Good News & Bad News

Good news: I have found my actresses for my movie! I'm SO happy with these people, because I think they really fit these characters well. To be honest, I'm not sure if I can reveal their names. I probably will when I start filming. I'm excited to actually start the filming process. It's going to be great.

Bad news: Location and weather aren't going as planned. I was planning to film in a CVS parking lot, because they're always not too empty and not too full. Then I realized that I would probably get in trouble if I didn't ask for permissions from certain people and I just don't feel like getting kicked out of a parking lot. So I'm just going to find a parking lot on campus and go from there. As for weather... I was thinking of a snowy day for this film. Of course, the one time I want it to snow, it doesn't. I heard that it's going to start snowing after winter break is over, so I'm just hoping for that. If not, I guess I'll have to deal with a windy/rainy/not snowy day.

I suppose that's all the news I have for December. I have my script, my story board, my actresses. I'm ready to go.
Pity how there seems to be more bad news than good. I can make all the bad news go away, I'll make it work.

Auditions and Cookies

Tomorrow is the day I hold auditions for my movie!

I am quite nervous, but I know there are at least a few people coming to audition for sure. I'm going to be filming each audition so I can really look at how they are in front of the camera, and also so I can look back at everyone's auditions while I'm deciding who gets what part. 

One thing I'm worried about is the actual decision making. To be honest, I don't know what makes someone a good actor. I guess this is going to be a very interesting learning experience. 

My plan is to have them read parts of the script that I have picked out. If I think that they would work well with someone else, I'm going to have those two read. I guess I'm going to shuffle people around and see who works best with who and what part.

I baked cookies for this audition, by the way.

Here is the flyer that I created and posted around the school. 

 

Onwards!

I have finally finished drawing out my storyboard!

I don't really have a nice picture because all ninety-something sticky notes are in a pile in my suitcase. 

I can't wait to put them up!

My next step is the casting portion, and I'm very happy that I'm right on schedule. I still have to advertise the fact that there will be auditions... I'll be putting two or three flyers up. I'll also send an email. My goal is to get these parts finalized before Revels Week, so that gives me two weeks or so. Kind of. 

I'm very excited because this is the part where I get to see my characters come to life. 

I'm also slightly nervous.

Yay progress! 

Thanksgiving "Break"

It's Thanksgiving break. When I say "break", I actually mean "time to work on my movie". I'm still working on storyboarding. It's taking a bit of time, mostly because having to think of every single angle and every single scene for this movie in my head is very time consuming. I know what I want, but actually drawing it out really challenges me to have these little images in my head a bit more detailed.

If that makes sense.

Here is what it looks like:

Annotated Bibliography

"11 Essential Camera Techniques in Filmmaking -- With Animated Images." Free Online Film School: Learn Filmmaking. N.p., 10 Nov. 2010 Web. 02 Nov. 2015.
This article gives me the basics of what kind of camera shots there are. It explains when and how I should use them.

Field, Syd. Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting. New York, NY: Delta Trade Paperbacks, 2005. Print
I trust this source with my life. Without this book, there would be no screenplay at all. This walked me through the steps of creating a character and developing the character. It helped me go through the stages of writing the story, and it told me the do's and don't's of screenwriting.

"Film Studies 101: The 30 Camera Shots Every Film Fan Needs To Know." Empire. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2015.
I love this article because in addition to the thirty camera shots they explain, they also have video examples for each one.

Landau, Neil, and Matthew Frederick. 101 Things I Learned in Film School. New York, NY: Grand Central Pub., 2010. Print.
I stumbled upon this book while I was in a bookstore. The title caught my eye, and I'm so glad I found it! It gives me little illustrations and small but helpful tips. It's a nice book to refer to once in a while.

"Storyboarding Your Film." - For Dummies. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2015.
The questions they ask is very helpful for me to consider what to sketch on each post-it note. Right now this it the most important source I am using.

Board of my story yet?

I've finished my screenplay, and now I'm just working on story-boarding all of this.
Storyboards are important because it helps me organize the story a bit better than only a screenplay. I can plan out what I want to film and how I want the angles to be.
Right now, all I have is a bunch of trees and scary looking stickmen.
It's progress..., at least.

An example of a much more professional and better and prettier storyboard:

http://meetinthelobby.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/upstoryboard1.jpg

I know I'm not Pixar... and I know it takes them about three years just to come out with one movie... but I aim to have storyboards this nice one day. (Probably not because I'm not into animation ha.)

From VHS Cameras to Glamour

I forgot to properly introduce myself. Oops.

My name is Kristina, and I like making films and videos and whatnot. I don't remember exactly when I started to become interested in film, but I think it started when I was in elementary school. Maybe even younger. I stole my mom's old video camera (okay maybe it wasn't old but it's not like she was using it) and I just recorded things. I don't remember what I recorded, and I think I'd rather not remember; but I know I always had this camera with me (I think I may have recorded over some important footage like a wedding, but eh, no one has noticed yet).  I didn't take it outside with me because one, my mom didn't know I stole it so she'd see I had a camera with me and two, I would have felt judged amongst my tiny friends.

Going into middle school, I started to make simple slideshows with music in the background, and then I decided to make a Youtube channel. To be honest, remembering my old Youtube channel makes me cringe. A lot. I think deciding to be part of Youtube at a (very) young age helped me with learning how to edit videos and also helped me go through a process of finding my own style. I mean, I haven't found my style yet, but I have come a very long way since my first Youtube channel. 

Fast forward to around seventh grade, my friend and I decided to make a lyric video. Instead of just typing the words, we decided to use Photobooth and lots of paper and markers. We took pictures of ourselves with the words, and it took us (mostly me -- I ended up doing most of the editing) until around six in the morning (from what I remember). This video is very important to me, because during the process of making this two minute video I learned a lot of new things to help me make much better videos. The eight hours I used to make this video let me explore movie-editing programs. I started to fall in love with the hours I spent filming and editing. 

I never really thought of film as something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Film was always something I did on the side. Throughout the course of my life, I've always jumped from hobby to hobby, except for film. I'm just starting to realize that I've always been interested in film. I actually wish I realized that sooner. 

So.

Basically, I started filming things from a very young age, and I started to learn how to edit as well. Over the years, I have made short videos, and now here I am. I'm going to make a short film. It's not a short video anymore. It's a short film. 

So official.

Summer time Stress (and creations)

Alright, creating a screenplay wasn't as stressful as I thought it was going to be. I started the summer with reading Syd Field's Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting. I think I was unintentionally procrastinating, maybe because I was scared that my idea wouldn't work.

One night, around three in the morning, I decided I had to stop running away from my responsibilities, and I had to face my fears of possible failure.

I opened up a new blank document, and I stared at it for a while. I left to go stress eat, then I came back half an hour later. I typed something up, most likely some gibberish, then I erased it. I remembered that the book told me to "get to know my characters". In other words, I had to write full biographies on all of my characters. I had to write down everything -- their family life, their romantic life, their personal life, and even parts of themselves they didn't even know.

I started with Samantha, who at the time was not named yet, and I just regurgitated everything I had on my mind. She had a brother, who died as soon as he was born. Her parents were distant because they both had to work a lot. I started to write down arbitrary facts about her that did not even appear in the screenplay. She has very low self-esteem, and also goes to random coffee shops and keeps a journal full of her personal reviews of these coffee shops.

After finishing up Samantha's character, I realized that I knew what I wanted for my next character.

When I was writing Vanessa, I knew she would have to be very confident. I wanted a character that was completely opposite of Samantha. She didn't really get to know her dad, but it's not like she cared. She is content with her childhood. Though she has a close relationship with her mother, their distant family don't really keep in touch with them. It doesn't bother Vanessa nor her mother, though. She is always the one people come to for advice. Vanessa is a very "go with the flow" type of person, but also always keeping control of any situation she is in. I wanted Vanessa's and Samantha's personality to be contrasted, and then I wrote about the third and last character, Angela.

Angela isn't like Vanessa or Samantha at all. Samantha and Vanessa are the two extremes -- low and high self esteems. Angela, on the other hand, is completely average. She's quite boring, actually, mostly because she refuses to try to do anything about it. The only thing she actually talks about is how boring she is. Anyway, if I were to say anymore, it would kind of give away the movie.


After creating these three very different characters, I realized that I saw a bit of my personality in each of these characters. Sometimes I'm Samantha, when I have my bad days, and I also like to personally review every café I go to. Other times I'm Vanessa, who just goes with the flow and is confident and is okay with everything happening around her. I'm like Angela when I complain... I complain a lot.

While reading Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, I remember the book saying:

"Ask yourself -- if you were in that situation, what would you do in your character's place? This is not to say that you are your character. You may have certain things in common with your character, but I'll say it again: You are not your character." 

That passage stuck with me while I was writing the screenplay because in past creative writing experiences, I always limited the character to myself. I guess I had forgotten that creating a character means that the character gets to be anyone. 

So yes, I guess these three characters and I do have things in common, but we are all very much different.