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As the website is no longer active, this is one of the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,
No comments:
Post a Comment