Creative Critical Reflection

For my CCR I did a voice over and discussed the different aspects of my project.

Trailers

Here are my two movie trailers, I am happy with how they turned out. 

Poster and Website

I finalized my poster and website this week. I am happy with how both turned out, especially my poster. I think it does a really good job with bringing people in. I titled my moive Another Cliche Movie, I think that this title fits the movie and the target audience very well. 

Here is my poster! I love how it came out and the image really captures the characters personalities well. I think it looks great and would personally go see this movie. http://mymediaportfolioprojectsite.my-free.website/ This is the link to my movies website. WHen you first open the website the first trailer starts playing, which helps people be intrigued and want to look more into the film. I added a gallery with photos of clips from the movie, and the characters. I also added some small character descriptions, a bio page of the creator (me), and a contact page so people can contact me if they have any questions about the movie. Overall I am very happy with how my project has turned out and I think that the hard work has paid off. 

Poster

Today I took pictures for my poster. I shot the characters in various stances and at different angles. I had already had an idea planned for what I wanted to do, which I explained in a pervious blog, but my friends gave me some different ideas they thought would look good too. In the end I went with my oringinal idea and the outcome was great. 

This is the final image I am using for my poster. I just need to edit the words and title and add some finishing touches on it. I think that this is a great representation of the movie and the characters. I am really happy with how this picture turned out and I can't wait to see what the final product looks like. 

Filming Day 3

Today I finished filming what I need for my trailers. I think that everything turned out really nice and I am hoping it all comes together well during editing. I wanted to film a scene where the three girls were tping and egging the boys house, but I couldn't actually do that to someones house. Strangely enough my friends boyfriend let us tp and egg his house as long as we didnt hurt anything and clean it up. It came out better than I had hoped and it looked realistic, since we actually put tp over his house. I am very glad with how my shots came out and I think that as log as it is edited well the point of the movie hould come across easily. I only need a little of the voice overs from my friends, but we are doing that a little later. I am going to work on editing some today and this week so I can hopefully finish by Thursday or Friday so I have time to do my CCR. 

Here is a clip of the three girls tping the house. I think this scene will add to the funniness of the film and create a sence of drama and pull in the audience. I think today was very successful and was a good rap to my filming process. 

Voice Over Script

Today I created my scripts for the vioceover for my two trailers. I wanted to make the voiceover funny and express the characters personlities and the humorous aspect of the film. Below is my script, I tried to make it comical to add to the funny factor of the movie. I want the voiceover to be one of the major in factors that helps draw in the audience. I showed it to a few of my friends and they said it was funny and a little cheesy, which is exatcly what I was going for. I really hope this adds the finishing touches on creating a great, funny trailer. 

Voice Over Script

Trailer 1: Ahh dont you just love movies about cute high school relationships? The ones where the boy sweeps the girl off of her feet and they fall in love and live happily ever after...hold on a second! Thats not me! Who's that Bitch!?! 

Taylor: Okay Margot lets just calm down, I have an idea...

Margot: YA LETS KILL HIM! 

(Insert margot no clip)

Taylor: Lets get even!

(Whispers) mummm intense music thats your cue 

(Intense music begins) 

(Clips of girls running, maddy trips) (music stops)

Maddy: (freeze) seriously they didnt cut that part out?

(Gets up again and music starts again)

Trailer 2:

Maddy: oh look another trailer! Heres another sneak peak of the action!

(Girls tping house)

Aww memories this was so much fun

Sanjana: ya until the cops showed up (freeze scene)

Maddy: shhhh spoiler! They havent seen the movie yet

(Start back up)

Sanjana: this is my favorite part (laughs)

Maddy and Taylor: Sarah be quiet they're trying to watch our movie! 

(Silence for about 10 seconds)

Sanjana: (starts quietly laughing- progressively gets louder)

Maddy and Taylor: Oh my god! Maddy: We are sorry for the interruptions folks 

(Loud whisper) Spoiler Alert! He dies!.... just kidding 

(END)

Filming Day 2

 Today I had my guy friend, Mason, help me film for the male character. I filmed the scenes with him and the main character together and also him with the girl he's cheating on her with (me). My friend filmed Mason and I together and we kissed for the video, it was really awkward and weird, but it came out good. Hopefully it will be a good touch to the trailer. 

One problem I had today was that one of my actresses couldn't come because she was in Orlando. I filmed what I could without her, but I didn't get as much done as I wanted to. I need to film a lot of scenes with the three girls together doing their revenge pranks and running around. I am going to try to film sometime next week and hopefully finish up filming so I can edit and work on my poster and website. I need to take pictures for my poster still, but I have the image in my head of what it's going to look like. 

Today wasn't as successful as I wanted it to be. It could have gone better, but I worked with what I had and I got some good shots that will hopefully help explain the plot line better. 

New Ideas

Tody I am going to film more for my trailers. I have been thinking of new ideas and better ways to make this project better. I am thinking of different ways to shoot things. In the group meetings the other day, one of the girls suggested that I refilm one of my over the shoulder shots of the friend discovering that the boyfriend is cheating. I didn't focus on the text fully, which made it difficult to focus on. Someone reccommended that to make it funnier I could have the main character fake cry and her friends telling her to get over it and that they would get him back. Another suggestion was that I should make the shots very fasted paced and right as one line is fnishing another one is starting, so the audience doesn't really have time to think about the content, I mentioned this in my last posting. I also need to refilm my car scene because I had to cut part of it and it doesn't look good. I am going to film a scene today where one of the friends spots the boy with another girl and have her freak out. 

Editing Day 1

I started editing what I previously filmed too see what I had and how much I still need to film. I have some good stuff, ut I still need a lot more to make the storyline and plot obvious to the audience viewing the trailers. I have about a minute of my first trailer worth of footage. I want one of my trailers to be around 2 minutes, and the other one a little over 1 minute, so I still need to add a lot. There are some clips that I could possily cut out when I film and add other stuff, but they could stay in depending on how good they look. 

I also need to add more of a comedic vibe to my trailers, sice is a chick flick comedy. I need to make my trailer very fast paced, one of the girls in my group today gave me that idea. She said most comedi trailers are very fast paced and never have pauses or give the audence time to think. I think that comment was very helpful and will help with further editing. I need to my some of my clips shorter and more fast paced so the action and comedy never stops. I want the begining to start out seeming like the movie is going to go in a completely different direction and then all of the sudden the action and comedy pick up and it is nonstop throughout the rest of the trailer, really grasping the audiences attention. I think this will help make them want to see the film more because it will show some crazy moments of the film without giving anything away.

I plan on doing a voiceover for certain parts of the trailers, and just having digetic sound for other parts. I want the music to be slower and calm in the begining and then BANG!, when the crazy action starts the music picks up and catches everyone offguard. I really hope that I do a good job putting what I am envisioning in my mind on the screen. I am planning on filming htis weekend, so hopefully that happens and I can get a lot done. 

Designing My Poster

In class the other day I started the rough draft design of how I want my poster to look. I am planning on having the three girls in front holding things, such as: toilet paper, eggs, rope and a hammer. This comes from one of the scenes in the movie and it look interesting and will hopefully engage the audience. In the background the boy is going to be standing looking cute with his arms crossed. The entire background is going to be white and he tilte is going on the bottom. I plan on putting a small quote on the side next to the girls, possibly saying "He messed with the wrong girls", or something similar to that. 

I got some ideas from researching movie posters. I liked the look of Clueless and how all three girls are big in the front catching the viewers attention. I also liked John Tucker Must Die. The white background shows the focus on the main characters, and the placement of the title gave me the idea of where to put mine. The last one is She's The Man, I got the idea of the small quote on the side from this movie poster. 

Chaning It Up

Since my two actors are no longer together I decided to change my thought for my trailers a little. Instead of focusing more on the boy and girl together, I am going to focus 95% on the three girls. I am still going to need to find a guy to put in the trailer a little, but hes only going to be a minor part, instead of a major part now. I have a friend I can ask to be in the few scenes I need with the boy, hopefully it will turn out good and many different types of girls will be able to relate to it. I am going to film the girls disscussing, attempting, and completing some of the pranks. I need to try to make sure I don't give too much away, because some people feel like they have seen the whole movie from the trailer, which makes them not want to go see it. I want to give just enough away to leave viewers on their seat with anticipation, so they feel the need to go watch the movie.

I think this approach will turn out better than my initial idea. I believe it will connect to more audiences and create more of the comedic vibe I am going for. I have some new ideas planned in my head and I hope to start filmimg them next week. My teacher also gave us an extra week for our project and I almost cried from happiness. I was really starting to worry about time since I have been so busy recently, but now I am not as worried since I will have my Spring Break to work on it and fix whatever I need to.

Website

I started working more on my wenbsote in class, I have the design of it completed and I need to add all of the details. It is going to be simple but fun and girly. When you go to the home page the main trailer is the first thing you see, it is big and right in your face, making viewers want to watch it. There are four pages of my website:home, info, contact, and bio. The home page shows the tailer and gives the audience a little information on the movie and some critics rewiews. The info page is all the information about the movie;  including plot, characters, and other stuff. The contact page is so people can contact the movie studio with questions or whatever else they may want to ask. Finally the bio page is a biography on the creator, aka me, of the movie. It still has a long way to go but once I add all the details and colors and images, I hope it will look really good and appeal the adiemce, and potentially bring in new audiences. 

Time

This week has been very busy for me. I have had to work a lot this week, not giving me much time to work on my project outside of class. I am starting to get worried about time management and need do a lot of things still. Next week I should have more time to work on my project and film. I need to film a lot this week and try to finish next week so I can have about a week-week and a half to edit. I am going to need to change some o my ideas about my trailers, due to some minor issues that have happened this week, which I talked about in a posting earlier this week. 

I need get on top of things and really work hard these next few weeks to finish filming, so I can start the editing process. Hopefully I will only need a couple days worth of filming, giving me more time to edit. 

Forming a Website

I started looking at different website builder sites to begin working on my website. I wanted to use Wix.com, but it doesn't allow you to create a website on an ipad, which is all I use. I didn't really like using Weebly.com the last time I used it, so I didn't want to use that site. I found Web.com/webbuilder 

and I liked the themes and being able to edit everything relatively easily on an ipad. 

I started editing some minor things on the site to get a feel and chose a design for how I want my website to look. I am planning to make it very girly and pop out and fun, to fit my target market. I have not done much with the website yet but I am going to continue working on it as I develop my trailers. 

I am excited to see where my project and website goes and I hope that my website comes out as I am imagining it. 

A Small Hiccup 

I have ran into a small problem with one of my characters. I was planning on using my good friend and her boyfriend but sadly they broke up yesterday. I obviously can't use the two of them together now, so I am going to have to find someone else and fast. I have a friend in mind who would probably help, but he doesn't fully fit the image that I am looking for. But the show must go on... I am just going to have o make some udjustments and possibly put less of the main guy in the trailers and more of the main girl. 

I hope that I can make everything work and that my friend will help me. I am starting to get worried that I am going to have time issues and that I won't be able to get the image I want across. I need to plan around this and start rethinking a few things. I am at a point where I am not sure where to go from here and I need to figure out what I am planning to do next so I can continue filming. I am at a moment where my creative juices have stopped flowing and am trying to find what I need to do next to complete my project. 

Planning/Filming

I started planning and filming for my project. Today was my first day of filming. I did not get into a lot of details but I wanted to try to start filming early so I could get as much footage as possible. I filmed my 3 friends, the main female character and the two supporting female characters. Filming today was very successful, I started out having an idea of what I want to do but not a deep idea. One of my friends gave me a great idea for the ending of the trailer. She owns a Mustang and she had the idea to have the three friends hop into the Mustang and drive off. Im really happy with how this turned out and I think it will be a great ending to the trailer and movie.  

I filmed some of the beginning scenes where the main character finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her. I also realized I want this movie to be overly dramatic in order to be more funny. I think that this worked out very well and makes the movie look more appealing. I wanted to make the movie more of a rom com, but now i've decided to make it a chickfil comedy. I think this route will be better for the outcome I wanted. I still need to film a lot more, and I need to film everything with the boy and girl together. I have started thinking of funny revenge prank scenes to record for my film, but I am currently having problems thinking of funny pranks. Overall I am happy with the course of my film and I am excited to see the outcome. 

Group Meeting

On Friday, in class, we met with groups to discuss our project and help each other with ideas. I found this very helpful because I was having problems with developing my plot and storyline. Some comments I recieved were focusing on the comedy aspect without giving too much away in the trailor.

Also for the two different trailors, have one a full length (around 2:30) and one shorter and faster paced, since many movies tend to do this for their films. I thought both of these ideas was very helpful. One issue I have is trying to figure out if I want to do a party scene. One girl suggested that if I wanted to do this I have to film it very well because party scenes are difficult to film. One of my good friends is having her 18th birthday party next weekend, and I am going to try to film some of it. If I find that I like the shots I film I will use it as a scene for my trailor, and if not then I won't.


I am really happy with the feedback that I recieved, it was very helpful and gave me more ideas for directions my film should go. One girl recommended focusing on the relationship aspect more, but I really think thats the route I want to go. Overall I found the group discussions very helpful and I hope we have more in the future to help go over our project after we have some progression.


Link to image: https://www.google.com/search?q=group+meeting&safe=strict&client=safari&hl=en-us&prmd=inv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiO2fjkltvSAhXF8CYKHZoCD2kQ_AUIBygB&biw=1024&bih=672#imgrc=Fs9pi6hkQMaW5M:

Characters

I am now starting to work on developing the characters, specifically the main boy and girl, and brainstorming their personalities. Considering that my storyline is somewhat based off of true events, I want to make the character authentic to the real people. I also need to find people who could pull off acting as the two main characters. Being that the main character is based off of me I want to create her personality similar to mine, giving us the same features and personality characteristics. The female character is someone who is always happy and smiling and kind to everyone. She is new to the relationship and boy world, making her vulnerable and not really sure about what to do in certain situations. This is where another very important character comes to play, the best friend. The main characters best friend is always there for her and has her back no matter what. She is much more experienced in the guy department and helps out her friend. The boy who is first introduced as extremely good looking, tall, with a great personality, is one of the typical hot guys that every girl drools over in movies. As the story continues and this character starts developing more, viewers start to see that he is a huge jerk that only uses girls to get what he wants. He comes across as a sweet, funny, honest guy but then transforms into someone who breaks girls hearts. The development going deeper into the characters personalities and traits is still in process, but the main idea for them is there. I am worried that I won't be able to find people that fit my image of the main girl and boy. Luckily I already have someone in mind to play the best friend. I want to have the characters look somewhat like the real characters, to keep the characters as realistic as possible. There are probably going to be physical features on both characters I will have to adjust, specifically the male character, for example his blue eyes or blonde hair or lean figure, but hopefully I can find a way to make both characters feel real and make certain truths to the story come alive with the characters.

Genre and Target Audience 

I have chosen to do a rom com chick flick for my genre.

I aim to target females aged around 13- 24.


I chose this target market because I feel that they will connect to the story better than other groups. I want to relate to the audience by connecting to their different emotions, such as humor, anger, happiness, and sadness. I want them to be abke to feel the pain that the main character has, and to be able to see themselves as the main character. I want this film to be extremely hilarious but also hurtful and angering. Many girls understand the pain of being cheated on, so I want to express their pain through the main character to show all viewers just how much pain cheating can inflict on a person. I think this genre and target market go together very well, there have been many movies from this genre targeting primarily teenage females. I hope that my point and emotions reflect on this audience and makes them connect deeper into the movie and the main character.



Links to images: https://www.google.com/search?safe=strict&client=safari&hl=en-us&biw=1024&bih=672&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=6JvKWLa9DsyEmwHUxoKgAw&q=female+target+audience&oq=female+target+audience&gs_l=mobile-gws-img.3...11303.12050.0.12953.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1c..64.mobile-gws-img..0.0.0.yN8IVcFXxLw#imgrc=atbOWyr_iSEGUM:
https://www.google.com/search?q=rom+com+genre&safe=strict&client=safari&hl=en-us&prmd=vni&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWvuW3mdvSAhUK5SYKHU-0CHwQ_AUICSgD&biw=1024&bih=672#imgrc=ut1P3pLNYgQEyM:

Beginning Again

    I am in the process of brainstorming ideas for my new project. I am creating two trailers for a movie idea that I must create. I began reading over genres that I could potentially use to create my film. One genre that keeps popping out at me is Romance. I don't want to go for an extremely romantic, dramatic movie like the Notebook, but a more funny casual romance like the one in Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging. Another movie that has helped me develop my idea is John Tucker Must Die.

 
       

I am doing a similar type of movie where a boy plays with a girls heart and she finds out about .it, making her want revenge. The idea is still in the brainstorming process and my not completely go this route. I am using a real life event that happened to me with a guy and just changing around the story line to make it more interesting. My idea is still in the early stages of development and could possibly change completely by the end of the week, if I come up with a better idea. I have had some issues trying to figure out what to create and an idea that I like and could do a lot with. As I research and brainstorm more this week I am hoping I will think of strong idea to make an amazing project.