t-minus four weeks…

Four weeks left until this project must be turned it. God damn, the deadline is creeping up fast. Ok, I know I said I would start filming this weekend in my last blog posts, but I have a little set back. My sister is staying for her spring break :0000. It’s great and all, but now we’re actually doing stuff on the weekend, like today we spent the whole day out doing stuff and then tomorrow we’re going of to the city to hang out and go to the beach. Which leave’s basically no time to actually start filming. So, not saying I blame my sister…but I blame my sister. 

BUT…. I did get everything else on my list of “things to do before filming” even though I will not be filming this weekend (well besides the title, which will be a problem for future Ayami). So here’s all of that (they’re small things, so I figured I’d just put them all into one LONG blog post instead of a bunch of baby ones).

PROPS

Ok, so for props, I started to think about everything I could possible need for each scene and wrote them all into my planner:

The first thing on there is obviously the action figure, which is basically the one thing I have to go out and buy. I have everything else that I need at home, so I’m basically all good on props. Oh, but one thing I do need to actually make is the poster board, cause it’s gotta be somewhat completed to make it look like Iris is working on it. I also have to write the names of each box onto a cardboard box, which won’t be difficult, but I gotta make sure I don’t forget about it. 

MISE-EN-SCENE

For mise-en-scene, I first thought about what I want Iris to wear, cause she’s the only one who will actually be shown on screen for the opening. This wasn’t that difficult cause the person I casted for her (no spoilers!! I’ll get to that…) dresses how I want her to dress. She’s going to be in very casual clothes, cause she’s just chilling at home and not going anywhere. 

Then after figuring that out, I thought about how I want the lighting and everything to look like on camera. I started to experiment with different colors on my LED lights and how it looked like on camera, and here’s a cool picture I got:

I look dumb, but that’s beside the point. I like how the blue contrasts the glowing whiteness that’s coming out of the box, which is exactly how I want the scene where she’s opening Patrick’s box up to look like. The blue adds to the mystery of it all, and also creates a sense of curiosity, which is perfect. I think it could use a little work, but so far, it’s pretty decent. 

While Iris is working on the project, I don’t want the lighting to be blue, instead I want it to look normal, and slightly darker, so that the contrast between that scene and the opening box scene is apparent, highlighting the tone shift. 

ACTORS

Ok, so I kinda hinted toward this, and I think it’s kinda obvious, but I’m going to be playing Iris for the opening. I don’t really want to go through the pain of having to cast someone and then figuring out schedules and whatnot, so having me be the main character is just way more efficient and just makes a lot more sense. But, that does mean I’m going to have to film majority of my shots with a tripod, and maybe forcing my little brother to help me out if anything. It won’t be bad though, plus I can work at my own pace, so it’ll be great.

SETTING

For setting, since the entire opening is set in Iris’ room, I figured I’d just use a room in my house to do it in. My room is a little too crazy for her, plus it’s incredibly messy and just does not fit the vide of Iris at all. So, instead I’m going to be using my sister’s room. Since she moved out for college, her room has basically nothing in it besides a bed and a desk and a couple of stuffed animals and posters. Since all we will be seeing is the floor and her bed, this is perfect, plus her room is a lot bigger than mine (she’s older, so she got first pick ugh). Which is also another reason why it’ll be easier to film once she’s gone back to college so I can steal her room (heh).

 

[here’s the room and my sister sleeping in her bed]

Boom, so that’s everything that was on the list that I needed to get done before starting to film, which is kinda funny cause I actually will not be filming yet. BUT, it’s fine cause I did put in time in my calendar just in case something like this did happen, so I’m still sort of on track. I got this…hopefully as least. 

another change o.O

Ok so I’ve been thinking about different places where I could film the store section of my opening, and I came across a roadblock. How am I supposed to film a store, which is a public space where other people would be (ew)? And would I have to get permission to even film in the store? The answer to that question:

So that’s a no go. Target also does not allow filming in store, so I started to think about how I could fix this massive problem. I got to brainstorming and I realized that I would have to completely cut the store scene from my opening. The question is how would I introduce the action figure without Iris buying it from a store? and what else can I include instead of this scene? Soooo, I came up with the idea that instead of her having to go to the store to buy a new sharpie, instead she goes to her closet (get it cause she’s stuck in the closet hah) where she finds a box of school supplies. Next to this box is a box that is labeled “Brother’s shit”. So, here I would introduce the idea that Iris had a brother, whose name has still not been decided, and something mysterious happened to him (or he just went to college. idk I wanna keep it mysterious, let me live). She gets intrigued by this box and grabs it, opening it and finding all of her brother’s old comic’s and action figures. Before she can explore the remainders of the box, she gets a text from her mom telling her she’s almost home, and she rushes to shove the box under her bed, hiding the evidence. Iris would then continue to work on her project, the whole reason why she was looking in the closet to begin with, but is extremely distracted by the contents of the box. Overwhelmed with curiosity, she grabs the box from under her bed, opens it and grabs an action figure. The end (well not really, but that’s where I’d end my opening). 

This scene will actually work a lot better than my original idea. Now that I’m not filming in a store, that gets rid of the hassle of asking if I could film there and then actually going there and spending the day filming. Plus, I wouldn’t have been able to control the lighting of the shots, which would just not look good under the fluorescent lighting of Walmart. Additionally, I cut out the scene of the flashback to the memory of young Iris, which I think is MUCH better because first of all I don’t really know that many little kids, plus convincing their parents if I could take them to a random Walmart to film would not have ended well. Overall, I think this change was extremely necessary and works a lot better than a change of setting. 

Ok, so now that I have an idea, I started to redo my story board, script and shot list.

STORY BOARD

Ok, now that the storyboard is completed, I got straight to work on my script. While writing my script I came across the perfect name for the brother: Patrick. Ok it sounds dumb but hear me out. I based his name off of Patroclus, an ancient greek warrior. Patroclus was the only one who could calm Achilles (another warrior, the greatest) when he was mad, but his death during the Trojan War greatly affected Achilles. This, however, is not why I wanted to include an allusion to his name. Instead I did it because Achilles and Patroclus were lovers. Yup, it’s true!! So I figured by alluding to the name Patroclus I could further add to the overall theme of my film, but in a very unnoticeable detail that would only be caught on by lovers of Greek mythology. It’s so subtle and I love it.

SCRIPT

Ok, script is all done. Oh and one thing I want to mention about my script was how I represented the mother. I wrote her text message in the exact way my mother sends texts. With a period a space away from the text, which I feel like is very important to include (it’s really not but I think it’s funny).

Next up is the shot list. This is literally just a written out version of my storyboard, but I still want to have it because it will be really helpful to keep track of all the shots and during the editing process, which I went more into depth in my blog post that was only about shot list creation. 

SHOT LIST

WOW ok that was a lot of changing up to do, but now I feel much more confident in my film opening. But, now that I’ve changed more than half of my opening, filming is gonna have to be pushed back a little bit. I’m gonna try my best to maybe try filming this weekend with the beginning portion, but no promises. We’ll see what happens. 

REFERENCES

Discentes. (2023, September 17). The very best men in greek mythology. https://web.sas.upenn.edu/discentes/2023/07/30/the-very-best-men-in-greek-mythology/ 

Can I film inside a walmart store? (n.d.). https://corporate.walmart.com/askwalmart/can-i-film-inside-a-walmart-store#:~:text=Out%20of%20respect%20for%20our,right%20to%20enforce%20that%20policy. 

things to do before filming?

According to my calendar, this weekend will be the start of filming for this project. Wow. That’s crazy and extremely nerve racking. But, to get myself ready for that HUGE step, I figured I’d start small. What is everything I need to get done before this weekend?

- shot list

- props 

- mise-en-scene (costumes and lighting)

- determine actors

- determine setting

- fonts and title (although this isn’t necessary for before filming, I just need to get it done)

Today in class I tackled the very first thing on the list: my shot list. The shot list is, as the name suggests, a list of shots that I plan to film. It’s kinda similar to the story board, but it’s more detailed and is exactly what I want to include in each shot and how I want it to be composed. Here is what I concluded with:

Now that I have a detailed shot list, when I start filming I can simply check it off once I film the shot, which will be extremely helpful and also keeps me organized for production day. It will also be incredibly helpful for when I’m editing everything together as I will have the exact order that the shots should go in right there, making it easy to navigate and overall make the editing process that much easier. 

names, names, and more names

I’ve got a lot of things to name for this project: my production company, my character names, and my actual TITLE. Man it’s a lot to think about. I started with probably the easiest of the three: the name of my production company. This one was pretty easy, I just did it based off of my last name, Ratnayake, and the actual name of my blog. 

[rat]

I didn’t know what font I wanted to do, so I just went with a simple hand drawn approach and did a handwriting font (cause I literally hand wrote it). This is kinda similar to the Samuel Goldwyn studios logo and kinda how I want to have my logo as.

The next thing that I need to do for the production company logo is find a good music or sound effect to use while the animation plays. Zapsplat is what I used to find the sound effects that I wanted for my logo. I wanted to have a handwriting sound effect that then changes to a little ding once the cheese appears (it’ll make more sense when you see the final product). 

Six seconds done out of 2 minutes. That’s progress! 

Next on the list of things to name is the characters in my film. I have a main character, friends, and parents in my film, but I think for the purpose of this opening, since I’m only showing my main character and her friends (in the group chat), I’m only going to name them. 

Starting with the main character, I want to allude to greek mythology as that is the theme of my opening as shown through her project being about the myth of Daedalus and Icarus. I don’t, however, want it to be some random Greek name that no person would have in this time period. It can't be something like Aphrodite or Demeter or something crazy like that. It’s gotta be more modern. Also, the name has to have a good meaning that fits the character, especially for the main character.  So I started to research greek or roman related names that would fit the time period. I came across the name of Iris. Iris was the Greek goddess of the rainbow and was considered a messenger of the Gods. Rainbow fits in with the main character, cause you know, she’s gay, but Iris’ backstory also relates to the character herself and it’s not just simply materialistic. The name Iris comes from both the greek word iris, meaning rainbow, and eiris, meaning messenger. In ancient Greece, rainbows were a connection between the gods and the mortal world. She was Hera’s personal messenger, and would only be called upon when needed. This is just like how the main character is being used by her friends to complete the school project, so this name could fit really well. Iris is a silent messenger and is only noticed when she delivers the messages from the gods, just like how my main character is someone who remains in the shadows and by herself most of the time. Boom, one name down: Iris.

For the names of the friends, I first need to figure out how many there actually are. In many books and movies there is typically a group of three as the main trio. For instance Percy, Annabeth and Grover in the Percy Jackson book series and also Harry, Ron and Hermione in the Harry Potter franchise. Three seems like the perfect amount of people in a friend group. In Iris’ friend group however, she’s the odd one out, so I think having four people, including herself, be in the group creates a sense of isolation for Iris as she does not fit into the typical trio. Three other friends is perfect. 

I need three good character names for each of the friends, so I went back to greek and roman mythology to find some. During my research I came across Helen of Troy. In the Iliad and Odyssey, Helen is described as the reason the Trojan War all started, and despite not being completely the truth, she is hated amongst all of Greece. Her femininity and beauty are her main attributes and I feel like this fits well with the friend group. Another person I found was Circe, the daughter of Helios and a famous enchantress. She lured Odysseus and his sailors with her charm and spells to her island where she turned them into pigs with her potions and promises of greatness. Instead of having Circe be the name, since that’s a little too outlandish for this film, I was thinking the name Cecilia , as it has the same vibe and almost the same letters. Additionally, the last part of “Cilia”, sounds similar to the Scylla, who was another greek monster who attacked Odysseus on his journey. Finally, Medusa was a greek monster that could turn people into stone with her hair of snakes. She is killed by Perseus and is one of the main monsters he encounters. The name Medusa, however is very much not modern, so I was thinking instead of that her name could be Mira as it fits the vibe and starts and ends with the same letters. So we got Helen, Cecilia and Mira as the three friends. 

The only thing left is to name my actual film, but I think I’m gonna leave that for another day or whenever I get inspiration. We’ve made progress though!

REFERENCES!

            Dent, C. (2023, November 2). The Femme Fatale in Ancient Greek myth (7 examples). TheCollector.                                                               

                    https://www.thecollector.com/femme-fatale-ancient-greek-myth/

             IRIS - Greek goddess of the rainbow, messenger of the Gods. (n.d.).

                    https://www.theoi.com/Pontios/Iris.html

             Miate, L., & Nguyen, M. (2023). Iris. World History Encyclopedia. 

                    https://www.worldhistory.org/Iris/

             The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2024, February 29). Medusa | Myth & Story. Encyclopedia

                    Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Medusa-Greek-mythology

group meeting :0

In class today we had a group meeting!! It was pretty exciting. I honestly didn’t really know what to expect and I thought it wouldn’t be much help, but it was a big help. We each took turns discussing what our films are going to be about and what we’re having trouble with. I started us off (which was pretty scary) and told my group about my idea. They really liked my idea and liked how the title of the film was actually in the middle of the opening rather than just at the very beginning. 

One of my group members recommended that I actually hint at my main character being gay in the very beginning, but having it be very subtle and kind of in the background. I like this idea a lot, and another group member suggested that I do this via costume design, set design, and props. I need to research a bit more about typical clothing for this group of people, but I think this will really elevate my opening and hint at the upcoming conflict in the later parts of the film. 

The suggestion regarding props inspired me to think about how I want the main character’s room to actually look, which goes hand in hand with set design as well. I’m gonna be using my room as the major set for this, so I just need to figure out how I want to arrange my room and what kind of things I want to be shown and be seen by the camera. I don’t want to make the gayness too obvious, especially since she isn’t even out yet. Instead I want to make it almost like she’s trying to hide it from herself, and not just everyone else in her life. I think maybe I could have the character wear a rainbow bracelet while at home and then her taking it off before she leaves to go to the store, because she doesn’t want anyone to know. She could even put the bracelet into a hidden spot in her room or something. —->

I also shared my storyboard that I completed a couple classes ago and discussed how I want to film my shots. We discussed how my story board is very much a rough draft and doesn’t really include everything I want to have in my opening, especially in the very first montage scene. They suggested that I create a more fleshed out storyboard and shot list that would describe almost every shot I want to include. This is definitely something I’m want to get done within this week and next to stay on schedule. 

the woes of writing

Today in class we learned about the process of writing a screen play, which literally aligned perfectly with my schedule as today I’m supposed to write my script. Perfect timing! There are four parts of the process of writing a screenplay. The first thing to do is brainstorm, which I already did. Done. Then is to outline  the entire story and major plot points I would want to include in the film. Did that too! Then is to actually write the screenplay, which is what this blog post is about. The final step is to get feedback and make revisions to better the writing. 

[my notes from today’s class]

Anyways, after the lesson finished, I started to think about my own screenplay. I didn’t really know where to start so I started to research other screenplays from coming-of-age movies. I looked at the first 10 pages of the screenplay for Lady Bird, a coming of age film about the relationship between a mother and daughter. The article linked above not only included the actual screenplay, but also discussed why certain choices were used and how the screenplay developed tone and characters. The screenplay demonstrates how the film wants to develop the relationship between the two characters, which is something I want to portray in my film opening. The descriptions of the character’s actions demonstrate the tone of their characters and how they feel about other characters. The screenplay also describes how the character feels through their specific actions.

This screenplay example was really helpful and allowed me to start my own. I actually finished the entire screenplay in one sitting in class today, which is insane because normally I’m a pretty terrible writer. Doing the storyboard first, I think, was really helpful as it allowed me to visualize what I wanted to portray and then writing the screenplay further cemented how exactly I want to showcase my character’s thoughts and feelings. Here’s a screenshot of my script:

changing it up a little (ok maybe a lot)

Last class we meet with our teacher to discuss everything we’ve worked on so far, and she told me something that has stumped me since Thrusday. Animation is difficult. Ok I knew this already, but once she told me I realized something, I would never be able to complete an animation sequence in the time given, especially with all my other classes and after school activities. I’ve spent the past two days thinking of alternative ideas and I FINALLY came up with an idea that could work. Instead of animation, I could do a short montage of the main character working on a project about the myth. Ok, it sounds kinds dumb, but hear me out. 

The film would start with a montage of the main character working on a school project that’s about a greek myth and we can see them drawing things out and writing. While they are writing with a sharpie it all of a sudden runs out of ink and then they get a text message from their friend’s asking if the project is done yet. This introduces the friends and shows how they have made the main character do the entire project by herself, even though they are supposed to be in a group. The main character replies and puts her phone face down. Since the pens out of ink, she heads to the store to buy a new pack. While at the store, she get distracted by the toy isle. This is where we’re introduced to the fact that as a child she wasn’t allowed to look at the toys through a flashback. After the flashback, we are brought back to the present where we see the main character go into the toy isle and look at everything there. An action figure catches her eye and she grabs it and leaves the store. Then we see her back at home, about to open the things she got from the store, and the opening ends with her looking at the action figure she just bought. 

Ok, now that I’ve got the idea for my opening, I started to storyboard exactly what I want to film. Here it is:

Wow. I basically just changed the entirety of the first scene, but I think this works a lot better than an animation sequence would and I have my teacher to thank for that. I also think that a voiceover wouldn’t work very well with this scene anymore, so instead I’m just going to stick to music. The past two days have been a doozy, but I left the week with a finished storyboard and fleshed out opening idea. Now to just write the script and have a more detailed list of everything to include in the opening. Oh and to figure out the name of my film. Damn.