Opening Scene Script

    As we are now in the last week of production, I thought it was time to show the final script for the Film Opening. Hope you enjoy!

 

Director's Commentary Script

Hello everyone! This is Luiza Mello, and I am the director, producer, writer and editor of “The Walk”. My story is about a bisexual girl who suffers from anxiety and is moving to a new town with her family. As I worked on this film opening completely by myself, I think that its definitely safe to say that my skills in planning and production have greatly developed. My biggest issue throughout this project was that I had only myself to rely on for the film, so all the planning, shooting, editing, etc, was done completely by me. I have had experiences editing before, so that part I was more calm about, but I wasn’t always a good planner, so I focused myself on working on that for the majority of the time. 

Something else I’d like to talk about is the integration of technology. I had no idea how it would be having to use software, hardware and online resources all for one project, but during the production stages, it was more easy-going than expected. Out of these resources, the first I had used was online when I had to work on my research and planning. I used applications like Canva, Google, Youtube, Google Docs and Blogger throughout almost the entire project to document and plan everything. Software is a set of instructions, data or programs used to operate computers and execute specific tasks. The software I used the most was Adobe Premiere Pro 2022. Adobe Premiere is a timeline-based and non-linear video editing software application. I had used this application before but this time, my skills were definitely more developed. At last, hardware. Many different things can be considered hardware, for example, a computer is a hardware composed by hardwares like the monitor, the mouse, the keyboard, etc. The hardware I have used for this project is my phone and my computer. I have used my phone for all the filming and uploading of the shots and I have used my computer for all the editing and research. 

deeded

Autocomplete Interview Prop!

     Since many people are familiar with the WIRED Autocomplete Interview, where famous people answer the Web's Most Searched Questions about themselves, I decided that this would be the most effective and interesting way to make my interview. I have uploaded recently the script of my interview, but the most important aspect of this interview is the poster board that contains the questions. This prop shows all the questions drawn by google and have tape over the end of the sentences, so the people being interviewed can pull them apart one question at a time. 

    This picture shows what most artists look like near their poster.

    For my poster, I have created a document on Canva, where I recreated the WIRED Poster Board, but with questions that I will be answering for my CCR. I will be printing the photo and gluing it to a board I have previously bought, so it does not look very thin. For the tape I will pull back on the words, I will be getting pieces of both Scotch and Masking tape, and lay them down somewhere that I can paint them white. I will likely be using white acrylic paint and going over it twice! This is what the poster background I will be printing will look like.

Web's Most Searched Script

     For my CCR, one of my pieces of media will be a recreation of the WIRED Autocomplete Interview. This is the script, but I will likely film it soon next week!

-Hello, this is Luiza Mello anddd this is the WIRED Autocomplete Interview.

(smirk)

(premade slides shown)

-I’ve honestly always wanted to do one of these.(giggles)

(slide)

- “Is Luiza Mello a good director?”

(Laughs)

- I mean I definitely like to think that I have done a good Job with my new upcoming film The Walk, but I’m still young, you know? There’s always more to learn and I’m excited about that.

- Okay next…. Anddd.. “How has Luiza Mello included representation from different social groups and issues?”

- Wow so a big question.(Giggles)

- During the planning process I actually spent a lot of time thinking of how I would integrate this in my film. I really believe that the way to truly connect with my audience would be to give more opportunities for people to recognize themselves in different characters. Most times, when I’m watching a new coming of age movie, people only pay attention to the main character and their storyline, but in my film, most of the main characters will have their own plots happening at the same time. I wanted my film to be shown in the perspective of a bisexual teenage girl that struggles with anxiety, but I didn’t want to let that be all her story was about. Similarly from many young girls that have anxiety, Hailey will have her advances and setbacks, but she will still maintain her confidence in herself, and especially, her sexuality. 

- And well, aside from her I’ve included actors from many different cultures and characteristics. Some of the characters are seen struggling financially, with their sexualities, with their background and with their families. I wanted to make sure that no matter who you are or where you’re from, you’d be able to find a character to connect with.

- Wow, sorry, that was a lot.

(Laughs)

- Alrighty andd next.

- Okay so, “Is The Walk going to be in the movies?”

(Deep breath)

- Sadlyyy… no. As much as I wish it could be, my film will only be available online on youtube and on some Film Festivals. My team and I are still working on which, but we’ll likely show our film on the Zoe Awards festival and the IndieFest Film Award. But we’ll also be advertising on platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and Tiktok, so that our target audience can be reached.

Opening Storyline

    This past week I focused on finding my actress for the main role, and FINALLY, I found someone... Thank you Cristi, who's my friend and new main character, for saving me. <3 As I now have my main character and will soon be ready to film, it is time to share the storyline I will be filming for the first 2 minutes of my film. Hope you enjoy!

                                    

                            

Interviewed

     For my first half of the CCR, I will be interviewed as the director and producer of my film. I will create a video recreating famous interviews on the internet. There are many magazines and channels on YouTube that interview famous actors, musicians, directors etc, that have established the certain image I will try to capture. These are some of the Channels and their interview videos I will be trying to follow. The Highlighted ones are the ones I will most likely be recreating.

• Vogue: 73 Questions with
• Vogue: Now you know
• Elle: Mama I made it
• Vanity Fair: Proust Questionnaire
• Vanity Fair: Fan Theories
• WIRED: Web's Most Searched Questions
• Seventeen: Superlatives

    Here are some links of examples of these interviews:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GFkHA5EZdE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrr_rgW5Ntc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI4sxF0nxmQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxw-ZvRKI8A&t=1s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgfqV6SJyHo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgfqV6SJyHo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXCP9v5k9QM&list=PLunx6D_le-dIFSyovlbHyhtjiE3yw6DDP&index=1

CCR Creation

     As the time has passed, the time to make my CCR is closing in...  CCRs are all about the director, producer, etc, trying to connect more personally with the audience and explaining a lot about the behind the scenes action that consumers won't usually know about. I have decided that I will be creating two different pieces of media to explain specific things. These are some of the topics I will be talking about in my CCR:

• Representation of social groups or issues
• Distribution Practices
• Production skills development
• Hardware, software and online integration

    I will be going more in depth in these topics and will be creating myself a script this week, which will later be posted here on the blog. For the CCR creation itself, I will be making two separate videos, where one will be a director's commentary! For my other piece of the CCR, I will be recreating famous interviews from famous people. I am still picking out which type of interview, but I plan on being alone on camera and having some questions picked out where I will explain the other topics.

Main Character Casting

     Up until now, I have been focusing on researching and planning, but it's time to start producing! Since I first chose my main character, I have been searching and looking for someone who would act it out. Sadly, I do not have many people in my life that enjoy and/or have experience with acting, so it really hasn't been easy. 

    I had been planning on asking a few people if they would like to act as my main character, some of these people were friends, but some were just people I believed would fit the profile and some characteristics of the character. I won't name these people in my blog because they all ended up deciding on not doing it because they haven't had any experience with acting, or because they were not comfortable being on camera... This is the main reason why my project has been going very slowly, because I haven't been able to cast my main character yet. My friend, Joey Coste, another AICE Media Studies student, offered me recently that he could ask some people in his Media class if they'd like to help me, so at this point... I am just waiting to find anybody who would like to help... Whenever my casting is decided, I will update my blog to make sure everything is understood well... soooooo... you gotta wait for it with me:)

Location Scouting

     Locating scouting is the pre-production stage where writers and producers search for locations in which the story will be filmed at. Since this project is made on a very low budget of a high school student, I have very limited settings for my story, making it very hard for me to explore different storylines. My story is based off a girl moving to a new town where she doesn't know anyone, so I will be using my own town, the city of Weston, to portray the new town she has moved to. I believe that Weston has some very beautiful scenery that could definitely be incorporated in my story. 

    My first scene will be of the MC walking into a coffee shop by herself on her first day on the new town. Some of the locations I am thinking about filming at are:

- Starbucks at Indian Trace

- Starbucks at Weston Road

- Panera at Weston Road

- Tijuana Flats at Weston Road

- Bonjour French Bakery & Cafe at Weston Road

    I have picked these locations because I believe they all have a nice environment, and the coffee shop would be a reoccurring location that will hold a lot a meaning later in the story. But, after MC leaves the shop, she will still walk around to get to her car, seeing some nice scenery, which will likely be filmed at:

- Weston Town Center

- Indian Trace Town Center

- Weston Road Town Center

    As the character arrives at her car, she will have a quick drive home, where she will be in fact driving my own car. This part scares me a bit, but my car has great space so I know I will be able to film well inside it, and as long as my actress has a license, I think we are good. Later, she will arrive at "home", where she will start moving, which will also be filmed at my house.

Props!

     One very important thing on a film that often connects deeply to the story are the props. A prop is an object used on stage or screen by actors during a performance or screen production. These objects can often give a deeper meaning to the story and sometimes foreshadows some parts of the future. Most of the time, characters are presented with a specific and/or meaningful objects, such as a watch, a car, and even a boombox... These props can add to the story and give the audience a different and stronger perception of what the meaning behind some of the story was. 

    After doing some research, I decided I will be including important props to my film as well. I've decided that during the first part of the movie, when the main character and her neighbor first start their friendship, he will get her a friendship bracelet he made. I believe this will add meaning to both characters and that will strengthen their relationship and trust with each other. Next, a some films and TV shows that have good and rememberable props!:) Teen Wolf- Stile's Jeep

 Say anything- Boombox

 Hunger Games- Mockingjay Pin

Soundtracked

     When it comes to movies and TV shows, I believe having a soundtrack that connects with the public is one of the most important things. Many pieces of media in the internet have the potential of doing great, but don't have an effective soundtrack, which affects the way the viewer sees the product made. I have always been very interested in media, but especially in TV shows and physical art. As a big TV watcher, I have been introduced to multiple types of music that align with the different type of media product I watch. Because of that, I am able to identify and recall some of the movies and/or TV shows that have had a great soundtrack that affects positively how the viewer portrays the film. Here are some of the examples of the productions with great soundtracks that will be similar to the soundtrack I envision for my film.

Distribution Tactics

     Up until now, I have been focusing my blog topics on the planning process of the Film Opening, but it does not mean that there aren't any parts of any post production processes that aren't as important. The film distribution process is the process of making a movie available for viewing by an audience. This means that if your distribution process doesn't fit well the budget or target audience, the film won't do as well and money will have been wasted. Since this film opening will be done by me, a high school student with well... no budget, my ways to distribute my project are more limited. Some ways I intend on putting my project out to the public are:

   - Youtube Video

   - Instagram Advertising 

   - Snapchat Advertising 

   - Film Festival submission

    I have done some research on some film festivals my film opening would fit the criteria of submission and I believe some of these festivals would be nice options:

   - Zoe Awards Festival

   - IndieFest Film Awards

    The following citation is from the website I am using for my festivals research.

Call for entry (no date) Call for entry | Filmfestivals.com. Available at: https://www.filmfestivals.com/channel/festivals/call_for_entry (Accessed: March 9, 2023). 

Film festivals, screenplay contests, submissions (no date) FilmFreeway. Available at: https://filmfreeway.com/ (Accessed: March 9, 2023). 

CCR Basics

    Today in class, my AICE Media Studies teacher, Ms. Stoklosa, started explaining how the CCR part of the project would work. Early on, when we were first introduced into this project, we were given limited instructions of the CCR. CCR stands for Creative Critical Reflection. For this final part of the project, we will have to use digital mediums to create a way to present and reflect the entire process of planning, production and final product. We are given 4 questions to respond uniquely and personally about this project. 

-How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

-How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

-How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

-How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

   Through the usage of 2 different mediums, we will have to discuss and reflect on most aspects of creating the film opening. Here are some topics I will be going into:

- Genre Characteristics

- Representation

- Target Audience Engagement

- Distribution Plan

- Research, Planning, Production, Post-Production

- Hardware and Software used

    At the end of the CCR, I will do my final statement, where I will talk about what I learned during the project, what I would have done differently and how I can improve my skills and future projects. Some tips we were given were to create a script, keep both media products under a total of 10 minutes, be creative, and incorporate research and citations.

Editing Software

     When it comes to editing all high school students have a somewhat limited experience. I first learned about editing videos in my Film class in 7th and 8th grade. In class we started using the application called Adobe Premiere Pro, a video editing software published on the Adobe Creative Cloud. Since we used it at school, all students were all given their own log in credentials so we could practice at home if needed, and although I did not need to, I chose to. I searched up online many things my teachers at the time hadn't taught me so I could create great videos. Ever since, I had always great final products, which led my teachers to use my old projects as samples for incoming students. Now, I'm in my senior year of high school and have a lot more technical knowledge of the editing system I am going to be using. The link below leads to my recently uploaded YouTube video I created with Adobe Premiere Pro during my 8th grade Revolution trip to Boston; therefore it is unrelated to my film opening and to my blog, it is only for educational purposes to see how my editing skills have changed and developed since my 8th grade.

Song Choice

     As I started drawing out a storyboard to plan my opening scene, I started thinking that there was something missing... I thought about it for some time, then decided my scene would be better with some music. I started looking at my playlists and liked songs on the app Spotify to get an idea of what type of song I would choose and to see if I would use a song with or without copyrights. My teacher, Ms. Stoklosa, gave me an idea of what the process of getting permission from the artist would be like so I would know if it would be worth it for me or not. In my earlier post about the main character, I decided that she would like artists like Taylor Swift, Dylan Minnette and Coldplay, but all of these artists are very public and prominent in the music industry, so I started looking at similar but smaller artists. Here I listed some songs I am thinking could be nice options for my opening scene:

• Are you bored yet - Wallows
• Roll Back - George Fitzgerald
• What Happened, Happened - Emily Vu
• Weekend - Emily Vu
• Ava - Famy
• Hello? - Clairo

    As I solidify more my idea for the opening scene, I will see if any of these songs would be perfect for my scene or if my scene would still do well with a song without copyright. I started looking at some websites with copyright free music and here are some websites I found.

• Royalty Free Music Download - Pixabayhttps://pixabay.com › music
• Royalty Free Music & Copyright Free Music ✔️ Unlimited ...https://taketones.com
• Royalty Free Music - Bensoundhttps://www.bensound.com › royalty-free-music
• Free Music Archive: Royalty free music and 'free to download ...https://freemusicarchive.org