Entry #25 Week Six Post Two

Hi again! This week has been so busy. It is spring break and Shelby is still terribly sick and Reem and I both have some family plans throughout the week. Finding times where we can both meet up was challenging, but we honestly just sacrificed a lot of plans. It is not about time management, but rather just being extra sure about the way we execute.

Anyways, today we had shot a lot of scenes. We shot scene #1, half of #3, and then #2.
Scene number one is Emerald cutting the fruits and eventually receiving an email from Weston City about her upcoming date. Scene number two is Zoe receiving her email for her date while she is out for a run. Scene number three is Emerald talking to her best friend, Mercy, about the date and how she does not want to go.

The other half of scene three was shot another day. My friend Sumaiyya was playing Mercy and we had gone over her house to film that. Because Mercy and Emerald are having a conversation over the phone, it was okay that we filmed on two separate days.

We had some last minute blips (I'm not sure if that is a word but I imagine it to mean minor bumps on the road). The formatting of the emailed invite took a very long time to fix but here is how it turned out. This is a screen recording on how it looked on the phone:

As you can see, we created an email header. The background is of some trees with the logo on the right side. We also have a light border on the image. After that is the body that Reem and I wrote together with the images of the people who are set up together and information about their date.

Until next time...

Entry #24 Week Six Post One

Hey guys!

Shelby has been so sick ever since she came back from drama states, but she has still been talking to us about the project in the group chat. Reem and I have been meeting up together and planning out the day and then going out to film.

The first scene we had filmed, other than the previous establishing shots and cooking video we had filmed in the past, was one of the most important ones. It was the last scene of the film opening and it was everyone meeting their date that was set up by the system. Many of the people who came from drama states were sick, so they all had to cancel. Thankfully, we had a lot of volunteers that were willing to help us out!

The shoot took about four hours!

There were many actors:

Sebastian: playing Swain, the guy who was supposed to be set up with Emerald
Andres: playing Niall, the guy who was supposed to be set up with Zoe
Julie: playing the waitress that had mistakenly taken Swain and Zoe to the wrong table
Reem: playing Zoe, the girl who ends up being set up with Emerald
Sofia: playing Emerald, the main character

For us to find actors that were all available at the same exact time on a Friday night was very challenging! It had taught us a lot about the planning process. I was personally nervous going into the shoot even though we had all the main shots we wanted storyboarded. This was because we had to change the location of scene five since the restaurant we planned on filming at had given us a 45 limit to film. The one we ended up filming at, Primetime, had reserved the whole back of the restaurant for us to use, so a HUGE shout out to them!

Anyways, the shoot went well! I learned a lot about thinking on my feet for solving last minute problems and things we did not think about. I aim to be more efficient in such a shoot.

Entry #23 Week Five Post Four

What's up guys?

I was talking to Reem and I gained some inspiration to start working on my CCR.

Here are the compulsory questions:

-How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

-How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

-How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

-How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

I can only really fully answer the first two questions. This post will include some bullets on what will be in my answers. I personally have more elaborate responses but I have included a couple of words to capture some of my messages. 

1. -cover dystopian society concept

-sexuality, representation of homosexual relationships

-compatibility

2. -film festivals

-local college events

-social media accounts

Entry #22 Week Five Post Three

Hey guys!

This is a tiny update! My group and I had talked a lot in our group chat. Reem had sent her draft for the dystopian society's logo.

Shelby told us that she has states for Drama so we will not be doing much as a group but we have planned out and adjusted our work and film schedule. We will be meeting up at a cafe on Tuesday during our spring break and finish up some in depth planning for the film. Additionally, we will start filming a bit. This is very much needed to just update Shelby a bit even though she has been with our group chat. It will be nice to catch up on everything. 

Anyways, back to the logo. I had touched on an earlier post that our teacher recommended that we started dividing up roles. Obviously, some changes were made since Reem made the logo instead of Shelby because of her commitments. Here is a summary of that:

NAWAL:
- creating templates for U-Weston Videos
- figure out cliparts for the characters
REEM:
- props for U-Weston Videos (Chef Hat)
- work on Emails for characters
- get the henna
SHELBY:

-create logo for the city council

-miscene elements

Entry #21 Week Five Post Two

Hey fam!

This post part two of the Early Release Day class. We had covered a lot of material, so I wanted to split it up into two posts! I will still cover everything we have done this weeks in the upcoming posts.

We had planned the exact shots of scene one which I had covered in very light detail in the past. We had finished it up the first scene buy #1 looking at the laptop screen and showing her reaction. It then it cuts to a montage of #2 out for a run. We thought it would be humorous to do a montage to capture the vibe that #2 had felt while running and to show that #2 was in her zone. We would start with a close up of their feet running on the sidewalk, a close up of their face, and more close ups. We would show a long shot of #2 centered in the middle third running towards the camera. Simultaneously, there would be music playing in the background which is actually the song that #2 is listening through #2's headphones.

When #2 is waiting at the stoplight running in place before #2's headphones are pulled out, we wanted to include a long shot of #2 in the right third with the volume of the song much lower than the shot before this one because we thought it would be pretty funny to show.
When #2 is waiting at a stoplight to cross the road, running in place, and hears a ding notifying #2 of an incoming email. #2 pulls out their phone and headphones, one at a time. For each headphone, the volume reduces by a quarter for each one. You can still hear the music but you can tell that it is coming from the headphones.



Random things I have been loving:
Google maps with the tiny person that you can put on the road. It has been FANTASTIC for planning out shots, such as above.
The other one I forgot because my parents just surprised me at the cafe and I lost my train of thought.

Entry #20 Week Five Post One

Eyyoo!

Today, my group members met up in class today, but Shelby wasn't here because of something for Drama. Reem and I worked on the storyboard in this time. We only had about thirty minutes, more or less, because it was early release.

I emphasized that we really dedicate sufficient time to the planning stage so that we can get some details down and also, it mays the production stage all the more efficient. We have divided the film opening into a couple of scenes. We loosely summarized what each scene would be about for ourselves when looking back at it. We then continued drawing out shots that we wanted for the first scene. After that, we moved on to scene two.

We really spent some time debating about how we wanted this film opening to work and to do that we had drawn out each character and named them for reference. Here is an example. There is the #1, the girl in the kitchen who is preparing the breakfast, #2 who is the individual she ends up being paired up with at dinner who is also a girl (not compatible in sign), and #3 who is the character she was supposed to be set up with at dinner (compatible in sign) but #4, the waitress, had messed up the seating. #5 who is #1's best friend (compatible in sign).

The predicament we faced was how we would show that #1 and #2 were set up with different people and how they ended up together. We also wanted to show that homosexual relationships were not approved up in the dystopian society.

This class covered a very dense amount of material so I shall continue covering this information in the next blog!

Entry #19 Week Four Post Four

Today is Shelby's birthday! We decided to give her the day off so she could spend that time with her family! Instead, Reem and I met up alone to start filming!

Today we did many establishing shots in a shopping center called Town Center. We chose this location for its very well-kept, colorful look. We took some video clips of the water fountain, the bell tower with the clock, some individuals walking, and a long shot down the aisle.

We also planned on getting some shots of the front of my neighborhood to pretend it was the neighborhood of one of my peers.

Other than that, Reem and I went to my neighborhood clubhouse to film the video that the main character would be watching to follow along and make her breakfast. I had brought some hand towels and an apron so that Reem could put-on on her shoulder and the apron folded around her waste. She had brought some fruits that she could cut up in the video.

I took a variety of shots as she cooked. Some include high angle shots with an aerial view of what she is grabbing for. Other include just mid-shots where Reem filled the middle third with room over her head.

While on site, we had gone through a couple rehearsals to make sure Reem could master the outro of the video that would play in the kitchen of the opening scene. After we did so, we recorded it. I also took some plain shot of the fruit bowl to include as some cutaways.