Creative Critical Reflection 2020. (#39)

We were one away from reaching forty blog posts! Oh well.

To conceal this missed opportunity of reaching blog 40, go ahead and watch my CCR. Quarantine Edition! ish!

https://youtu.be/R3ku9WT_vKM

VALEDICTORIAN. (site, card, film) (#38)

WEBSITE:

https://luislageyreedu.wixsite.com/stokhigh

POSTCARD:

(FRONT): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wO2sA0iRAdGqW-urGiPvVCUHXMD9nXPj/view
(BACK): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d9T-r68OuO6n1miEcmoZPLsuqlgLZ_Xz/view

FILM:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tuj2zLRlaF27pbfzu-pi3qag9wdrEoNa/view



Here are the contents of this year's portfolio. Look through them at your leisure!


Till Next Time, Have a Great Day,

(#37) - Reflection.

What a wild, fun, and positive journey I have been on this year. Not only has this been an emotional joy-ride for me as many school events are canceled, but as a person, I feel as if I've learned so much about myself and my creative process when working on Valedictorian.

As all reflections must, looking back on the absolute beginning of the piece's development was my friendship with Luis. Last year when we met in our AICE Media AS level class, we instantly formed a bond that I cherish every time we share a laugh or talk about complex, outrageous ideas and how they impact the world as we know it. With my spontaneous creativity and his motivated dedication to his work, we made a balanced team when developing what would blossom into a film reflecting on the world around us. Credit is paid where credit is due, and Valedictorian wouldn't be where it is without my brother.

I've always been interested in character development whether that is through one's physicality, costume design, or dialogue. Having this space to experiment and express my thoughts was highly beneficial to creating the unique characters that appeared on the screen. At conception, Luis and I knew we wanted to showcase the personalities we saw walking the halls with us. Brainstorming the stereotypes common for Gen Z people was extremely exciting as they hadn't been defined with the perspective of their own generation before. This responsibility weighed heavily on our shoulders as we wanted to represent our peers accurately, without offending them. Not only did we achieve that goal, but we made each character clear to understand (in some cases) when they weren't even talking.

I confidently say Luis and I achieved that because our last part of our developmental process was to send our video to a focus group. This consisted primarily of Luis' contacts of film personnel, but they ended up being complimentary of both of our efforts. I addition to citing specific areas that needed minor corrections, this group expressed on multiple occasions that we did a great job. After over 4 months of brainstorming, developing a story, writing a script, acquiring a cast, filming, and lots of editing, to hear that our execution was of a high caliber amongst other filmmakers our age proves that the time and energy Luis and I poured into this project was worth it. The excitement we had about beginning this project early shone through all the creative decisions we had to make.

With quarantine, our development process was impacted a lot. Without our typical school day to schedule around and the quick enforcement of quarantine procedures, Luis and I faced major obstacles in filming our last scenes. Fortunately, as the last few scenes required less than four cast members, planning a shooting day was not difficult to arrange. We were very lucky; our enthusiasm for this project made us begin early, putting us out of production by the time heavy quarantine restrictions were put into place by our local government.

My senior year has been my most memorable year to date, and a lot of that is thanks to my portfolio project. I've developed a new confidence in my ability to convert a conception to a viewable film. This would not have been possible without the critique and advice of my teacher Tina Stoklosa, who educated so many on how to create a film that has a clear purpose. For that, much of my current ability is thanks to her. The largest take away I have from this project is simple: it pays off to be excited. Don't let a fear of prematurely jumping into a project sway you from taking the first steps towards your actual goal. Succeed or fail, if you aren't developing something you are excited about, it is impossible to be proud of your end result.

And guess what? I'm proud of the end result.

(#36) - ROLL CREDITS!

To cap the conclusion of the film, we need to recognize all the people that helped along the way.

I give you... the credits of Valedictorian.

Luis and I thought it would be fun to include the character yearbook photo along with their name because some of the character names aren't spoken. This allows the audience to quickly associate a face to a name. We presented the characters in the order they were eliminated in, however, ending with Luis and I.

There were also a handful of people to thank. BEACON TV was where we rented the camera that was used for the competition scenes, Sydney and Tariq both lent their clothes to us to use as costumes, Mel Altschul (my grandfather) gave us perspective as to why students are perceiving stress into their daily lives. Additionally, we both thanked our families. At the conclusion of these thanks, we included a brief message to Tina, our teacher and mentor, for our gratitude in guiding ourselves both as content creators and humans.


To conclude, both my production logo and Luis' are shown. We are extremely proud of this project and care deeply about this topic, as we see our peers stressed about school more time than we can count. The sound of waves crashing against the beach allude to the pivotal scene on the beach where students finally stood up against those who seek only intrinsic gain and idolize the competitive attitude.




The process of working on this short film has been incredible. Look out for a posting where I talk about this reflection process.



Till Next Time, Have a Great Day,

(#35) - shortfilm.com (The Website!)

Here it is, the grand reveal..... THE WEBSITE:

https://luislageyreedu.wixsite.com/stokhigh

I'm beyond excited to finally talk about this part of the project. Luis and I have been talking back and forth about it behind the scenes, and I plan on using this blog post to dive deep into the production of this part of our project!

THE INSPIRATION

As a Pixar fanatic, Luis and I were incredibly excited about the release of Monsters University in 2013, a prequel up to Monsteres Inc. Their promotional website was a pho-school site for the fictional college where one can access information about the classes and student life. 

As the website is no longer active, this is one of the 

only pictures I could find of it online

This idea is genius for a few reasons. One, it's fun and engaging. To have the ability to navigate through a fictional world is such a unique experience and I commend Pixar for creating this environment for people to escape to. Additionally, this idea is smart. Creating a school website as your tool for informing your audience is representative of your film because that's exactly what the movie revolves around—the school.

Therefore, Luis and I created the Stok High School website.

STOKHIGH.COM

Don't be deceived; this isn't the actual domain name.

Now, our website was born. Drawing formatting inspiration from our school's website (Cypress Bay HS) and adding the signature purple and gold, the website, cosmetically, was created.

As Luis has prior experience in building websites, his role was the actual nitty-gritty creation while I managed the important information to be included (similar in our editing breakdown!).

Of course, the viewer is greeted with the about page. This has all the essential information on upcoming events, school news and more from Stok High administration.

Including these elements allows the viewer to wrap themselves up into this fictional world and pretend they are actually engulfing themselves in this campus life.

On our "About Us" tab, there is additional information about the mission of the school, which is to encourage students to pursue heavy academic courses (of course).

Up next, we've actually included a tab about the competition itself. Here, students can find information on where to watch the competition and the people competing in it. Each competitor has their own unique bio, including what fictional clubs they're in, their SSA scores (Student Standardized Assessment, their universe's "SAT"), the students' GPA, and even their signature. This gives the characters some additional personality outside what was presented in the film. Including this information was important to Luis and me because these characters are large than life and have extremely unique personalities that are important to show to viewers of the film, even if they have to access another media source to find this information.

Every character has their own unique signature (including their easter egg last names!)

These are examples of some of the character bios:

SO, WHAT ABOUT THE FILM?

Hey, I'm so glad you asked!! All the information I've showed so far is related to the school, but what about the film? Prepare to have your mind blown.

Every. Button. Routes. You. To. The. Film. Page.

The Stok High logo on the main screen? VALEDICTORIAN page. The school lunch button? VALEDICTORIAN page. Obviously, besides the tabs that do correspond to a pertinent piece of information, every button will take the user directly to the website of the short film. 

At the top of the page, there is a video playing that shows numerous events occurring in the film.

Here, Luis and I plan to have quotes from content viewers of the film.

As of right now, the film is not complete, therefore we don't have quotes at this time.

The production logos for Luis and I (Curly Fries and TFMC respectively).

Additionally, there are tabs here for numerous sources. "Cast" brings up 

a tab with the students' photos (like the competitor's page), "Production" will

have a documentary of the production of the film (release date TBD), "Story"

which brings up the tab below, and "Credits".

A brief "Meet the Directors" that has brief info about Luis and I

and a quote from both of us: "Do unto others as you would

have them do onto you".

CLOSE TAB 

With that, I've updated this blog with all the information of the website, and the post card! The website has some minor edits that need to be corrected and the film still needs credits (blog post tomorrow), audio leveling for scene one, and transitions between the competitions. The finish line is in our sights and I'm so happy to put the finishing touches on this film!!

Till Next Time, Have a Great Day,

(#34) - audio correction!

Casting my sister was a huge benefit.

Obviously, during quarantine, we cannot go out and film or meet up to work on editing or analyzing our website. This is a huge negative because there could be a scene we didn't like due to composition, and we can't go out and reshoot it. Upon editing the scene at the beach, we didn't anticipate how loud and problematic the wind would be in post-production.

Specifically, there was one clip where the wind was louder than the delivery of one of Miranda's lines. As we can't go back to the beach and re-film that moment, I had a brilliant idea. The wind's volume is so loud that if I could layer another clip of Miranda's voice on top of it, the consistent wisp of the wind would still be kept throughout the scene. Now the only problem was recording it. I only had to walk 6 feet down my hallway to tell my sister I needed her voice.

With both of my monitors set up, Kailey was able to watch the scene and speak the line at the exact same time as she did in the clip. She did this with the same microphone that was used to record the scene in the first place, except this was in the comfort of our home.

Now the scene sounds significantly better, thanks to this correction!! Here is a before and after:

Till Next Time, Have a Great Day,

(#33) - Let's figure this out. (meeting up for advice on POSTCARD, WEBSITE, and transitions)

After finishing our first draft of the film, Luis and I showed the film to our mentor for advice. Primarily, we needed help finding a transition between scenes 1-2 and 2-3, and receive some advice on our postcard and website (which I will make separate blog posts about!). 


Currently, there is a black screen in between these scenes, as we wanted to leave space for a transition we would add on after. I brought up my original idea, and both our mentor and Luis liked the idea. As these scenes occur inside the VR world, the transferring between environments is the competitors loading into a new level. I pitched that between scenes we could fade into white and add a sound cue to indicate the players were being transferred somewhere else in this perfectionist reality game. This simplistic approach would be optimal as something overly complex would be a lot to get the audience to understand, especially when they have to wrap their head around the story.


For the postcard, Luis and I decided that we wanted to create an invitation from the school to get people to come to the viewing of the film. This would be similar to a letter that the competitors receive from the school to be in the Valedictorian competition. Using the purple and yellow color scheme, we created this using an online software called Canva:

Luis and I were conflicted about the "Special Screening"; our mentor was to be the tiebreaker. Ultimately they believed that the inclusion of "Special Screening" not only took up valuable space on the postcard but was redundant as this is assumed of a film's premiere. Mine and Luis's updated postcard now looks like this:

Now this postcard looks awesome. Luis and I added the image of the graduation caps as a way to provide a better visual of the actual film in a manner that wouldn't spoil any events and created a fake CTFD festival (an easter egg of one of our favorite sayings).

The website, on the other hand, I am deciding not to show on my blog (yet) as our largest piece of advice from our mentor was spelling mistakes. With numerous errors and corrections that need to be made, one gigantic post for the website and all of its choices would be served justice on its own rather than infused with this already extensive post. 

Our call this morning was really productive! Taking a minute to show your project to someone else and have other brains helping assess materials is imperative to the success of the product. With more eyes and opinions, Luis and I can better assess how a larger audience will receive our piece. This upcoming week we plan to not only finish production but get insight from a test audience about corrections to our film and other materials!!

Till Next Time, Have a Great Day!

(#32) - Editing Day #6 looking at a mirror!

The day has come... the final scene is ready to be edited!!


I hopped on to the WeVideo project tonight to edit the final exchange between Isa and Garrett (YAY, I get to edit vids of myself again!!). After sharing the video files onto the project media, I was equipped with my clips to begin compiling this scene.


Because all of the clips were filmed in order of the dialogue, I didn't feel the need to have the script open during the editing process. Instead, I began watching back clips and inserting which ones I liked the most.


It's strange editing video clips of yourself because you get to analyze and reflect on your expression, actions, and body language, not to mention the delivery of your line. A strange, reflective feeling came over me and brought me back to that day in the park when I was twirling my headphones in my hand and I remembered how much fun I had on set.


There was only one kindof problem that came up during the editing process—there was ONE LINE that had a lot of wind during the clip. I plan on going back to this specific clip later and add one file's audio onto another video. It is super late and I need to sleep, so I will go back and match the clips in the morning (if Luis doesn't get to it first!).


Not to mention, there were some clips where the line delivery was more aggressive and I made sure to include them in this scene. By editing the cuts so the dialogue starts immediately after the previous line, the scene gains intensity. This works well to build towards a climax where Garrett asks Isa what she thinks about stressing herself out to be successful.


Without further ado, here it is!! There is still the one line with the unmatched audio, so just be conscious of that!

I'm excited to micro edit this scene with Luis!!

Oh crap, we still have to do the final announcer voiceover.... Luis and I will do that this week!! In addition, I will make blog posts about the website.

Till Next Time, Have a Great Day!

(#31) - Editing Day 5 - tiny additions!

To cap the end of the third scene, I completed editing the fourth scene. This is the moment where Bryce leaves the simulation in frustration (nice rhyme Jake!).


This wasn't particularly complex to accomplish. Primarily, Bryce falls back in his chair, takes his glasses off, expresses his disappointment, then storms out of the room. Easy. As long as I sifted through the multitude of takes of this scene and selected the one with the clearest performance, scene four was complete.

One more essential element needed to be emphasized here. The VR simulation, having been referenced only briefly in dialogue, needed to be clear in this scene. After a search, I found some close-up shots of the white VR goggles illuminated in the blacklight that were perfect to tack onto the front of this scene.

And with that, I give you scene 3 followed by scene 4 (start the video approximately 4/5 of the way through!).

In the next few days, Luis and I plan to complete the first draft of the film to send to our mentors and others for more opinions!! I'm incredibly excited to view the final results. 

Till Next Time, Have a Great Day,

(#30) - Editing Day #4, what a beach the beach is!

Here's the problem with filming on the beach. There are no obstructions here, so there is nothing to block the wind. The wind, my friends, was a problem. A problem that Luis and I predicted. With my wind cover equipped to my external microphone, nothing stood in between the filming and the final audio quality. 

Alas, we were bamboozled.

Having not been as familiar with the setup I was working with, I was not familiar with gain. The wind was so intense that I turned it up incredibly high. This oversight caused the audio to pick up a plethora of unintended wind that overwhelmed our audio file.

Of course, Luis and I could not predict this outcome. All we foresaw was that we should use only the audio from the external microphone as the internal mic of the camera would be lackluster. We agreed halfway through the production day that we should, in fact, turn on both the internal mic and external mic (which was smart). Fortunately, in post-production, we discovered a miracle...

Bless the beach!

Waves are so chaotic, they are beneficial. Because of how they vary in their sounds, it is easy to put clips together because the waves hide the drastic cuts in the sound. The volume of the waves additionally adds to the ambient sounds of the beach environment that made the scene so much easier to edit. I discovered this halfway through the editing process as a way to ease the stress on my shoulders...

Bamboozled 2, electric boogaloo

Because of the audio being recorded externally, every single clip from the first half of the scene had zero audio attached to it. For about thirty minutes I edited dialogue together without hearing what they were saying. I had the script in my lap and the videos played on repeat, hoping and praying that I was able to get the scene perfectly edited for Luis to go in and micro. I attempted to match the external files to these silent scenes, in order to make the editing process easier on myself. There were now advancements in the edit of this scene! Some audios matched instantly while others needed some adjusting.

With that, I handed off the edit to Luis for micro editing. I was very general with Bryce's elimination at the end of the scene as Luis enjoys making fun cuts between characters in intense moments, indicative of the running montage in scene #2. After working, this is what we ended with:

Till Next Time, Have a Great Day!

(#29) - Editing Day #3

It's crazy to think that I've already posted 28 blogs for this year. It hadn't hit me until I saw #29... how funny. Anywho, Luis and I hopped back onto WeVideo today to revise scene 2. After micro editing, Luis had a few things he wanted to talk about.

Again, song choice

Upon making microcredits to the running montage of the characters, Luis asked if I could search for another song for this scene. I agreed with this observation; the original choice was on the right path, but not the exact vibe we desired. Therefore, I searched YouTube Audio Library again for another potential song.

Using the "rock, dark" filter like last time, I decided to change the instrument that I was looking for. Last time I searched for "piano" which I thought would elicit a cool, fast-tempo song, but it did not fit the scene like we thought.  So, I searched for a "synth" instead. Synth's provide a very high tone that would bring the technological elements that we craved for the film, as it takes place in a virtual environment. This song is called Sports Action and I don't think it can be any more perfect:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17gVTzorqYcc5CYgzVaKRuYLRRGwlF0j1/view?usp=sharing

It just has that intense, fast-paced nature that we were looking for!! It definitely fits with the running scene.

Next time, I'll progress onto scene 3! 

Till next time, Have a great day!! 

(#28) - walking music (soundtrack!)

Luis got back to me after micro editing. I warned him how difficult this edit would be; now he fully understood my concern. We don't have a lot of variety in our shots so it is difficult to choose "the perfect take" to be inserted into the film. The two of us agreed on the place that needed work: the running montage. There weren't enough cuts, the audio was awkward, and there was an overall lack of intensity, which we desired. To remedy this, we both saw one possible solution...

MUSIC!

Having music to increase the intensity of this scene is imperative to put the "icing on the cake" of this scene. So, Luis searched for Pirates of the Caribbean, adventure-esc tracks while I looked for something fast and sinister.

A few hours later, Luis returned with this audio bite from Killer Tracks:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jZI7Hw6snp-C9mJjOIl4kVhZIMSE6sCw

It's cool, don't get me wrong, but it screams Hollywood Grand Adventure rather than students in competition. After scouring the YouTube Audio Library for some uncopyrighted tunes, I stumbled across these beauties:

"Don't Change A Thing"

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rxWBt2nVd9HzistITUEmGrP5oowRPuFZ/view?usp=sharing

To find both tracks, I searched "Rock, Dark" for the meaner, more sinister mood we intended for the film. The rock element would supply the fast-paced, high energy beat in order to bring the intensity to this scene. While searching for this audiotrack, I also stumbled upon...

"The Coldest Shoulder"

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pK4Emu-hdDr333H3erRkl1uNzc71m0CK/view?usp=sharing

This track has a cool element to it that is both endearing yet sinister. I love this tone in that it encourages the listener to ponder about thoughts in their head in addition to wrapping the overall piece together in an appealing manner. That's why I thought this song would be perfect to add to the conclusion of the film, during either the last scene with Isa and Garrett or even during the Announcer's voiceovers.

In our next editing session, Luis and I plan on attacking scene #2 together on a facetime call to work through the knicks and crannies of this minute of Valedictorian. Then, we will see how these songs fit into the scene.

Till next time, Have a Great Day, and Wash Your Hands!

(#27) - Editing Day 2

Lets not dilly dally!

Back into the routine

After inspecting the first few shots, I was a bit nervous to begin editing this scene. Most of the takes were identical in that there was little to no diversity in the delivery of dialogue or angle taken. I had to be extremely cautious about which shots I'd select to be in this draft of the film. 

Obstacles

As exciting as it can be to be on set, it is IMPERATIVE to have a clear shot list (or at least a crap ton of shot ideas) in order to have copious amounts of footage during post-production. The turn around time for our actual production days was really short, so our storyboard was very vague if existent at all (amateur mistake).  Karma was hitting big time here. It was incredibly challenging to find shots to splice together to show the characters running, but I was able to use some moments of Charlie falling to the ground to add to that "montage".  

Yeah...... this needs work

This was the exact text I sent to Luis after my hour editing session:

"Only scenes that look somewhat okay (like 70% or better) is kailey and sebas, char and Z, and the elimination (which i tried to be sneaky, bc continuity was extremely difficult)

What I observed:

- Timing for Load in needs work

- Record your VoiceOvers ASAP so we can work with them

- "See you later Charile!" (The elim) Miranda's hand is not in the same position when the characters leave, so i used miranda turning around and noticing charlie as her seeing he was just eliminated

I think as long as the running distance looks longer (inserting more into the montage of the characters running) then the pacing wont look as speedy as it does"

To summarize... Luis is going to go in and micro as much as he can, but this scene definitely needs at least one more day of meticulous micro editing until it reaches perfection!

I'm exhausted from editing (if you can't tell). My blog posts for this week are shorter than usual — there is a lot of chaos and confusion going on in the world resulting in a crazy week for me. 

Till Next Time, Have a Great Day and Wash your hands!

(#26) - Editing Day 1

Finally,

WELCOME TO POST PRODUCTION!!!



Before I dive into how I began my portion of the editing process, I need to say that I am looking forward to editing this video WAYYYY more than my film from last year. Something about these 9 students versus the unconfident guy in SuperHuman makes me more enthusiastic about working towards telling this story rather than my other one. I also have a lot more experience in editing now than last year, which definitely brings about confidence in me. I'm ready to attack this beast of a film head-on, with everything I got!

Here's how we broke it up:

Luis and I have pre-established the roles we would play in this process. As he is the meticulous perfectionist, ensuring all jumpcuts and other transitions would be his job. On the contrary, my knack of storytelling ensures that all the scenes are in order and that all characters in a scene have the appropriate amount of screentime during an exchange. This was the plan: Luis would be the micro and I would be the Macro.

As the premier person to begin adding clips to the first draft of the film, I opened our shared WeVideo document and started my expedition.

Trial and Error

Full disclosure, I had a lot of fun editing. Because there were so many takes of a line, I had to skim through numerous clips until I found the most appropriate insert for the scene. This was incredibly time-consuming as I had to do some frame-by-frame edits to make sure that dialogue sounded as clean and crisp during any given exchange between characters. I was extremely proud of my ability to precisely get Isa saying "Seriously", although it was two videos back to back. 

Additionally, I was the first person to touch the brief montage of Garrett getting eliminated in the bathroom!! It was a lot of fun to choose what angles would be at this part and I'm stoked to see how Luis plans on sprinkling Disney Magic at this moment (as I am not strong in fast-paced editing at all). 

To conclude, 

After an hour of editing this scene, I went back into what I had created. Some moments were paced faster than others because of the delivery of the actor's lines, but otherwise, I was ecstatic with what I had produced!! Do I think Luis and I need to go back and make corrections?.... yes, because it's always beneficial to have another pair of eyes observing something you're working on. Luis is going to go onto the shared file and do some micro edits now that I have compiled this first scene together.




Tomorrow I'm going to start on scene 2!! I'm pumped!!


Till next time, Have a Great Day, and Wash Your Hands!

(#23) - "Hold that door!" (Production Day #6)

Last day of filming. Let's do this.

After writing the scene yesterday, Luis and I had the blocking fresh in our minds as we approached filming.

12:30 PM: I left my house to pick up Luis, Jakob (Bryce) and Dani (Isa). I feel like I've been the uber driver for the past two days, for Zachk's picture I'll get Luis to drive. After I picked up Dani, we made our way to her neighborhood park.

1:00 PM: We chose to film at her park because of 1. It was closest to her house and her parents were heavily encouraging quarantine on her and 2. this neighborhood has a small office place with doors! This is perfect for when Bryce storms out of the darkroom where he was inside the simulation; he will collapse to the floor and then run away in embarrassment when Isa sees him. She will begin walking after him only to be stopped by Garrett, adjacent to the little building. This was perfect!! As one of the workers was leaving, we asked if we could film one of our characters leaving the building. He kindly held the door for us as he left!

1:45 PM: (Although you might be misled by the 45 minute time skip) Things were going swimmingly!! Us four shared a lot of laughs with one another while we filmed. I personally had fun being on camera. I've found that I love how I physically portray a character, focusing on every movement and change in the posture I make. However, I was disabled by the sun because it was really bright out (lol my precious blue eyes oh no!), therefore pulling me out of the character frequently. Fortunately, Dani's professionalism and strength in memorizing her lines kept me composed as well, leading us to make an awesome scene for the (kind of) finale of the film!

2:45 PM: Luis said it. He was loud and proud to shout:

"That's a wrap!"

Well, technically yes a wrap on filming!! We have just one more picture to get. But indeed!! LUIS AND I HAVE CAPTURED ALL THE FOOTAGE WE NEED!! This is splendid :)

We also made sure to get Dani's yearbook photo to use for the website.

Zachk's picture will come later in the week!! Stay tuned for that!!

Till next time, Have a great day!

(#22) - Re-doing the ending. Yay. (Script revisions)

Today is an exciting day.... this script will be perfect by the end of the day so that filming for the final scene can go swimmingly. I opened Luis's and my celtx file and got to work.

Writing actions for Bryce leaving the simulation was easy. The goal of this scene is to show the cool technology of the school (indicated by lighting and by the VR glasses), reveal that the story has taken place inside a video simulation, and show how frustrated Bryce is. This is what I wrote up:

"SCENE 4

A dark room. The walls are black, isolating the subject in their chair. Ominous light glimmers in the visor on the subject’s face; the white, high tech material glows in the blacklight.

BRYCE JOLTS BACK IN THE CHAIR. WHEN HE COMES TO, RETURNING TO AN UPRIGHT POSITION, FRUSTRATION PAINTS HIS FACE. HE SEIZES THE VISOR AND CHUCKS IT AT THE FLOOR.

BRYCE

Dammit!

HE GETS UP FROM THE CHAIR AND STORMS OUT OF THE ROOM."

Nothing overly complex. I attempted to be clear about the visuals of the room in order to showcase a "show not tell" mindset during this scene. It had to be obvious that this was a high tech environment, and that the character is emerging from a video world. This will ultimately come across due to some good set design, lighting, and acting from Jakob, who plays Bryce. 

Now, scene #5. This was going to be a bit more difficult, as it aimed to drive home the main message of the film: the competitive nature of schools was toxic to students. This was to be capped at the end with a voiceover from the school announcer, giving prelude before finally announcing the winner. 

With this frame, I simply continued where the previous scene left off:

"SCENE 5

Now in reality. Vastly different than the simulated world with its overt perfection. This place is gritty and real, authentic and familiar to the characters and the audience. This is the real world.

BRYCE ERUPTS FROM A DOOR INTO THE OUTDOORS. HE PACES AROUND IN ANGER UNTIL HE COLLAPSES AGAINST THE SIDE OF THE BUILDING. BRYCE SNEAKS A GLANCE TO SEE IF ANYONE IS WATCHING HIM BREAKDOWN, TO SEE ISABELLA STARING, DISAPPOINTINGLY, AT HIM.

ISA STARES AT BRYCE, THE SELFISH TEEN WHO CARED ONLY FOR HIS VICTORY. ISA, THE TEAM PLAYER, WALKS AWAY."

Luis and I plan on showing this extreme contrast in environments not only through a different brightness and saturation but by using an entirely different camera to record (this is t o a t l l y on purpose and not because our rental period on our previous camera was up).

Garrett is the only character (besides Courtney and Riley) that has not had a lot of screentime. This was intentional though as he was eliminated at the beginning of the film. His only dialogue appearing a the end of the film is important as he elaborates to one of the other eliminated students about his perspective of the competition, which is anti-competing. After talking with Luis, we decided that Isa would be the best student to have this conversation as she has an established relationship w Bryce and the audience, so her inclusion would make the most sense.

This is the final draft of the script we wrote. There are two specific lines at the conclusion that Luis and I talked about for 30 minutes to change, and I will talk about them afterwards:

"CONTINUING THROUGH THE PARK, ISA IS CONSUMED BY SOME TASK. SHE IS INTERRUPTED BY A FRIENDLY VOICE.

GARRETT

Hey Isa!

ISA turns.

GARRETT

How are you?

ISA

(unsure, but vulnerable) I’ve been better.

GARRETT

How’d the competition go?

ISA

Were you not watching it? The school was live streaming it everywhere.

GARRETT

I wasn’t on my phone, so——

ISA connects the dots.

ISA

Yellow guy? Are you the kid that got booted first?

GARRETT

Yeah.

ISA

Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. The water glitch is so dumb, the school should’ve patched it by now.

GARRETT nods.

ISA

That was part of the rules though, to not touch liquids. But you knew that… did you eliminate yourself on purpose?

GARRETT

Why are you analyzing this so much?

ISA

(confused affirmation) So you did?

GARRETT

(beat.) I don’t like people competing with each other.

ISA

But that’s what makes wins so satisfying. You work harder than everyone else than get the “w”.

GARRETT

What is that “w” though? I’d bet you don’t have the same goal as Bryce or Riley.

ISA

Right…

FOLLOWING SCENE CUTS BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN ANDREW AND MIRANDA IN SIMULATION, BRYCE DISTRAUGHT, AND GARRETT AND ISA TALKING. WAVES CRASHING.

GARRETT

That’s what I don’t get. People break their backs taking these hard classes, getting As by staying up late and having panic attacks and stuff. That’s awful.

ISA

Sure, but that's just the cost of success. We need the best grades to get into a good college and then get a good job.

GARRETT

Well, what about you?

ISA

I mean, that’s all everybody thinks about. I don’t want to be left behind.

GARRETT

That’s twisted.

ISA

(sighs) There’s not a lot we can do about it."

Wow. I am incredibly proud of how I've wrapped this scene together. There is Gen Z vocabulary, Garrett showing off his personality, and the message is stated clearly and in a manner that isn't shoving it down the throats of the audience. That part was extremely difficult to get down; Luis and I wanted to make our point as clear as possible but using teenage-realistic vocabulary. phew.

Now that the challenging part was out of the way, I continued to write the rest of the film. The announcer's dialogue was primarily Luis's words, as he has a broader vocabulary for authoritative words than me. I actually wrote up directions for the credits as well, which I'll share as well:

 "ANNOUNCER (V.O.)

Thank you to all students who participated in this year’s competition! This prestigious honor is bestowed upon one dedicated student among the best and the brightest of their peers, whose hard work has now ensured their future success. With this title, they will be respected by all future associates. By student vote, the victor of Stok High School’s tournament is—

“VALEDICTORIAN”. THE VICTOR IS NOT SEEN. IT DOESN’T MATTER WHO WINS. THE WAVES CONTINUE TO CRASH AGAINST THE BEACH AS THE CREDITS ROLL.

CREDITS

A yearbook photo is shown. Their name appears above the description of all the titles they hold. The cast is shown in this order: COURTNEY and RILEY, Z and CHARLIE, ANDREW and MIRANDA, ISA and BRYCE, Jake, then Luis. Special thanks (Syd and Tariq (costumes), Zachk (casting), Tina (Breif thank you)). Production logos.

FIN"

I'm incredibly excited to film the final scene, call THAT'S A WRAP on production, and get started on editing!! This is happening so fast and I'm eager to see the finished product!!

Till Next Time, Have a Great Day,

P.S. I just thought about the website and postcard... Thank goodness Luis and I have been talking about them behind the scenes, Those posts will probably go up during spring break!

(#21) - Garbage Walls (Production Day #5)

Let's jump right into Production Day #5!

11:40 AM: I left my house to go pick up Sebastian. When I got to his house I asked if we could borrow his DSLR (as Luis had to return his rented out camera) for filming the next two days. He was already lending it to a friend, so I told Luis that we would be using my portable camera instead. I swung by Jakob's house as well to bring him to shoot.

12:15 PM: When I arrived at Luis' house, he was already putting up the black, garbage bag tarp on the walls of his garage. The black material was perfect for creating a dark room. I handed him my camera while he gave me a blacklight lightbulb that would illuminate the white VR masks of the students. After taping the tarps up, we were ready to begin filming.

12:30 PM: Filming began! We shot the Miranda and Andrew scenes first as they are just quick clips of them inside the simulation. Afterward, Bryce put on the glasses only for them to be taken off and thrown against the floor, disappointed by his untimely defeat.

12:57 PM: With that, we were done filming! We took some aesthetic photos with the glasses on in the blacklight, then called it a day.

All in all, today was a success! Only one more scene left to film. Luis and I have yet to write it yet though.....!! I will make a post about the writing process!



Till next time, Have a great day,

(#20) - MALMPFS (plan part 2)

MALMPFS:

(mal - m - pft - s), NOUN, Mine And Luis' Mega Plan For Success.

Thanks to a viral brand of alcohol (Corona), Luis and I have devised a new mega plan for success for this week. This week is our first week of "no school" (as our classes begin to transition to online), therefore we have Tuesday through Sunday at our disposal. After reaching out to our cast, Luis and I have our attack plan. 

Tuesday 3/17

Me, Luis, Jakob (Bryce), Sebastian (Andrew), and Kailey (Miranda) are going to film the short yet essential fourth scene, where Bryce exits the simulation. Without this moment, the audience won't fully understand the context of the competition. We plan on decking out Luis' garage with a black tarp to create a dark room where the characters can be playing in the VR competition. We also wanted to get some footage of Miranda and Andrew with their goggles on in the simulation to use during the voice-over at the end of the film.

Wednesday 3/18

On this day, we (fingers crossed) are going to show Jakob (Bryce) leaving the room he was in then collapsing to the floor. Isa sees him then walks away, only to bump into Garrett and having the final exchange in the piece. I cross my fingers here because I'm not positive if the location we plan on using is open for us to show Jakob walking out of the building. Regardless, that place has an awesome field and I get to be in the film again!

Some other day this week

We are going to get Z's yearbook photo. Our actor just has not been texting us back (understandable because of the current situation), so it is difficult to try to plan an exact date to take his photo. For this picture, we also need to pick up his costume from my friend, so I am waiting for a response from both parties before a date is set for these pictures.

The pandemic has been difficult for a lot of folks. Ironically, the worst of it affects the seniors. Not only the elderly who are at a health risk, but seniors in high school and college (like Luis and I) who will miss out on huge social moments of our lives. Its projects like this short film and other hobbies that keep me positive and optimistic about the future. Valedictorian aims to keep my head on straight as I spend the next four weeks at my house.

Till next time, Have a great day,

covid (#19) - conflicts con't

So, currently, we are in a debacle.

The afternoon of the second night of Rock of Ages, our director informed us that it would be our last performance (temporarily) as our principal feared the spread of the COVID - 19 virus that has taken the world by storm. Where I was totally understanding of this concern, my castmates were devastated. It is a shame to postpone my senior year performance, but I have to value the safety of my peers over a school show.

For this reason, my county's Super Intendent closed schools for next week. I was originally going to have classes from the 16th through the 20th, when I would have been in Tampa, FL, for my state thespian competition, but because it was a school-sponsored field trip, it was canceled.

As a senior in high school, it's extremely frustrating and depressing to lose these special moments of my youth. Ultimately, I have to push past these lost opportunities and look forward. I now have two weeks of no plans that I can take advantage of to work on my studies, my personal film projects, and Valedictorian.

Luis and I are extremely fortunate to have captured the majority of our footage before March 12th, when all public locations began to close down. Luis has already offered to redesign his garage to accommodate the scene of Bryce leaving the simulation, which will be perfect for the purposes of the film. There are a lot of uncertainties at the moment around the disease and social distancing, so Luis and I are trying to stay educated, hydrated, and clean to ensure the safety of us and our families during upcoming production processes. Luis and I plan to begin editing scenes 1-3 this week (as that is all the footage we have so far) on WeVideo, a software that has been extremely helpful in the past and something we are both familiar with. A lot of files and images have been uploaded to a shared OneDrive file (given to us by our school for free), so it will not be difficult to transfer that information to WeVideo.

For now, Luis and I are trying to find time either tomorrow or the day after to film the scene with Bryce, the scene with Garrett and Isa, and acquire the ID pictures of Isa and Z. Coronavirus was not on either of our schedules, but fortunately, we were ahead of our schedule so this virus will not be that much of an obstacle for us besides arranging a meeting with our cast.

This recent outbreak has been a lot for my family and me to absorb. By following the news, Luis and I aim to stay informed and safe as we conclude the production of our film and make out way into post-production.

Till next time, Have a great day & wash your hands,

(#18) - Production Day #4

11:48 AM: Zachk: "LMFAO MY SISTER JUST GAVE BIRTH SO IM DRIVING TO GAINESVILLE RN"

Crap. Luis and I already had to reschedule our filming day because of daylight savings, and now we couldn't film because one of our actors was driving 5 hours north to meet with his sister. Luis proclaimed that Murphy's Law had come to bite us in the butt. I chose not to worry about this until...

12:30 AM: One of my actresses told me she was unable to come to production because she had too much homework and not enough time to complete it. As students ourselves, Luis and I understood and wished her well in her studies. Now that one of our important characters were unable to film, Luis and I needed to brainstorm a possible solution, figure out what we could do during our scheduled production day.

12:50 AM: We figured it out. We would keep the voiceover element for the ending, but rather than have the announcer speak over close-ups of all the eliminated students, it would be of a conversation of Garrett and Isa. She would ask him about him losing to the water glitch, which he explains was intentional because he didn't care to continue the competition. This would reinforce the same message that the competitive nature of schools is overwhelmingly negative. 

3:30 PM: The available cast and I took yearbook/ID pictures for our school website! Here's how some of the quick edits came out:

 

For this upcoming week, Luis and I plan on getting the final scene of Isa and Garrett, footage of Bryce leaving the simulation and the pictures of Isa and Z for their IDs. This will be a matter of scheduling our time appropriately and finding the time with our actors. 

This week I have my Rock of Ages performance in addition to my States Thespians competition next week. It's imperative that Luis and I plan ahead for these conflicts.

Till next time, Have a great day!