Thoughts of Concern

Although, I haven’t recorded the voiceover yet, since I am waiting to see my grandmother tomorrow, I am going to try and start editing some of the footage I have gathered together to see the sort of direction I want to take. I wish I could use some fancy software that I hear others talking about, but in all honesty, i don’t really know how to use them and I frankly quite terrible at figuring out things on the computer. So, I am going with what I am familiar with, iMovie. If you remember, I already edited a small clip which I intend to use as my intro. I am actually quite nervous to do this, as with everything, because in your mind, you imagine that the outcome will be perfect, but most likely, the outcome will not come out exactly as you envisioned because of course, nothing can be perfect. But I can only try my best!

Additionally, I have been recently thinking that perhaps, I might include some music in the background, ideally some classical music. But, I don’t know if it would interfere with the dramatic monologue I have playing through voiceover and if it would just be too much. I have the intention of trying to make that monologue be powerful and therefore having it  be the only thing you can hear would allow it to stand by itself and really be heard. While editing I’ll play with the sound and decide what to do then. Those have just been a few updates!

Docu-style Filming

So, big news! I finally went to my grandmas house and I started to film with her. I approached the project with causation because like I was afraid was going to happen, I didn’t think I would be able to get good shots with her since she is in a delicate state. But I went on and just asked her to stand in front of the flower bush in her house and just smile and do things I told her to do. Since I couldn’t expect some Oscar worthy acting from any of the people I could potentially use as actors, I modified my way of thinking and altered my vision for the opening a bit. I think, once I edit all the clips I have filmed, I am going to create a sort of montage kind of opening. Where a series of shots will evoke the tone and mood I want to create with my film opening. There for, the actors will not necessarily be looking into the camera “acting”, but it will have more of a documentary style of filming. Below I will attach a screenshot of my current camera roll so you can see all the different takes I have shot. 

Hopefully I can edit all of these together, along with the previously shot scenes of my grandmother’s unique painting and my future plans to shot various close up images of the nature surrounding my grandma’s house in order to create a beautiful opening that flows. My fear is that is will seem too “all over the place” and random in shot order but that will hopefully be avoided in the editing process.

First Issue to Deal With

As I anticipated, problems have arisen. For the past few weeks I have been babbling about how I am going to have two versions of my grandmother in the opening of the film, showing her current self, and her past self she is remembering. My grandmother was gonna play herself, and my mother was gonna okay her young since it was around her age that she left her home country. I mentioned this to my mom, and she seemed to be okay with it. At second mention, since I am planing to film her parts this week, she seemed to get a little shy about it. Granted, she is not the acting type, but I thought it would be a nice sentiment. But, I don’t think she really wants to do it, and in no ways am I going to force her. I want to have people who are just as enthusiastic about the project (not that my mother isn’t excited for me, but I think she is a bit camera shy) so, I asked the person who wanted to be a part of the project since the beginning: my little sister. I would have the stark difference of my grandmother being represented in her old age as compared to the young age of my sister. The age difference is big, but I think through my costume decisions, it will be evident that they are playing the same person at different ages. She has braces, which put me off at first since it takes it out of the time period, but I won’t have her opening her mouth (no big deal). Hopefully everything work out!

A Stroll Through the Paintings...

As I mentioned before, I wanted to incorporate the many beautiful landscape paintings that my grandmother owns. Now in order to make them interesting and engaging visually, I had to really think out of the box for this one. Due to the fact that I am not full fledged filmmaker, and therefore don’t have the extent of resources and people to allow me to make a “Hollywood”-esqe movie opening. I can however, try to be as clever as I can muster in order to try to make an opening that can be beautiful and well made. I have accepted the fact that I can’t create long shots of the environment since I don’t own a crane in order to make a crane shot or a drone to capture a shot of above or from afar. But I can recreate the feeling of a long shot of a setting or place by using the paintings she has an moving through them with the camera. So, I took the painting down from the wall and set them in the front yard, so the bright light of midday can exaggerate the beautiful colors incorporated in the painting, allowing the color palette of the film to be bright and versatile, as I had envisioned. Perhaps I can’t explain my vision as elegantly as I hoped to, but I can show you what I have in mind through the practice shots I have done. 

For example:

I understand that this might be a risk to do, since I am virtually treating a painting as a realistic place but it is not as if I can go on a plane and visit these places myself in order to shoot them, so I make do. Hopefully I can incorporate these shots into the opening and create the vision I have for my opening to reality. 

Costumes of Significance

As it it something every filmmaker must consider before starting the filming process, I have been invested the past few days in finding the right costuming and hairstyling for my character. My main character is going to be Maria, Based off my grandmother, and will be played by my actual grandmother in the "present". Maria is the past will be played by my mother, my grandmother's only daughter and dead on look alike. However, I understand that the audience might not necessarily put the together that both women are meant to be the same person but in different times, and that is why I am using costuming to my advantage. I will have both characters wear the same things, in order to propose that suggestion. I picked out an actual sweater that my grandmother owns, which looks like this:

Why the color red, you may ask? Not only is red my favorite color, but it will also stand out with the many blues and green the in the rest of the film. It will stand out, just as I intend for my character to do so.

Addiotionally, I will employ the use of a bandana in both their hai, with my mother wearing it in a bun, to show her status as a working woman. The bandana will have accents of the red from the sweater along with a deep navy blue. There colors are similar to the american flag, which has an intended purpose since my grandmother left Venezuela to go to America. For immigrants, America represents a place of copious opportunity for a better life. It means hope.

Rough Plan

So, as you have seen in my previous posts, I am using my grandmother as my muse in order to honor her story and the story of many immigrants alike. I've had the idea for a while, while utilizing the quote from my grandfather as the opening statement the main character, Maria, says. Like I predicted before, I ran into some problems with the actual saying of the dialogue. In order for it to be authentic, I wanted to use my actual grandmother in the film to play herself, but she has unfortunately reached an age where it is difficult to remember long pieces of dialogue and to act, per say. Therefore, I came up with idea of portraying the character of Maria in her actual age, and the dialogue calls for her to reminisce back to when she was young. That is when I will get someone younger to play Maria, as if it were a flashback. Additionally, I will get this have the monologue to be said through voiceover, so that it can be easier for me to obtain the best take. I want to alternate between shots of the paintings that my grandmother has hanging in her house, to shots of herself in real time, to shots of her as a young women emigrating ti the United States. I plan to differentiate the flashbacks to the present time through a use of a different filter on the camera, perhaps. 

Picturesque Ideals

While visiting my grandmother's house I was looking around for inspiration for my film. I wanted to find something that was quintessentially my grandmother while also providing beautiful and engaging shots. Due to her extensive and frequent travel my grandmother has picked up a lot of different unique portraits from around the world and her village near the beach where she grew up in Venezuela. She has many of the paintings hanging around her one story house and throughout my life they had always been there, while I paid no attention to them. But, I have found that these paintings had subconsciously attached themselves to the memory of my grandmother and inspired my love for art altogether. For me the painting represent, both her love for travel though the paintings of the places she has visited, and hpw rooted she ios to her home country. There I took down three of my favorites of the paintings which are shown below:

What I am thinking of doing is zooming in extremely close to the picture so the entire painting takes up the frame, so that the paintings resemble actual; long shots taken at these places that are so dear to my grandmother. The paintings will represent the places my grandmother left behind and the places she will go after she emigrates.

How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria...

Since we are starting the production phases of  our  rejects, I began the week with grand thoughts of beginning filming by going to my grandmother’s house. On the way of the drive, I was looking around at the general environment through I-75 looking for inspiration, but of course, I was just surrounded by a bunch of cars and pavement of the highway. I happened to look up at the sky, and found beauty in something that is ever-present. The sky was a deep blue with absolutely no clouds in the sky. When I reached my grandma’s house in West Kendall, I greeted her and tried to explain what I was doing and immediately got to work trying to get shots before any clouds appeared. I knew I wanted to use a shot to create my beginning sequence where the name of the film is revealed. 

I’ve been thinking long and hard about naming the title of the actual film and I was proposing all of these complicated and long titles. That is, until I realized who the inspiration and heart of the film was about: my grandmother. And therefore I decided to name the film after her. My film is called Maria. 

While getting the shot of the opening I tried a shot where I tilt the camera up from the top of my grandmother’s house to a shot where the sky consumes the entire frame. I downloaded the app iMovie where I edited the video and added the graphics of the title. Here is the rough edit:

If you look carefully, you will notice that from the moment the title appears, there is a small glitch in the moment before. It is a jump from the frame the doesn't contain the title to the other, but it really bothers me because I feel like there isn't a sense of continuity through it. I'll have to see how I fix it in the final product but I really envisioned the title appearing with the blue sky in the background. 

Love of Nature

I just finished watching the film Life of Pi (dir, Ang Lee), which was honestly one of the best films I’ve ever seen in terms of aesthetics. One of the most memorable parts of the film was the opening sequence where the zoo animals are shown walking around, embracing their natural habitat. The sequence is a bright daylight, with saturated colors. Lee, the director, made interesting choices with color by deciding to really accentuate the colors that occur in the natural world, so that the beauty and diversity of nature can be truly seen. It can be seen in the opening titles of the film. 

It inspired me to do something similar, where the natural world is embraced. My grandmother has a nice flower garden in her front yard, but I don't know if the flowers are bloomed this time of year, so I'll have to check it out. She also has a mango tree in the back, so I could take some shots there too. Since I don't have access to zoo animals, I cannot fully emulate the Life of Pi opening but the point is not to copy it, it is to inspire me. 
Something else the Life of Pi opening reminded me of when I watched it was that I must include title sequences so I can show that I am familiar with film conventions. I know many films now don't have the credits till the end of the film but since I am only making an opening, I must show the credits in the opening.  So, when I begin filming, I have to conscious of including the title somewhere in the frame of the shot.
I''l give you some updates later!
Citations: Netter, G. (Producer). Wormack, D. (Producer). & Lee, A. (Producer, Director). (2012). The Life of Pi [Motion Picture]. United States: 20th Century Fox.

A Blossom of an Idea

I just came back from my grandmother’s house and as I said before, I asked my grandfather for stories of him and grandmother, which truly represented how t felt to be an immigrant. He went on for half and hour, story after story, but most cannot be represented ted in a short 2 minute film opening. They were too long. So, a bit defeated, I helped my mom clean up their house before we went back to our house. When I was putting my grandfather around e away, I found a crumpled up piece of paper with his handwriting in it. It read:  “A veces la nostalgia me atormenta y me salen lagrimas de dolor por mi país perdido pero oigo una voz que me dice: acuérdate de tus mejores tiempos”, which means, “Sometimes nostalgia torments me, and I cry tears of pain for my lost country, but I hear an inner voice that tells me: remember your best times.”

Naturally, I immediately was moved by such powerful words and knew that I wanted to incorporate this in my film opening. I think I am going to have the main character say these words, and I want it to be my grandmother since she had a shared experience with my grandfather.The experience of an immigrant is quite an emotional, but optimistic journey, since they are leaving the place they have always called home to go to an unknown place where opportunity for a better life is promised. I am going to keep in in Spanish since that is the only language they speak and my first language, and I will include subtitles. I might want my grandmother say it in film, but it might not be possible since she in unfortunately not in good health. I am going to go over top her house in the next few days to see if she can say the line on film, but if not I'll have to seek a way to incorporate the line without having my grandma say it directly. Maybe I might have it done through voice over. We’ll see...

Additionally, I think that I want to honor my grandmother's by highlighting something that always defined her in my eyes while growing up: her love for nature. She was always kind of a hippie who loved picking flowers with me and she imbued an appreciation for natural beauty within me. Her house is covered with large portraits of different places around the world, since she had a curiosity to see the world beyond her childhood village that was located next to the sea in Venezuela. I strive to show all these ideals that she held dear in my film opening with the purpose to truly give an accurate representation of the life of my grandmother.

Introducing Valle Productions

Since I didn’t want to emulate typical film conventions, I know I want to incorporate a film production logo in the beginning of my film  opening. I’ve been searching up various film production logos and many have a visual image or video to go along with the name to indicate the meaning or significance of the name and to assure individuality of the production company. For example, the production company created by JJ Abrams, “Bad Robot Productions”, is presented with a little red robot in the middle of a field surrounded by dark clouds. This is significant because it is representative of the atmosphere of most Abrams’s movies. His specialty is sci-fi films, that include some kind technology or futuristic feel to it and sometimes have a dark undertone to it.

Similarly, I want to create a film production logo that symbolizes the ideals and types of films I want to make, specifically, this particular film opening. I gave decided on the name of my production company: Valle Productions (pronounced like ‘valet parking’). And I will explain why I decided to name by production company Valle Productions. First of all, Valle is my mother and my grandmother’s middle name, so I have a personal and emotional connection to it. Since my grandmother is one of my greatest inspirations, I feel her middle name is quite fit for the company. I intend to try and include her some way in my film so, there a literal connection to the name. But I also thinking the “Valle” is appropriate because the word “valle” in Spanish, my first language, means valley. This emblem of nature is representative of what my films will incorporate, since I am sure I want to have a strong emphasis on the natural world since there is so much beauty contained in it. 

Additionally, a valley must be reached by crossing over a mountain. I like this idea of getting through a large and tall mountain to arrive at m this beautiful place. To me, the mountain represents hardships we must face in order to get to the place we want to reach, whatever it might be, which in this case is represented by a valley. In a previous posting explained that I wanted to try and highlight the bravery and hardships that come with being an immigrant, since my entire family, including my grandmother, are in fact immigrants. 

So, I downloaded an app that allows me to create such a logo. It's called PicArt and it allows me to create a logo by scratch through a drawing tool. Knowing I wanted to depict mountains with valley in between I first drew this:

Not liking how the drawing went out of the frame and wanting it to be reversed, I redrew it:

Finally, it was up with finding the right font, that had this sort of movement of the mountains and creating the final product. This is the final result:

Target Audience

When making a film, one must always consider the target audience before they actually film it. That is what I am doing right now. In a previous post, I expressed my desire to create an opening that portrays female, hispanic character without to resorting to cliches or stereotypes that do not represent these identities at all. 
Taking this into consideration, I did some research on prominent movie goers. 

According to a news article by NBC, Hispanic people make up one of the largest percentage of moviegoers, yet are least represented in movies. In fact, in 2014, the Motion Picture Association of America reports that while Latinos made up 17 percent of the U.S. population, they accounted for 32 percent of frequent moviegoers in 2013. By definition, frequent moviegoers are people who went to watch a movie once a month or more. Perhaps by making a hispanic person my lead, I will appeal to this large percentage of Hispanics who go to the movies often, and therefore ensure that my film has a large scope of viewership.

Additionally, I am going to make a film opening that would have a woman as the lead. Therefore, this narrows the target audience scope further. In fact, according to an article by Variety, a study on the box office results for the film "Wonder Woman" (dir. Patty Jenkins), has revealed that the majority of the moviegoers were female and older audiences. Since "Wonder Woman" is also a film that has empowered woman by showcasing a female as the lead, I should expect similar results. 

I will update the target audience once I know what I am going to make my film opening about more in detail.

Sources: 

•  Roven, C. (Producer) , Snyder, D. (Producer), Snyder, Z. (Producer), Suckle, R. (Producer) & Jenkins, P. (Director). (2017). Wonder Woman. [Motion Picture]. United States: Warner Bros. Pictures.

Inspiration

I’ve been thinking a lot of my inspiration for this particular film opening. I think that a film opening is one of the most important element of a film, as they are the opportunity to really express the tone and theme of the film. I want to communicate a message I care about, and create content that I can relate to. Therefore, I am aiming to create an opening that has a female lead because I believe that more films should be made where women are represented in a powerful and positive light. 

According to a study done by USC Annenberg on Inequality in representation in 900 popular films from 2007-2016, out of the 100 top films of 2016, there were only 34 films that depicted a female lead or co-lead, of which only 3 had females of underrepresented racial or ethnicity group and 8 had women ages 45 or older. 

In addition, I also want to depict the story of an immigrant, since I have personal connection because my entire family emigrated to the United States from their home country after it fell in political turmoil. 

According to ThoughtCo., Latinos are commonly and stereotypically portrayed as either maids, thugs, overly sexualized, or poor and non-assimilated immigrants. This is offensive and ignorant, as these stereotypes are not representative of the majority of Hispanic people. My goal is to create an opening about a female immigrant that shows the great strength, resilience, and bravery that immigrants go through when leaving their country.

Felix Sánchez, co-founder of the National Hispanics Foundation for the Arts, said "Knowing that I am a Hispanic woman who is writing for a role of the same characteristics is positive, since it is rare to see it portrayed in films and equally behind the camera. 

Ultimately, I think I will try and go in the direction of creating an opening where a female is the lead, or when a underrepresented group is finally given the spotlight. Hopefully, I can include both aspects cohesively.

Thinking of Scripts

Hello! Welcome to my Media Studies blog where I will take you in the journey of completing my final project for Aice Media Studies, a two minute film opening. I am beginning the research and planning stages of my film and I have been dwelling on a particular decision I have to make: should I make my film opening script driven or image driven? And I have decided to try and combine both element in a cohesive way by including both an intriguing script and memorable shots.

One aspect an opening scene of a film I do want to include is the use of a jarring, unusual, or dramatic opening sentence said by either a chapter via diegetic sound or through voice over. I have been researching some of the best opening scenes and this is what I have come up with: the introduction to the movie The Godfather (dir. Francis Ford Coppola) which starts with a long monologue from a character, that sets the tone for the rest of the film. 

I have always thought of this film opening to be one of the most intriguing, as it begins in the middle of a discussion between two characters. I think this tactic allows the audience to be immediately sucked into the plot of the movie, but I have to be careful because if the opening monologue has no context or is too complex, I can run the risk of confusing the viewer and ultimately losing their interest. Although the monologue made by the character in the opening scene is diegetic sound, I might combine my opening statement to be voice over and diegetic. I'm unsure for now. 

I, too, want to start with an opening statement that grabs interest and attention to the film and sets the tone for the rest of the film. I have yet to write or find a great quote to use but I will be looking for inspiration. Perhaps I will visit my Grandfather over the weekend because he has some of the most amazing stories as he has lived quite a long and interesting life. I am sure he will give me some sort of inspiration for this project of mine. 

Citation: Ruddy, A. (Producer), & Coppola, F. (Director), (1972). The Godfather [Motion Picture]. United States: Paramount Pictures.