CCR

Here is my CCR! 

Lots of love,
Amanda

A very happy Sunday! 

    Here are our digital components for our final portfolio project! I wanted to give a great shoutout to my partner, Onil Drore and everyone who helped to make this all possible. Overall, I enjoyed creating every component and I am proud of all I have accomplished. 

Enjoy,

Amanda :)

Postcard Advertisement:

(Front)

(Back)

Website: https://schoolsmale.wixsite.com/covid-19

Short Film: https://youtu.be/OZcReMWTlgE

What a relief! Love & miss you Tina! <3

Thrilling Thursday!

Wow, Onil and I’s journey is finally complete and if I could describe how it feels in one word I would choose bittersweet. We have come such a long way from last year, and we have developed so many new skills and techniques that we diligently used throughout this year’s portfolio project. I am so excited to share our three components with not only my peers, but my friends and family, as well as teachers. 

After 10 weeks of this entire process, there had been ups and downs. At first, Onil and I were working like snails, because we thought we had all the time in the world and then we started getting back into the groove. Our initial idea was to capture a romantic comedy, but with the unexpected circumstances of COVID-19, this was no longer an option for us. School was cancelled and all of our friends, including ourselves were on house arrest for our own safety and well-being. This was a major shift and I can speak for the majority of my peers when I say that I was shocked and a bit angry. As I’ve worked so hard throughout my high school career, this last year, my senior year was supposed to be the best one yet. As the county has recently made a decision announcing that we will not be going back to school, I was a bit upset. I didn’t get to experience college commitment day, our annual shaving cream fight, prom, and so many more end of the year festivities. Sad, but hopeful we all have been making the most of it and we continue to keep our heads up. 

So, Onil and I decided that it would be a perfect idea to create a short film on the virus that put us all on lockdown. We didn’t want it to be depressing, so we kept the parody technique that we had wanted to include from the beginning to lighten up the topic. Our goal was to create a story about a teenager who used different methods to cope with this deadly virus. We tried to exaggerate and mock some of the things that people have been doing to avoid getting the virus or dealing with it. We in no shape or form mean any harm, and we did not make fun of the virus itself, but we wanted to have fun with the extremes people have been going to during this time. 

Our short film took up the majority of our time as there was a lot to edit. I personally had to create a script to narrate the entire film, and this was not an easy task. To come up with the words, as well as time it correctly and record till I say it correctly, I was surprised with how much more time it took than I thought it would. Additionally, Onil and I had to spend some time hand making and gathering some of the sound effects to play throughout the film. We managed to find the perfect soundtracks on our editor, WeVideo, which was an important element to shifting the mood when needed. I was really pleased with how it turned out. For not being able to see Onil and only communicate through technology, I believe we did an excellent job. 

Our website started off quite rocky as both Onil and I struggled to navigate through all the buttons and editing tools, but once we got the hang of it, we flew through it. By working together adding in pictures, links, and designing it the way we felt went well with the theme of our short film, we got it done in no time. We decided to create a color scheme of red, black, white, and grey. Throughout all of our digital components these colors are displayed, which helped with branding. We used Wix and I have to say, I’m now a huge fan of this site! They provided us with so many amazing fonts and templates and I loved how they linked our website to an editor for a mobile version. This process was fun and easy (not too easy of course), but easier than the editing for our short film, laugh out loud.

Lastly, our advertisement postcard was super simple and it turned out pretty cute. We wanted the main picture to be of our main actor, Orian Drore, so we took an up-close portrait of her with a mask on. We manipulated the color of the photo, washing out the saturation and vibrancy, which gave it a dull effect that we used within our short film. We included our social media platforms, and made sure to advertise that it is coming soon. If we were to give these out to our target audience of teenagers at Chipotle or school, we feel this would definitely appeal to them. 

Overall, I’m super relieved that it is all over, but super sad as well. I’m going to miss Tina with my entire heart, but I will never forget what she has taught me and what I have to bring with me.

Enjoy,

Amanda :)

Working Wednesday!

    My brain is close to being completely fried. On Monday we finished our short film, on Tuesday we completed our website, and today, we finished creating our postcard advertisement as well as our Twitter and Instagram accounts. This last week we have been speeding, all gas, no brakes! 

    Postcard advertisement: This last digital component that we had to complete for our portfolio project was fun to create. We took a close-up portrait of our main character, Orian, wearing a mask and she was the main focus of the postcard. We felt this was the right choice, as the short film is only about her. We played with the picture's colors, making it dull, just like we have been doing throughout all of our components. Additionally, we stayed within our color scheme and came up with a nice postcard advertisement! 

     Twitter & Instagram: We thought it was necessary to create social media accounts to enhance our marketing campaign. Being teenagers, we felt that Instagram and Twitter were the main platforms that teens would utilize, so we focused on those. We made stylish posts that are insightful, informational, and involving. Including the website in both platform's bio, all the information and new updates could be easily accessed. This is exactly what we wanted and we couldn't have created a better way to market our release date of our short film. I will include some screenshots of these for you guys to see below!

Talk soon,

Amanda

Back again!

    Hello everyone! Today, Onil and I's main focus was our website. As we had previously started this component of our project, today we wanted to finish it and we were successful! We created a color scheme while editing our short film; It includes red (Burgundy), white, black, and grey. With this color scheme, we created our website and this would help the flow of all of our digital components, so it would be more memorable for our audience. We created a simple design that gives off a mysterious vibe, but we also wanted it to be cute and clean. We made sure that everything was easy to navigate through and made sure that even the mobile version ran well. As our target audience is teenagers, we know that they would most likely access our website on their phone finding it through our social media platforms, Twitter and Instagram, so we had to make sure it was functional and cool. I am super happy with the way it turned out and I think our viewers and customers will be too! 

Check it out:

(Desktop version)

(Moblie Version)

Woohoo,

Amanda

It's the final countdown!

This is the last week of our portfolio project and we are wrapping things up quickly! We have officially finished editing our short film, but I had some concerns with the final product. Here is an overview of our final decisions:

1. We decided to display the rules over the scenes, instead of displaying it on a black screen by itself. We would have had to done a lot of cutting in order to create this effect and Onil and I decided that it looked good as it is. 
2. We decided that I would narrate the short film by recording a voiceover that played throughout the film. 
3. We manipulated the color vibrancy and saturation from the scenes before quarantine to the present day. We wanted to portray this color differentiation to demonstrate to our audience the clear change in mood and environment. 
4. We decided that cutting the natural sound out of each scene and having the voiceover play in the background was a bit too quiet and it needed some sound effects. Onil and I went back to certain areas and recorded us making specific sounds to sync with what's being shown on the screen. 
5. Additionally, we collected some WeVideo free soundtracks to play in the background of some of the scenes that we felt needed it. The most important scene where the music component is manipulated would be where our main character starts showing and explaining the rules. We feel the rock music really took this scene to the next level. 
6. We decided to close our short film with a PSA to everyone, sending love and reminding everyone to stay strong and safe. COVID-19 has definitely changed a lot of things and we felt this closing touch would be heart-warming. A shoutout to all the seniors, who got their last year of high school cut short, we are the best!

Relieved,

Amanda

Happy Easter!

    I am very excited to announce that Onil and I have put together all the clips and our short film is looking really nice! We still have to make some adjustments and until then I will not be releasing any sneak peaks of our finalized short film. The whole point of blogging about my progress is to show my thoughts and express the ups and downs of my project, but I would like to keep this as a surprise. All we have left to do is add words (the rules) on the screen and find some background music. I had an idea for the words to be created on a separate platform, designed a certain way and a classic music to play behind the scenes like this short film I looked at the other day. 
Check it out: https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2017/04/12/5-films-technology/
I couldn't figure out how to screenshot to show you guys directly, but if you look at the video, you will see what I am talking about. This element and look/vibe is exactly what Onil and I are going for, we just have to figure out what the best way for us to create it is. This could be writing the words on a black screen, figuring out a way to draw it like the video, or present it over our scenes. There are so many options and we have so much freedom to create it however we want. This is a blessing, but also a curse!

Keep you posted,
Amanda 

Good Friday!

     Although this weekend has a great holiday to look forward to, Onil and I's project has hit its first dilemma. As I started to put the clips together, I found that we are a little short on footage, and the entirety of the project looked like it needed more. We made a change while recording, which was to add a flashback in the beginning. The flashback will show our main character's life before quarantine and the purpose is to not only to add some personality into the film, but add to the very odd transition everyone has had to adjust to. Initially, we felt that we only needed to incorporate a party, but then we saw that we should capture more simple elements like Orian walking her dog, laughing with her friends, or eating dinner with her family. Onil will be capturing these moments to add to the opening of our film. With this new addition, I feel that the flow of our film will be a lot smoother. 

Enjoy the weekend,
Amanda 

Woohoo!

    Finally! Onil and I have finished filming our entire short film. We believe we have captured every element and idea we wanted to portray to our audience. The only thing left to do to officially complete this portion of our portfolio project is edit. My goal throughout this week and next week is to finish this process. I am very pleased with Onil and her sister's dedication and commitment to making the most out of the situation and all that we have to work with. I will keep you guys updated throughout the week!

Talk soon,
Amanda

Soothing Sunday!
     I'm back with more updates on Onil and I's journey throughout our portfolio project. I know you are itching to hear what I could possibly have to share today, so drumroll please... Today, I will be sharing our rules:

1. Always have hand sanitizer by your side
2. Sleep with your mask, eat with your mask, and shower with your mask. NEVER TAKE IT OFF.
3. Gloves always stay on, hand sanitizer on top of your gloves.
4. Never leave your home

These rules will be displayed in the same style as our chosen film, 'Zombieland'. We have talked about it multiple times and it has become our final choice for style. As displayed in the film, we will present the rules through text and video with an accompanying voice-over. We have not yet decided which font will be used for the text of the rules but the idea is set in stone now.

Talk to you soon!
Amanda

Friday Fun!

     My goal since last posting was to get started on the editing process of our short film and I am pleased to announce that I have done so. After importing the new content that Onil captured, I started to lay it down in the desired order. I'm not quite sure if this is how we are going to start, but as of right now this is our opening. In order to create the mysterious vibe, I will manipulate the color as the videos came out very bright and lively. Onil wanted to continue recording either this weekend or throughout next week. She will be capturing the rules to staying healthy and what to do in our current circumstances: COVID-19. By over exaggerating, Onil and I hope to portray it as a parody, not making fun of the illness itself, but the extremes people are going to because of it.

Keep you updated,
Amanda

Wednesday!

    The day has come, Onil and I have officially started to record our short film. Unfortunately, since we are both not allowed to leave our houses, Onil did the recording of her sister by herself. Not only did we FaceTime so I can offer my input on shots and techniques, but she sent me hard copies of the videos as well for me to evaluate. We managed to capture many scenes of Orian (main character) doing her morning routine, which is the opening to the film. I will soon import these clips into WeVideo to start editing, so we don't leave it all to the last minute. I am very pleased with our chosen character and the looks of the clips. Can't wait for it to come all together!

Enjoy your day,
Amanda 

Sleepy Saturday,

    Surprisingly, doing a whole lot of nothing is extremely tiresome. I try to get out for at least an hour and a half everyday to do some exercise, but after that its lights out. Today Onil and I discussed a variety of fonts that we may or may not be using for our writing in our short film. We were looking for a font that would give off a mysterious vibe, which with our subject, would work perfectly. Additionally, I believe it would look nice if it had a handwriting look to it as it will be used to list the rules to avoiding and dealing with the Coronavirus that our main character is talking about. Our choices are limited as we will be using WeVideo to edit our film and they only have a selected few to chose from. Here are some of the options that we thought could work well: 

1) 

(Bearpaw)

2)

(SecretTypewriter)

3)

(2Dumb)

4)

(Bangers)

5)

(NeoRetro)

    As of right now, we have not decided which one we are using officially, but these are our top 5 choices. 

Talk next week,

Amanda 

Thrilling Thursday,

    Here is our storyboard! 



     I know, 7 boxes, not nearly as much as we could have, but it's a work in progress. This is the opening scenes for our short film. Our storyboard does not capture the specific elements we hope to include, but we believe that showing you guys the content would be better than writing about it. Onil and I hope to meet up during the early days of this week (if our parents allow us to) to start shooting. I can't wait, and I know once we start this part of our project everything will start to flow better, with our website and postcard advertisement as well!

Keep you posted,
Amanda 

Tuesday Talks!

     Today, Tina set up a conference with the whole class to update us about how school is going to work, as well as discuss our projects (solve problems we may have). I found this conference to be very helpful as I was able to share my thoughts on my new idea for my portfolio project and get some enlightening feedback. As stated in one of the most recent posts, Onil and I decided to change our idea from being a romantic parody, to a parody about the Coronavirus. Tina and my peers liked the idea, but I struggled to come up with ways to start it and end it since it is a short film. My peers offer many materials for me to check out, more specifically, YouTube videos that had the same idea that Onil and I are currently going for. Additionally, Tina suggested a website that had a bunch of uploaded short films that we could look into. Here's the link --> https://www.shortoftheweek.com/channels/sundance-films/. I found all of these resources super helpful and I was glad to have woken up (earlier than usual) to participate in the group conference. With said, Onil and I started to create our official storyboard. In the next posting, I will be sharing it with you. 

See you soon,
Amanda

Lazy Sunday,

    As Onil and I started to develop the plot to our story, we both started to brainstorm who will be filming, acting, etc. Last year, I was the actor and this process was painful as I kept giggling and Onil had to keep recording the same scene. This year, I proposed that it would be in our best favor for me to be the camerawomen, and Onil the actor. She agreed, until the Coronavirus took over and we all became quarantined in our homes. Since her sister is available, we have decided that she would be the perfect actor for our short film. This is really good news as Onil and I can both be more involved in the mise-en-scene and other features, rather than focusing on learning the parts to play the part. Below I will attach a picture of our new main character:

So excited and relieved,

Amanda 

Friday!

    Hello, I am back again with a new and improved update on my portfolio project! With the current unfortunate events going on (AKA Coronavirus) Onil and I have decided to change our storyline. Instead of doing a romantic comedy, we will be doing a parody. We wanted to stay in the realm of having fun producing it, yet instead of it being romantic, more thrilling. Moreover, it will be about our current issue, the Coronavirus. For example, how to avoid spreading and receiving this deadly illness. We did some research and we found that the film, Zombieland (2009) displayed the content the way we want to with our short film. This is seen when the main character is explaining his rules in which have helped him stay alive during the zombie apocalypse. While scenes were shown, the main character explained it as a VoiceOver in comedic manner. While displaying helpful and true information, we hope to exaggerate on the tips of our idea. We believe we can pull this new idea off as we can film from our houses, whereas our idea before required old time settings. I am super excited, yet we still have a lot to figure out. 

In the making,
Amanda 

Updates!

    As I have been helping my parents prepare for a potential lockdown because of the Coronavirus, my project as come to a halt. I am not allowed to leave my house, and Onil is not either. With said, we cannot use this valuable time to sit down together and work on our project. Additionally, the places we had hope to film at are shutdown or are only open during specific hours. This pandemic only affects our filming plans, but the show must go on for our website and postcard advertisement. Onil and I have come to an agreement that we will have to indulge in the use of FaceTime and video calls in order to be successful. 

Keep you posted,
Amanda 

Saturdaze

Onil and I met up today and started to brainstorm some of names for our short film. We believe since our genre is romantic-comedy that it would be in our best interests to include the cheesy characteristics within our film and also starting from the title. As of right now, “Togetherness” is first in the running, as the pure meaning of it is exactly what the main focus of the film will be: two individuals closely in love. 

Additionally, the word itself kind of speaks for itself, it’s loud. By this I mean, “together” is individual things with one another or beside each other and “ness” is an excessive amount or more. When these two words meet, just like our characters in our short film, they achieve a greater and deeper meaning. Maybe I’m going crazy, or just trying to find ways to convince myself that this is the perfect title for our film, but I like it! *Awkwardly smiling, as I start to sweat* The saying “One step at a time,” is what Onil and I keep saying to each other. We got this!

Talk soon,

Amanda

T h u r s d a y

I am extremely pleased to announce that we have started to create our website on Wix! Although starting this was the goal for the week and we achieved it, we ran into a little dilemma. We found an amazing template that we think will look really well, but we did not even think about a logo or symbol for our short film. Without these elements, we cannot start to create it. We must create those first, which would mean we would have to start with the postcard advertisement, which is actually a good thing since we are still making progress. The number one essential to developing a nice marketing campaign is continuity and we can do it with our symbol and logo. Below, I will be showing you the initial template we have chosen: 

I love how the clock is digital and actually moves. We would set this time to the date of the release of our short film. In the background, we would of course get rid of the picture of the city. Instead, we would put our symbol and logo, or maybe even little scenes from our short film as teasers. The interactive part that I mentioned above, I hope to include as the audience navigates through the website in the different tabs we will be making within the site. 

Keep you posted,

Amanda

Wednesday!!

Hello again, as I previously told you guys in the last posting on Monday that we will be using Wix to create our website, I wanted to share our discussed plan. This website will be created as a resource to our viewers and audience. We hope to include information about our soon to be released short film in a fun way.  

Furthermore, Onil and I want our website to be interactive. By this, I have a vision to create quizzes and pop up questions like, “Do you want to fall in love?” “5 ways to make your relationship perfect,” “How to make sure your partner doesn't leave you.” By including these really compelling questions, we believe that most people who have these silly yet realistic questions, will be enticed to check out. Through this website we hope to offer good advice but not too much so we can advertise our short film; we need these two to go hand in hand. If we release too much, there will be no point for the audience to wait for the film. 

I hope to get started by Thursday with either our website or postcard advertisement products. I believe that if we can successfully portray the vision in the ways that I’ve explained, then everything would come together really nicely. 

Wish us luck!

Amanda

Magic Monday!

As time is flying by, we are now on week #4 of our portfolio project. My partner, Onil and I hope to focus on the extra content and products that we will produce in addition to our short film; I am referring to our website and postcard advertisement. I am super excited to get hands-on with this part of our project as it requires creativity. My levels of creativity  are endless as my imagination has always run wild, starting at a young age. I love to design things and start from scratch, making it me, expressing myself through symbols, words, and more. 

The company we will be working with to help provide us with the elements and templates we will need is Wix. Wix is a website maker that is not only free, but extremely easy to use. As I was in Yearbook for 2 years as a business and personal relations editor, I became very familiar with how to navigate through this resource. Onil and I believe this will be an efficient way to market and spread the word about our short film in a unique way. 

Keep you guys updated,

Amanda

Happy Sunday!

I am currently in Tallahassee, Florida visiting Florida State University. As I have yet to decide on where I will be attending college, I have been taking the last two weeks to tour the different campuses of my top 3 college institutions. I believe that this will help me find the perfect fit for me as I have been learning new information about the different programs and opportunities each school offers. 

Our goal for this week is to start filming our short film. I would like to share some of the locations we hope to film at. As I will be developing our script and storyline this week, I believe it is essential to talk about our options, so we can work with our environment from there. We want to try to film in our town, Weston as it is most convenient and doesn’t require us to commute far away. Additionally, we can also go back to the specific location if we need to refilm easily. Although this is the most practical option, we believe that we may have to spend some time in Fort Lauderdale. We want to incorporate the old times (70s and 80s), so we will be researching old diners and game rooms that will display the right era we want to portray to our audience. After doing so, we will need to ask for permission to film, so we hope to get onto this as soon as possible. 

I’ll be in touch throughout the week,

Amanda

TGIF!

This week has been so long and extremely stressful. As the 3rd quarter is coming to an end and the deadline for my portfolio project is creeping up on me, I am trying to stay calm. I feel this way because there is just so much that needs to be done and discussed; I truly don’t know where to start. I opened up to my AICE Media teacher, Tina, and she helped me collect myself, so without further ado, let’s get started! 

Today we will be discussing our main characters for our short film. I will be taking on the role as the main director (aka. the camera girl). Onil on the other hand, will be the girl actor and her good friend, Brandon will be the boy actor. Both of these individuals have grown up together from a very young age, so they are very comfortable with one another. I believe that it is important that our couple has already built a strong relationship in real life, so the camera can capture the rawness and realness. It will not be forced or awkward, so we can display our main character’s emotions and expressions to our audience the way we want to.

Here are some pictures of the two lovely individuals: 

  

Enjoy your weekend,

Amanda

Hello Again!

As I said in the last posting, Onil and I hope to start filming as soon as possible. Today I wanted to discuss what platforms we will be using to help us create our short film. 

Onil and I will invest $14.99 into purchasing an app called FiLMiC Pro on our IPhones for our filming process. As said in the description, FiLMiC Pro is the most advanced cinema video camera for mobile. It will provide us with so many great features, from managing and manipulating the lighting, to bettering the overall quality of the content itself. 

To edit our short film, we will make use of either both or one of the following: 

1. WeVideo → https://www.wevideo.com

• Last year, we made use of this editing platform and what we really like about it is the fact that it is easy to navigate through. Additionally, it is a free resource that has more than enough to offer. We are also very familiar with WeVideo, therefore we would not have to reteach ourselves how to manage the many tools. Lastly, it can be shared between Onil and I, therefore we can work whenever we can on our own schedules. 

2. iMovie → An Apple App 

• As Onil and I both have Apple products making this resource available at our fingertips. I personally have never used iMovie, but my peers have said that they like the simplicity of the platform and it has allowed them to produce some really nice content. The only thing that I am not very fond of is that it could only be made on one of our devices. Our project cannot be shared between us to edit, so Onil and I would have to be together to edit or only one of us would be able to. 

Have a nice day!

Amanda