Peer Review

This week in my Media Studies class, I had the wonderful opportunity to catch up with some classmates on Microsoft Teams to learn more about their projects and to as well present mine. 

The group meeting had people from all over the creative spectrum in terms of what productions they were making. Gianna and Annika are both separately working on creating a music marketing campaign while Shreya and Janey are making different documentaries. Each of their projects were very interesting to learn about and seemed like they had great potential. When it became my turn to discuss what I was making, I described my ambition to develop a postmodern short film with a dreamlike atmosphere and surreal concepts. Everyone was at a lost for words when it came to suggesting how to improve it, but I do not blame anyone at all as the scope of my project is a lot to take in. I took it as a sign that I will need to spend time developing the short film idea into something more tangible rather than just an abstract idea. Other than that, I thought it was a cool experience to see everyone working so diligently across the media world and sharing their expertise along the way.

More planning is yet to be done, so stay tuned!

Reworking the Idea

I'm back after discussing the project more with my crew to tell you all that we came up with a whole new, and somewhat strange, idea. Let me explain.

We were discussing the main character concept that I explained on the previous post and tried to brainstorm how to develop it further. This was when out of nowhere a lightning in the bottle moment had struck me. What if we made the short film literally about being the main character? As in it revolving around two characters in a script arguing about who should be the main character of the story? Once this realization came to me, I quickly informed my group about it.

The historical archive of our team discussing the new idea. 

We all agreed that this angle could have a lot of potential as a highly creative project, as through writing, cinematography, and editing, we can experiment in countless ways to bring this meta concept to life. This would also be the perfect opportunity to dip our toes into the world of postmodernism and all of its common characteristics such as the alternative narrative and hyperrealism. We can also deconstruct character tropes and other aspects of story structure to emphasize that the film takes places in the literal work in progress state of a screenplay. 

As I reflect back on this absurd and abstract concept, the short film would be heavily influenced by the film Stranger Than Fiction, which is about an IRS auditor that finds himself being the protagonist of a  book where the author behind it (unintentionally) writes numerous ways to kill him in real life. I told everyone to watch the film as it is a great source of inspiration for this project.

I still do not know if we should scrap the previous idea, but I will say that I think the vision of this new one is much more exhilarating than the last. Without a doubt, this new concept has me very excited for the future of our short film. Till' next time!

My First Idea

I have an exciting update for you all as now we have the first concept down for our short film!

I came up with the idea after reflecting back on a trend on social media where people would strive to be "the main character" in their own lives. What this refers to is experiencing the world through the cliches of teenage coming of age films, recreating romanticized scenes, and behaving like a typical outgoing and spontaneous protagonist. 

For example, the tunnel scene from The Perks of Being a Wallflower radiates major
"main character energy".

While there is a certain youthful charm in wanting to live life as if it were a quirky, effervescent teen movie, this obsession suggests that many see their lives as two dimensional and are feeling the inability to control their own narrative. I think this viewpoint can be the foundation of a short film about someone who is unsatisfied with how they live, which leads them to try to be like the ideal main character of these coming of age films, but is unsuccessful. This would be partly comedic, as their actions would be highly exaggerated, but also have a meaningful message about how even if life can never be as perfect as in the movies, we can at least have a positive mindset and appreciate the subtleties of the world around us. The concept feels really fitting for the indie short film scene and would result in a delightful experience to watch. The short would also reflect back to the real social media trend and therefore be impactful towards this demographic of teenagers.

I will continue to develop this idea further in these upcoming days and be back to update you all shortly!

Finding Inspiration

New week, more research!

To kick off week two, I decided to check out this amazing website I found called Short of the Week. This is a platform where each week a new short film submitted by creators across the globe are given shine for their talented work. They accept all kinds of shorts, ranging from animations to documentaries and all other categories under the sun. Due to their wide selection of curated shorts, I thought this would be a great place to get acquainted with the short format of these stories and also gather some ideas for my own project.

One of the short films I watched that stood out to me was The Voice in Your Head. This is a dark comedy by director Graham Parkes that is highly creative, funny, and even meaningful. The short takes the cliche of the a character being a figment of ones' imagination and turns it on its head, as this time the voice is a real, obnoxious person that everyone can notice. This leads to a hilarious interaction in the middle of the protagonist's workplace as all of his coworkers acknowledge the presence of his inner negativity, something which he thought only he could see. What truly took the production to the next level is the metaphorical nature of the production. Sometimes our thoughts can become present to those around us through our behaviors, and it is up to us to make peace with negative thoughts, or in other cases, the people we care about help us forget about them. Overall, this was a fantastically written and acted short film that I definitely could see myself taking a similar approach when it comes to breaking conventions and pushing them to their extreme.

I highly recommended Short of the Week to all of the creators who want to share their pieces with the world and as well to viewers who might want something fresh to watch. Without a doubt, I will be sure to submit my own short film once the portfolio project is completed!

Developing an Atmosphere

When discussing what we wanted to do with our short film with my group, a common consensus was to first develop an atmosphere. This is uncommon when it comes to a medium such as film where story typically takes charge, but our philosophy was that we wanted to feel out the space of where the production will exist in and foster it from there. 

A great way to develop atmosphere in film is through the use of music. I was watching this YouTube video on the subject and learned that music can be used as a texture to subtly convey a certain tone of a piece or even recontextualize a scene completely. The power music has in this art form is monumental, and is the same reason why the most acclaimed films have iconic soundtracks. 

While we're still too early to begin deciding the actual soundtrack for the short film, we decided to map out the vibe each of us had in mind by creating our own separate Spotify playlists. This was a fun way to brainstorm the mood of the production through songs that either spoke to us or were able to develop that an atmosphere that we wanted to explore in our project. My playlist was a combination of surreal beauty and dreamlike existence. There's also a sense of anticipation that I felt while listening back to it, which could definitely be an emotion to consider when it is time to start writing. My partner Edward's playlist was peaceful, calm, yet soulful. It definitely felt something at home for an indie film. Finally, my partner Oliver's playlist was a mix of nocturnal atmospheres and bright tunes. I enjoyed the fusion of these two moods on the same playlist and made me consider if we could maybe find a balance between them in our project. 

Listening to these songs were a great way to start getting into the headspace of the production. Without a doubt, there is a world we want to bring to life with our short film and I cannot wait to see how it takes shape.

Round 2

And from the depths of the shadows I have returned... HELLO BLOG!!! I am back and better than ever. Around a year ago I had started, produced, and premiered my film opening project on this page. It took a lot of effort to complete, but I am proud of what I was able to accomplish. I have spent the rest of this time making other types of productions, such as a movie trailer and a documentary, all of which helping me grow even further as a creative in the media-sphere. Now it is time for the real deal: a full fledged short film. Over these next couple of weeks I will be updating you guys on the development of this project and all of the work that goes on behind it. To begin with, I'll be focusing on researching and planning the production with my group. We have a lot of ambition and great ideas in mind for this one, so stay tuned!