Critical Reflection

     COMPUTER FUNERAL, at its core, strives to highlight and reflect on one major issue that’s prevalent in modern times: an overdependence on technology in its various forms. When originally writing the concept script to get this idea across, I had wanted to use a generational divide between the parents and children of the Babbage family to serve as another parallel issue to draw from when deriving a conflict between these characters, such as having Rebecca and her father differ politically as a result of their ages and their respective reliance on technology for information. However, I later pivoted to wanting to explore the fractured relationships between siblings caused by technology, resulting in the final cut where the cast are all siblings, rather than a whole family unit. 

With these characters, I wanted to represent different types of demographics that suffer from these chronic addictions to technology, and I wound up choosing to focus on politics, gaming, and social media, since those are some of the largest attractors for tech addicts. Each of the characters use technology as a means to cope with a lack of something that they need to function: David needs to be knowledgeable, Peter needs companionship, and Rebecca needs validation and attention. All of these voids have been filled by the use of technology, whether it be with news sites, gaming, or social media, causing each of these characters to form an unhealthy addiction to technology when these voids could be filled by interacting and depending on each other rather than computers, mirroring a lot of modern day families where each family member keeps to themselves and lacks connections with others, which was my intent with this short film.

I kept all of the ages fairly vague, but it's clear to audiences that these siblings are meant to be younger generations, akin to the Millennials and Gen Zers of our time. This is a conscious decision, because its more likely that the audience for this short film is going to be around the same age as the characters portrayed in the film, ranging anywhere between 16 to 25 years old. Both the characters in the film and target audiences have grown up with this technology, and it has since filled many roles in their lives that many don’t realize, and may have replaced relationships with other people with technology instead of their fellow people. It’s likely that most audiences of these ages will relate to David’s political radicalism, Peter’s loneliness, or Rebecca’s thirst for attention online, and I hope that these recognitions of themselves within the characters will help audiences identify their own over reliance on technology, allowing them to free themselves from these unknown addictions.

The social media campaign for COMPUTER FUNERAL is also meant to further attract these age demographics as an audience, using Twitter, one of the most popular social media apps for this age range, to promote the film. Upon learning that about 52% of Tweets in 2020 came from users in Gen Z, I knew that Twitter would be a phenomenal place to attract all sorts  of people to the film. In fact, Twitter may be the only social media to appeal to addicts of politics, gaming, and attention, just like the characters in the film, so I figured growing my platform on there would engage the best with my target audience.

To better appeal to these audiences, the branding across all of my project components- film, socials, and postcard- remains consistent with two major themes: the seriousness of a funeral and the lightheartedness of a comedy. These clashing aesthetics work together though lots of juxtaposition of computers and technology against somber, serious funeral visuals. For example, in my Twitter page, I had started out with more formal / funeral centered imagery, which was later followed by sillier, more comedic posts to undermine its seriousness- which represents the film pretty accurately-  a family’s attempt at conducting a serious funeral for a loved one, which is then undermined by their outbursts of anger and glaring character flaws, lightening the mood of the story.

This theme of seriousness being undercut with comedy or ridiculous conflicts extends through other parts of the short film as well- the costuming of the characters at a first glance appears to follow the traditional mourners’ garb of all-black attire, but as you watch through the film, you see the characters’ personalities bleed through these somber masks, lightening the mood, for example David being dressed nicely but wearing purple crocs, or Rebecca wearing normal black clothes instead of anything more formal. Furthermore. The sound effects of the film (whether they be the bells ringing for each character’s eulogy, or the piano music that scores the ending of the film) are meant to be serious or carrying some emotional weight, but the over-dramaticness of the SFX as well as their juxtaposition against silly and outright stupid characters undercuts the seriousness of the film. I felt that these clashes between attempts at seriousness and flashes of comedy worked best to represent what I wanted the story to be like, as well as branding the project to be more attractive to potential audiences.

It’s also worth mentioning that this contrast between sober and comedic aspects is a popular convention of most satirical pieces. As seen in satirical films like Don’t Look Up, grave scenarios are punctuated with humor in order to deliver their messages in a more palatable manner for general audiences, for example a world-ending meteor hurtling towards Earth is made funnier because of the fact that most people don’t believe in it, giving audiences an easier time digesting the intended meaning of the film through its lighthearted breaks in the face of serious matters. COMPUTER FUNERAL does this to a smaller scale, but nevertheless effectively, using the over-attachment that the characters have to their technology as a comedic lens to view the serious issue of addiction and overreliance on their computers.

In my research I had noticed that most satirical films tend to focus on one major subject that affects all of society, usually critiquing social trends, cultures, and religions, since all are loosely related to some sort of collective thinking or ideology ripe for satire. However, I didn’t feel that this story of technological overreliance fit that criteria, at least, not in any way I wanted to explore. COMPUTER FUNERAL does critique and address a major issue that affects society today, but instead of exploring how this issue impacts society or the world, it adopts a smaller scale lens, tapping into how a big issue can affect a smaller group more dramatically, in the case of the Babbage family. I chose to explore how this one overarching problem of technology addiction can manifest into differing unique problems, depending on the demographic that it affects, for example politically radicalizing a young college dropout, or fostering a social reject out of a lonely teenager.

Overall. I’m really happy with how COMPUTER FUNERAL turned out. I feel so much more satisfied having been able to focus on the writing and meaning of a story first and foremost, before worrying about how to produce it, like I had done for my AS Media film opening. I think that the resulting short film is a product of me figuring out what I want to prioritize in my creative process, and giving myself time to fully realize an idea before racing to produce it. Patience and determination played large roles in the production of this film, and the lessons I learned during this journey will be used in every creative venture I have in the future. I’m happy I took this course, and eagerly await my next chance at putting my experience making this film to the test.

Project Components

After many months of waiting, the portfolio project is done.

I will post all links and images for the video, print, and social media components below, alongside a google drive folder link with both the full short film and the postcard.

Here's the google drive link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10kwJGkZ8gmQMRbWSb4SDLDhI6CnQ0hYw?usp=share_link

VIDEO COMPONENT

You can watch the short film in two different ways:

1) This youtube link! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv1Va44qyhU&t=1s

2) The above google drive folder!

SOCIAL MEDIA COMPONENT

Check out the Twitter page for Computer Funeral at this link!   https://twitter.com/COMPFUNERALFILM 

PRINT COMPONENT

Check out the Google Drive link above for the best quality versions of these image, or simply look at these pictures of the front and back of the postcard!

That's it! It's been a pleasure working on this project (mostly, anyways) and I hope reading through this blog has provided a neat insight on how my work process goes. Thank you for reading and keeping up for the last few months, and enjoy the next (and last) post on this blog, my critical reflection essay! See you (One last time)

Editing- The Bane of My Existence

 Hello! Even though it's Monday on the last week of the project, I have yet to edit ANY of my footage at all. And for those familiar with my past works, you'll know I HATE editing.. It's proven to be the most miserable part of any video project I've worked on, and with such little time to edit, I knew I was going to have to call in the big guns.

Thank god for Ren! After having helped me shoot Computer Funeral as my talented cinematographer, they reached out to let me know they could offer some advice and help editing since they knew it makes me absolutely miserable. I'm so lucky to know such a generous kind person like them!!

Without getting too much into the whole editing process (mostly because it was such a blur of misery, even with Ren's help and company), it came out looking pretty great! Wouldn't have been possible without Ren's helping hand, and I'm pretty satisfied with the end product! Can't wait for you to see it in a few days!!

Bits & Bobs 2: Electric Bongaloo

     Hello all! I figured since I'm done with filming, all that's left is editing, finishing up the social media and postcard advertisements, and finally writing my critical reflection. So here's a little housekeeping blog post where I finish up the social media and postcard ad, since I plan on starting editing later today and finishing by Tuesday. I'll probably end up writing my C.R while editing, as a break from the monotony... So overall, a very close finish for Computer Funeral and my A level portfolio project!

Let's start with the postcard, shall we? In my last housekeeping post, I presented two prototypes for my postcard design, but also recognized certain flaws and mistakes I had made while putting them together. As soon as I posted that blog post... I wasn't as happy with either one, despite feeling so positive only minutes earlier. A conversation I had with my instructor cemented these feelings the next day, and together we broke down what was working with the designs, and what wasn't.

After some talking, we drew a very rough idea of what the new and improved design would look like! On the front, I'd have a very simple layout- only a still from the opening of the film, with the title above the characters. On the back, I'd have one half featuring the key art image I originally had as the front side, with the other half of the back being simple and direct, presenting the information clearly (as opposed to my second design for the postcard).

So now all that was left for my postcard was to, well, actually put it together! I woke up early this morning to get it done, and though it feels a little bland/simple for my taste, I do think it's a lot cleaner than my previous drafts, which look cluttered in retrospect. Take a look!

    Now that I had officially finished the postcard component of the portfolio project, I was free to make some more quick social media posts on my Twitter account (which you can check out here)

These posts are generally sillier and involve short clips of reactions rather than full sequences or edited scenes, because I realized I hadn't been leaning too much on the fact that my film is supposed to be in a comedic genre, so I decided to use these clips that I felt would appeal to comedy audiences on Twitter.

YES YES YES !!!

 Okay, NOW we're done filming, for real this time!! Today we finished up filming on the last scene for the film along with an extra scene that I forgot to film on the first day of filming. 

    So now all we have left is to update the postcard advertisement (expect a blog post on this matter soon), add a couple more posts to the social media (at time of writing there are four tweets posted, I'm aiming to have 10 Tweets on the account by the due date for this project), and the dreaded editing of the film (which will likely be done within a single day sometime next week, very last minute).

It's good to have one less thing off my plate, at least. Enjoy this silly picture from today!

Bits & Bobs

 Hey everyone! There's not a whole lot left to do after yesterday's filming session, so its mostly just the odd job here and there that I need to do in order to call this portfolio project finished. Let's go through what I got done today!

Firstly, I sent out messages to my cast and crew to find out when we're filming the ending scene. As it stands, it'll likely be sometime between Wednesday and Friday, so I can start editing over the weekend (since I'm cutting this pretty close!) However, I haven't gotten everyone's reply at the time of writing, so it's still up in the air...

Next, I got to work on putting together my postcard advertisement! I already had a set idea for what I wanted as one side of the postcard (the buried computer image I've been using for everything), but didn't have anything for the other side. So I decided to be a little quirky and goofy, and set the background to be the iconic Windows XP screensaver, reinforcing the idea that this was an older computer (and also its just a cute aesthetic)

Also, I decided to add the brand logo I made at the very start of the school year as a fun little callback to the beginning of my A level journey! I made an alternate version of the Windows XP side of the postcard that adopts some of the screen effects from the original key art, and while I really like the effect (since the OG looks a bit too cheery) I think I overdid it in the wrong places. Might need to tweak that a little bit.

After all of this, I scheduled a few more social media posts to go up soon on Twitter, and I'm calling it a night here. Lots of work done (or maybe I'm too tired from staying up late last night). See you soon!

Finally Filming

FINALLY!! IT'S BEEN DONE!! Well, sort of, anyways...

I'm pleased to report that the first day of filming went spectacularly!! Literally everything went great! Let's break it down bit by bit, shall we?

First was packing up all the props. Now, I've always thought my car was pretty big, but faced with the task of moving all the props at once, I realized how pitifully small it really is. Like a real life game of Tetris, everything fell together and fit into place (barely). It was a little anxiety-inducing how everything would creak, groan, and shift around during the 20 minute drive to the park, but we survived (Poor Tristan had to snuggle into a little nook among the props to get a ride to the park).

However, once we got to the park and met with Cristi and Blake, we set up the area fairly quickly, with me and Tristan taking out all of the props and arranging them, and Ren setting up the camera and audio stuff (Blake and Cristi had to review their lines so they didn't help unload the props...) But overall everything worked very smoothly, I was surprised and super relieved to see everyone working diligently to produce something great!

Since everything went so well, I don't really have much variety to say about the shooting process. We had a lot of fun, shot out of order to get Blake & Cristi's scenes done ASAP, since they had to be elsewhere, and generally messed around whenever we could afford it. I'm so grateful to be surrounded by such talented and passionate people (the talented part is mostly Ren, who absolutely carried the project with their cinematography)! Enjoy some goofy Behind The Scenes pictures (coming soon to the social media account)

Last Minute Touch-Ups...

 It wouldn't be a high school student project if there wasn't some last minute cramming done, would it? I'm writing this fairly late into the night, after preparing all day for tomorrow, the day I plan on shooting THE WHOLE FILM.

There's a lot riding on this one day, so I wanted to ensure everything runs smoothly. How did I get this done though?

1) Scheduling:

    First thing I did this morning was text my cinematographer, cast, and the park to make sure everything is good for shooting on Sunday at 2 pm. Luckily for me, everything worked out just right!

2) Getting Props & Equipment:

    Props-wise, I have most things accounted for at my house (easel, poster, chairs, computers, box, table, etc.) However, something I haven't found yet was a sort of podium for the speeches to be held at. I'm waking up early to pick one up from a friend tomorrow morning.

    I also need to pick up some camera equipment to film. To my mediocre mind, I figured that filming on my phone would get the job done, but my cinematographer Ren insisted that if they were going to help me, we'd need actually decent equipment. So I'm picking them up tomorrow early to go borrow a camera and other equipment from some of Ren's friends. So that's that covered.

3) Storyboarding:

    Incredibly, I decided to get a really, REALLY rough storyboard done tonight. After a couple hours blocking the scenes with the goofiest little caricatures and sketches to keep myself awake, I got the job done at 2 am. Despite some abysmal artwork from me, I think this will help us streamline the filming process to keep things smooth and snappy.

Overall, I think I'm ready to finally film this project! Now I just need a good night's rest to give my very best effort tomorrow! Eager to update you!

Scheduling is a Pain

 FINALLY. I WILL FILM. After mny days of putting this off and dreading filming, and then dealing with differing scheduling conflicts between my cast members and cinematographer, we finally settled on a day:

SUNDAY THE SECOND

 (Because filming on April Fools' would've been too on the nose)

I'm looking forward to getting this done this weekend! Production will come and go swiftly!!

Postcard Advertisement Research

     Hello! I'm going to quickly go over some example postcard advertisements that I analyzed some time ago for a school assignment.  I'll make sure to break down what's happening in each postcard and note what lesson/ advice I'm taking from my analysis of its techniques.

WHATS HAPPENING:

 A colorful display resembling a woman's silhouette faces a bunch of informative text detailing the date and location of a Woman's History Month Film Festival, boasting a variety of films that celebrate women in film, art, and music.

The bright colors immediately draw passerby's eyes to the postcard advertisement, and the floral patterns and feminine silhouette communicate the focus of the film festival wordlessly: women. The contrast between the yellow background and pink bands of text provide some variety in the text, allowing for a reader's eyes to drift downward naturally without getting lost in the text. The circle with big bold letters highlights the free admission detail of the film festival, which will probably be a huge selling point for any potential attendees.

WHAT DID I LEARN:

The color and vibrancy of the postcard doesn't really fit my film, so I'm likely not taking inspiration from that. I am probably going to learn from the different colored band technique for important text to provide some contrast / highlighting for my important info, like showing dates or contact information.

WHATS HAPPENING:

It's a very barebones design, with a sort of wall of text on the right of half of an owl's face.

The artwork for this postcard is very simple and massive on the postcard, demanding attention from passerby, and hopefully capturing enough attention from them to scan through the frankly bland listing of screenings on the right of the card. Date/Time is in blue text, Film name is in green text, and the location of the screening is in white text, providing some contrast between details for each screening.

WHAT DID I LEARN:

I like the idea of the artwork dominating the majority of the postcard, with the text details taking a backseat in order to demand more attention from people to read the postcard. I'm less inclined to mimic this advertisement's treatment of the text, since its bland and uninteresting to read through, and the text sort of disappears into the blue background. This reinforces my decision to highlight important text with bands of different color rather than have it typed directly onto the background

Keeping all of this in mind, I'll start work on my postcard advertisement sometime this week!

How Do Films Do Social Media Anyways?

 Hello! Another thing I've been up to lately is running the social media account for my short film, which you can follow on Twitter here!

I've never been big into (or big on) social media, it's one of those things I occasionally post on but typically just use to look at my friends' posts rather than making any posts of my own. So naturally, I had very few ideas on how to populate my film's Twitter account with promotional material. I started with a fairly tame "Welcome to the film's social media" post, but didn't know where to go from there.

After checking out several promotional social media accounts on Twitter for different films, I ended up studying the PLANE movie account (found here). I chose PLANE for more than just my familiarity with the film, taking into account the variety in different sorts of promotional material that the account posted. 

Some quick facts about PLANE very quickly:

-The promo account on Twitter had just under 1.5k followers, and averaged thousands of views per Tweet.

-The account made 225 promotional Tweets throughout its 5 month marketing period.

-With a budget of $25 million, it grossed $52 million at the box office, making a relatively decent profit.

Taking into account my personal experience with the film and its marketing, I knew that their marketing was RIDICULOUSLY lackluster, airing zero TV ads, with the only advertisement for the film I saw being in pre-movie advertisements at my movie theater and this Twitter account. Keeping this in mind, it's rational to believe that a good chunk of viewers of the film heard of it from Twitter, contributing to the movie's success.

GETTING BACK ON TRACK:

What sort of variety do I mean when I talk about PLANE's marketing posts? Here's some examples of different types of promotional Tweets that I could distinguish in their campaign.

The first type (and coincidentally the first ever post on the account) is the key art poster. Before even revealing any footage or trailers, the marketing team released a simple poster featuring the title, the tagline, and the main actors.

Its direct, to the point, and simple. Fairly easy to recreate. This should be my first "real" post, showing off the key art (or at least different iterations of it) before revealing anything else.)

The second type I noticed was the "stills post", a Tweet that showed off different shots and stills from the movie, without giving away any of the context. This is good to build hype, and would be a good opportunity to post some Behind the Scenes pictures alongside it.

I should post this after a day of filming!

The third type is much easier, and more up my alley- stupid jokes to farm social media impressions. As long as the Tweet has something tangentially related to the film, I can joke about anything in an attempt to "go viral" and start getting followers who otherwise wouldn't have been interested in the film.

The fourth type of post I noticed was anything focusing on the starring actors and showing off their looks/performance. Obviously, if your film has any actors with star power and fame, you want to capitalize off of their reputation and following. So this is another very popular and effective way of garnering social media clout.

(I chose this example because while it shows off Mike Colter, one of the leads in the movie who is fairly well known, it also mixes with the "joke" tweet format that I mentioned above, showing how well different promotional formats can work together.)

The final type of promotional tweet I saw on the PLANE account was the retweeting (the sharing of another user's tweet) of different reviewers or ratings sites discussing the movie, or posting articles about their opinions, in an effort to legitimize their film's quality.

(This won't be possible for my film because there's no sites to review it)

(...unless I fake an article..?)

Overall, this is good insight on how real world films promote their product on Twitter. Expect to see similarly formatted posts on my account soon!

Updated (ish?) Key Art

 Hello! I wish I could say I've been busy filming this week, as Spring Break would've been an optimal time to shoot all the scenes so I could get that over with as soon as possible. However, LOTS of scheduling conflicts arose, along with some other issues I had to deal with in my personal life, meaning I couldn't dedicate the time necessary to actually film this week, which is a MAJOR issue.

Needless to say, I'm NOT HAPPY with how things turned out. But there's no point dwelling on the past, and I can't afford to sit around moping about difficulties in getting stuff done. So I steeled my nerves and got to work on doing what little I COULD get done alone, meaning while there isn't a lot of progress on the short film production side of things, I've gotten LOADS of work done in other components of the portfolio project that I could do with little dependence on any outside parties, like running my social media page or working on the postcard advertisement, with blogs corresponding to each of those activities.

So lets get to the point of this blog. An updated key art post? What was wrong with the previous key art, the one I worked on in this blog post? Well, if you recall the image I posted, it had two major gripes that I intended on fixing: the screen display and the depth of the grave. The screen was an easy, but mandatory, fix. I simply traded computers again with my computer-dealing buddy, who had repaired the battery on the first computer (an exchange I talked about in this blog post). 

Now all I needed was a deeper grave. Once again, I contacted my buddy Sebi, who helped dig the first hole, and the friend who gave me the computer decided to tag along as well. Luckily, my choice in friends means they don't ask questions when I ask for help digging graves in forests, so we went on our way at once!

When we first dug the hole it was perfectly deep, but not wide enough. So enjoy this picture of me posing next to the too-small grave!

Finally, this is what I got. Honestly, It's almost perfect, save for two details: the brightness of the computer screen, and the dirty surroundings around the hole.

The brightness is a simple Photoshop fix, it's a non-issue. I'm still toying around with the idea of keeping the ground dirty and unkempt, instead of the nice grass in the last key art image. 

I'll update soon with my final revision of this image! Who know taking a picture of a computer in a hole would take so much time??

Cast and Crew!

 Hello again! Very quick post: I finalized the casting for my short film project! Let's run through the characters!

BLAKE CRAWFORD IS DAVID BABBAGE

Playing the role of the older brother with the politics-poisoned mind in the film is my close friend Blake Crawford, who you may recognize as the lead actor in my film opening last year, Clean Kill. Blake offered to help out in any way he could, so once again I will utilize his acting talents (?) to capture David's character onscreen.

CRISTI VAZQUEZ ALVEZ IS REBECCA BABBAGE

Joining David is his younger sister, Rebecca, who is played by Cristi Vazquez Alvez. Originally cast as Sharon Babbage, since Cristi and Blake date in real life, after the rewrite removing Sharon from the story, she will instead play Rebecca. Though I originally cast her since Blake and Cristi are dating in real life, when offered the choice between playing Blake's girlfriend or getting to yell at him a lot, she took the second option. Excited to see their dynamic play out!

TRISTAN DINGCONG IS PETER BABBAGE

Last but not least, my friend Tristan Dingcong will be playing the socially awkward gamer degenerate, Peter Babbage. When I discussed the film with him, he showed interest in acting in it, so I figured why not cast him, since he is certainly not lacking in passion. Pumped to see him perform soon!

And that's the main cast! Hope that you're as excited to see them get into character as I am!!

Ethically (???) Sourced Computers

 Hello again! This is going to be a shorter blog, and one that isn't as informational as any past blog posts, but I still figure its a pretty integral story to tell in relation to the production of the short film. As mentioned in the last blog post, I'm going to tell you now about how I got the broken computer props that will be used in the key art and short film.

    When I first started working on this film, I knew a big issue would be the computer prop that the film revolves around. Personally, I didn't want to destroy my own computer, and buying a whole new computer would've been expensive and a hassle. So, I reached out to a close friend of mine who is well-versed in everything computer related, and asked if he could help me out. Turns out, he has a bunch of old computers that are all old, big, and barely functional... perfect for me!

    When he sent the video above displaying one of the computers he was offering me, I was pleased enough that I was willing to pay a cheap price for the broken computer, meaning my film officially had a budget! How exciting! We made plans to meet and exchange goods.

    When I got home after the deal, the first thing I did was plug in the computer, log into the user, and try displaying the title screen for the film, to get an idea of how the key art would look, and safe to say, it looked pretty damn cool. Satisfied with my purchase, I put it away for the day, and made plans with my buddy Sebi to shoot the key art the following day.

    What I didn't expect was that a broken computer... would be broken. Huh. Go figure. When I unplugged the computer to take it to the shoot, the screen immediately went dark. Panicking, I pressed all the buttons, tapped the screen, and much more, before checking the inside of the computer, only to be met with a distinct empty space where the battery of the computer should've been. Uh oh.

This meant that the computer wouldn't be able to turn on without it being plugged into an outlet, which would be hard to find in a hole in the middle of a forest. Since this presented a serious technical issue, I furiously texted the computer dealer, asking where the hell the battery was. After a brief discussion, he said he could offer me a replacement computer, and he'd take back the one I currently had to fix it at his place. However, since it was too late to go replace the computer AND do the photoshoot, I opted to just take the dead computer and try my best anyways, which I go more into depth in this blog post.

    Anyways, the next day I came by his place, swapped computers, and tested out the new replacement laptop. Once again (somehow), I was surprised that a broken computer salesman would give me a broken computer. I had anticipated some damage, but not nearly to this extent. This was an ironic situation, as I now had a computer that was practically efficient, but visually unusable, as opposed to the previous computer, which was visually perfect, but practically unusable.



    So now that leads me to today, where we met up for dinner, and exchanged computers once again. Now, I have the original computer, which retains the perfect visual but with a battery attached to it after the day at his place. So I'm in the perfect place to shoot the real, official key art tomorrow! I'm so excited! Hope this was an interesting read, because it was certainly an interesting process to get my hands on ONE prop. Stay tuned for the casting list dropping today!!

Digging Holes and Fixing Plotholes

 Hello! It's been.. a very long day today, for me at least. I had two goals I wanted to get done today: rewrite the script in the light of character changes, and to further develop the key art for the film.

    First things first- the script was my biggest worry, since it took me weeks to write the first draft, and rewriting the entire script to fit with new characters felt like a daunting task (especially with such little time before actually filming the movie). So I sat myself down, chugged some coffee, put on some nice music, and got to work. Once again, I'm avoiding posting script screenshots in order to avoid spoiling my presumably eager audience, so I apologize for the lack of visual proof of my work today. I promise it wouldn't be very interesting. If I did use a picture for the scriptwriting process, it would probably look like the image above.

In more exciting news, I took some pictures outside today! While you may have thought that my key art would simply be the the result of this blog post's labors, it was merely step one of the master plan. For the final image, I wanted to have this image displayed on the dilapidated computer as it sat in a grave (or a simple unceremonious hole in the ground). So I grabbed my buddy Sebi (who generously supplied some shovels), drove over to [[UNDISCLOSED LOCATION]], and started digging away, laboring to make a tiny little hole large enough to place a computer into (the story of acquiring a prop computer will be told on a later blog post)

Now, while this isn't the MOST visually impressive, it was mostly just to have a proof of concept / practice for the real shoot, which I intend on doing on Monday. Why didn't I do this today, officially? Well, we went out pretty late, so there was only about an hour of sunlight till it got too dark to take nice pictures. Also, the computer I'm working with has a busted battery, meaning it can't work unless its plugged into an outlet, and there aren't many outlets in random forests. Luckily, I plan on fixing the computer's battery over the weekend, so I can properly display the key art, as well as have more time to dig a deeper hole (because frankly the laptop is comedically large).

So, until I get my laptop working again, I'm putting a pause on any key art progress. Hope you understand!

The Great Compromise

Hello blog! I wish I was coming back to report on some good news, on how successful my call to action was, but alas, this is not the case. While my advertisement for potential actors reaped quite a lot of responses, eager to help me with the film, I didn't really see any actors who would fit my vision for the film, and its characters. Now, I COULD have just casted them and moved on with production, but I felt very attached to my first vision and was too stubborn to let it go. Ironically, by the time I realized I had no choice, and would need to compromise, many of those who initially volunteered backed out or had new scheduling conflicts.

So now I have to cope with the product of my pride! My biggest concern regarding the casting was the adult characters not looking old enough to be convincing, breaking the immersion of the script. The biggest culprit of this was David, whose entire character was based around the "conservative boomer" caricature, and I feared that this aspect of his character would be lost on the audience if an obviously younger guy was playing someone who's supposed to be in his 50s- 60s. So I decided to bite the bullet and rewrite his character. What if David wasn't the father of the family, but instead an absent older brother who dropped out of college?  With this fix, I'd be able to maintain a degree of separation from his now-siblings Rebecca and Peter.

Instead of being a overly politicized boomer who fell prey to fake news and misleading media, David will be an older brother who left for college, but dropped out and came back home, contributing nothing and lazing around. Under this solution, I get to do minimal rewriting, and still make logical sense between everyone's character dynamics. Rebecca still hates David, but now instead of it being due to the generational and political divide between them, its because he wasted his opportunity to go to college, and blames it on his change in politics. This makes sense because Rebecca has always been pushy/preachy, so it'd be a logical leap to assume that she'd heavily judge him for his choices. Peter can remain extremely antisocial and dependent on the computer for company, in fact, it makes more sense if anything, as the void his older brother left in his social life was filled in by the computer.

This fixed a lot of my worries with casting, and means I can cast people very soon. However, this still left two plot holes in my story that were itching my brain:

1)What happens to Sharon?

2) Where are their parents?

3) Why is Rebecca at the funeral?

First, the easy one. Sharon's character has never been very important to me or the story, as she only had one line in the original script. So while I contemplated writing her out entirely, I'm keeping her for that one line (which I think is funny enough to justify her character imo). In this new rewrite, she will be David's college girlfriend whos staying with them for a bit. Naturally, Rebecca judges her for this and despises her, keeping their original dynamic.

Next, addressing the absence of their parents. Honestly, I was overthinking this one, giving them a grand backstory about how their parents are literally absent or dead, and how technology stepped into all of their lives to fill the roles of a parental figure, switching the funeral's tone to be as if their parent died. However, after talking about this with my instructor, we realized it really just wasn't that important at all. Like, literally no one will care where their parents are, it was just a plot hole that only I could see. So yeah, no parents, no problem.

The final question posed the biggest logical threat in my new story- as we know, Rebecca has no particular attachment to H.P, the computer- in fact, she hates it. However, in the original script, Rebecca was FORCED to be there because her parents were making her come with them. However, parents are now out of the picture, yet she still doesn't like the computer. So why is she there? Both my instructor and I wrestled with this issue for a few minutes before I suggested that Rebecca is there to farm social media attention. It is common for people to post sad pictures of themselves for online sympathy points and validation from others, so I figured it'd make sense that Rebecca sees this as a silly, but ultimately socially profitable opportunity to boost her social media status. This is why she can stay content enough with herself throughout the procession, but loses her composure as soon as her phone dies: if her phone is dead, she can't clout chase for sympathy points, so what's the point of being here?

Sorry for the long block of text, but this has been a source of some stress/anxiety for a few days now. So I'm back on track, albeit with some extra work on my plate to rewrite the script, but ultimately, I feel like I'm on a better track than I was previously. I hope you look forward to starting production as much as I do! See you soon!

Casting Call to Action!

 Very quick post today, since I'm busy trying to put together a lot of upcoming things (as well with being flooded with work and tests from school on the last week before break). All I have to report for today is the fact that I put out a call to action post on my social medias requesting any prospective actors reach out to me if they are interested in playing any character in the short film.

As of this moment, I have Peter's actor secured, a few candidates for David, and a handful of extras who agreed to nonspeaking roles to fill up the background a little bit. This leaves me with searching for Sharon and Rebecca's actresses (I suspect Sharon will be considerably easier to cast, since she has like two lines).

I'll update as soon as I have a confirmed cast for the family! In the meantime, I will likely be posting on the social media account and researching the print component of this project. Until then, see you!

Finally.. Friendly Feedback!

 Hello dear readers! If you've been wondering what I've been doing for the last few days instead of posting on my blog, I can explain! Once I had finished my script for the short film, I decided to message some trusted friends of mine for their feedback and criticism of the script, since I welcome any opportunity for improvement! I'm very fortunate to have such intelligent minds at arm's reach, so here's my breakdown of their reaction to the script, as well as any points that were important enough to go back and change in my script!

One of the people I reached out to is my good friend and fellow writer Isabella Novarini, who is a good friend of mine and a former student of AICE MEDIA. I sought her advice because she's a very talented writer, and while I enjoy hearing the perspectives of communications majors, film students and others, at heart this it was really a writer's advice I was hoping to hear, so she was perfect!

It's very nice to hear that she enjoyed both Peter and Rebecca's characters, and slightly irritating to find that I had let a typo slip past me on my final proofread... Anyways, she also brought up another important inconsistency in the script, the pronouns choice I use for H.P, the computer. While I initially used they/them pronouns to keep the computer's identity vague when they first refer to him, I ultimately ended up choosing to use he/him pronouns to better reflect the personification that the family projected onto the device, making him feel more like a real member of the family. Overall, good catching of specific, yet important, inconsistencies!

Next on the list is my good friend Christian. I first met him online through a similar interest in writing and poetry, and now our friendship has devolved into just sending us stupid Twitter memes. Anyways, it was really gratifying to see how Peter's character elicited such a strong reaction from readers, which was the point, to an extent.

 

After clarifying the point of the script (which interestingly enough, he thought would be a better play than it would be a short film) he did express approval over it, especially over the concept and characters. His initial confusion over the point of the computer's funeral provided me with a nice opportunity to explain and justify the ridiculous scenario occurring in the film, which was a nice exercise.

In general, oddly menacing praise aside, it was a good bit of feedback!

Next, of course, I asked my infamous buddy Wade. Unfortunately we weren't able to have a proper conversation about it, so he left me a text list with his thoughts for me to read later.

Was glad to hear more praise for some of the jokes I wrote, and liked the suggestions for some of the more repetitive wording I used and how to replace them to avoid sounding redundant.

... No idea what "sppom" means though...

    Finally, I reached out to Sil, a former AICE Media Student, for some more feedback on the script. And boy did I get it! By the time Sil was done, I had several pages worth of notes to read through. While they were mostly just criticisms of word choice, I did appreciate a critique of David's eulogy, which she referred to as "too formal.. not realistic, people speak in less organized, rambles, especially since you want him to seem dumb, not college educated".  This was a good point, and we had a productive conversation following it! Thanks Sil!

I'm really grateful for being surrounded by such kind and smart people! Mostly the smart part, I couldn't have caught a whole series of small inconsistencies and errors without them! Expect production on the film to start very, very soon! See you then :)

Key Art Development!

     Hello readers! As I continue to work on finalizing my script in the background, I've been trying to touch on some other areas of my project that I haven't started work on yet. The distinct lack of key art that I have so far has been an issue on the forefront of my mind, not only because it is an integral requirement for the success of this project, but also because of how far out of my skill set making key art would be. 

    As I've recounted many times over, I'm not really a "visual" guy. I'd much rather plan things out or write long descriptive passages than I would sketch a drawing, or take a picture of something I want to recreate. So for a long time I dreaded having to make a visual piece to represent the entire film at a glance, since I was clearly way out of my league here, and I didn't even know where to begin!

    Luckily, inspiration strikes from strange places. As I scrolled my YouTube recommended feed, a music remix video for a videogame I enjoy showed up, and feeling bored, I decided to give it a listen. Now while the music itself is probably just a personal interest of mine with no relevance to this project, the background of some of the visuals caught my eye. The broken, glitchy aesthetic seemed to click in my mind, and I decided to use this visual aesthetic to inspire my own key art. So now I had a direction to guide myself with!

However, I still had one massive, glaring issue. I have absolutely zero artistic talent...

    Luckily, I have many friends much more skilled in this field than I am, so I decided to hit their line for advice. My buddy Wade (whose blog you can find here,) is literally certified in programs like Photoshop, and I generally revere him for his artistic vision, so naturally I'd come to him first. To my surprise, he brushed this off as a "pretty easy thing", and offered to do a video call with him to show me how to use Photoshop and achieve the vision I wanted.

    Under his guidance, we were able to create the perfect (or as close as it can be to perfect) key art for my film. Watching him fiddle and work with Photoshop's nigh-infinite tools piqued my interest, so I recorded the process for later study, since I think it'd be a neat skill to pick up. Finally, after about an hour of back-and-forth deliberation we rested on the perfect key art! Thanks Wade (yet again...)!!!

I could've stopped for the day there, but after being inspired by Wade's crash course in Photoshop, I decided to give it a go myself!

    Now obviously, as a literal minute-one beginner, my attempt at mimicking the key art's style by myself was not as polished as the one we made with Wade's help. However, this didn't discourage me, and after another hour of relearning Photoshop on my own and referring to the recordings of the process from before, I finally got something done!

I figured I wanted a profile picture for my social media account because using the main key art as a PFP would be near illegible with how small the text would be, on top of all the extra effects overlaid onto it. So I went with designing a little dead face emoticon (which was Wade's suggestion for the main key art from a while ago), and then mimicking all of the Photoshopping I recalled from the first Photoshop session. For my first time working Photoshop by myself, I'd say it didn't come out half bad!

Finally, I could give my brand social media account some, well, branding. Now that I've overhauled the look of the social media page, maybe it's time to start working on regular promotion posts...

See you next blog post! Hope you like the key art!! (because it's not going anywhere...)

My Writing Process

 Hello! Really short blog post this time, because I've already explained how I have already finished my first draft of the script! However, I realized that the last blog focused more on my reasoning for why I didn't want to post the full script just yet, and not really touch on how I wrote the first draft. So this is just going to quickly breakdown how I wrote most of the script, specifically the characters' eulogies and monologues (Using Peter's eulogy, the teen gamer porn addict boy, as the base for capturing my thought process).

STEP 1: ESTABLISH CHARACTER.

    The first step, obviously, is creating the character I'm writing for, getting a feel for the type of person that they are, and in this case, decide what sort of issue I want them to represent. I did this much earlier before writing the draft- with my first reference to Peter's character in my outlining blog post, and a more in-depth exploration of the character in my character development blog post. It's important to know who you're writing for when starting to write your script, you need to step into the shoes of the character to really understand them, at least in my experience. 

STEP 2: FLESH OUT CHARACTER.

    After getting to know my character, I like to really immerse myself in their character to get the most realistic interpretation of their character. I do this by establishing a simple list of feelings that they may be feeling, or behaviors I want to point out. In this case, I had made two lists: one following his behavior/actions with the computer, and a second one that shows how he has been emotionally affected by the computer's death. Now I have a general idea of how to write Peter in the context of a funeral- it is distinct how much of a loser outcast he is from his mannerisms, but his feelings and emotions regarding loss are very much real, since the computer provided him an outlet to express himself (however distastefully this may have been). So now I know to bring attention to his social awkwardness but to also write him as a genuine victim of technology dependency, not as a misguided but ultimately responsible victim like his father, David.

STEP 3: WRITE A RATIONAL BIT OF DIALOGUE

    In this context, it was actually both easy and difficult to get this bit right. Naturally, since its a eulogy, it follows a certain structure and tone that I can understand from reading the endless amount of eulogies posted on the Internet. Therefore, I'd have a guide to writing a sort of speech I'm personally unfamiliar with, which is a massive help. 

However, each eulogy is meant to be deeply personal, and representative of the individual's relationship with the deceased- in Peter's case, that means one of great companionship and confidence. Now all I need to do is write a heartfelt one-minute eulogy for a deeply trusted companion!

In this draft of a solid, respectable speech offers the perfect canvas to stain with Peter's characteristic perversions and awkward quirks. I won't spoil the surprise though!

STEP 4: ADD JOKES, PERSONALIZE TO CHARACTER.

    Next, I went back through my nice, heartfelt eulogy and hacked it to pieces. Anywhere I saw an opening, I stuck in gamer buzzwords and slang to really sell the idea that this guy is terminally online (got this idea from a tip from my buddy Wade. Thanks Wade!), and has no sense of what is socially "right". Additionally, I added a couple of jokes that I had thought about pre-writing the eulogy, for example, a double entendre of the phrase "taking a load off". Crude humor aside, I mainly wanted to ensure that every "joke" that I had phased into the eulogy speech not only made sense as a legible statement, but also one that makes sense in the context of the representation of porn-addict gamers, and highlights what exactly is wrong with these sorts of people.

STEP 5: POLISH.

    Finally, I polish. Hey, that's what I'm doing right now! Going over the finished draft to catch unsavory jokes, inconsistencies in dialogue, and generally clean up the delivery of all of the lines to be more streamlined and clear, these are all important details to check and fix while polishing. More updates on this soon in the future! Hope you enjoyed the step-by-step walkthrough on my writing process!  See you next time.