Group Critiques

Hello! Today's blog post is less of a update/progress post, and more of a "class assignment" post, so don't get too excited over anything. Regardless, getting into a group with a few other fellow students was a fun experience and gave me an opportunity to measure myself against the progress of other projects similar to mine, and judge if I'm doing alright. This blog will include summaries of their project's progress and what they thought about by project as well!

This is the wonderful little group I got to sit with and review our projects with! Here are their names and blog links!

From Left to Right:

Nethumi, Sachate, Sebastian, and Eugenia.

    

    First to present in our group was Sebastian, who had chosen the film promo project. His opening pitch for his film was "Teen Beach Movie... but horror." After such a captivating prompt, I was invested in learning more about his project and his progress on it, which he referred to as smooth, but stuck. His film (dubbed Double Feature) will be about a few friends getting trapped within a trashy 2000s remake of a beloved horror movie, and will end with a reveal about how they're actually in a movie within a movie, within a movie. Sebastian's main issue, as he put it, was in the film's "connections", meaning the transitions between each setting and sequence, for example the method by which the characters get sucked into the movie to begin with. While I couldn't offer him a definitive solution to his problem, I promised him that I'd let him know if I thought of anything!

    Next was Nethumi, who plans on filming a documentary excerpt, since she enjoyed making one a few months ago for our class. Surprisingly, Nethumi is lightyears ahead of any schedule I could've possibly conceived of- she's already started filming!! According to her, she wants to document the tech week and production of a musical show she worked on outside of school. However, in a crazy twist of events revealed on her latest blog post... she had suffered a crazy setback: her tablet, which contained all of her footage, had randomly broken, taking all of her footage with it. This is another difficult problem to solve... someone suggested shifting focus of her documentary to simply interviewing the people involved in the show rather than including the show's footage, but we agreed that without the proper b-roll, it was better to stick with her original plan.

    Following Nethumi was Sachate, who aimed on producing a short film, though he admitted he wasn't 100% sure he had the story fleshed out for it- only the beginning was certain, with a cloudy middle and two endings he was divided on. He sold the movie to us as having "Peaky Blinders vibes", since he described the film's genre as "chaotic gangster movie", which follows the dealings of an illicit product merchant and the dark, seedy underbelly of his industry, When Sachate told us about the two endings he was deliberating between (one ending in redemption, the other ending in suicide), I suggested that if he did end up going with the suicide ending, it would be interesting to have the main character use his own product to kill himself, since it'd provide a nice degree of irony to the ending. He liked this idea!

Finally was Eugenia, who was also interesting in co-producing a short film with her partners, Ana and Sasha. She expressed an interest in making the film about the balance between beauty and sports in her life, since in the previous projects she has worked on before, the running theme of being centered around women in sports is a constant. Eugenia chose to make a film about gymnastics, and to capture the development of a girl who grows up in the gymnastics field, and how the pressures and standards of the industry start to affect her as a person. But this idea raised an interesting issue: will she have to cast different actresses as the different ages of this one girl? While we all agreed that it would be more or less essential to be careful with the casting in this film, we also suggested the use of montage to avoid awkward transitions between the swapping of each actress.

The last person in my group to present was, well, me. While they didn't have much to offer in terms of criticism, I thoroughly appreciated their enthusiasm in my production, and they also suggested that I make MANY social media posts on my media marketing account for this film, specifically Behind The Scenes posts, since they expressed a lot of interest in processes like the building of the casket, the destruction of the computer, etc. Another great suggestion was to invite a lot of background actors with no speaking roles to simply exist in the background of the footage for my film. Not only will this make the funeral seem more legitimate and realistic, but by having so many background actors, I'd be able to afford different days to shoot with different members of the cast, instead of hoping to film everything simultaneously because the background of shots would look too empty otherwise.

Overall, I really enjoyed this short group review process, and plan on taking all of their advice to heart. I wish them the best in their own projects, and urge any readers of mine to pay their blogs a visit as well, as linked in the top of the post. See you next time!

The Search For Scenery...

 How embarrassing... yet another short blog post coming right off the tail of the last one, also a rather short post by my standards. Luckily, instead of being short as a result of a rush, it is instead because there really isn't much to say today.

In anticipation of week three of the portfolio project, where real, visual progress on the film will be made (as opposed to the last week of more brainstorming than actual writing), I want to start getting some visual aspects done before writing the script. By this, I mean looking for a place to shoot and casting the characters.

While casting the characters will be its entirely separate blog post, I do think starting to look for a set to shoot the shots at is important. Luckily, I already have a pretty solid idea of where I want to shoot: Tree Tops Park.

As I've mentioned before, I've never been to a funeral before. However, my mental image of a funeral always involves an outdoor scene, where chairs are lined up before the casket before it is eventually lowered into the ground. So naturally, I'm inclined towards shooting in a park.

I've already previously filmed here before for another media project, so I'm familiar enough with the landscape and general vibes of the park. It's important to me that wherever we shoot needs to be essentially unpopulated, both for my benefit in having a quiet set, as well as to avoid disturbing others. Tree Tops Park is perfect for this due to its sheer size- you could walk for hours without seeing another person.

This is by no means my final decision- I plan on driving around town sometime this week to scout other potential spots to hold my little funeral. However, having Tree Tops Park as a guiding idea for what criteria I need met to consider a place as an option will help me narrow my decision-making process down considerably.

Is it a little silly to post a blog where I haven't come to a solid, final decision about what I'm talking about? Maybe. But in my humble opinion, I think this is just a genuine way to illustrate my raw thought process, and an important aspect of documenting my journey in making my own short film (which I believe is the point of this blog). After all, who has their mind made up instantly all the time? I'm human after all....

The Straight Man... And Why I'm Not Using Him

 This is going to be a very short post, because following the prior posts about developing the cast of characters in my short film, I feel like I should clarify why I ended up choosing to not include the straight man character I was deliberating on whether I should add or not.

It should be noted that when I refer to the "straight man" character, I'm not referring to a heterosexual male. The straight man trope, in comedy, refers to a character that is meant to represent normalcy and a realistic reaction to comedic events occurring in front of them to contrast against other, sillier characters.

As I've mentioned before, I was apprehensive on including a straight man character because of my personal opinion regarding straight man characters in film- believing them to be the mark of the lazy screenwriter most of the time, with very few straight men being written as being their own character, rather than just being the writer's mouthpiece or the voice of reason as being their sole character trait. A good example of this is Michael Bluth from Arrested Development, who I have mentioned before.

I don't know if I'd want to write a straight man character for this film because I want the spotlight to be on the other, more ridiculous characters who represent the drawbacks of a dependence on technology. Writing in a character whose sole purpose would be to call out the flaws of the other characters would not only be boring, but it'd also just feel like I'm spoon-feeding the message of the film to the audiences, which feels cheap.

Therefore, no straight man is needed for this film! I already have a big enough cast to write for, so I don't need yet another character to busy myself with. Thanks for reading!

Developing The Characters Part Two

Let's get straight into this post, no introduction needed! For the first counterpart to this post, click here.

 TEEN BOY CHARACTER

Physical Description: Body type isn't really a point of much importance to me with this character- they can be tall and buff or short and fat, it really doesn't matter. It just needs to be understood that this guy is kind of a loser nerd type, not getting out of the house often, wearing baggier/unkempt clothes (damn this might just be describing myself), and generally appearing to be on the complete opposite end of the social hierarchy than his sister. As long as it is visually apparent that this guy is a Discord gamer type of person, any appearance is fine by me.

Satirical Representation: With this character, I want to illustrate extremely common addictions that teenage boys fall into- gaming or pornography. It is no secret that this demographic has long been known to be the most sexually repressed population, and this leads many to seek online pornography, and because of the developing teenage brain, may get addicted to the dopamine of it. When researching the different vices technology has given rise to, I found a very interesting article on how porn is affecting teenagers and even young children, and reading through this, it is apparent that this porn addiction trend has been largely thanks to the increased availability on the Internet. While I do want to make fun of porn addicts with this character to an extent, I also want to give this character some nuance and show that this teenager is a victim, not just a pervert (though these can coexist).

A different addiction common among male teens is that of GAMING. I, myself, am guilty of this one, devoting hours everyday to mindlessly play online games rather than being productive working at a job, or, I don't know, writing blog posts for my media project... Getting back to the point, if you're friends with a teen male, a parent of one, or are one yourself, you know that gaming is an almost natural thing for men to do in modern times. When once men would go off to war, conquering distant lands in the name of their homeland, they now sit at a chair all day and scream gibberish at each other through game chats as they make progress in meaningless games. We fell off.

There is some credibility to videogame addiction being a legitimate issue rather than just your standard "videogames bad" take. In this article I read regarding symptoms of the addiction, it's gotten to a point where the DSM-5 has started listing possible symptoms of videogame addiction, to help diagnose and assist people with this vice. Therefore, I think gaming is an important enough topic to address and criticize with this character as my medium to express my criticisms.

Jokes: The jokes here are pretty low-hanging fruit, if I'm being honest. The guy's a loser- jokes can be made about his porn addled mind, the fact that he's "coming out of his gaming cave for once", etc. I think I'd want to explore more comedy out of his social awkwardness, a symptom affecting both gaming and porn addicts. Having no understanding of social cues- making inappropriate, awkward jokes, and generally feeling cringe is the direction I want to take this character.

Making him cringeworthy is going to be both very fun and equally painful- he's going to be that guy. Even if you claim not to know what I mean by this, everyone understands the concept of that guy, always making awkward jokes, uncomfortable comments, and just feeling out of place (which would be especially fun in this case, imagine being considered the black sheep of this dysfunctional family). The only question is, how far will his degeneracy go for the sake of comedy? I'll have to ponder this one further...

TEEN GIRL CHARACTER

Physical Description: This character is meant to be the preppy, popular, social media addicted "popular girl" that everyone follows- illustrated through her fashionable clothing, the styled hair, and generally carefully maintained appearance. As mentioned before, she's meant to contrast both her father and brother- politically and socially. Ideally, she'd mainly be wearing a blue outfit to represent her strong liberal leaning, and to contrast her brother, she really only has to be somewhat clean and attractive (just anything that could make her immediately identifiable as the "popular girl").

Satirical Representation: With this character, I want to pull back the curtain on the ever-preppy and pretty social media influencer types- someone whose dependency on social media followers and likes for validation has corrupted her being. I'd like to depict her as somewhat neurotic, constantly monitoring her social media accounts to get dopamine rushes and validate her identity as an influencer. I may play with a Jekyll and Hyde concept for this character- when on camera she's smiling, laidback, and clever, seemingly effortless in her every action, but when off-camera, she's stressed, hyper, and obsessed with finding the next photo op, hungry for her next dosage of online validation. This will likely lead to her personality being catered toward people pleasing (to get a taste of validation after the computer has broken) or rather manipulative to people in order to get something post-worthy off of them.

Jokes: There are a lot of jokes here. However, for this character, instead of being a direct, clear joke with attention given to it, I want to have her as more of a background character with small moments between the time I dedicate to other characters. At first, I think she would be beaming, almost intoxicatingly peppy and energetic, shoving a phone in people's faces, but as the funeral progresses, her phone battery dies, and she becomes desperate to squeeze any bit of clout from the event to keep her fans interested in her before the phone turns off. Her posing with the casket for a selfie to post on Instagram may be a cheap shot, but I still find it pretty funny.

Additionally, I think it'd be both a great joke and refreshing perspective to have if she's the only family member who doesn't actually mourn the computer's loss, since her addiction is to social media, which is typically most used on phones or other mobile devices. Logically, it makes sense that she's unbothered by the computer's "passing", because she wouldn't use it much anyways, instead preferring her phone over it. There's a lot more room to joke with this concept because she can be preachy to the family mourning the computer (this may be where her liberal tendencies shine), only to be revealed as a massive hypocrite, freaking out when her phone dies. Overall, I think she's going to be the most versatile when it comes to writing jokes for, because there's just so many directions to take it in.

That's all of the main cast done! Attentive readers will have caught that I've nixed the inclusion of the old man character that I initially planned on including. I decided to scrap this character because 1) I don't have time for more characters, 2) Casting an old man simply isn't going to happen, and 3) Making fun of an old man's inability to remember things just felt a little wrong. It left a sour taste in my mouth and that's an instance of technology actually helping people, not giving them an unhealthy addiction. Therefore, no more old man character. See you next time!

Developing the Characters

 Hello again! I've been debating whether I should develop the characters or a basic script first, before coming to the realization that developing a script without established characters wouldn't just be undercooked- it would literally be impossible to write good jokes for the characters without knowing them and their personality first. So here I am, ready to get to know the characters that I will be writing jokes for in the next few weeks. For each character, I will include their name, physical description, what they represent satirically, and what sorts of jokes I plan to write for them. Without further ado, let's jump right into it!

DAD CHARACTER

Physical Description: He's a white, older male, wearing the sort of clothing that's half-dignified, and half-obviously-gave-up-trying-to-be-dignified, for example wearing a dress shirt that's all wrinkled and untucked, or wearing a formal dress shirt and belt, but then wearing some loose-fitting shorts and flip-flops. The immediate vibe that I want him to give off is "washed-up", with his clothing representing his flimsy façade of being informed and knowledgeable, only to reveal that he is severely misinformed and just sort of gross, as if he just spends all day watching FOX News rather than doing anything productive. Wearing any red clothing (or even the infamous MAGA hat) would be a nice symbol for his conservative views (which would then be contrasted by blue colors for his uber-liberal daughter).

Satirical Representation: This father character is meant to be the embodiment of the typical "MAGA Boomer"  type of older white male, and mirroring his real life counterparts, his main issue will be his addiction / reliance to online news- whether he be believing in everything he hears wholeheartedly, or labelling all opposing viewpoints "fake news". I think a balance of these two characteristics is key to mastering the character himself, since in reality, that's how a vast majority of people view news media- everything that "their" news channel reports is gospel to them, and all other news sites are disregarded as being produced by their opposing political party, and thus fake news.

Additionally, I want this character to delve deep into conspiracies and random theories he absorbed off of Reddit or Twitter- this would play into the character motif of being an unsuspecting victim of misinformation. Consumption of conspiracy theory content would fit in well with previously established traits like the blind trust in his favorite news channel, as it supports the idea that this is a very gullible, easily misled person.

I think this is a really important character to cover and represent because I believe that misinformation is humanity's greatest problem in modern times. While misinformation doesn't discriminate, and is easily disseminated throughout any generation, Zoomers and Boomers alike, I think portraying the victim of misinformation as an older white male in this short film is the best representation of this issue, since older people are much more prone to falling for misinformation since they don't understand the Internet as much, and they are frequently shown to support these sorts of ideologies of "fake news" (for example, your typical FOX NEWS viewer.)

Jokes: I think that this character will have a LOT to work with comedically, whether it be playing off his gullible nature or by highlighting how hypocritical it is to rely fully on one news source while condemning all other news sources. Referring to the computer as some sort of mystical spreader of "the true truth" that "the liberal media is hiding from us" would be a solid way to establish both his character and beliefs immediately, while also providing instant context for why he valued the computer so much- it may be the only venue where he can access "his" news source, as a sort of confirmation bias affirmer.  I think it'd also be really funny if at one point he attacks the opposing media as "hiding the truth" only to be corrected by another family member that the opposing media actually did report on what he said, leading to an awkward "oh." followed by him sinking into his seat in silence after making a fool of himself.

Another possibility for comedic pretense could be a staunch opposition to his political views, possibly from his daughter, who is also chronically online, but on the EXACT OPPOSITE side of the internet, instead pushing a harsh liberal agenda against his extremely conservative viewpoints. This would be a pretty realistic depiction of family dynamics, as it is common for younger members of the family, especially teenage girls, to develop opposing political viewpoints to their older parents. Including this political discord within the family would also be a fair way to illustrate that the film is criticizing both sides of the political spectrum, and not blindly taking one side to misrepresent the other, as the characters would themselves.

MOM CHARACTER

Physical Description: In all honesty, the physical characteristics of this character aren't that important to me. There's no symbol or color I want to use with her, and she will likely be taking up less screen time than the others, because while I think an overreliance on the Internet and technology for information/knowledge is a problem, it's just not one that I'm particularly interested in covering in great detail. So there's a lot of freedom when it comes to how I want her to look.

Satirical Representation: The mother character is going to represent the modern overreliance on technology for general knowledge they should know, but have grown too lazy to learn about. The effects of having all of humanity's collective information available to anyone anywhere anytime have been catastrophic for modern day society- after all, what's the point of learning anything if you can just Google it within a few taps of the screen? This character is going to be visibly lost without the guidance of the computer to seem smart and interesting, offering absolutely nothing to any conversations she participates in, or coming off as exceptionally ignorant, listing off random things that she can't check in an attempt to seem competent, only to be proven the opposite.

Jokes: As far as jokes go, ignorance is pretty much a get out of jail free card, with near infinite jokes to make about someone's incompetence. However, there aren't many specifically to make about reliance on technology for knowledge, that wouldn't sound repetitive or uninspired. It's for this reason that I probably won't include her character a whole lot- it would get stale if overused and honestly there are more interesting characters to deal with. 

In a rather uncharacteristic move from me, I'm actually choosing to split this blog post into two parts. Originally, this post discussing each character in depth stretched out over 2000 words. And while I have written blog posts in the past that make it to even 3000 words, this one felt way too long winded to be effective for explaining each character. So this is the result. You can read part two here!

My Many Muses- Scenes To Learn From

 Hey there! This blog post took a little bit of time to write because it involved finding an inspiration for this project- not necessarily something to base my film off of, but general vibes that I'd like to somewhat capture in my film. In order to properly find these muses, I took the day off to watch a bunch of TV shows and movies that I enjoy and see if there are any aspects that I may find inspiring within them. Bear with me- this might be a rather scatterbrained blog post, since I'm going "purely off of vibes," with no concrete order to what I'm watching.

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

This was a no-brainer for inspiration. As my all-time favorite TV show, I find myself frequently revisiting Arrested Development, for its masterclass in wit, irony, and stellar writing. For the purposes of this film, I went in wanting to learn more about comedic writing, since I'm rather inexperienced when it comes to that genre. Arrested Development has been critically praised throughout the years for its incredibly witty jokes, mastery of writing stupid but likeable characters, and being the absolute king of the call-back joke.

However, I found myself focusing on the characters more than I was the comedy. Maybe this is for the better- after all, comedy isn't a requirement of a successful satire. Arrested Development has a large ensemble cast that portrays the large and dysfunctional Bluth family- a satire of the modern day wealthy family, and how incompetent they are when their wealth is snatched from them. The concept of a satirical piece about a stupid family dealing with the sudden loss of something that they considered essential to their lives... now that's starting to sound a little familiar...

Michael Bluth, Arrested
Development's "Straight Man"

While it's not an exact 1-to-1 match to my ideas for my own film, it gave a nice framework for writing caricatures of a hopelessly stupid family. Additionally, it made me further reflect on the possibility of including a "straight man" character for the rest of the family to play off of. Michael Bluth (played by Jason Bateman) is one of my favorite comedic characters of all time, not because he's particularly funny on his own (even though he is), but rather because of the fact that his reactions, responses, and other interactions with the clearly much dumber family members are so fun to watch, as a relatively normal man has to deal with this hopeless family unit. I'll have to give it some more thought....

DEATH AT A FUNERAL

Yes... I am in fact watching a movie just because it has "funeral" in the name. This is only a half-joke, in reality. Death At A Funeral (DAAF, for short), turned out to be a similar source of inspiration when writing comedic family units, approaching the comedy as more of an unluckiness that the family members have rather than incompetence, like AR.

But admittedly, yes, the main reason I watched DAAF was because it had a funeral... as corny as it sounds... Personally, I've never had the misfortune of needing to attend a funeral, and for the purposes of research, the idea of watching funeral videos on YouTube or from a distance in my local graveyard seemed a bit too morbid for my tastes. Watching DAAF was  good way to understand the general structure of a funeral, the sorts of interactions that may occur between strangers and family, and it was also a perfect example on how to approach the concept of a funeral with a comedic lens, without hijacking the setting by being overtly goofy.

DONT LOOK UP

For my last source of inspiration, I chose to go with a more recent satire film, Don't Look Up, which is a satire piece centering around humanity's indifference to climate change, and how different aspects of society (Government, celebrities, news) all refuse to confront the reality of their situation.

The main reason I chose to revisit this film after my initial viewing last year was to study the satirical representations of groups of people. Being honest, I wasn't a huge fan of the film when I first watched it last year- I didn't find it particularly funny, and I thought the message could've been delivered a little more subtly. But after revisiting it with a new lens to appreciate it by, I have to commend it for being an excellent piece of satire. Sure, I still didn't find it very funny, but after my research on the satire genre from a few blogs ago, I realize that a successful satire isn't required to be successfully funny, so this isn't a huge issue.

Once again, I must begrudgingly recognize that the two main characters are excellent examples of the "straight man" trope for the more wacky satirical caricature characters to play off of, and deliver a great dynamic where they try to explain or help people who don't want to be helped, delivering a great message about how the American populace would rather ignore a pressing issue than tackle it head on. I can happily say that I'll be taking pointers from this film when writing my satirical depictions of technology addiction in the family.

Can't wait to take what I learned from this viewing marathon into account when writing my script!

Outlining The Story

 "Plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great when it is small"

-Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Now you may be thinking, "John, why are you starting off your media blog with the wisdom of an ancient Chinese general? Why would you do this??"

In a sense, every great project is somewhat like a war- a massive undertaking with no room for error, one that must be planned to a great extent if one wishes to succeed in their goals.

... I'm also just a bit overdramatic.

    Getting back to the point, planning is what makes or breaks the future of a project, no matter what kind it is. Without a plan to guide your steps through your progress, you move forward blindly and will likely fail in your execution for your project. Therefore, I took the time today to set some basic, but important groundwork for my short film. While this isn't anywhere near a fleshed-out full script for the film, I'd argue its just as important to have the loose guidelines in place before delving into the scriptwriting process. The following sections may appear like half-baked ideas regarding my script, but bear with me as I work through my creative process.

THE PLOT:

(What follows is my basic breakdown of the film's plot, with minor details sprinkled in.)

    The film will open with a gathering of family members, all mourning and dressed in black, at a funeral outdoors. They range from mildly upset to visibly distraught. As the family members greet each other and exchange pleasantries, they begin to refer to the deceased by listing off qualities and bits about them that add to the tragedy of their death (They were so young… etc.) It should never be revealed that they are talking about a computer however, since that reveal is shown when one person breaks off from the group to lay flowers across the open casket, only to reveal that within the casket is a battered old laptop, damaged beyond repair.

    After this shot, the following sequence will involve several eulogies delivered by different family members, each giving an account of how much the computer meant to them, and their unique relationship with the device. Each family member should represent a different demographics’ common use for technology, and illustrate a degree of dependence on the device to the point that its pathetic and unhealthy. An example of this could be a teenage boy sheepishly alluding to his viewing of pornography through the device, and saying how the computer “kept his secrets”, or an older man’s dependence on the computer to remind him to do even the most basic tasks, since he can no longer remember to do anything without the computer’s aid.

    After several eulogies illustrating unhealthy dependencies on technology, the family closes the casket and buries the computer. They share a brief moment of silence in grief of the loss of their beloved computer. After this moment, however, they all turn around, get in a car, and drive to a Best Buy, presumably to immediately replace the computer, since they can’t live without the presence of technology in their lives.

(Keep in mind this is a rough outline. All plot points/ details are subject to change.)

THE CHARACTERS:

(The following list of characters are only concepts, which are still subject to change.)

Dad character- Illustrates addiction to news/ fake news- politics and conspiracies (think MAGA boomer covid denier)

Mom character- Illustrates dependence on internet knowledge

Old man character- Illustrates dependence on reminders

Teen boy character- Illustrates addiction (gaming or pornography)

Teen girl character- Illustrates unhealthy social relationships (parasocial w celebrity? Need to update life on social media?

THE ISSUES (?):

The following paragraphs illustrate a few thoughts that came to mind while outlining the plot that gave me a bit to chew on mentally... I'm copy and pasting them directly from my planning google doc so they're not worded the greatest... Essentially these are ideas I'm going to revisit over time and debate whether they'll make it into the final script or not.

1) Among my main cast of characters, each representing a different aspect of dependency or addiction to using the computer, should I also include the presence of a “straight man” character to voice how silly the family is within the film? Or would that be considered too condescending to the audience, spoon-feeding them the idea that this is all bad behavior? Is it lazy writing to include this character, in fear that the audience won’t be able to reach the conclusion themselves?

2) Do I want to include a scene of how the computer got to such a destroyed state? Or is it best left to interpretation- maybe it would be nicely ironic if, for as dependent the family was on the computer, they didn’t take care of their tech, leading to general ruin? Or maybe it would be a funny cutaway gag to show one family member destroying the computer in frustration? I’m really on the fence about this one.

To wrap up this post, I'd say that this sort of brainstorming session was very productive (for me at least), and that you should look forward to a more fleshed out story, script, and characters very soon! See you next time!

Studying Satire- A Dive Into A Genre

 Hi again! Before we can start work on our actual story: outlining, scriptwriting, and storyboarding, we must first understand the film's genre better. After studying for a year in AS media studies, it has become second nature to me to take in a film's genre before considering its actual story, since I now understand the monumental influence genre has in determining a film's target audience, marketing campaign, and cinematography.

    Starting with the basics...

SATIRE: THE INTELLECTUAL'S PARODY

Satire has been historically defined as a genre that simultaneously criticizes and ridicules human nature, typically relating to politics, through its use of irony and exaggeration. Satirical media often aims to have some sort of underlying message protesting or complaining about a certain behavior or concept, thinly veiled under comedic pretense. While comedy and humor is a large part of satire, the defining characteristic is its commitment to providing social criticism.

In essence, while most satire pieces are funny, they don't necessarily need to be funny. Humor is just a tool the genre uses often to highlight issues in society, since ridicule and mockery is a more palatable way for audiences to consume honest criticism of the world they live in. At the end of the day, satire is defined by its social commentary, not its use of ironic humor.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SATIRE AND PARODY

A common mistake many people make (including myself, before my research) is the assumption that parody and satire are terms used interchangeably. While both employ humor to make fun of and mock a particular target, it should be noted that each have their important distinctions.

Satire uses humor to expose issues or fallacies in society, aiming to ultimately deliver a message ridiculing its subject. While satire may retain some aspects of its target, like appearance, context, or characters (in a political satire, certain politicians may be referred to within the piece), none of these characteristics are needed to  produce an effective work of satire. Take Animal Farm, for example. The novel is meant to be a satire of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution, telling the story of a gang of barnyard animals overthrowing their masters, and eventually are ruled by a dictatorship of pigs. While clear parallels can be drawn between the novel and the revolution, the only immediately recognizable shared feature is the idea of a dictatorship following a revolution- there are no shared characters or appearances.

Parodies, on the other hand, use humor as a lighthearted way to both mock and celebrate the target. Parodies, unlike satires, take massive inspiration from their target- mimicking visuals, names, plot, pretty much every aspect of a film you could imagine, from their source material. While satire focuses on irony and wit to expose the flaws of its target, parody largely employs exaggeration and ridicule in order to celebrate the original work.  My personal favorite example of parody is the cult classic, Spaceballs. This film is a constant rip on Star Wars, mimicking its plot, characters, aesthetics, down to the most minute costume details. However, while Spaceballs does point out many flaws and tropes in Star Wars, it does this out of love and appreciation for the original work- not to expose and criticize it. There is no deeper message to glean from Spaceballs' antics- it merely seeks to make its audiences laugh.

NOTABLE SATIRE PIECES

I unfortunately don't have much time left to write today, and this blog post is already long enough, but before I end this post I do want to share with you some interesting articles/essays I read regarding notable modern-day satires, since I found them interesting and took a few notes on. If you find the satire genre as interesting as I did, I'm confident you will enjoy reading these, and glean some interesting information out of them.

The Simpsons, American Satire

Saturday Night Live: Successful Satire and Evolving Comedy

The Onion Satire Analysis

Hopefully you found this reading to be stimulating and educational, I found myself appreciating these famous examples of satire all the more after reading these pieces. See you next time!

Choosing A Direction- Selecting A Story

 Hello again! The topic for today's post is monumental in the process of starting work on the project- choosing the story I want for my short film. While it's a little daunting to be deciding where I want to be taking the direction of this project so soon, I'm calm knowing that there are some guiding principles and ideas that I want to implement in my film, regardless of story or genre.

    The main point I want to incorporate into my film, no matter what, is a distinct focus on WRITING. When I decided to take the A level version of Media Studies, fresh off of finishing the AS Level exam, the most enticing aspect of the class, and what ultimately pushed me to take the course, was the promise of an emphasis on writing, whether it be screenwriting or blogging. While I suppose my wish has been granted in terms of blogging, I found myself very disappointed in how little writing I have done this year. The most writing I can remember was in my Brand Identity project from the very beginning of the year.  While projects like the podcast and documentary did offer some promise for writing, they turned out to be more focused around writing guidelines rather than an actual script. Essentially, I yearn to finally write some script or screenplay, and this seems like an ideal opportunity to take!

   For the rest of this post, I will share with you my three different ideas that I had for what the film could be about, why I'd like to do each one of them, any complications that may come out of attempting to produce it, and my final decision on the fate of the film.

Idea #1: Good Cop, Better Cop.

Genre: Comedy/ Buddy Cop Film

Story: This story would involve one interrogation of a dangerous suspect, and the ensuing comedy that results when two cops have a miscommunication on how to approach the interrogation process. This is more reminiscent of a short skit or comedy bit rather than the title of "short film", because the progression of the film would center around the two cops trying to outdo each other at being the "good cop" role, with the occasional remark from the confused suspect. In the five minute runtime, it will roughly be 1 minute of setup, 3 minutes of comedy and escalation between the duo, and 1 minute for some sort of comedic ending (which is still up in the air.)

What Do I Like About It?

There's A LOT I like about this idea. Firstly, I've always been a massive fan of interrogation scenes in movies I watch. They have infinite potential, being equally likely to be a tense, stressful torture scene, or a ridiculous display of ineptitude on the part of the interrogators. This would give me a lot of room to write stupid, goofy characters, and juxtapose their silliness with the ominous and threatening suspect. I'm a sucker for comedies and anything goofy, so this is a really tempting choice. Especially when I consider how much writing would go into this piece, and how clever it would have to be, writing dialogue that could be taken as genuinely kind but also easily misinterpreted to be malicious and threatening. The double entendres would truly be glorious.

From a practical perspective, this film is also remarkably easy to make. I'd only need three actors, only film in one location, and the formatting would be very simple to follow- shot, countershot, shot, countershot. Rinse and repeat. It'd also make my life so much easier when it comes to editing, which has historically been my weakness and most loathed part of the process. It would be fun to work in only one location, and learn about how to make that single room a visually interesting space, rather than having to move between settings all the time, like I did last year.

What Are The Downsides?

In terms of complications writing this film, there aren't that many. Perhaps my greatest issue would be writing each double entendre and keeping it interesting, since there's only so much miscommunication that can go on until it becomes unfunny, stale, or impossible logically. Writing three minutes of double entendres and miscommunication will certainly be a challenge, but its a challenge I welcome with open arms, since it would be great practice in comedic writing.

Another glaring issue would be keeping it visually interesting. By choosing to only include one set, I'm willingly placing myself in a scenario where I'm going to have to play a lot with the shot angles in order to keep such a bland, empty room interesting. I'm not the most visually inclined, so this would require a lot of setting up and planning in order to execute it well. Maybe I could play a little bit with the lighting to make up for the characters' bland surroundings? It would be an interesting challenge.

Idea #2: Going Down?

Genre: Psychological Thriller / Suspense (?)

Story: The film's premise is based off a conversation I once had with a friend regarding common clichés in film, namely, how almost every elevator in a film gets stuck. When theorizing on how to "fix" this trope, I wondered how a film based on an elevator continuously going down would play out. While its a fun subversion of such a common trope, making this into an entertaining narrative would be a challenge. 

What Do I Like About It?

Generally, its a really fun and interesting idea. Subverting such a common trope is really attractive to me, and I think its a genuinely cool idea. It would be fun writing out a silent protagonist if the person is trapped in the elevator alone, and conversely, it'd be fun to write two differing approaches to the scenario in two different character. 

What Are The Downsides?

This film would be absolutely riddled with flaws if I chose to make it. Firstly, it'd be near impossible to keep it visually interesting for 5 minutes. It's an elevator, and without any tangible threat, it would just feel uneasy, not tense or stressful. Additionally, I would need to find some incredible actors in order to pull off a silent protagonist. There also isn't a satisfying ending to this. Do the people die? Do they just get off without a scratch? The concept just isn't fleshed out enough to be a viable option for this project.

Idea #3: A Computer's Funeral.

Genre: Satire

Story: This would be a simple satire piece surrounding a family mourning their dead computer, and throwing a funeral for it. This would likely involve 1 minute of funeral setup, 3 minutes of different family members mourning and talking about their relationship with the computer, and the last minute would involve the immediate replacement of the computer with a smartphone or new computer. It would be a really fun film poking fun at modern society's overreliance on technology to the point its been integrated to an almost crucial member of the family.

What Do I Like About It?

It's a really charming and funny idea. This would also be another writing-heavy story that would involve lots of cleverness and metacommentary on society, which would be extremely fun to write for. It'd involve acting with several actors of varying ages, and the very idea of throwing  fake funeral sounds really fun for me. I've never attempted writing social commentary and satire before, and it'd be a fun challenge and potentially an introduction to a new favorite genre.

Practically, it would also be pretty easy to do- the setting would be in some field or park where I can throw a fake funeral, and propwise- it'd only involve some light digging and gravebuilding. It'd be a visual treat, with a lot more happening onscreen than my other ideas. I also just think it's an important observation to make out modern society.... and my instructor showed genuine interest and anticipation for the possibility of following this idea to completion.

What Are The Downsides?

This would be a challenge on nearly every front. I've never attended a funeral, so I'd have to look into funeral videos... which is certainly an experience. There would be much to do in terms of shooting the shots- as stated before, I'm not visually inclined, so I'd have to either work with a cinematographer on this project, or learn how to properly frame shots in record time.

A massive practical issue would be the fact that it would take place wholly outside- putting me and my production at the mercy of rain, wind, and worse- random people in the background. Natural lighting would be a force I'm constantly struggling against, and my filming sessions would need to be quick in order to match the time of day in each shot and not lose any natural light. Audio would also be really hard to work with, when in an outside environment, out of my control. Overall, there are a lot of problems and issues that could arise, and I'm unsure if I have the skillset to fully cover all bases. 

THE VERDICT:

    The story I'm choosing to go with is... ( drumroll please) … A Computer's Funeral!

    Ultimately, I feel like I HAVE to go with this one, not just because everyone I've asked says I should do it, but because its such a good idea and a "kooky" feel to it, as my instructor put it. Going Down? was a promising concept, but it ultimately falls apart in its execution, at least to my capability. Good Cop, Better Cop was really enticing to me, since I really wanted to work with double entendres and an escalating degree of miscommunication between the two policemen (miscommunication is my FAVORITE dramatic premise), and its simplicity in editing and set design was certainly a massive advantage it had against the other two stories.

    However, when I sat down and thought about it, I realized that even if producing GCBC was an assured decent product with minimal effort, it wouldn't feel very satisfying as my final project as a high schooler. In a move that I may live to regret, I opted to choose a real challenge in A Computer's Funeral, because my conscience would never leave me in peace if I abandoned this (admittedly) great concept.

    Therefore, even though it will almost certainly bring me great stress and many sleepless nights, and prove to be a challenge in writing, filming, audio recording, and organizing, it will be worth it if I produce a project I can truly be proud of, a film I can look back on with pride.

    This may have been a long-winded first step in my production process, but I'm happy knowing that my first step is based on solid ground. See you next time!

Pacing Myself- Scheduling

 

Hello again! As people familiar with my work ethic are aware, I'm a big advocate for planning. After all, nothing gets done without an idea of what you're doing. At such an early stage of this project, there's little I can do in the planning for shooting schedules or managing which days I'll be working on editing more than developing my print component.

A general schedule is my best option if I want to start strong on this project, even if I don't follow the schedule's directions and pacing strictly, I've always been considered optimistic...

The way I'll try to break up this blog post is by sharing the goals I want to hit each week, followed by a brief explanation of why I opted for this particular outline. This may be boring and long winded, but I hope those committed to understanding my process can appreciate the detail and reasoning behind my decisions. Also... I just really like writing...

This start is pretty self explanatory, considering I'm in the middle of fulfilling my last goal for this week! I had to start work for this project somewhere....

This is the upcoming plan for this week! As someone whose talents lie within writing, getting the perfect story is very important to me, and so taking a week to decide on the story, its beats, its progression, etc. will help me get a better "feel" for what I want to write and how it will "feel" onscreen.

Once again, I'm giving a lot of priority to the story and feel of the piece. While I'm still unsure of which story I'm planning on going with, I am sure that I want my short film to feel very character-driven, whatever the story may be. Researching similar types of scenes / films in this genre may be instrumental in deciding the "feel", since my work typically takes lots of inspiration from media I have recently consumed.

After a few weeks deciding the feel of the film, I'd like to have a full script done by week 4, even if it's only a rough draft. Through casting and storyboarding, I'll start the final preparations before shooting for the film.

Week 5's work is mostly polishing, either on the script, casting, and any other planning details. I'd also like to take time to research how to properly use lighting in my film, a field where I recognize my ignorance. Therefore I'll likely ask my buddy Wade for some pointers and advice on lighting, since I know he's a connoisseur of lighting in films. (I haven't asked him yet though.. )

Week 6 is when I finally face the beast that is actually filming the project. Additionally, I'll be researching social media advertising and implementing what I learn from my research in the development of my own social media marketing account...  Not sure which platform yet.

Week 7 will be tricky, due to Spring Break either posing a threat to any actor availability (assuming they travel) or freeing them up immensely to be able to work on the film more often. In the event of any issues with filming, I will busy myself with further developing my social media marketing account, along with beginning research on potential film festivals where I could distribute my short film.

I dedicate Week 8 almost entirely to editing the film, because I know how utterly hopeless I am with editing software... I'm also lumping in the development of film festival handouts because I don't anticipate these being particularly difficult to design... It will also provide a nice respite from the throes of editing.

If all goes according to plan, I will have survived editing in one piece by Week 9. Only then will I be able to return to my dear friend, writing, in order to develop my Critical Reflection of the entire process of making my short film.

On the eve of the project's deadline, all that should be left is some reflective comments, linking the final product to the blog, and posting my Critical Reflection. Should be a pretty light workload for the last week!

    Hopefully enduring the breakdown of my planned schedule wasn't too agonizing... I can't help but over do the writing in these blog posts... However, I believe I have accurately and (somewhat) clearly illustrated the reasoning behind some of my scheduling decisions.

Now it's just a matter of time to see if I'll actually stick to my word on this schedule...

Portfolio Project #2- Here We Go Again

 Hello! Glad to be posting on this blog again after a brief break- It may be a  bit of extra work to deal with, but truthfully I've always enjoyed blogging and sharing my thoughts through writing, even before I was introduced to formal blogging last year in my AS Media Studies course.

    I'm very excited to now be at the doorstep of my next big project for A level Media Studies- the famed Portfolio Project. Last year, I produced the film opening Clean Kill, which you can find on my old blog right here (Looking back on this makes me cringe) . More recently, I developed a mini-documentary surrounding the recovery of my buddy Wade's SD drive, which can be found in the previous blog post.

    I've spent enough time content with my (relative) success with both of those projects. Finally, it's time for me to produce another video, likely my last for the purposes of this course. Regarding the new portfolio project, I have been offered a variety of different options to select for my assignment. These involve a music promotion package, a film promotion package, an excerpt from a documentary, and a short film. 

    After weighing my strengths and weaknesses (after learning about each respectively throughout this course), I've opted to go with the short film, since my talents lie with writing and narrative pieces, and not anything marketing related. The documentary option was also tempting, given my happiness with how Recovery turned out, but ultimately I found the fact of only being able to submit an excerpt a little too limiting and restrictive. Thus, the short film is the way to go for me!

    Now all that is left to do is think about potential ideas for the script and story of my short film! I've chosen to tackle this project alone so I can enjoy full creative liberties with this film, however I can't help but wonder if this will only highlight my shortcomings as a creator..

I'll report back as soon as I can regarding how I'm going to space out and organize the production process for this film- returning readers will know I absolutely adore organizing and planning.

I will see you next time!