(#11) - CASTING! & COSTUMES!

Luis and I both broke our bones! So we both got casts!

(Disclaimer: We didn't actually break our bones, but we actually got our cast!)

As theatre students, we are fortunate in that we have expansive contacts of various local actors. My theatre program at my school has about 160 students, of which I know a majority of them.

While Luis made arrangements to rent camera equipment from one of his resources, I brainstormed three names each of the people that would be perfect for each role. I searched through group chats of the various theatre classes (both in and out of school programs) for phone numbers to text these individuals.

This is a sample of one of the texts I sent:

"Hey Ameerah!!

Luis (from AMT 2) and I are making our short film about students in a competition to win their school's valedictorian (instead of the traditional GPA system). You'd be perfect for the part of RILEY:

If you did not see on her Instagram, YouTube, or Twitter account, Riley is a competitor in The Valedictorian Competition. However challenged she may be in face to face conversation, she is not only outgoing but LOUD on camera.  Riley's extreme differences in personality parallel to her classmate's perception of her: they either love her or they're annoyed by her.  She is always wearing the trendiest outfits, always ready for a photo. Riley aims to be the next big social media influencer; her current claim to fame is one viral TikTok.

Im also sending the first draft of the first scene. LMK if you are interested ASAP so that we can pick filming days!!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14r3pTEqFOZqILOM5r_mowv2L7IWcVyd6rO97CPfgBWU"

Here is the unique story of casting each character!!

ISA: Daniela Gomez-Dugan
Dani is one of my really close friends who has been on Telemundo and in numerous professional theatre productions throughout South Florida. I met her four years ago when I was Simba in The Lion King Jr.  in my school production when she played my mother, Serafina. Ever since we have been good friends; it was an easy decision to bring her onto the cast (she was the first character cast!).

- Luis and I asked all of our actors what clothes they actually had in their closet so we knew what costumes would fit and look good together. For Isa, Dani had tennis shoes and exercise shorts just like the ones we had in mind on our character concept Google Doc. She also had a purple exercise shirt that we went with because it went with the school colors of our school, purple and gold. All Dani needed now was a ponytail holder and some of her everyday jewelry and she looked like Isa!

ANDREW: Sebastian Fishmatherin
At first, I had reached out to one of my friends who is an incredibly talented theatre student. He is one of the only male thespians I know that can do a split and a clean toe-touch, not to mention perform as the nerdy, submissive character in a performance. I sent him the text with the information for our short film and he said he would let Luis and I know what dates he was available. Turns out he had a production opening that weekend (how appropriate of a theatre student!).

Next, I reached out to one of my mentees, Sebastian. He had asked me earlier in the year about AICE Media and showed interest in it after I explained to him what the course entailed. After my explanation, he grew incredibly interested, as he is in the TV club on campus and is familiar with many of the technical aspects of the media field. We also have a connection in that we met through the theatre program at my school when he was the General in Seussical. I was incredibly happy to hear he would join the cast after he received my text and hearing me rave about this project for weeks.

- Luis and I knew that this character, without a doubt, had to wear a hoodie and cargo shorts. I had these items already, so all we had to do was grab those items from my house. Sebastian said he had a Penn State hoodie and some shorts that would work for the nerdy character so we encouraged him to bring those to our filming days. Luis and I would bring my purple hoodie and cargo shorts on that day to see what looked the best on out actor.

BRYCE: Jakob Binnings
I met this student this year, as he is a new student at my school. I met him through my school's theatre program as he is in this year's production of Monty Python's Spamalot.  Jakob has participated in my media projects before, so it was reassuring to know he wanted to come back on camera and play a role in another one of my films.

- As this character was loosely based on Payton Hobart from The Politician on Netflix, Luis and I asked Jakob what dress pant/polo shirt combos he had in his closet. He didn't have a white polo, which was the main item we envisioned for this part. Instead, Jakob sent a picture of a red pant/dark turquoise polo that looked awesome together. We chose this outfit because of the subtle allusion to democrats and republicans in addition to the blue shirt foreshadowing how the character gets eliminated.

MIRANDA: Kailey Fretwell
As the Valedictorian Competition is only for seniors, I knew I wanted to reach out to only seniors for my project (or so I thought). The original actress I had acquired for the role could not film the weekend we were planning to film, so I brainstormed for even more actors. Miranda/Miles was the most difficult character to cast as we needed someone who was optimistic and happy by nature. For this reason,  Luis and I decided to cast my sister, Kailey. She has been involved in theatre for at least twelve years so I knew she had the acting chops to be in a film. I also knew she had no plans at the weekend we were planning to film so it was simple to just bring her with me in my car wherever I went.

- On our character concept, Google Doc, Luis and I had envisioned this character with a vibrant tie-dye shirt (alluding to their well-roundedness and sociability) with a denim jacket sitting on top. Luckily my sister already had a tie-dye shirt and a denim jacket with some of her favorite pins on it. I told Kailey to wear black shorts and her red converse high tops to complete the outfit.

RILEY: Ameerah Adetoro
I met Ameerah four years ago through my school's Student Government Association. She is very smart and aware of social media trends, making her perfect for the tech-savvy Riley. Ameerah uses TikTok (it is to Gen Z what Facebook is to Gen X) as her primary social media platform and creates allot of videos to post there. As we've grown closer, I discovered her long history as a dancer and even encouraged her to join the theatre program at our school. I was ecstatic when she said yes to my text!

- During the character conceptualization, I envisioned Riley wearing the color orange, which symbolized new fashion trends and the "new wave" of social media through apps like TikTok. Orange is a common color used by "clout clothing lines" such as Supreme and Off-White, indicating that an orange shirt was to be the costume for Riley. Ameerah didn't own an orange shirt herself, so I asked my entire cast of my show if they had an orange shirt. Only one student had one—it was an orange and navy blue striped polo with a white collar that looked super trendy and would look perfect with ripped jeans and a white pair of shoes. She sent me a picture of the shirt that night and I LOVED IT!!

CHARLIE: Cristian Velasquez
This bundle of sunshine I met last year through my school's theatre program. He is now good friends with my sister and was very easy to get a hold of. Within seconds I was able to bring him aboard the short film team and cast our non-gender conforming character Charlie as none other than Cristian.

- Charlie's costume was easy. Cristian, our actor, is a thespian already so I asked what theatre shirts he owned. He responded saying he had a purple shirt that said "Theatre Camp" on the front which would be perfect for the character. Funny enough, I also asked him to wear the black pants and crocs that he wears frequently as they'd made a great outfit for a quirky theatre-goer.

Z: Jack Sussman
I had a difficult time trying to cast this character as I was looking for people who had deep voices and could perform as dumb characters. I texted one of my theatre buddies that I've known for 6 years if he was available to be in the film, to which I received no response. Next, I recalled when I saw my school perform Beauty and the Beast this February and texted Jack, who played the burly character, Gaston. He has been involved in theatre for 3 years and said yes to filming, although he had no prior experience with acting in films.

- The pants and shoes were easy for Z. Black jeans (ripped or unripped) and an old pair of vans would fit the grungy vibe we wanted this character to have. Jack didn't have a colorful jacket that looked like our character concepts though, so I had to ask around for an appropriate shirt. As I walked into my computer science class the day Jack was cast for the part, I saw one of my friends wearing a black hoodie with each sleeve a different color: one was cyan and the other pink. I asked him if I could borrow it for the weekend and he said yes!! This was a lifesaver. to complete the look of the character, I planned to give Jack one of my blue beanies as well.

COURTNEY: Taylor Stark
This character had her name written all over it. Sassy, bossy, authoritative and more, Taylor was the only name I had down for this character. She has been involved in theatre for the past 5 years and has been in numerous short films in the past. I was genuinely shocked when she agreed to come on board for this role and I'm excited to see where the film will take us.

- I had a very specific jacket in mind for this character. It was brown and fuzzy just like a teddy bear. When Taylor was sending me photographs of some possible clothing options that matched Luis and my character concept document, she sends the exact jacket I was envisioning which I eagerly told her to bring. She also owned a white shirt and pant that was perfect for the role in addition to some badass pink heels that completed Courtney's entitled look.

GARRETT: Jake Fretwell
Hey, that's me! As I was the original Garrett in my project last year, Luis and I had decided I would reprise my role. We just made the executive decision to limit my screentime as much as possible so that I could be behind the camera the majority of the time.

- As the original costume for Garrett was a turtle neck, I knew I'd have to "modernize" Garrett's outfit. I already had black shoes and blue shorts that matched the color of Garrett's previous blue pant black converse combo. Instead of the yellow turtle neck, I opted for a yellow hoodie, which would make the character appear younger to the audience (this was to offset the facial hair I am growing for an upcoming show of mine).

Otherwise, our cast has come together!! We are going to decide on specific production days within the next two days in our "Valedictorian"  group chat based on everyone's availability. Hopefully, all goes as planned!

Till next time, have a great day,

(#10) critical path map (& schedule!!)

Without further ado... we have a plan.

I mean Luis and I already knew what we were doing in regard to what needed to happen, but we didn't know what we should start with or what would come after. Our critical path map reveals to us in what order we need to approach our upcoming tasks.

During our media class, we sat together and created a list of everything we needed to complete for our production. The list looked like this:

It looked like this because this is the actual list we created. 

Using a shared Google Doc file we evaluated the general order that all events must occur in. For example, before we can begin production, we must cast, write the script, revise the script, location scout, and storyboard. Some of these preliminary requirements have their own conditions that must be met, therefore the success of the critical path map is extremely convenient.

With this, we've created a schedule for this week:

(Completed) MONDAY: Write the Script & Cast if possible

(Currently) TUESDAY: Continue/Finish(potentially) script 1rst draft & Cast 

WEDNESDAY: Script Revisions & Location Scout

THURSDAY: Final script revisions & Final cast assembled & Storyboard Challenge #3

FRIDAY: Storyboard Challenges #1, #2, and School Scene & FILM SCENE #3

SATURDAY: FILM SCENE #1 and SCENE #2

SUNDAY: FILM SCENE #4 (School Scene) & Footage Review

MONDAY: Footage Review

TUESDAY: Photoshoot for the website (if we have not acquired pics during filming.

Then we begin the editing process!!

This was no small task. After creating the critical path map in class, Luis and I called each other immediately after school to flesh out this concrete plan.  This weekend is really the only opportunity I have to film as next week is my school show, Rock of Ages. Fortunately for me, I was able to adjust my schedule to open my weekend up. Luis and I are cautious about the filming days though: as we have eight characters (excluding myself) to plan around, we have to make sure we film specific scenes on certain days due to their availability.

I have my fingers, toes, legs, arms, and eyes crossed that this week will go exactly as planned. Although that may be an unreasonable thought, I know that as long as Luis and I show up to filming days prepared and ready for production, we will have a quick and efficient filming process!

Till tomorrow, Have a great day!

(#9) - new equipment!

HORRAY!! I HAVE NEW EQUIPMENT FOR FILMING!

Last year, I made one of the best decisions of my high school career: I got a job! I worked part-time in a local restaurant. The other day I used some of that money to make Amazon purchases... the packages have finally come!!

Not only do I plan on using these products for the short film, but I also film a personal video every month that I will use this equipment for as well. These are long-term investments for me and I plan on using them as much as possible!!

WIND COVERS

Last semester, I used spare cash from my job to invest in a Blue Yeti Nano microphone. It plugs directly into my computer and I've used it for numerous voiceovers and other audio needs. However, it catches even the smallest of sounds. To combat this issue, I purchased 2 wind caps for my mic! One is a foam that will hide any loud breaths that the speaker makes, the other is a "dead cat" that protects from wind in outdoor scenarios. Luis and I are thinking of acquiring a boom microphone for our film; having these wind covers for the indoor and outdoor environments will greatly improve the quality of our project.

LAPEL MICS

Throughout my high school experience, I've conducted numerous interviews on behalf of my school show and other leadership activities. Every time, the interviewer would always set up a lavalier microphone to my shirt collar. I decided to be proactive and give myself the ability to conduct these interviews as well for my personal content (as the lavalier mics are difficult to hide on camera for our short film). It seems to be a common theme that I'm interested in improving my audio quality, as indicated by my first two purchases.







RING LIGHT

As my first true time actually experimenting with lighting, I purchased a ring light that attaches to a tripod. With three different tones (white, warm, and cool), I am able to create a specific ambiance for a scene. This will be used for close-ups/mid shots as it is difficult to hold the light with the camera inside of it while simultaneously having the light plugged in for power. Luis and I plan to shoot some scenes at a school where lighting is notoriously tinted yellow; having another light source to displace that light will ultimately benefit the quality of our film.

TRIPOD

The yin to a camera's yang, a tripod is extremely important for filming. Stabilized shots are unheard of to beginner level filmmakers as they primarily use handheld setups. I was sure to invest in a tripod that will last for not only this short film but for all future projects. All of the shots in our short film (with a few exceptions) will require a tripod for the straightest shot we can possibly capture.











FRAME FOR BACKDROP

This may come as an odd selection for purchase at first. As I don't know how to use a green screen, it seems like an impractical buy. However, during the outdoor challenge, we plan on using this frame as the "finish line" for the physical challenge. I also intend to use the frame for future projects, but currently, it will be used to drape a sign that says "FINISH" in the middle of a field so the competitors where their goal is.










I'm so excited to use these products to their fullest extent. All of my future projects will take advantage of these items, so I will make sure to learn how to use each product to the best of its ability!!

Till next time, Have a great day,

PS ————— Here are blogs to expect this week!

(# ?) critical path map

(# ?) casting!! (and why I have it easy)

(# ?) design choices for promotional material

(#8) - conflicts.

There is irony in that I haven't posted in the past four days and that this post is about conflicts.

March, for the past 3 years, has been the busiest month of my year. For my AS level project, I frequently complained about having rehearsals for my school show, Mamma Mia! where I played the charming fiance to Sophie Sheridan, Sky. I had a lot of fun in that role, but always found myself stressed trying to find time to write deep, thought-provoking blog posts about my production process.

This year, a similar problem arises. Rock and roll legend Stacee Jaxx is a lead in Rock of Ages. Obviously, I'm excited about the part, but I'm nervous about how it will affect my production process. Luis and I sat down and created a critical path map (which I will post about this week) where we assessed how many days each aspect of our production process (both pre & post) will take to complete. Immediately after my 3 hour-long afterschool rehearsals for the show end, I will be confronted with rehearsing for my thespian states competition in Tampa. Finding downtime during these rehearsals to make progress on my film will contribute tremendously to the success of this project.

Again, I'm going to reiterate that I am blessed and lucky that I am able to partake in these activities. They are a huge honor. However, copious pre-planning must (and has) ensue. Considering the majority of the story has been created and the characters developed, I feel confident in the progress Luis and I have made. That comfort cannot go to my head though—I must persist in writing our script and casting our characters.


With no time to waste, I'm going to go write another blog post!!

Till next time, Have a great day!