Composition

     Making my storyboard was an important step in this film opening process. I had begun it a few days prior, but took a break and was able to do it quite easily. I never find it hard getting my ideas onto paper I just have a hard time explaining them. I tried to show to the best of my ability show the techniques I wanted to incorporate, but I think it would be better if I just elaborated on them here. 

Color: I really want to have red curtains for the opening scenes, but the place I am filming at has blue. No matter what the main character will be wearing a white dress. This will be done to demonstrate her innocence in the situation. She doesn't want to live like this and doesn't know what's really going on inside her own head. 

Eyeline Match: An eyeline match is done to show the viewer exactly what the character is looking at which I plan to use in the story. When the people begin talking to her this will allow the viewer to see her and then what the person talking to her. The repetition of this is going to be used to display her stress as the pressure becomes too much. 

Long shot: The use of long shots in the production will be extensive. I want her to be seen in full and then be brought closer. This will also allow her wardrobe to be seen. 

Medium & close-up shots: These two shots will be used to bring the audience closer to the main character. The medium shot introduces her in a closer light which will then turn into close-ups as her situation intensifies. 

In reference to sound, I'm not sure if I'll be adding music. I want it to feel authentic to the piece and nothing has come to mind. 

Thanks for reading, be back soon! 

storyboard

 These are the first two slides of my storyboard. The beginning of my film opening is displayed here. I wish I could draw better so you could see my vision more but it’ll be good I promise! This helped me get it out of my head and onto a piece of paper. 

I'll tell you more about it tomorrow. 

moodboard

 This week has been kind of crazy for me and I’ve been very tired, but tomorrow or Sunday I will be posting my storyboard. Today I’ve created some more mood boards for the overall opening. I want to display my thoughts through the board so you can have more of a visual. My idea currently lives fully in my head so this is a visual representation of what I’m thinking.

I want to explain a little bit of what you're seeing here. The red curtains and microphone are the setting portion. I would love to have red curtains, but I think the location I have access to has blue ones which are fine. Then to the left is a shot of a person who is backlit. I want to incorporate this shot into my production. I just think it'll fit really nicely. The rest of the photos are meant to represent her and what is going to be portrayed in the opening. The storyboard will elaborate on this through bad stick drawings, but I promise it will come together. 

Schedule

I would have posted a schedule for this week, but it really didn't go to plan. Tuesday which was supposed to be a day to get a lot of work done in class didn't really go as planned. 30 minutes into class we were put into lockdown meaning all work is supposed to stop. Even though we were safe, I was anxious and really couldn't focus on anything but texting my friends and family to inform them of what was happening and making sure they were okay. Rumors were spreading faster than wildfires and anxiety were thick in the air. We sat there for three hours and I really just sat there and stared at the wall or my phone trying to understand why this is such a problem in the United States. Anyways, my schedule would have been useless. I'm in a funk and exhausted and truly don't know what to talk about so here is next week's schedule that maybe ill hold myself accountable for. 

This is subject to change hope you enjoyed my little rant. Better blogs are coming. I promise

Plot

    I don't want too much judgment here when I explain my opening. It's a rough draft, but I've grown fond of the story over these past few days. My dream is to make this work and it's kind of reaching since I'm a perfectionist in some aspects. I was going to sleep stressing about the project and then an idea dawned on me. Always hearing write from experience stressed me out because my experiences don't seem so unique. My parents got divorced and my dad is the worst person I've ever met fighting for years in court wasn't really what I wanted to put out there. I didn't want to rehash trauma to get a grade it's something I don't like. 

    Taking AP Psych last year introduced me to a whole new world. Learning about mental illness opened my eyes to something that seems ignored in many circumstances. People turn a blind eye to serious illnesses and they don't get coverage. This leads people to live in silence their whole lives looking for help, but not knowing where to go for help. So what does this have to do with my story? In one of my past posts about psychological thrillers, I talk about schizotypal personality disorder. Learning about this last year showed me that people could think they are going crazy when in reality they need help. Enough with the foundation here's what I'm planning.

    The first shot will open to red curtains, this is where the title would appear introducing you to the movie. The main character would be a girl who opens the curtains. She shyly pulls them back and then introduces herself through a mic, but before she can get much further people in the crowd begin talking to her and telling her every wrong thing she's ever done. This would not be her reality. This is inside her head. After that occurs the credits would be shown as the shots change to different people. Eventually, the noise will be too much and she will scream, leading to the screen going black. The returning shot will be the girl in her bed confused as to what happened. These delusional thoughts are making her live a more complicated life than necessary, but since she doesn't know what's going on it seems like a never-ending cycle. 

    I'm excited to start developing more of this. Thanks for reading, see you soon. 

Characters

 I plan to introduce you to the full story tomorrow, but today I'll introduce you to the main character. She is also the only one who has a name in the story. With two minutes there's a whole world of possibility and choosing to have one character that's the focal point is scary, but I think it's possible. I'm not sure of her name right now so I'm sorry for such an informal introduction. I'm leaning toward a name like Ivy. 

    In the story, she is dealing with something close to schizotypal personality disorder, but it's clearly untreated. This mental illness is in close relation to schizophrenia though it lacks hallucinations. It leads to unusual thinking, paranoid thoughts, and odd styles of dressing. I hope to display this through her room and style of dress. Her thoughts will be portrayed in the main portion of the opening. 

  

I created this small mood board to just give an idea as to who she is. I'm excited for what the future holds see you there!

Genre: psych thriller

     Psychological thriller is the genre I feel fits my story the best. This genre combines thriller and psychological fiction highlighting the emotional state of the main character while including an in-depth dramatic plot. This separates it from the thriller genre by giving it its own twist. 

    Psychological thrillers follow certain themes like death, reality, and mental issues. When the story follows a theme of death, either a death has traumatized them and sent them on this path or they seek out death. The movie Law Abiding Citizen would be a good example of this as the death of his wife and daughter set him down a path to justice. When they follow a theme of reality it is to show the character struggling to grasp the world around them so in an attempt to escape they create their own world. An example of this would be Don't Worry Darling the main character Jack is unhappy with his life in the real world so he moves him and his wife into a fake world where everything is perfect. When the story follows mental issues it shows the struggles of the main character. Black Swan is a perfect example as she slowly slips into darkness throughout the movie. 

    Conventions of this genre include location, sounds, flashbacks, low light, and quick edits. All of these combined create a suspenseful atmosphere. Some directors that have mastered this are Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese. Hitchcock known as the master of suspense created the hit film Psycho which perfectly encompasses all a psychological thriller is made of. Scorsese highlights these conventions in his films like Shutter island. I plan to watch these movies and others to get an in-depth understanding about how to display these conventions properly and do the genre justice. 

movie opening research

        Stressing out about the future of this project is truly getting me nowhere so I decided to start researching how to make a movie opening memorable. My favorite movie is La La Land which has one of the most iconic opening scenes in my opinion, but my ideas really have no connection to a musical love drama. This means that no matter how great the opening is it really doesn't offer me much. To start my research I watched a video on YouTube that will be linked below. I found it quite helpful as it covered genres and many different ways to open a movie. I'm glad I found this video because it provided me a new insight into all the ways I could do the opening. 

Art of the Opening Scene

    They cover many different ways to open a film, but I'm going to cover the main six from the video. 

Technique one: Enter the villain

Opening scenes are what pulls the viewer in a hopefully encourage them to watch the full movie which is why it needs to be entertaining or intriguing enough. This is why doing a scene introducing the villain or antagonist can be really useful. In the video, a clip from Joker introduces us to the villain with a mask on committing various crimes and then finally revealing his face. By the time the opening sequence is over viewers are drawn in because of how much action they watched without even realizing it. 

Technique two: Enter the Hero

This technique is quite similar to the last but instead of opening with the villain, it's the opposite. The hero will be introduced; most likely in some life-saving situation. Both of these work in instances like superhero movies. These just like the villain gain a lot of interest as the first scene normally introduces you to the hero and the problem they are about to face. This introduces the characters and the plot meaning viewers now know what is coming. 

Technique three: Establish Relationships 

This technique strengthens the storytelling aspect from the very start. It introduces the viewer to the character and their surroundings. This type of introduction makes a connection because now these people are known to you and whatever happens to them will most likely affect how you feel. 

Technique four: Plot Catalyst

The opening moments of the movie lay down the foundation for the rest of the movie. Though it may not make sense in the beginning once the movie is over it all makes sense. The plot is shown in the first few scenes and in a way shows how the rest of the movie will go.  

Technique five: Follow Genre

Circling back to La La Land the opening is a perfect example of a movie that follows its genre. It's a musical and the opening sequence is a giant musical number that then introduces you to the movie's leads. Using this technique is giving the movie and its viewers exactly what they were expecting which isn't always a bad thing. 

Technique six: Flip Genre

Just like the name says it addresses the situation distancing you from what is predictable, but then are thrown back into the original genre. The mixing of genres makes the movie have many layers that can be peeled back to reveal the message. 

    As I develop my idea I will be sure to look back on this to see what techniques should be included to help me get my point across. At this very moment, I'm not sure how to interpret my idea in these realms, but I will come back to this subject once I figure it out. 

Portfolio project intro

     Moving away from class projects into one that could affect my future stresses me out just a little. I want what I make to have a purpose and actually display the effort I put into it. All of our previous projects have given me insight into what needs to be shown in a video and how to get a point across. After listening to Andrew Stanton's TED talk I'm unsure whether or not it lit a fire in me or scared me into an endless pit of anxiety. I want it to have a purpose and make people wonder, but I'm unsure where to start. Watching student samples really proved that there are 1 million good ideas and anyone can make a good opening, but it still worries me that I'll fall short. I plan on spending this following week researching genres and hopefully establishing an idea that I can build upon. I'm really excited to start the project and hope to get started on the storyboard soon. The sooner I can film the more time I have to perfect the opening and edit it as much as possible. Hoping all updates following this one are positive and worth while. 

Music marketing #2

 The music marketing post really opened my eyes to an in-depth project with length. The multiple layers to the project made it slightly stressful, but overall fun. We began with the schedule which can be seen in a previous post to make sure we finished everything by the due date. Obviously, we bent our own rules a bit and didn’t really finish the project by our intended date rather we waited till the due date. It really wasn’t that stressful when it came to workload, but I have a problem with making everything perfect in my eyes. I wanted the presentation to look as cohesive as possible.

    Starting the project I really worried about timing since we had a two-week time frame and a lot of planning that had to come to fruition. Working in the class had its advantages and its disadvantages. As much as we were engaged we were also hitting a lot of dead ends. The music video seemed like a vital part to get done so we decided to get that done first. The planning of the music video was a long process because not only did we have some conflicting ideas, but we also wanted to make sure we could get our ideas done. One of the first ideas took place in a theatre, but we couldn’t actually make that happen. Planning the music video was crucial in person so we could bounce ideas off each other and build the storyline. Outside of school, we decided to do our music research chart as we could each take care of a column ourselves at home. 

The research chart would later help us when it came to the marketing aspect. We had to create a target audience that would want to hear the music we were putting out and actually consume it. We wanted our artist to be as real as possible. The target audience we chose from our research was 20-35. This was because of the deeply emotional lyrics of the song. At the age of 20 people are inching closer to leaving college and many are developing their first deep emotional relationships. The lyrics repeat “we both know we ain’t kids no more” showing that they are moving away from a young immature age. 

We then started the PowerPoint, but really paid no attention to it until after the music video was done. We planned our filming for a Saturday to allow us a full day. We found our location and actors meaning we were completely ready to film. We started at 11 and filmed until around 3 making sure we got all the shots necessary to complete the music video. I went out and bought props that day that matched our story as best as possible. There were technically no spending rules, but none of us were willing to drop money on a project that we would most likely be too embarrassed to show our friends. That isn’t because it's bad; in my opinion, I thought it was really good, but people don’t realize you have to start somewhere they think you just start out great. 

After the music video was filmed I tested positive for covid which stressed me out in the sense that the PowerPoint had to get done and presentations were the following week. Focusing on the PowerPoint in the days following we made examples of our marketing products and made sure everything was cohesive with the brand we were trying to create. I am one to follow guidelines because I’ve always grown up in that system so having even a little freedom in this project stressed me out beyond belief. We finished at 10 the day before our presentation with no intention of presenting the next day by choice.

Having the project done was a relief, but the impending doom of presenting a long presentation where you are the center of the project in a way was stressful. My best friend told me to just get it over with but i am a chronic procrastinator and I love the option of pushing things back. We got called on the first day to present and we did and I think it went pretty well. I was slightly annoyed that other groups were able to watch and edit their presentations after they saw ours and others, but overall I was really proud. 

This project definitely taught me that I love doing things myself because full control means nothing can go wrong in my eyes. It also showed me how beneficial time management. I do think you have to care to employ time management though. In other classes, I could have something for two weeks and ignore it until its due date, but something like this makes me feel like I have something to prove.