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.

Writing the First Draft... And Learning From It

 Hello! After a long day of putting the finishing touches on the first draft of my script, I'm finally done! I'm glad I set this guideline for myself because now I have a better understanding of all of my characters, the plot, and the sort of jokes I'm going for. Overall, while this may not be my final version, its good to have something rather than nothing.

Interestingly, I chose to write the first draft of this story differently than I would any other script. Instead of going with the traditional format with sparse stage directions and an emphasis on dialogue, I chose to write it as a short story, in prose. Quirky, sure, but I had my reasoning. The main reason I chose this was because I'm not very experienced in writing scripts or screenplays, since I typically lean more towards poetry and short stories. So of course, writing in such a different format and structure felt like a challenge. Now normally, I'd welcome this challenge  as an opportunity to learn and enhance my skills as a writer. However, it was really important to me that I nail the story beats over anything else, and I feared that by challenging myself with this different format, I'd focus on writing according to the structure rather than according to the story beats I want to capture.

Additionally, I don't think that I'll be publishing my first draft for my readers to see right now. While this was something I did for last year's portfolio project, I don't think its appropriate in this case. Let me explain. Last year, my script for my film opening would be the second script I had ever written, and therefore, it was important to me that I capture and publish my first attempts at tackling such a daunting step towards production (I have since blocked that draft on my old blog from being visible, sorry). Now, I have a few more scripts under my belt, to the point where it's not as new. Don't get me wrong, I'm still very notably an amateur, but I'm not grasping blindly anymore. So its just not as important to me to publish a very rough preview of my work.

Another factor is spoilers! Yes, it is a bit presumptuous of me to worry about "spoilers" for my humble little student film to be published and ruin the viewing experience of the few who will watch it. However, when I considered the amount of effort I've been putting into crafting the jokes in my script, I realized that by reading even early versions of these jokes, it sort of spoils the fun of hearing the jokes firsthand when the film is complete. So maybe its not the most valid reason, but it's important to me.

In terms of what I've learned after writing this draft, it wasn't so much general writing growth as it was gaining a better understanding of my own story. For example, for many blog posts I had long struggled with the idea of including a "straight man" character or not. However, in writing different family interactions, I came to realize that Rebecca (the teen girl character) sort of filled the straight man role naturally, since I wrote her to be apathetic to the loss of the computer and instead absorbed with her phone, therefore, whenever a family member brought up the computer, she shut them down coldly because she has no attachment to the computer. Therefore, she played off of the enhanced emotionality of the characters against her own apathy. So it's nice to have the best of both worlds regarding this matter.

Another lesson (?) was in the actual writing structure of the script. Like I said earlier, I was writing in a form more akin to a short story than your traditional screenplay. With this format I found a nice balance between my comfort zone and outside of it, writing with all of the description and language of a short story but still including directions for shot composition or camera movements. It's a quirky little mix but its one that worked surprisingly well for me!

I'll most likely spend this week polishing the script and starting to formulate the plan on shooting this film. Sure, I dread the notion of having to confront my ideas and make them reality, but I rest assured knowing I put all the prep-work I possibly could have into making it the best I can be. See you next time!

Researching Social Media Apps

 Hello there! This is going to be a little bit shorter than other blog posts, because I'm still focused on finalizing the first draft of the script. However, based off some advice that my instructor gave us earlier this week, I'm going to start my social media brand account today! How exciting!!

Ok.. But on which platform?

Typically, social media accounts meant to market films can be on either Instagram or Twitter. While each social media app has their benefits, I chose to go with Twitter for a few reasons. 

    While Instagram is known for its solid reputation as The image-sharing social media app, it has a few drawbacks. First of all, it relies HEAVILY on pictures, and visuals... aren't my strong suit. Additionally, the way you gain followers on Instagram is vastly different to getting followers on Twitter. On Instagram, people just have to kind of stumble onto your account, or have a shared connection with someone both of you are following, which makes it difficult to get the ball rolling if nobody follows you.

     However, a big plus to marketing on Instagram is that anyone involved with the production (directors, actors, etc.) can post about their experience working on it to their own follower-base, and tag (a form of linkage) the brand account, directing all of their followers to your brand. Ultimately though, I ended up not going with Instagram because, admittedly, I'm not very popular on that site... also I rarely post on it, making me not very well-versed in how to get big on it.

But John, I hear you say, You aren't popular on ANY social media app!

….shut up.

    On the other end of social media apps is Twitter. I find myself more attracted to this app because in my personal experiences, I've seen how brand social media accounts flourish in this space, as well as the fact that I more regularly use Twitter, and therefore have a better understanding of the community on that site, and I know how to get big on it. In fact, Twitter almost seems like its starting to change its layout specifically to benefit advertisers. In a recent policy change, the company added new verification badges specifically to verify and highlight brand accounts on Twitter, giving them a sense of legitimacy and specialness.

Furthermore, gaining a following on Twitter is much, much easier than it is on Instagram. While on Instagram you essentially rely on connections between people finding your account, on Twitter, its extremely easy to go "viral" and have your posts exposed to thousands of people through the algorithm, and that's not even taking into consideration how prolific hashtags are on the site, or how easy it is for brand accounts to interact with their followers on Twitter.

Additionally, I've had my own fun with brand Twitter accounts in the past. After seeing a movie's promo account's posts EVERYWHERE on my timeline, I decided to become an avid follower of the film, commenting and liking all of their posts, starting a hashtag supporting the film, and overall being obnoxiously hyped for the film. Admittedly, this was looking to be very clearly a bad movie. However, following my amateur marketing stint for the film, something very interesting started to happen...

On the joke hashtag I had made, people who followed me were barraged with content from this film, and HAD ACTUALLY GONE TO GO WATCH IT. Because of my silly hashtag, people were giving this movie a chance, and by my count, my shenanigans had pushed about two dozen of my followers to go watch it, simply based off of my hashtag jokes. This is an exceptional example of how easy it is to gain traction on Twitter, and its a great real-world application of hashtags.

Naturally, following whatever "success" I had with that movie, I decided to go with Twitter for my own marketing purposes for my film. While I haven't created the account yet (most likely next week, as I'll have the looming draft script done by that point), I can't wait to take what I've learned from watching brands on Twitter grow and apply it to my own film's account. 

I'll be posting later about my first draft of the script, so stay tuned!

Brainstorming & Bedwars

    There are two possible thoughts that may be running through your mind after reading the title. Either your first thought was "Really John? Week 4 of working on this project, and you're still brainstorming?" or you could have thought "John, what the @$#*! is a Bed War?!" Well, to the first statement, it is my opinion that it is never too late to conjure up new ideas and thoughts for a project, and for the second question... well, let me explain.

    My main task this week is to write a script for the film. It can be a rough draft, or a basic functional script so I can work it as I progress, but the goal is to have something by this Sunday. However, little known tidbit about screenwriting.... This stuff is hard. After an hour of sitting at my computer, blank page on screen with a constantly blinking cursor, I had managed to write about a minute of the 5 minute total runtime for the film. So I needed a break. Therefore, I called up my buddy Wade, who is a fellow student of this course, to decompress together and generally talk about how our projects are going, while playing some videogames together. Typical guy stuff.

    Wade isn't really a gamer type, though, so he had literally no games installed on his laptop. So we decided to boot up Minecraft (a game that needs no introduction) and play some minigames while we talked over a call (This minigame being Bedwars). While we were joined by some other friends of ours in the call as they gave us feedback and asked questions, this surprisingly turned out to be a pretty productive session we had.

    For example, in this clip below, my buddy Nick poses a fair question about how I'm going to hook the audience with this concept of a computer funeral. He shows some apprehension about the hook, and kindly suggests a sort of twist reveal to capture the audience's attention. Funnily enough though, this was already my plan! So I simply assured him that this twist was part of my plan for the film and would happen fairly early on.

    Wade also gave some nice advice on writing scripts, since he's much more experienced when it comes to writing for the screen. When I expressed some uncertainty in the structure of how my first draft of the script was being formatted (I was writing it as more of a short story rather than the traditional screenplay format), Wade was really nice and validated my concerns, stating that "That's fully a way of doing a script. Don't let anyone tell you that's not a way to do a script". However, this nice moment was ruined by Nick trying to be clever.... but the validation and screenwriting advice still stands!

My final gameplay clip is of my explanation to Wade and my friend Sebi on how the film is starting in my first draft so far. After establishing the basic premise of the characters involved, I decide to try out one of the few jokes I've written for the film on this unsuspecting audience, and to my surprise, they liked it! Finally, the validation of knowing I have the capacity to be funny.... Jokes aside though, it was really important for me to test at least one joke out, because I have no way of telling if the jokes I'm writing will land or not until I tell the joke to someone. So that bit of feedback was really valuable.

    

I'm not really sure how effective this blog was... I wanted to try something quirky and different to break up the recent monotony of my blog posts with some new, never-before-seen gameplay footage media integration to spice things up a bit. Maybe this works out, maybe it doesn't. Regardless, I had fun and a healthy amount of constructive criticism and feedback from my friends. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to keep working on that first draft of the script (and definitely not play more Minecraft....)