Progress(!) + Changes + Overcoming Obstacles

So on Tuesday (3/29) I was able to squeeze some filming in. We were originally going to shoot the picnic at Vista after school as well as take some Polaroids for the journal, but due to the terrible weather, we were not able to shoot that scene.  I didn't just want to shoot nothing however, since I knew this would put me even farther behind then I already am. So, I just made a few changes to what Mia's memory would be.

Alex & I at PeiWei

For the Polaroids and filming, I just decided to keep with the aspect of us eating together, mainly because we had already bought the food for the picnic. So, we started filming and taking pictures at PeiWei while it poured outside.

We also continued the filming outside into the rain and the car, trying to be as goofy as possible (which isn't too hard for us).

Alex & I in the car.

Within editing, I really liked the way the stop motion memories looked, they looked a little disjointed and fun, while still disoriented.

Since Alex had to leave shortly after we filmed, Summer and I went back to her house to get as many shots as we could at the moment, since I am not yet done with Mia's Journal. We hope to continue shooting today and might reshoot some of the images since I am constantly changing my mind on what I think is best.

The lighting with double sheets.

For instance, we shot Mia looking at a Polaroid of all three of us in PeiWei, but we also took one in the car and I'm starting to like that one better. Especially since the memory montage just looks a lot better and happier than the PeiWei montage, especially with coloring. So I might have to reshoot the images that the previous Polaroid was used in.

At first, the time we were filming was bringing too much light into her room, so I tried blocking the window with one of her scarves, but that still wasn't working. So I just ended up tatking off her curtains all together and placed a thicker, white sheet over the window and then replaced the curtains, to have double the blockage. This created the perfect lighting that I was looking for. I fell in love with it immediately, but when it started to get darker, it became harder to see, even when the curtain was removed. So, next time we have to start shooting a little earlier since the images that we shot without natural lighting, were not on par with the ones shot with. When we used her ceiling lamp, the shots became too yellow and too lit. With natural lighting, they were less saturated and darker, but brought in the perfect amount of lighting and shadows.

Still of Mia with natural lighting

Music! (Part 2)

I have some VERY, VERY exciting news to share with you today!! I reached out to the manger for Phantogram, the band who plays the song "Bill Murray,"  which is the song I was really hoping to use for my opening. The big news is that he not only responded, but gave me the OK to use to song. When I saw his email I was filled with happiness and just simply overwhelmed.
Check out our emails below!

Music??!!

Even since the announcement of the project I have been searching for the perfect song for my opening, which has been certainly hard. I have constantly listening to Spotify playlists nonstop just trying to at least get a feel for the opening song.

"Bill Murray" lyrics

For a while I was IN LOVE with "Graveyard" by Robert Schwartzman from Palo Alto and even attempted to contact the record company, but got no response whatsoever. So with a lot of heartbreak, I settled on finding another song. However, it did help set the tone on what type of song would be. I definitely wanted the song to have an instrumental part at the beginning and possibly some synth in it. I also know I definitely don't want the entire song to be instrumental however and I do want it to be an Indie or an Alternative song. I feel as if the genre helps represent the character. I also want the song to have lyrics that somewhat pertain to the issues within the film.

Right now I'm really feeling "Bill Murray" by Phantogram. I love the way it sounds and I feel like it fits my film perfectly.

I went on their website earlier and saw they linked their contact information. I will email them when I'm sure this is the song I want and hope for a response, but for now I'm still on the hunt for copyright-free music as a backup.

Mia's Journal + Changes

Unfortunately, I won't be able to film this week due to my own schedule as well as Summer and Alex's, but that doesn't mean I won't be doing anything at all! I've been working on Mia's journal for the opening scene. I was hoping to take new Polaroid pictures for it, which I did, but I might just need to use a few old ones. So that's definitely something to do and think about this week.

How I have my Polaroids organized.

For Mia's journal, since I'm modeling it after my own, I took a few items I collected out of my journal and am currently planning to use them within Mia's, as well as making and collecting a few more things to add.

Just a few things I've collected.

Right now I'm deciding between two journals I have, on which to use for Mia's. One is a white with golden polka-dots and "Write Your Story" written in cursive on the front, while the other is a plain black journal.  I feel like the white journal add a little personality, but I feel like the black journal would look better on screen since Summer's bed is all white. I feel as if the contrast of the two colors would be very nice.

I think I'm going to stick with the black journal. However, I did want some indication that this was her journal, or even a journal at all. Maybe I'll write "Mia's Journal" on it or something, but right now I'm just brainstorming. Maybe I'll use the other journal as a prop, to infer that she has more than this one journal and has a lot of thoughts that she does not share.

The 2 Journal Choices.

Also, after sleeping on my storyboard, both in the literal sense and not, I decided to change some things about it. Instead of her just flipping through the pages and looking at the photographs, I feel as if it would be more intimate for Mia to untape the Polaroids and remove them out of the frame. They would be seen again when from either a Medium or Long shot of when she's falling back on her bed or laying on her bed. They would be surrounding her body, scattered about her bed. Possibly, when she falls back on the bed, I would show them lifting and falling back down with the photos in focus and Mia's body not. I feel like that would look very artistic and I like that idea.

I also changed the idea that the background music would stop and there would be a shot of a record player with some pills, an ashtray, and a bottle, to show Mia is under the influence. I feel as if the scene would feel empty without background music, especially since it would be inferred that it's diegetic. I still want to show the record player spinning to show that the music playing is diegetic, as well as the influence items (pills, ashtray, bottle, etc.). I want the record player and the influence items to be in shallow focus with Mia's body not in focus, just like the Polaroid shot I mentioned before. I want to give the audience the 2+2 equation, but not the 4 when it comes to the influence items. I want to show smoke coming from ashtray as well as possibly a prescription pill bottle, with possibly one or two pills on the record itself.

Fun Times in the Making

This week I'm looking to film, hopefully. Summer is going away on Saturday and Alex's extended family has come to visit for Easter on Sunday. My work schedule is also pretty booked at the moment, but I am determined to make it work. My opening scene really require two filming locations: Mia's bedroom and Vista View Park. Majority of the scene will take place within Mia's bedroom and the memory will take place at Vista View.

A Picnic Under A Tree ;')

I chose Vista View Park as the first and only memory to be shown in the opening because it holds a lot of meaning to me. As well as the fact that it is a very visually beautiful place to shoot. The memory I had in mind was an outdoor picnic under a tree, a common activity for Summer, Alex, and I. I was hoping to illicit the same feeling of happiness and warmth I feel whenever I am with them.

As for Mia's room I chose to use Summer's actual bedroom because I like the way she has it staged. As well as how it fits her character, as it is very minimalistic, yet holds a lot of personality.

I added a few pictures of my storyboard. I apologize for the messy nature of it, but I am in no way Picasso. It's not 100% accurate for what's going on in my head, especially since my ideas change and grow everyday, but it's leading me in the right direction. I also know it's short, but majority of the shots will be of Mia's journal and I didn't want to draw every page. I do know how I want it though. More to come in my next posting.

Storyboard Part 1

Storyboard Part 2

Characters

I realized that I'm progressing the plot by simply using my friends, as they are now, as the characters. However, I do not want to continue doing this. My friends are separate people from their characters and I feel as if their character should texture to them, especially the main character.

First off is names. There are three characters, played by Summer, Alex, and I. Summer's character is really the one who needs the most character development and layers within her. While Alex and I's characters are still important and require traits and names, we are still background characters compared to Summer's character.

Summer's real name is Sukaina, but she goes by her middle name. I wanted to follow this process like she does because it shows the assimilation and fusion of her character into American and modern culture. Also, it symbolizes her having two different lives. With her family and her own culture she's Sukaina, but with her friend and herself she's Summer. I really enjoyed this idea of seperation, even if it's not extreme within Summer's life. Within her character, it would add onto her emotional and mental struggle with herself, her family, and her culture.

After researching Arabic and Pakistani names I came up with Malika, which means "queen" or "ruler" in Arabic. However, she will go by Mia to represent her desire to assimilate and just be normal.

As for Alex and I's characters I want to use names that have very positive definitions and connotations. For Alex I decided on Mateo, which means "gift of god." For myself I chose Ellie, which means "bright shining one."

Malika "Mia"

Ellie

Mia is a very artistic and friendly girl, but she tends to keep to herself a lot, the only exception being her two friends, Mateo and Ellie. She loves taking pictures and documenting her life through social media. She practices Islam, but is more modernized, while her family practices are still very tradition. Mia is also a closeted bisexual, despite it being against her religion. She also has depression, but it goes untreated, as she is too afraid to tell her family.







Ellie is the wild and spontaneous friend. She is always loud, but always loving. She is friendly to everyone, but has found her fit being with her two friends, Mia and Mateo. Ellie is also very artsy, but more through music. She and Mia have been friends for a little longer, recently adding Mateo into their tight knit group.

Mateo

Mateo is the sweet, funny boy who loves to make everyone laugh. He was placed in a class with Mia and Ellie and they quickly became great friends. Mateo is also the reckless one of the friend group, doing crazy things just to get a laugh out of his friends. He is typically the one who inspires them to go on random adventures all the time.

My Execution

Although I've explained the premise of my idea and the background of it, I haven't begun to speak about how I'm going to execute my idea. I have the idea within my head of how I want just about everything to look.

Example of a memory

I have this obsession with working with the saturation, coloring, and lighting of my films. Last year I made a film titled "A Life That Is Not Mine." I played around with the coloring and the saturation mainly. The film dealt with two realities, flashbacks and present time. Within the memories, the coloring was very cold and a lot of the saturation was taken out and within the present all the colors were a lot more warm and vibrant. I added a few examples of the contrast.

Example of present

In my scene I want to work with the same ideal of two realities, memories and the present. However, for my scene, since the majority of it will be in the present I do not want the two colors to be so contrasted. For the present I was thinking of working with very warm colors, but low lighting and some subtraction of saturation. Something like the stills I added from The Perks of Being A Wallflower and Palo Alto. It still feels warm and comfortable, yet dark. I feel as if making the scene cool and blue will make is feel isolated. I want the scene to illicit emotion and I don't think that cool colors can do that.

Example of my ideal lighting and coloring.

Example of ideal lighting and coloring

Within my opening I want to introduce my main character and allude to conflict. I wanted to use the main character's journal to introduce her character as well as to incorporate the credits. To do the credits I was hoping to use Polaroid pictures and write the credits like captions for the photographs. To introduce the main character I would do it through the pages of her journal and pictures within in. On the pages would be entries, doodles, sketches, letter, flowers, etc. taped into the journal, anything to really get across the artistic nature of my main character across while still alluding to the conflicts within her. I got this idea from my own journal in which I use as a journal and tape my own Polaroid pictures within.

Example of memory motion

When it comes down to the memories, I have a very specific look in mind. I want them to be very choppy, almost like a stop motion. I want them to look very artistic and psychedelic since I will be inferring that the main character is under the influence of many substances and emotions at the time. 

Recently, I took a burst of photos on my friend's phone and when you swiped through them they gave a artsy, intimate feel. There's enough connection to create an essence, but adds a little diversity and art towards a rather steady piece. I want the memories to have a lot of emotion towards them, therefore majority of them will be in point-of-view shots, in order to create connection between viewer and character.


The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Perf. Logan Lerman and Emma Watson. Roadshow, 2012. Film.
Palo Alto. Dir. Gia Coppola. Perf. Emma Roberts, Nat Wolff, James Franco. 2013. Film.

So...why did I choose this plot?

Summer, my best friend as well as the actor and the inspiration for the main character, is both Muslim-American and bisexual. She, however, does not suffer from depression as the main character of my film does.

The inspiration for the details of my plot came from when Alex, Summer, me, and our friend Manahil went out to lunch. Both Summer and Manahil are Muslim and their parents are against them hanging out with male friends, so when we went to go pick up Manahil there was complications with her mother.

Unfortunately, those complications worsened when Manahil's mother told Summer's dad about Alex being with us and came to the restaurant to take her away immediately. He was angry because her mother told him that Alex and her were dating, even though she is gay, but not out to her parents. She debated what would be worse: to tell them she was bisexual or be accused of dating Alex. Once she left we began the discussion of how strict traditional Muslim parents are about male friends, and homosexuality.

Of course, then, our discussion wasn't completely accurate and factual, but with more research I understand why both their parents were so strict about them hanging out with Alex. In Islam virginity, or the concept of virginity, is extremely important within the religion. In fact, if there was no blood shed during intercourse after marriage then the girl was shamed, even though bleeding cannot determine virginity, and sent back to her family, which brought shame upon the family. To prevent the shame, it is the responsibility of her father and brothers to watch over her and monitor her. Even though the concept and testing of virginity has been modernized, it is still common for Muslim parents, especially fathers, to be strict on their daughters to maintain their modesty. Nonetheless, it is seen as improper for young Muslim girls to have male friends and especially boyfriends, even in modern culture.
As for homosexuality, it is clearly prohibited within the religion and punishable within traditional Islamic countries. Within the Qu'ran there is the story of Lut.

 "He said to his people: 'Will you commit lewdness such as no people in creation ever committed before you? For you come in lust to men in preference to women. No, you are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds'(Qur'an 7:80-81) 'Of all the creatures in the world, will you approach males, and leave those whom Allah has created for you to be your mates? No, you are a people transgressing (all limits)!' (Qur'an 26:165-166).

I wanted the main character of my film to have multiple, very strong reasons to attempt to end her life, since suicide typically results in the build up of a lot of problems. The three reasons for her being her struggles with her sexuality in an unsupportive environment, her struggle with untreated depression, and the falling out with her only support system, her two friends. 

Suicide is the ninth leading cause of death in the United States, but the number one leading cause for death among the LGBT community, with homosexual teens two to six times more likely to commit or attempt than heterosexual teens and are 8.4 times likely to attempt when their parents are unsupportive. Girls are also twice as likely to attempt suicide than boys are. 

"About Teen Suicide." KidsHealth - the Web's Most Visited Site about Children's Health. The Nemours Foundation, n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2016.

"Depression." KidsHealth - the Web's Most Visited Site about Children's Health. The Nemours Foundation, n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2016.

"LGBT Bullying Statistics." NoBullying Bullying CyberBullying Resources. N.p., 09 May 2014. Web. 12 Mar. 2016.

"SPEAK: Suicide Prevention Education Awareness for Kids." SPEAK: Suicide Prevention Education Awareness for Kids. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2016.

"Western Europe." Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures. Vol. 3. Leiden: Brill, 2006. N. pag. Print.

"What Does Islam Say About Homosexuality?" About.com Religion & Spirituality. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2016.

Got it!

I've finally created an idea that I want to stick and run with!

I knew that I wanted to do something including my best friends, Alex and Summer, because I love them and they make any situation 100 times more fun whenever I'm with them. In truth, they really inspired some aspects of my story and from there on I paved my way into a full plot.

Whenever Alex, Summer, and I hang out after school we are always spontaneous and always have wild fun, basically embodying the essence of teenage years. This remind me of the way Charlie and his friends were in The Perks of Being A Wallflower and I wanted to capture our friendship in the same way.

What really set me going was the pictures we took. Whenever we're together Summer, being the more artsy one of our group, would always take pictures either with her phone or her Polaroid camera. Which eventually inspired Alex and I to get our own cameras. So now, whenever we hang out we all take pictures on our own Polaroid cameras and now each have a stash of photos documenting our days.

While in Creative Writing class I was going through some from a few days ago, when I went to the park with Alex, when my teacher, Mrs. Siegel, asked us to write about something. Having the photographs in my hand I doodled the photographs on my page and began to write about Alex and the way he was trapped inside the film, unable to edited by an application on a phone, and how photographs in film feel raw to me. From that little bit I wrote, Mrs. Siegel asked us to branch upon that idea and continue with it. So I did.

I wrote a few paragraphs for the beginning of a story. A story about looking back at a Polaroid picture evokes a feeling that can never change, just like the moment the photo was taken in. Where I was heading with the story was that a Polaroid was taken right before the death of the subject and the Narrator can only remember him as he was in the photo.

After a little thought I decided I didn't want to go in that direction for my film opening however. With a little more thought, research, and examination of the rubric and project in general I decided on my story line: A Muslim-American girl reflects on the happier times she had with her friends through Polaroid pictures before attempting to take her own life due to depression, conflict and complications with her sexuality, and loosing her friends.

I'm so excited and I cannot wait to get started!

Getting There...

After some consideration and thought I have at least (somewhat) decided on my genre. I want to create something that I would watch if I weren't creating it, if that makes any sense. I watch quite a bit of student films online in my spare time and I've found that I'm typically I'm drawn towards dramas that have a more creative and  "art house" feel to them.

I want to create something inspired by some of my favorite films: Stuck in Love, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Like Crazy, Blue is the Warmest Color, Birdman, Juno, 10 Things I Hate About You, About Time, Palo Alto, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Kings of Summer and The Art of Getting By.

Being a young teen, age 16, I would most obviously be drawn more towards contemporary dramas aimed toward my age group with relatable issues. I want to create something that I, as well as my peers, can relate to. So that's why I've decided to continue on the route of creating a Teen Drama with "coming of age" and "alienation" themes within it. The two films that are really driving me towards this decision are The Perks of Being A Wallflower and Palo Alto. I feel that the cinematography paired the truthful portrayal of the behind-the-scenes life during high school without over-exaggerating is what really helps the films capture me as well as they did. Both films left me with an overwhelming sensation that I hope to achieve with my two minute opening; something that, I believe, has to been done through the genre of Drama.

I've included a few excerpts from the films to showcase exactly what I mean when I'm talking about the two films.

The Perks of Being A Wallflower

• Charlie's Breakdown scene - This scene to me creates so much emotion with through the editing and the visuals. When I first watched the film I cried during this scene. 
•  Homecoming Dance Scene - This scene captures the essence of the all the characters and juxtaposes Sam and Patrick's outgoing characteristics with Charlie's "wallflower" characteristic. There was just something about the composition of the scene that made me fall in love with it. 

Palo Alto

• "Emily Didn't Have Any Friends" Scene - Although the content of the scene is dark and explicit, the combination of the narration and the slowed-down visuals of Emily is extremely haunting, yet beautiful. To me, this was the saddest scene within the film. Also, Emily playing in the playground infers her purity and innocence while the narration talks of how she lost it.
• April's Bedroom Scene - This scene shows the behind-the-scenes side of April's character and what she aspires to be. She is seen as a symbol of purity and innocence within the film, whose said to "care too much." Also, showing realism in the nature of teenagers.

I still haven't decided what my plot is exactly, but I spent majority of today brainstorming within my journal. I also take Creative Writing as one of my courses and it's helping me come up with ideas. Currently my personal journal is scattered with possible ideas. I'm hoping to narrow it down by tomorrow.

Introduction

Hello and welcome to the beginning of my long journey of completing my final AICE Media project!

My name is Isabella Ignacio and currently I am in 11th grade. Media and production have always been my favorite subjects to study, which developed last year when I took my first course in film with Mrs. Stoklosa, my current AICE Media teacher.

Ever since the completion of the course last year and when I signed up for the course, the idea for my film opening has been dwelling in the back of my mind. Occasionally, in the weeks since then a flame would ignite within me, but would soon die out.

As Mrs. Stoklosa announced the closeness of the beginning of the project, my mind went into overdrive and I began searching for inspiration in everything I saw. However, just like always my flame dwindles and goes out. I wanted for a while to do an opening for a short horror film, but after reading more into the requirements and rubric for the final project, the idea just didn't feel right anymore. Currently, I am left without inspiration or an idea.

Hopefully, with the next few days I will have an epiphany and really begin my adventure. I look forward to it.