New Plot

Raul and I have finally come up with a general idea for our new adapted plot. We wanted to maintain the key plot components that made up our last script. More specifically, we wanted to still tell the story of a teenage leaving for college and what they are leaving behind. 

Here is an overview of the changes that are going to be made:

Characters: The main character of this film will be me! The other characters included (my family) will be seen in the archived footage. 

Setting:  All the footage shot in "real-time" will be entirely done at my house. 

Plot: 

-The main character finds a box in the attic with a bunch of CDs, and discs, filled with past footage of their life.

- The main character will be recollecting their past before they make their next step towards the future. 

- Emphasis on the family bond.

Changing the plot like this was definitely a challenge, I feel these changes had to happen in order to start making some actual process even during a pandemic!

 

Filming Cancelled

Due to social distancing and COVID-19 concerns, Raul and I were unable to gather our cast in order for filming. Most importantly, our main character is not going to be able to film. Thankfully, Mrs. Stoklosa held another online meeting so that she can reach a consensus on where everyone is at with the project.

As of now, AICE exams are all canceled due to the virus. Knowing that this project is a component of the AICE Media Studies A Level Exam, I was definitely a little concerned with what to do next. In the online meeting, Mrs. Stoklosa explained to us that we still will be completing the project and doing everything as normal. We were also informed that we may have to alter our plot to only have one actor. Additionally, we were told that we could use archived footage in order to combat the inability to film.

Since our whole plot revolves around a group of people and involves going to different public places, Raul and I are going to have to go back to the drawing board. Man, this is hard...

More problems...

It is crazy how fast things have changed with regard to this virus. Just over a week ago we were told we will be not having school for two weeks to stop the spread of the virus. Today, the school may be postponed indefinitely, mostly all restaurants and public areas are closed now due to the new social distancing measures put into place by most local governments. There are around 500 cases in Florida right now and I do not think it will be too long before we get put in a statewide lockdown. With all that being said, we are now unable to film at most of our filming locations. I have been talking with Raul a lot and he has been telling me how strict his parents have come due to the virus. He pretty much hasn't been allowed to see people ever since the news started recommending social distancing.


There is some good news though!!!


Thankfully, I will be able to film with Irina where we can film the main part of the film as well as take pictures so that Raul can work on the print component. With regards to our plot, we may have to scrap it or at least change it to locations that we would be allowed to film at.

Online Meeting

Hello, blog! For this post, I just want to give an update on the Coronavirus situation. Today Mrs. Stoklosa had an online meeting with my class however I was not able to attend due to a family matter I was dealing with at the time. Luckily I was able to come in contact with a classmate of mine who did attend the meeting and they told me what Mrs. Stoklosa said with regard to the future of our projects. Basically, the project’s due date is going to be moved to April 19th, a week later than the initial due date of April 12th. We were pretty much told to continue working on the project as planned so I guess that is what I will do.

Currently, our filming dates are still set however I’m constantly communicating with the actors in order to see if they are still able to film knowing the new social distancing recommendation initiated by the CDC. Everything is good so far and but it is important for us to film before Florida gets put into lockdown in a similar suit to states like California.

COVID-19

Things are going to be changing. 1 month ago, the threat of Coronavirus seemed like a joke and an across the pond type of problem. On Friday, schools all across Florida and the country have shut down as this virus has continued to spread rapidly across the globe. If this virus spreads how it did in Europe and China we could be forced to begin online school and possibly have schools shut down for months. 

Thankfully, this project can be done without having access to school, however, my chances in rounding up my cast for filming have dropped dramatically. Many parents have begun not letting their kids out of the house as this virus continues to spread, especially in Broward County. For instance, Raul wasn't allowed to come to my birthday party today because of his parent's concerns about the virus. 

With a problem like this one, I am definitely a little bit nervous knowing the due date for this project is right around the corner. As of now, film dates are staying the same, and I am definitely looking forward to an update as to the next steps from here in terms of due dates and how COVID-19 might alter the timeline of this project. 

Filming Schedule

After creating a group chat with our actors Raul and I sent them a google form to fill out in order to figure out which days are best for filming.

Our results are shown here:


We have reached the consensus that this project will require two days of filming, and 5 of the possible 7 days of filming can be attended by 80% of our cast. With that said, we do have some flexibility for choosing when we want to film.


The two dates we have chosen for filming are 3/22 and 3/23

Cast

For choosing my cast, I more or less based the characters more of the actors. The reason I did this is that none of us are really that good at acting so I thought it would just be easier to play ourselves.  After much anticipation, I am excited to announce the cast for our new short film:

Stevie- Irina Blanco

Raul- Raul Passarini

Diego- Diego Machado

Sara- Sara Briones

Location Brainstorming

Doing a plot that includes numerous different locations is certainly going to be a big challenge. According to the screenplay, there are five different locations that we need to film at. I thought I should do some brainstorming so that we can get on track with our timeline and begin filming ASAP!

1. Stevie's Bedroom
This location will appear the most throughout the film, so I know the lighting has to be decent and the mise-en-scene elements need to be aligned with a teenage girl. I was thinking we could film in my friend Irina's room, who may or may not also be starring in the film (Spoiler alert). I will get photos of this location on the blog as soon as possible.

2. Volleyball Court
For this location, I was just thinking of using the public courts at Regional Park here in Weston. They are usually pretty secluded at certain times of the day and would be perfect for filming.

3. Dining Room

I am pretty unsure about this location, however I have been conferring with Raul whether we should use his house for this scene. His house has really good lighting which I think would be perfect for shooting indoors. However, this is something we have yet to figure out and update in a future blog post. 

4. Suburban Home

For this location, I was just thinking we could use my home and room. I will link a blog post that I created last year that does a good job detailing the location and mise en scene elements. 

https://pearsemediastudies.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-set-for-younger.html

5. Field

I am split between two different places for this filming location. I am looking at Everglades Holiday Park due to its location after it is a perfect place for capturing amazing sunsets. Also towards sunset,  there is nobody there so I think it would be a great option. However, there is the other option with going to Vista View Park, which I think would produce a better quality view. We do face the problem of being at a height and dealing with wind.

Vista View Park: 

Everglades Holiday Park:

Final Script

Here is our final script, I made a big change in the ending and a few alterations in the formating. Very excited to start filming!!!



CLICK HERE

Finding a Song

Choosing to go with a topic so relatable to all of my classmates, we want to make the piece meaningful. Knowing this, Raul and I have to pick the perfect song for remembering your last days of childhood, so we are working towards getting the appropriate permission for a song that fits perfectly with the story we are trying to tell. Thinking about the song that we grew up with, "We Are Young" by fun., we feel as if it would be the perfect choice for our main soundtrack. With that said, Raul decided to go right to the lead singer Andrew Dost himself and sent an Instagram direct message to him asking if we can use the song for our project.

I have attached the messages here!

Though we aren't quite sure how official this "permission" is, we will definitely be checking in with Mrs. Stoklosa to see if this constitutes as proper permission to use the song in our piece.

Script Progress

I am happy to say that I have finished the draft of the script for our new short film. The reason why I say the draft is because we still haven't picked a title and there are definitely some issues with formatting that I need to fix. Also, I am not yet sure about the ending.

I really liked writing the script, as it gave me a clear idea of what I had to film and what I am going to need to do to make the shots turn out decent. The script follows the similar plotline addressed in my previous post about our new plot, except fills in the details that we have left out.

The storyline is as follows: As an incoming freshman to her dream school, Stevie is torn about the idea of losing her friends to college, so she has kept her memories of senior year in the form of disposable photos. The night before she leaves, she shuffles through a box filled with her photos and is taken back to earlier times with her friends including volleyball games, pranks, and college acceptances. Reminiscing about her life before adulthood, Stevie embraces the idea of everlasting memories through her photos.

The draft is linked here

We messed up

Issues with our plot

After careful consideration, we have decided to make a pretty large change to the plot. Originally, we wanted to have the plot surface around a montage created by the main character. However, thinking of the logistics, we really couldn't think of a way to execute that in a way that will turn out decent. It will hard to create the raw storyline we imagine with our limitations in casting and overall time. We want to make as clear a story as possible and believed the combining of two parallel plots would be really hard to do. We met up today to create a screenplay for our initial plot but were stumped on a way to really make a story like that work. We realized that it is important to have a sense of humility knowing our many limits in production.

Changes

Thankfully, we came up with a plan to tweak our original story while still capturing the life of a senior and their last days before college.

Instead of having the main character create a video montage, the main story will be surrounding a female lead who is just about to leave for college with her bags packed in her room and college merch on. She walks over to a box she has kept with all of the disposable pictures she has taken over the year with her friends. As she looks through the pictures, they come to life detailing the goofy and fun-loving lives of her and her friends. We hope to make the piece light-hearted, with a bunch of funny moments intertwined in the piece. Flashbacks of their beach days, high school parties, hangouts, will all be appearing in the piece. To finish the piece, the main character will close their box of photos after looking at their most recent photo of them and their friends at a bonfire. Wiping tears away, the main character closes a chapter of their life. 

Next Steps

I am extremely excited to begin working on the screenplay tomorrow in class as we had scrap our past idea and go back to the drawing board. In the meantime, Raul will begin scouting cast members and locations.