an outgoing person on her own though, however she can also be very confrontational and social anxiety fears HER. Anyways, their friendship is the basis of our whole short film, since we want it to capture where we are right now in our lives, and in High School, friendship is everything. 

The two of them are getting ready for Dahlia's birthday party, however the party is the least important part of the day, since Dahlia has to take a breather at her own party before getting comforted by her best friend, only we find out later that Melia was the reason she needed to calm down. Dahlia was talking to Michael, her crush, and Melia was being "annoying" and getting between the two of them. When Dahlia is outside, she finds a seed, which she later plants in her room in a pot that Melia made her.

After the birthday, we have a montage of Dahlia slowly getting more messy as she pushes her friend away, which of course leads to her feeling like her life is falling apart. This montage will include the technique we had planned to go back to the same shot multiple times. In this frame, there is a counter on her white board for how many days old "frank" (her plant) is, which helps us keep track of time during the montage.

To end the montage, there is a scene of Dahlia working in her bedroom on her laptop, before Melia walks in and tries to talk to her friend, who seems very uninterested in having a conversation. They get in an argument about who is in the wrong and Melia ends up storming out of the room from frustration. This scene is then followed by Dahlia feeling very guilty, but also angry about how her friend could not see where she was coming from.

The following day, when frank turns 91 days old, Dahlia calls Melia and apologizes, and they agree that they handled the situation poorly and mutually forgive the other. Melia ends the short film by saying "We are all just growing up", which is what we plan on the title being.

I am super confident in this story and the underlying meaning of how important friendship is during our adolescent years.

Link to the script!

Our Planning for Spring Break!

 Hi blog! So, this is the last week of school before spring break, which was our original planned week to film, but we want to finish developing our mise-en-scene, characters, and script since the hardest aspect of our short film will be filming, with all the time changes, and the editing does not need as much time as we originally anticipated that it would.

Here is our plans for what we want to accomplish over spring break next week!

Renn is going on a trip, so they cannot do too much, however they are going to be in charge of completely developing Melia's character, so making a mood board, deciding what clothes she would wear, etc. Essentially, Renn is acting as Melia's creative director. They are also going to begin working on how we want the print aspect of the project, the postcard to be designed. Although we will need to film before we can officially create it, Renn will begin brainstorming. Here is an example of a short film postcard looks like, to give you an idea.

Vicky will be un New York City (I'm jealous), so once again, she will not be able to do too much, but she plans on working on the shotlist over the week, and having it completely done by the time we get back on March 23. She also has a goal to finish the soryboard so we can all envision the same thing and have our filming day be as smooth as possible.

I am not going on a trip, so I will be working a lot on the project over the next few weeks, and will definitely be documenting the process. I am in charge of Dahlia's character, just as Renn is with Melia, so I am making a storyboard for her as well as designing her room, since the majority of the film will take place in there. I am also going to begin developing our social media page, and plan out what posts will need to be made, and how when we need to get the content for them by (on filming day, prior, or post). I have a lot on my plate, but I am so excited about this project, so I am not concerned at all, as I am having fun with it, so i'll enjoy the process!

We all want to have filming be the DAY we get back into school, so we are going to spend the next two days planning, as our film teacher Mr. Cummings likes to say, 80% of your project is in pre-production.

Citations:

Tupling, A. (n.d.). Postcard ad. MEDIA BLOG – Alastair Tupling. https://alastairwt.weebly.com/postcard-ad1.html

Group Meeting!

 Hi blog! Today I did a group meeting to discuss some other groups plans for their portfolio project, as well as getting some feedback on my own ideas. My group was Nikita, Nico, Andrew, Lauren, Audrey, David, and Me! Here's some stuff that I noted about each idea as well as what I think they could improve on, along with their blogs!

Nikita Albul- #7607

Planning on doing a short film, with the plot being about a guy who is severely depressed, falling into addiction of drugs and alcohol, and ends up ending his own life. Although the plot was not the most developed regarding underlying meaning or symbolism, some of his ideas regarding mise-en-scene were pretty interesting. He also planned where exactly he will film these shots, such as a free office in his house. We discussed some problems that may arise, such as how he will imply drug use without making it too graphic and adding his personal stylistic choices to it. We came up with the idea of doing some shots from behind to imply it. I am excited to see where he goes with this idea.

Nico Restrepo- #4888

Nico is working with two other people who he is confident in their skillset, since they have worked together on multiple projects together throughout the years. Their idea was to lean into the idea that the show "Fleabag" shows, frequent breaking of the fourth wall as a method to convey the main character's thoughts and feelings. Their planned genre is dark comedy, but they haven't come up with a plot yet, so we helped them come up with potentially having a turning point where a character that the protagonist does not get along with also can break the fourth wall. This whole concept was really intriguing. 

Andrew Zamudio- #7558

Andrew is also working in a group, specifically with people that are known for having very stylized productions, so I am really excited to see where this idea goes. Their plan so far is to have a dark comedy that has a character getting posessed and ends up sacrificing their sister, which was way more bizzare when they explained it themself. My first concern that I brought up was how they would show the character being posessed, and we concluded that since they needed something visual, they may wear contacts to highlight the different parts of the story. They definitely have some kinks to work out, but other than that they had a good baseline on where they would film and what shots they wanted.

Lauren Thomas- #7503

Lauren is the only person in our group meeting that was not planning on doing the short film option, she was planning on the film distribution one instead. She was very undecided on what she wanted her story to be about, she mainly only knew the genre, a psychological drama, which is a tall task so we tried to work out a plot that would be attainable. We decided that she wanted to find a way to convey a complex idea but in a simple way with symbolism. We thought maybe water representing insecurity or something along those lines, and the coloration starting light and getting darker. We spent most of the time that we were discussing Lauren's plan fleshing out possible ideas, but we didn't land on one, moreso giving her ideas to play with in her own mind.

Audrey Pangalangan- #7396

Working with one other girl, the idea was to do a short film like most of us, specifically about a therapy session that included nonlinear storytelling and highlights the relationship between a younger brother and older sister. Our main concerns were that the topics she wanted to cover are somewhat hard to talk about without being cheesy, since loss as a whole can be triggering if talked about too graphically. However, I think the story she wants to tell is a really important one, and if she does it well, it will be a truly beautiful piece.

David Gomez- #4840

Once again, working with one other person on a short film, David had a really developed idea, I can tell he had thought about it. He wants to do a short film that involves teleportation, since he is going on an international trip to London and Spain, so the concept was to make a comedy that has a magical Penny that gives him the power to teleport. It was a really fun idea and we spent a lot of time talking about how he would connect the story to the comedy genre, and what jokes he wanted to make, especially since he had the idea of using minimal audio recording, so it would be very visual heavy.

Mackenna Smedley (Me!)- #4440

I presented my idea last, and the original thought was to make a short film that the majority of the shots were from one angle, but we all agreed that there would be very limited technique being shown with that idea. We played with the idea of just constantly going back to the same point of view instead of just staying there, since there could be problems with showing time passing, since that was the basis of my plot, which takes place over 90 days. I really liked this idea, since it would give a better flow and we could show off our skills that we learned about composition better. We played with the idea of the room gettin progressively messier to show the character's headspace throughout the 90 days as another way to highlight time passing. Andrew recommended that since we need a plant for our film, we should look up what different plants represent, and decide which one we want to use based on which meaning connects the best to our storyline of personal growth. I got a lot of specific little details, and after discussing them with Vicky and Renn, on top of the comments they got in their group meetings, we felt much more confident in specific aspects of our short film.

Social Media Research

Hi blog! Today we researched social media pages for inspiration on our own, since we are required to make our own for our project. I chose to study Instagram, since I am in charge of our social media on the project, and I am the most comfortable
with that one over others!

Media text: The TELL-TALE HEART– @Changwang.pictures

Social media tool: Instagram

Description of types of posts: Postings of when it is uploaded on YouTube and keeping a count of hour many views it has on their Instagram page. Posting small clips to build up anticipation for the release date. There are also posts of the creator talking about what camera they used. This may have been because of a partnership, but it was a great thing to include. There is a slideshow post that includes several shots that promote the branding but also draw in the viewer to understand the tone of the
short film so they want to watch it. The caption includes these release date and where it is being distributed. One post has a simple question in the caption to make the viewer ponder something related to the short film. There is also many hashtags such as “#visualstorytelling”, “#creativity”, “#changwantpictures. Including not only posts but also reels promotes the account’s popularity, as people are more likely to view the account from the reels than the posts.

Description of how branding is developed (or not):
Posting shots as individual photos to match the tone of the short film to the Instagram page. This short film specifically leans into the black-and-white aesthetic and very eerie visuals. The row of dark images stands out to promote the account, since it is so different from the other posts, which signifies that the branding would stand out amongst others. However, I do wish that there was a highlight related to stories specifically about the short film or maybe even BTS of the making of the Tell Tale Heart. Also, to go with the creator’s consistent color palate of having yellow lettering on their own posts, prior to the short film promotion, they put a yellow heart at the end of every caption, just after mentioning the link in their bio to access the short film.  The account also has branded highlights that have yellow emojis that tie into the creator’s personal color palate as well.

Analysis of how you will use this to develop your own social media presence: We will use the idea of posting what equipment we used so that we can connect with other potential filmmakers and come off as a relatable account. The posts of singular shots that were in the short film also helped develop a color palate, and we will do the same so that the colors in our feed are the same as our short film. We want to also take inspiration from the bio of the account, providing a link to the short film, as well as consistent plugs to the production in the captions of the posts and reels.

 

 

Media text: The Writer - @popvisualz

Social media tool: Instagram

Description of types of posts: This account makes creative reels, such as “if you like these movies: Sin City, Fight Club, Pulp Fiction, you might like mine”. This is great because it instantly guarantees that the target audience will be reached, since only the fans of those films or overall film lovers will stick around. The reel then was followed by clips of the making of his own short film, The Writer. This account posted a photo of the official key art of the short film, as well as what film festivals it will be shown at, in this case, “Are You Afraid of Fantasia 2025”. The post with the key art also included a screenshot of the showing information of where the film festival is, what day, and what time, to promote people to attend and watch the production on the big screen. This was especially important since it was not being uploaded to YouTube. There was another reel that showed the reference from another movie to the result in their own short film, which gives credit to other directors for inspiring modern filmmakers, and gets to relate one’s short film to others. There could have been more posts especially highlighting the production rather than the director but given that the short film did not have its own page, it made sense.

Description of how branding is developed (or not): The brand was somewhat developed, the tone that was conveyed in the key art was not developed throughout the feed, making it seem somewhat messy and incoherent. The captions were all simple and did not contain many words besides hashtags, which may have been the goal for the branding, but compared to the messy layout, it was very confusing. There were well-done reels, but they did not directly tie into the themes or color palate of the production, which did make the whole account seem less appealing. The key art of The Writer has lettering that resembles street art, and
this ties into the creator’s aesthetic quite well, but was not developed throughout the rest of the post that it was included in. The artist did pin the main post promoting the film festival, but they should have made the key art the cover photo. There are multiple reels that have the same cover, which does not match the palate of the production. making the feed look repetitive and busy.

Analysis of how you will use this to develop your own social media presence: This account gave us a lot of ideas for reels, as well as some good reference for how to plug a film festival. The creator’s face is also very present in the account, which we liked. The hashtags were useful, and the branding was good in some respects, but we will be taking more inspiration from the content than the branding.

 

  

Media text: We Were Art Thieves @iphilgood

Social media tool: Instagram

Description of types of posts: There is several clips included of the short film that highlight moments that leave viewers wanting to watch the whole thing themselves. The caption says, “Our first short film is out now”, and does not state what the title of the short film is, which is not a very strong choice. However, the caption does keep viewers engaged, by mentioning that they plan to do a Q&A soon, which will keep anticipation high for the future content to come. The creator’s vision is clearly established, as they like to appear more professional than relatable, as they compare cameras as a plug for their short film. They also made a very creative reel that says “My favorite cinematic clips from my short film” which leans into the stunning cinematography, which is most certainly the thing that makes this production stand out the most among other short films. I do think that this page could do a better job of posting about the films themselves, as a lot of
the content feels repetitive, and a bit disconnected. But you do get a strong sense of the creator’s style from their page alone.

Description of how branding is developed (or not): Looking at their page, and just the cover photos on each post, it does seem cohesive overall. The cinematography is clearly showcased, and the palate is consistent, which is a great sign for the branding. However, the captions are not the most well-correlated to one another. The highlights are also not very easy to understand, as many of them are not related to film at all, and the title is simply emojis, which is not the best idea, considering when people go to the social media page, it should be clear what each highlight’s purpose is. I think overall, the page just lacks purpose as a whole and a lot of the content was not intentional. Although it was very pleasing to the eye, the branding could have been better established than just pretty covers.

Analysis of how you will use this to develop your own social media presence: We want to take inspiration from some of the reel ideas, and the amount that the content is shown on the feed, however there was very little behind the scenes, which we noted and will make sure we don’t make that mistake I our own social media page.