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

Warm Wednesday!

Fort Lauderdale has just recently gone through a cold front, but today it really warmed back up. Today in class, Onil and I reached out to our peers for help on our storyline. I have to admit I am very pleased with what we have now come up with.

We would like to create a romantic-parody. Before, we were trying to stray away from the basic romance genre conventions, but we decided that embracing them would be a better option. We will try to display actions and gestures that are super cheesy, and in turn mock these extremes. By making it cute and fun, I believe we will have a really good time creating our piece. Onil and I want to demonstrate this idea through a guide kind of way. We would like to open up our short film with a typewriter sound and words being written like "How to be the best boyfriend/girlfriend." We haven't officially decided on that phrase yet, but that is just the idea that we hope to portray through our project. 

This week our goal is to start our project hands-on. We've done a lot of brainstorming and now it's time to bring our vision to life. I'll keep you guys updated!

Talk soon,

Amanda

Sunday Funday!

      As my weekend is coming to end, I am switching gears from my social life, to my school life. Orlando was beautiful and so much fun, but now it’s time to get down to business. Although Onil and I have been apart, we have been communicating a lot via phone. We briefly started brainstorming some ideas for our storyline, and we have decided to utilize one technique that we think will be perfect.

       As we brainstormed, we came up with the idea of using a ''black and white'' effect to manipulate our film to represent the past. We have not decided whether or not we want these to be in chronological order or just random flashbacks, but we sure want to try to incorporate this idea. The idea of utilizing “black and white” was inspired by the movie, Momento, which we watched in class earlier this year. With this idea, our purpose is to create a romantic film that is out of the box, not the norm, more creative and intriguing. 

To further explain how we would successfully exemplify this black and white technique, I will share our idea in which we could display this technique. Our idea is to create a love story in which the main characters don't remember the ''past.” The past entails the two individuals in love, yet present day, they have no memory of each other. The black and white effect will help to explain this plot backwards, just like Memento. This is really all we have come to an agreement on, as we still need to sit down and come up with in depth storyline. Hopefully we can use this technique to our advantage, which would help to bring our vision of an out of the box romantic film to life!

Fingers crossed,

Amanda