Filming again

 

And we film again. 

it is always a little scary to handle so many actors, their dates, when they are busy or free, it is always so hard to make things work but today was a productive day. 

It was also my sister's birthday, reason for why I had to leave a little early duringthe shooting, because I had to go have dinner with my family. And look at the cute gift i got for her. 

(the figure on the left)

Going back to filming, we made sure that we got as much done. We filmed all the cutaways to the now named as the void but it is the cutaways in first person on the black backgrounf that I mentioned before. We also took advantage of the set up to take pictures of the cast for the social media. And to be super productive we also started editing them as some of the scenes were filmed. 

My role was mainly help set up lights, and help moving stuff around . The space we were filmiong was also a little small so having to many people behind the camera wasnt fully useful, so after helping set up, I went to edit some of the pics, and periodically go change some things on set. 

Chill but productive day. 

 Aneesa and I thought of making posts of the cast- but they are tarot cards. 

Tarot cards are the main element of witchcraft on our film, so I'td nice if we use them. So we made front with the pic, and the back of the card has a description/presentation of the cast. We made a little layout and waited for the pics. 

(layout)

I did this on a mac cuz I was using Quinn's computer to save time and I gotta say that I really dislike macs. Like why is their touchpad so weird. 

But anyways, this is the final look with the actual pictures on it. 

ANNND we used a different color for the actors. We used red sinse its kind of an important color in the movie, and just also to have a distinction. 

For them we will write a description of the characters rather than the actors, though. Sinse it works as an opportunity to introduce audiences to aspects of the story. 

We are back at our dear Cypress bay

 

I really didn't miss this place. Comming back from break makes me think of my old school in Colombia and how I felt a little excited to go back to school after breaks. It was such a nice place back there, like it had a playground, and I had recess. Like I had a school break that gave me enough time to do somenthing more than just having lunch.

Bring recess to highschool. 

But yeah after this little nostalgia attack lets review somenthing that I wasn't very excited to see again, this script. 

It has been a true pain in the you know. There is always a new part of it that it isn't fully convisning, now it was the ending. I felkt the build up wasn't good enough, and adding an external element like the crush, really didn't add as much as I was thinking, so this is the summary of my week: a third attempt on this script. 

Changed the figure of an ecternal character driving the conflict to an non so external one, being one of the other witches. And she kind of switching sides. I like this, and I really like the new middle. 

Somenthing that I also thought of was on a quote I once read "write with them, not for them." A dear friend of mine quoted it, while we had a conversation on how much we both dislike James Cameron's Avatar movies. And I was like duh, Im writting a movie about girls, and Im not a girl. 

So I talked a little with my sister, and she mentioned how she liked the detail of her getting ready foe school being a big deal. Sinse beauty standars are somenthing that do exert a lot of pressure in many and almost every girl. Also by talking with her, I gave kind of a new role to our main mean girl and at the same time giving more importance to the fact that they are witches (which I believe is important sinse its our little unique thing) 

The main mean girl (Andreina) will have control over how the other ones look, contolling how they feel about their looks and overall working as a source of relief for their problems. They follow her blindly cause she gives answers. Sarina (one of the girls) will try to tell claire not to fall into Andreina sinse it also has its dangerous side (if loosing your individuallity and following everything that someone says isn't enough) but she (Sarina) wants to stay. Claire would push her to scape as well, at the end defeating the mean witch and geining a true friend. Im missing to propperly write the ending and but I have the idea and I like it. I like how Andreinas new role can connect to current and enhaced tendencies that are strengthen due to the internet.  

Oh funny fact one of our actresses got bangs so we had to change the script and add a scene were she gets bangs. 

(this pic is from another A level I helped film (moment I realized she has bangs))

Writting with like an hour of sleep

Ernest Hemingway I have not read a single book you've written, but I do know you once said: "write drunk edit sober." .So Ididn't drink a bottle of vodka or anything. But I sleept close to nothing last night and somehow made it without taking a nap to late hours of the night and my brain was tired, like really tired. I was talking to my mom over the phome and genuinly was saying the biggest nonsense that ever came out of my mouth, but I was also in flow state, my brain was constantly comming up with new stuff. It was kinda fun.

And I had to write somenthing sooooooo yeah duty called. 

(first time googling a picture of Hemingway he lowkey looks like Pedro Pascal)

As I said my brain was tired so I didn't really stopped to think of small details, and rather just put placeholders when I felt a little stucked (thing that happened a lot with this script.) My main goal was just finding plot points that would match our new aim, and that felt with more strenght. 

The script was missing more emotion so I added the figure of a crush. I don't love this but it kinda draw a line of how far is she willing to go to fit in with the other girls. This aligns with the balance of either fitting in or doing whats right. 

I also started playing a lot more with our first person narrative elements. Our DP has a black huge piece of fabric that we can use to make everything in the bbackground look dark, so I tought we could use this for a new space for our character to share her mind. Being almost if not a literal represantation of her mind. It shows us her expectations, fears, and her loneliness. 

Oh and it also oppened a path for more jokes. Which is somenthing we were missing. We all like jokes.

 

Decisions, decisions

 

We had a little call that solved a big problem we had with the middle of our story. So at first the mean girls were going to just perform a ritual on claire (main girl) and shewouldd scape. And this is lowkey very bland, very very bland. 

The script evolved into somenthing that would involve her more, that would need of her emotional conflict to be developed. 

After discussing it, we decided to take the story in a different direction. Instead of a plot where a malicious spell drains Claire’s life (ts already sounds cliche) and she has to find a way to stop it, we thought it would be better if the witches were actually welcoming her into their group. The main conflict would focus on her internal struggle and her desire to fit in and having to fight sinse this will oppose doing what she thinks its right. Stronger conflict rather than just making a survival story. 

I don't know if it is because it is just not the movies I normally watch but like making good movies with simple plots can be HAAAAARD. It reminds me of this quote.

Filming (wow)

We have filmed our first scene...

Im not gonna lie our pacing as we work has not been the greatest, there has been classes that I feel, deep on my little heart that we could've get a lot more work done, but we got our first scene down. 

Our first scene focuses on exposing our main characters conflict and introducing the other 3 girls. So, even though our sript is not finilized, we will not need to change this in the future and we prioritized having a solid first scene ready to rool this day, rather than rushing the script the day before. 

And I gotta say this was a good choice. Our first scene really really makes our characters shine. Im very happy with the actresses we got. My teammates edited the first pages that I kept short to have more timee to develope later, but they added some little details that enhace the secondary character's personallities. 

As I said seeing the footage that my teammates sent (I couldn't go to the shoot, I was in Tampa seeing a college) I was very very happy with the actresses. Claire transmites the nervousness of the main character. And bro andreina is lowkey perfect for the main meangirl she just like nailed it with her performance. 

(LOG footage) 

Excited to see how this keeps going. 

shooting schedules

 

We have to shot this weekend, and we don't have a script

Zach is going to a state in the north whose team recently got defeated in the superbowl, and he is going the whole springbreak. The perfect time to shot. 

This week we are finishing the script and Friday, sinse is a planning day, we are going to go to Falcon middle school to use Zach's mother room to record a scene. That should take us max max max like two hours. And from there we would move locations going to either Quinn's house, or Aneesa's house to film the ritual. Sinse is a big scene we would wrap the day with it. 

Sinse Zach is leaving we want to shot a big scene and then inmediatelly edit what we shot to save time and film the rest when he is back. 

outlines

Wow today was painful. 

Our idea was just turning very annoying to develop so we kind scratched it. 

Now we are chuds without a story. 

So we went back to an OG idea, making somenthing like The Craft (1996)

but like silly. 

I liked the fourth wall idea but it was becoming a pain in the ass. 

Going to somenthing simpler feels like going to heaven. It still took us some effort to write an outline because our brains were a little fried from thinking on the other idea. And we also tried to incorprate it so it was a little forced... 

But we learned to let go....

Here is the outline

Girl who's pure gets invited by popular Trio to stay on at popular Trio leader house and the sounds backfires and she gets possessed and after she gets possessed she can break the fourth wall and then stuff happens from there ethical stuff a real ethical stuff something that changes her as a person deep down inside 

Beginning:

• MC is introduced as pure cutsie girl type:

• She meets popular girl trio (band of classic prissy hot pink popular girls)

• she takes one of their seats in class and they sit around her

• They start talking to her, in a fake kindness tone

• They invite her to one of their popular girl hangs (mean girls esque)

Middle:

• Hard cut to her outside the door of the hangout

• She talks to the camera while waiting in excitedly, but gets cut off with the door opening

• Popular girl briefly questions who shes talking to, but MC waves it away quickly, but also notices a charm around her neck

• The do classic girly stuff, MC notices the other 2 wearing the same charm

• Popular girls suggest doing a witchy spell casually “it’ll be fun” its revealed that they are practicing witches, and have been doing magic for a while (they maintain their prior characterization though)

• They start the spell, MC notices her energy draining and stops the spell

We are missing some plotpoints but is better than before.

Group meeting

Nikita started...

He has everything kind off figured out regarding actors, locations and costume design. 

Hearing his idea was... an experience. The idea is kind of crazy for a highschool project. Out of the very obvious stuff, I pointed out some other problems and questions I had on how he would pull stuff out.  Problems like a 17 year old highschooler like Robbie (his main actor) being married and doing drugs feeling weird but he is like decided on doing his story. 

He is goimg to rely in clothing to make it more convinsing, which may help a little. 

--

Regarding my project many of the comments came from more specific things like plot points, costume, and actors, which we will figure out this weekend as we write sinse our idea is still on the very planning stage. 

They did point out that is a difficult story, and is somenthing I am aware off. Even thought breaking the fourth wall is an element that makes narrative easy, revolving a narrative arround it may be a little harder. 

--

Andrew's projeect was another crazy one. Something expectable sinse they are working with Joaquin. They have some elements that are still a little vague, but a very solid an interesting base. They do had to polish plotpoints, because for what Andrew told us, they were kinda just all over the place, Joaquin writting a bunch of jokes without even knowing where to fit them, nor even if they were possible to make. 

Like just picture one of the jokes implied running over someone....several times. Boy thats kinda hard to do you know. 

--

Lauren is doing the trailers, that lowkey surprised me, everyone did shortfilm, but her. She didn't have a clear idea for the plot, somenthing that we tried to help with, but she had a vision regarding look and vibe. Costume design, colors, elements that she had locked on her mind. Looking at the pieces she research I can understand how she has the vibe on her mind before the plot. I saw she researched Priscilla and like that movie is kinda just vibes.

Not having the plot fully figured out isn't a huge problem for a movie trailer sinse Yeahh it is a movie trailer, and you can focus on stablishing different things. And being an editing heavy production having the vibe figured out is huge. 

--

Audrey had a very clear structure for her short film. A lot of layers to the story, that I believe with the structure therapy - flashback can be shown, but the story feels a little big regarding plot points. 

I really liked some elements of visual language that she has in mind. Some very good costume decisions. 

Asides of being a big story it feels as an ambitious project. She mentioned a party scene that are always hard to do. But she has a huge part already planned of the overall project so she lowkey has an advantage and if she uses the extra time she can make it work. 

--- 

David, very very ambitious story. Filmming on another country is really crazy but very cool. I do like the story but it's still lacking somenthing. 

When you look at the media he researched you get to understand more for what he is going for. I saw the short "Mop" or somenthing like that, and I know it. I know I've seen it somewhere, and its a cool thing to have as inspiration. I do feel his planning needs more plot points as the base felt a little plain. But its a big story that opens up lot of opportunities, also thanks to the fantastic aspect of it. 

--

Kenna. Cool little cozy story. A very very clear vision and very unique. 

I really, really, really liked this. I feel like somenthing really good can come out of this. It would definitelly not be a traditional structure, but it is strong with a strong ending. The metaphor iss pretty, but I feel maybe only by itself it might not achieve what they want. Like ofcourse there would be like a kathartic moment, but that moment needs to be perfect. Somenthig within the character also needs to show growth. I can think maybe after the breakup she takes it well, and this contrast to her stance towards it before. There is a lot of ways to do it, and Im excited to see how it comes out. 

Researching Social Media

Lets take a look at Fleabag's instagram page

https://www.instagram.com/bbcfleabag/

One thing that inmeditally caught my attention was the strong colors present on several of their instagram posts. The green font and then this very bright pink. 

Its a show with a very strong personality that isn't afraid oof breaking conventions. And I personally believe this posts look kinda ugly but they do serve a purpouse of standing out and looking different from usual social media content. Another aspect of what makes them stand out is its "meme" format. This directly seeks to appeal to the young adult audiencee that mainly consumes the show. 

Some of these memes carry adults jokes. Once again reinforcing their target audience. A lot of its content is based on just extracting scenes from the show and either just show them, or like in this cases take them out of context, fully or parcially to create a meme. Some of this jokes are kinda...bad, but its content created on 2022, for a show which last season was releases on 2019.

One of the aspects that I was the most interested on, was on seeing if they used any element of the breaking of the fourth wall for their social media. 

I couldn't find a lot but this one referes to the characteristic trait of the show by stating on its caption "#OnThisDay in 2016, this woman looked right at you for the first time and said a lot of very naughty things, like seriously, A LOT"

The show doesn't have any particularly creative post, the main one would be this promotional for seasons 2 that uses instagram formating to its advantage. It is very comical how it is a very religious looking tainted glass, with the main character's face, and a hamster. It represents the shows unapologetic comedy.

I would've liked to see more posts that played with the element of the fourth wall. Sinse this is somenthing I want to do for our social media campaign. But a big take away from fleabag's instagram was the ways in which aspects pf the show like its comedy and uniqness can be represented through mere elements like color choice and formating of posts like memes. This is somenthing that would be nice to explore, more coincidering the number of posts that we have to make, and that the more variety (regarding content) but consistency (regarding style) that we have, the better. So according to the final thone that our piece ends up having there are a lot of choices regarding color that we can make as well as some funny posts (they would be more funny than fleabag's cuz they are very bad) 

Now lets check "The Boys" tik tok

We will probably do instagram as our social media, but sinse fleabag is a "old" show. It isn't really old, it was just released before tiktok so it doesn't work to seek any content inspiration for Reels, that are now a huge part of marketing in instagram. So I might as well just go to the og reels, tiktok, and check a dark satire. 

Their tiktok as a video platform is full of promo videos (trailers and teasers) But it also has some simple content like bts pics, many of which have a lot of the show's spirit. 

I would like to highlight this kind of tradition that they have of always postinga pic of the main cast doing a mean gesture with their middle finger at the end of filming every season. It is a show characterized for its language, and strong visual content. And as a dark comedy they use violence and strong language as a comedic element. Kinda normalizing or infantilizing this elements trough social media is a strong way of developing their personal brand. 

In the same post of season 5 being wrapped, there is this picture of the main character full of blood, looking very jolly and kissing a Funko. it looks like a very random pic, but it was posted for a reason, the contrast. A toy and blood, this contrast is comical, and this is all what the show is about. 

The use of this strong elements as a comedic resource isn't limited to bts pictures. Lets watch this amazing video example. 

A very short clip of the show, is used to show and interaction of Butcher and Ryan. On this clip it is implied that butcher (a parental figure to Ryan) tells him several times not to be a **** (I know we are allowed to curse in our video productions but Idk about the blogs so just in case) This whole situation is hilarious, is such a bad advice andd the kid just says it back. Its a little moment, no spoilers, no big plot line developed but it appeals to the thone. By also using a very characteristic small elemt, that is Butchers accent. Which makes him say **** several times throughout the show. 

This social media is a great example on how to use the thone of your piece to create valuable content. Somenthing similar can be done with our piece. The Boys uses its characteristic elements to appeal to both fans and new watchers. Fans are used to them and love them, while new watchers will feel intreague when watching some of this out of context. Considering the strong distinct element that we will have in our piece, being breaking the fourth wall, its somenthing that we gotta use in different ways to create video and picture content.

Lastly, lets see Mickey 17's intagram

All I've looked at was shows so I wanted to check a movie's social media, and a A24 one, because their social media is usually really good. So I thought of Mickey 17 sinse its like a satire with some aspects of dark comedy. 

It has a lot of what we've seen before, some clips or scenes that are used out of context as a meme, or they are funny on their own. As a movie it also has some posts like "Number 1 movie in America in the moment" and stuf like that. Nothing very unique, until I found this...  

They had this video that was a conversation on snapchat of two Mickey's amd if Im not wrong their girlfriend. Im not a huge fan of this like it doensn't fully match the thone of the movie in my head, but at least it repesents to an extent the personality of each Mickey while also showcasing a basic idea of the plot of the movie. 

As a bigger production with bigger names, it has content with the actors and directors. It feels genuine and interactive. This one for example is replying to a comment made on their instagram page. This is somenthing I find cool and I think could be interesthing considering our element of the fourth wall. This part usuallly goes at the end, but I think I'd be cool if we make a video in which the camera is travelling towards the director and it has a comment and the director asks the camera like hey whats going on and then he answers the question. Just mixing some things from this one, with the element that is characteristic of our piece. 

The films identity is developed in a very similar way as the other pieces researched. Clips that showcase the thone. It is done less than in the other pieces, as already mentioned the movie hs a bigger cast so it uses its actors to call the attention of viewers. 

Wolf of Wallstreet also shows a bad person as a funny memorable guy...

 

Wolf of Wallstreet (2013)

Here you can see another bad person who only crypto bros like because of TikTok edits. 

Dark comedy in The Wolf of Wall Street works because the movie treats absolute moral chaos like it’s just another Tuesday at the office. Under Martin Scorsese’s direction, Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) narrates fraud, greed, and total excess with the confidence of a motivational speaker.  The tone is so upbeat and celebratory that it clashes with what’s actually happening. He explains scams like they’re business tips, throws parties like they’re corporate bonding exercises, and frames corruption as ambition. The humor doesn’t come from the damage itself — it comes from how normal, even glamorous, he makes it sound. You end up laughing at the absurd scale of everything, then realizing the whole thing is built on exploitation. That tension between charm and collapse is what gives the film its dark comedy edge.

This guy is so clearly a bad person, but like here is the charisma hides bad. The more immoral he becomes, the more motivational he sounds. The audience laughs not because fraud is funny, but because of the absurdity of how convincingly he does indeed sound. You can be fully against him but at some point you kinda believe some of the stuff he says. This once again enhaced by the use of V.O. He explains the mechanics of his fraud schemes directly to the audience. He simplifies complex financial stuff that I lowkey would've got dizzy with. He kinda makes you feel he is letting you into his world but you are only falling into his lie. What an evil guy. 

(Pic from wikipedia from a guy that looks evil but actually isn't so basically the opposite case as the criature that is the main character of the Scorsese movie) 

There’s a moment where he begins to explain something, then interrupts himself — “Actually, let me simplify this…” — and restructures the explanation for maximum clarity. That interruption is comedic because it reveals self-awareness, AND AS WE'VE LEARNED self awarness is a HUGE common trait shared by all the chracters from this little investigation. 

Just like other stuff he shares with the others is how chill he is for most of the film. Dark comedy thrives when chaos is described calmly. The voice-over refuses to panic, even when the world is burning. That refusal creates tension. The audience sees the downfall approaching, but the narrator acts like it’s just another chapter in a success manual.

But he indeed offers a similar route to what Im searching, the fall of a "perfect" emphasis in the "" I mainly mean on how the pereceive themselves. 

\

(Istock)

I really felt like a scientist discovering this first person + being an asshole formula. I understood how people are manipulated, it felt kinda cool.