Describe Writing

 Writing = Hard

    I don't think people understand the amount of brain strength it takes to write a good script. Today in class I met with my advisor to talk about some aspects of the script I have been either questioning or struggling with and now I feel a lot better about many parts of the dialogue but the overall message and theme of the story is something I need to focus on before going forward. 

Dialogue

When first talking to her, I had warned her that my script was pretty long around 12 pages, so we talked about ways to cut it down and make it better. At the beginning of my script, I told to my advisor that I feel that the animations won't take up so much screen time considering that the first couple seconds of my animations as of right now are 6 seconds which includes around half of the page. So, let's just say I'm pretty confident I won't be going super overtime. We also talked about how we can cut down on some lines including "always nice on the worst days and the sunshine of the rainiest days." since we already introduced him as the happiest Blob.

Also, in this part of the beginning we discussed how instead of describing how the world looks just to be more straightforward. I think something that I struggle when writing scripts or any type of story is showing not telling. I feel like I tend to write to much of what I am already showing in the film within my script so for this project I feel that I can improve that by being super nitpicky on the way I show things and the dialogue I am writing.

Story and Theme

    Something super valuable that I discussed with my advisor was why I wrote the ending the way I did. At first, I honestly didn't know what to answer because I felt that I didn't have any valid reason for the ending that I wrote. But then once we discussed it a little more, I realized that the ending I wrote felt incomplete. The ending is basically Bobby going a crossover point where Althea meets with him. Althea explains to him that he gets another chance at life on Earth to continue to spread his goodness with his personality and heart. I came to the conclusion that this ending just felt really incomplete due to the idea that we never see what Bobby does on Earth and we get all these questions to why did he get to go back? And if he stays on Earth than how is this a quest?

    After thinking with my teacher, we agreed on expanding the last conversation Julia and Bobby have within the film to stick to the main theme that I am trying to go for which is:

Being kind wherever you go and appreciating the things around you!

    

    Cheesy I know but! I think understanding Bobby and Julia more while talking to my advisor is something that I really needed to take into consideration specially because these are people I am creating and people that have meanings and purposes that I need to be able to identify and explain when talking to my actors and considering their motives. For example, when talking to my advisor I realized that one action that Bobby takes within the script is controversial for his character and the theme of the film. Anyways, the point: there are many things to consider. I will be sharing the first draft of the script and then uploading the second draft on a later post :)

More Films?

 What Can I Say? I Love Movies

I have been researching different movies for my script and for the benefit of wanting to understand my characters more and their motives. Since most of the films or stories I have written in the past are more on the realism spectrum, going for something more formalist for this project has been a little difficult. Obviously not everything is formalist but working with a character that has no idea what is truly about is a little difficult, at least for me. One film that has really helped me understand these principles is the 2021 animated film, Luca. This is one of my favorite Pixar movies and rewatching it for the purpose of this project just made things so much better for me. For a little context, Luca follows the story of Luca Paguro, a sea monster that is not allowed near the surface of earth due to human fears of sea monsters attacking them. But one day he meets Alberto Scorfano, another sea monster who actually lives on the surface and seems to be doing pretty good. They become really great friends, as Alberto teaches Luca everything he needs to know about the surface and how awesome it really is. This theme really helped me structure idea of how I want to present Earth at first to Bobby since I want to represent the good parts of being on this planet but then later demonstrate the bad parts that most people tend to judge and want to change. 

Continuing the film, Luca's parents discover that he has been going to the surface and hanging out with Alberto which they then ban him from seeing him ever again and plan to send him to live with his uncle at the depths of the ocean (I know right who do they think they are). Obviously, Luca goes back to see Alberto and they devise a plan to get away, so he isn't sent to the deep with his uncle (Alberto is just the best right).  They ended up going into the mainland and have a whole adventure together alongside their friend Giulia. For my project, I really want to build this feeling of adventure between Bobby and Julia when first exploring the good parts of Earth, I plan on having them visit the beach, try different foods, going to a mall and exploring the beauty of music and art. 

Later in Luca, they enter a competition and Luca and Alberto get really discriminated by this guy named Ercole who is suspicious they are sea monster. At the end of the film, Alberto and Luca get into a huge fight they are discovered, but in the end, everything is resolved, and they live happily ever after. With my film, I'm still figuring out the conflict between Bobby and Luca because I don't know if I want them to have a conflict or because I want part of Julia's life to be a little difficult which makes Bobby realize how there is still cruelty in this world. This part I'm still trying to figure out and plus with my writer's block on top it's been a minute since I have written. I think something to help me which I will be working on is an outline in order for me to have all events ready in my head and then just be able to put them in the script as they flow nicely. But that will be an update for the next post :)

What's up?

 Writers Block. 

    Over the last couple of days, I have had the worst thing any writer could ever have: writers block. I have been trying so hard continue this script and it's not that I don't know what I want to happen, it's just don't know how I want to write it. 

Update

    I have been working little by little to get myself back into the script, but I have also been trying to put my creative mind to work by doing more research on animation, movies, and more. 

    This first video was extremely helpful on learning the basics of animation and understanding the movement of objects on a screen. As a beginner, I had a lot of questions on how people do certain things so when I started on FlipaClip I feel like trying the app on my own was helpful but genuinely understand the concept and different aspects of animation through this video was just overall extremely helpful with what I want to do with my vision and the film.

    

    This video helped me a lot by understanding a little more tips and tricks on how to use FlipaClip and how to do certain animations not just to have a nice motion but also to have detail within my animations. My favorite part was how to do character shading since I have been wondering how to do that for a long time so I feel like this video will be a huge reference for future animations of this film. 

In my next post I will be diving into my analysis of the films I have researched and why they are good assets for my process in making this film :)

    

So you think you can animate?

 It's a process.

    As stated in my previous blog, lately I have been researching, trying new things, and overall writing my new story. Let's just say it's been a bit of a lot. So let me explain some details.

Animation Stage: 

    I know this is supposed to be more of a "post-production" stage but recently I have been researching and experimenting with the different types of platforms, and different ideas that I want to use so I create the perfect way to represent my blob world. 

At first, I wanted to try Adobe Animate since it's one of the most modern animation platforms in the industry, but since I realized how difficult and scary the program is for a beginner like me, I decided to go with something simpler: FlipaClip. I found this app on the App Store on Iphone that I had downloaded a while back when I first wanted to try out animation and lately I have just been looking over it again, setting the different settings, animations, and built in tools I can use to create my animation and make it come to life. 

    This was the first rough draft for my animations within FlipaClip, I started by just drawing out the blobs using the pen tool and figuring out colors, body shapes, and the way I wanted them to look. I also started trying an animation of them walking in a straight line one coming after another but selecting one copying and pasting him at the edge of the screen. At first it wasn't the greatest but today in class I was trying a completely new version of the whole animation. This time though, I started playing with the background a little more, adding more texture to the scene and overall, I believe it looks even better than the first one. 

    I believe the first video looks a lot better than the second one and overall, just matches the blob world a lot better than the original rough draft. I'm still learning a lot about animation that I never knew but I'm excited to start learning a new skill that can be very beneficial in the future. 

Script and Research

This past weekend I watched the Pixar animated film "Soul" directed by Pete Docter. I love this film so much because of the message of the film and the overall way they did everything, the animations, the music, and the storytelling. I have been taking many notes about it but the main thing I noticed was that Joe Gardner (protaganist) and 22 are very different from each other. In a way, I feel that my characters should also have those characteristics since my film is revolved around the idea of appreciating life and embracing the good in it. So far I have only written the beginning, where Bobby gets transfered to the human world up until he meets Julia. I want to make Bobby this terrified little boy who has no idea how to navigate himself around the world (I mean obvisouly, he's not from there), doesn't know what the most simple things in life are. I want him to be curious but also terrified of eveyrthing around him but as the film goes on he kind of learns to calm down and just appreciate things. I'm not exactly sure how I want Julia to be but I do know I want her to be advanterous, and outgoing but also with hidden trauma behind her strength. 

    I will soon be uploading the first draft of the script but this week my main goal is to figure out a name for the film and start creating a social media page for the film. I also want to keep working on my animations and develop how they will look on screen. 

Scratch that I'm Changing The Project

 Bruh.

    So! I'm changing my idea of the project. I've been thinking for a while how I love this idea and how I really want to execute it but due to the amount of time that I have for this portfolio project, I have decided to put that project for a later date and come up with something new. At first, I was dreading the idea of coming up with a whole new concept but lucky I was in the middle of my chemistry class completely bored out of my mind when I started to think deeply about life and basically have shower thoughts in the middle of my lesson. I know you are not supposed to drift off in class but as I was thinking, something really cool came up. 

Hint Hint: Context

A couple of days ago, my friend sent me a link to a film festival called the Human Film Festival. I had checked it out and thought it was pretty cool but he recommended it to me so I could submit to this competition/ film festival because of a short film I had made over the summer. The short follows the story of Miley, a struggling teenager dealing with a major loss in her life and how she handles it. 

It was the first film I had ever directed but it was so successful it ended up having over 3,000 views on YouTube (there are so many things I want to change to make it even better but it's fine). In the end, a lot of people loved it and since this opportunity was presented to me, I was thinking a lot about the prompt of the competition, which led me to think about it in chemistry class which sprung up my new idea. 

I began to think about how part of my generation doesn't really appreciate the little things, even myself.  The air we breathe, someone saying thank you or even handing a piece of paper when you ran out in English class. I feel like lately those things are overseen a lot since many are stressed over things including schoolwork, jobs, college and any other major events going on in someone's life. I want this film to bring that back though, that I idea of living and loving everything around you, the feeling of understand what it truly means to be alive. Now do I know the meaning of life? Absolutely fucking not. But I do believe that you should spend most of your life enjoying it and not making it feel repetitive or unenjoyable. 

Hint Hint: New Story

If you have watched the recent Disney Pixar movie Soul, I hope you know where I'm headed with this. My short is a combination of Soul and themes from Everything Everywhere All at Once. I know that sounds really funky but hear me out. 

Our story begins in the Blob World, a world where particles that never had the chance to form fully live, like specs of dust that everyone passes over. One Blob gets the chance to finally live life for one day, but he is on the mission to figure out and understand what life is really about, as the Blob goes to Earth, they find themselves trying to experience everything around them. All in one day. Over the next couple of days, I'm going to be watching films with these types of themes and figure out the way I want to tell this story. I'm also already starting to think of actors and possible locations of places that best fit the story. Even thought it might be a little difficult I want to incorporate animation elements to bring that Soul touch into the film and also make the Blob world as realistic as possible. The picture shown below is kind of a representation of the Blob World (at least an idea of it) since I kind of wanted to represent it as a very unhappy world. 

What the flip is this about?

 I'm Figuring It Out

    Over the last couple of days, I've been trying to come up with an outline or general idea of the story I wanted to write about, since the concept has been a little difficult to cut down into a 5-minute short film, so far this all that I have. 

Outline:

Starts with girl in class being handed an assignment and the rest of her classmates gets the same assignment, as everyone starts, she tries to focus, staring at everyone working, she starts to flick her pencil and all of the sudden stares to stare into the distance. 

She closes and opens her eyes, she’s in a park, and little doodles start to go all around her. Music notes and drawings of different characters playing in her head. She sees people holding something, it looks kind of like a box but with different flaps of paper attached to it. She looks over and its people with a thin white surface, spreading color on it. Music starts to fade in, and she smiles wondering about all these beautiful things and then. Bam.

Slam on the table, she stares at her teacher which tells her to focus. She tries to get back into it. 

Next Scene:

Cuts to her at lunch with friends, “what happened back there?” “I just couldn’t focus” “have you been drifting off into your little world again?” “I feel like if you were in it you’d enjoy it” “well it’s going to get you kicked out of school, you know we’re not supposed to space out in class it’s part of the rules” there’s a pause between them, the girl contemplates what she’s about to say but says it anyway “don’t you ever think that the way we learn is so..” she thinks of her words “so what” “restricting” “I mean I’ve never questioned it, you get a lesson, practice material, test and then move on” “yeah but don’t you think there’s more to learning than just standard testing? that we can dictate what’s best for us to understand and learn?” “I feel like you're psyching yourself out, this is the way it’s always been” “but things change. the world has been evolving for years and the one thing that hasn’t changed is how we learn; don’t you think that’s weird” “whatever I’m gonna go study for my chemistry test” her friends walks away after giving her a weird look “this is exactly what I'm talking about!!” she sighs feeling defeated.

Yikes!

    Obviously, it's still a work in progress since I was mainly writing a really rough draft of the story. I like the first part of the draft because I feel like it gets the message across between what are characters feels in the main world and what they feel in their fantasy world, but I feel like it just jumps right into the main themes of the film, and I want to be able to develop it a little more without going way too over time. What I was picturing for the first part of the film is for most thing to be really high tech and modernize. I want to give the sense that this story basis on an alternate reality where creativity has been compressed and diminished. Any form of outside thinking is prohibited, and everything is by the rules. Kind of like a Fahrenheit 451 society.

    For next couple of days, I will be conducting research of various Sci-Fi films, and refer to one of my first ever blog post which was about the genre of Sci-Fi. Then I will be trying to develop the story a little more and plan out the next couple of steps in order for me to stay on track and start writing the script (my personal favorite part).

Onto Portfolio!!

 Ideals of Second Semester

Film Distribution:

    Over the last couple of weeks in class we have been learning about film distribution, and the concept of releasing a film through making a trailer, a teaser, and movie poster. I felt that this project was really cool since we got to interpret a story that was not developed by us and market into something that people might be really interested to watch. We were assigned groups, so working with different people I did not really know was an adjustment, but it was definitely pretty cool to connect with other peers in my class that also have really creative ambitions like I do.  

Portfolio:

    As the second semester continues, we have recently started to get into our portfolio projects. I've been waiting this whole year for since this was the moment in AS level where I realized I wanted to take A level. Ever since last year I have been wanting to develop my own film and make it come to life by researching and studying a concept I have been wanting to develop a lot. 

Last year, I developed this concept in my head about the ideas of how students are so limited inside the classroom since everything is extremely rule booky, that we don't get the chance to create projects or assignments in the best way that appeal to our learning. I feel like it's a little difficult to develop as we only have 5 minutes and there are a lot of branches, I want to experiment with for this concept but I'm in the process of coming up with a storyline that fits best with what I wanted to express. 

Visual concepts that I really want to incorporate was visuals from movies like "The Giver" that separate the ideals of being different in a closed off society. For this film I really wanted to experiment with the idea of a closed off society where people have to follow certain rules but want to show the badness of it. 

Timeline:

    I've planned out the last couple of weeks. For this project as I want to dedicate all of my time and effort into this project since it could potentially be entered into film festivals and win prizes. 

Week 1: Develop concept, research.

Week 2: Developing script.

Week 3: Start planning, storyboarding, location scouting, working on marketing products.

Week 4: Planning, location scouting, finding actors, working on marketing products.

Week 5: Final touches for planning and start production.

Week 6: Production

Week 7: Production, start postproduction.

Week 8: Postproduction, Marketing for film

Week 9: Finalizing postproduction, CCR.