Target Audience

 Well, delayed this blog post for quite a bit but it's never late than never! In this post, I will discuss the target audience for my film and how my opening approaches that specific audience. 

AGE RANGE: 14-26

RATING: PG-13

Regarding the age range, my film opening pertains to individuals of these ages. Essentially, my character (Jim) is in pursuit of artistic perfection. He's shown to be relentless, hard-working, and hard-headed. At the ages of 14-26, many attempts to be great at something, and those people try to work hard to achieve their goals, no matter the circumstances nor the work one should put in. In this age range, people in high school have to strive to be perfect in a specific area of study like perfecting a business presentation, drawing a portrait with no marks of error, and achieving mastery in instrumental performances. I feel as if artists can relate to this film opening since it showcases a character's struggle to master artistry in the theater.   

Regarding the rating, my film contains all the elements necessary for it to be deemed as a PG-13 film and no other category. According to the Motion Pictures rating system, PG-13 is defined as "Parents strongly cautioned – Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13." This opening expresses themes such as anger, frustration, sadness, and determination. It also contains language like "goddammit" or aggressive shouting that might not make children feel comfortable. For my age range, PG-13 is well suited since it's directed towards teenagers and younger adults. 

Motion Picture Ratings

Some films that are similar to mine are PG-13 as well.

RECOMMENDATION:

Recently, I watched Birdman and it was a SPECTACLE. The camera work, acting, screenplay, and themes expressed in the film are executed to perfection. For now, that's what I'll leave for you.

  

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FINALLY HAVE A FILM NAME!

3/27 - FILM NAME

After weeks and weeks of thinking, I think I have finally come up with a film name. First, I want to take you through the process in which I decided on this name. 

Honestly, I did not think that the title and title design would be the thing that I was stuck on the most. For so long I never had a clear idea of what title I should give my film. I was thinking of the most cringiest and random titles like "the road to success", "will-power", "again". I couldn't really think of a fitting name; I then decided to do some research and attempt to acquire the same mindset as a title designer. 

Title Design

This video introduced me to Dan Perri, he created the titles of movies like "Star Wars", "The Exorcist", and "Raging Bull". In this video, he took me through different projects he's done and how he approached them. He said something along the lines of "The film title should be what the movie is going to be about, and what the audience should expect from the film", the second part of that statement opened my third eye. My film title should be the main focus of the story, I want the audience to see the title and wonder what the movie would be about. The main focus of my film is Jim, so why shouldn't I name my film "Jim"? 

This idea came to mind and immediately I thought it was uncreative, but at the end of the day, simple character titles aren't usually a bad route. It has also worked for many other successful films, here are some examples.

Seems Pretty Justified to have the title as my main character. After all, this movie is solely centered on Jim, the film will focus on his struggles and triumphs as an actor and as a person. The design of the title isn't going to be any complex or a font that's too "out there". In another post, I will reveal my title design as well as how the credits would roll on film. 

Recommendation: 

I had just finished watching the movie "Baby Driver", and it was one of the most thrilling rides I've ever experienced. It follows a story of a boy orphan named "Baby' as he works as a getaway driver for robbers and top-class criminals. The movie has one of the best opening scenes I've ever laid eyes on and the sound mixing, and editing is pure perfection; all of it leads to a brilliant film that's master-crafted and enjoyable. 

Fixed the problem and started editing (kinda)

3/25/22 - EDITING

In the last post, I talked about how I had this problem in which I couldn't upload my scenes properly onto adobe premiere pro, I started using iMovie, and surprise surprise, the quality still went down. At that point, I had admitted defeat and started editing on iMovie on my phone, which in all truth, sucked. I got distracted too easily and my head was spinning from trying to edit on a tiny screen. 

One thing I did notice later on was that when I sent the scenes through email it said that there was too much data on the file. I thought "what if I just send one video file that takes up little space", I tried that, and it worked. The main issue was that I was inserting too many video files in one email, so it compressed to make up for that overabundance of space. Pretty much, I put one or two video files per email and send them to myself so I can edit them on another device. Finally, it indeed worked, all my scenes came out crisp and clear on my iPad, so then I got those files and started editing. 

    

I haven't done too much editing since just recently I finally got the scenes to look crisp and clear. In addition, I'm not entirely sure I'll stick to iMovie for editing, it's easy to use but it doesn't offer enough. Premiere Pro offers so much but it's not pleasant for me to use, I'll see how it goes with iMovie. For now, I'm going to be working on editing the parts that I filmed; I still need to think of an appropriate film title, it's a really hard thing to come up with man. 

One more thing before I go, I just watched "The Tree of Life'' and my mind was absolutely blown. It's a film about the nature of humanity and existentialism, and whether one would want to live the way of nature or the way of grace. It's a beautiful film that portrays human themes on film so well that it's almost impossible to fully decode. Make sure to watch it on Hulu.

I've encountered a problem....

 I ran into an issue the other day when I was going to begin the editing process. When I export my scenes to the computer or to any other external device, the quality goes down. When I emailed myself the scenes that I shot so I can get access them to my laptop, the resolution was horrible. I shot the film in 4K, which maybe was not the best idea, but I did expect it to come out to at least 1080p when I edit it, I don't know why it does this. When I tried exporting it to Adobe Premiere Pro (which is what I'm using to edit), the files can't even import. 

This is the screen that pops up when I attempt to attach the video files to the editing software, I really don't know the solution to this.

I figured out that the issue was is that the files are compressed, meaning that the quality would go down as a result of the files being compressed. I tried to look up the solution to maybe avoid the compression of select files but google didn't really help.          

                                                                                                                                                                        When I try to edit it on my iPad, the files transmit to the editing software, but the quality is still the issue. The only solution that I've come up with is editing this on iMovie on my iPhone, the quality remains intact and it's not too hard to use. I would've preferred using Adobe but if I can't find a solution, then I might just stick to iMovie. 

Recommendation: 

Anyways, I recently watched this movie titled "50/50" and it was very very solid. It takes you to a perspective of a man who has been diagnosed with cancer at the age of 27 and throughout the movie you see how that affects his social, economic, and healthy life. It's a well-made movie surrounding the topic of how cancer can affect a person and it also carries some good performances. Make sure to watch it on Peacock. 

Second Day of Shooting!

 Hey, it's me again. 

Yesterday, I wrapped Day 2 of filming and boy did it go well. Before I get into the specifics, I wasn't able to shoot the monologue scenes (which take up to 45 seconds of the project). Firstly, we decided to not use the drone after all as the zoom wouldn't look as good and the audio linking might be difficult. Secondly, my director said it would look "goofy" if he just stepped back and zoomed out with the phone as the camera wouldn't be stationary. He said he would bring his gimbal and we would film it the day of spring break. At first, I was disturbed by the fact that I had to wait till AFTER spring break to finish filming, but I didn't have too much of a problem with it; I could edit all the scenes we took over this break and by the time next Monday comes, I would have a clear idea in my head upon the shot length and scenes that I may need to reshoot. Now that I'm done babbling, let me show some stills from the scenes we shot!

Shot of Jim getting ready to practice his monologue

A scene with Jim practicing his monologue

Shot of the auditorium when Jim leaves

Establishing Shot of the opening

Peak cinematography right here, these shots help with establishing the setting and type of film this would be. I'm aiming for the slow cinema route, engulf the audience with visuals and make them feel more immersed in your film. I've got most of the visuals done of the opening, now I need to finalize the monologue portion and we should be off flying.

Ryan Lutwin

Shoutout to this absolute legend of a man right here, he's proved to be a great director and always showed up for me even when I had numerous shooting delays. What a guy. 

First Day of Shooting!

Hey Blog! I just finished my first day of shooting and it didn't go exactly I way I wanted it to be but let me take you through what happened. 

It was about 3:00 and school had just ended; I had made my way to the auditorium in hopes to get ready for the filming process. When I made my way there, I had heard there was a HOSA meeting taking place in the auditorium, my director texted me this at the same time and I was like, *oh no, not again*, but then I remembered that club meetings typically last about 10-15 minutes so then I was relaxed; after, I talked to a friend regarding how long the club meeting would last and, to my dismay, he said it would take around AN HOUR. My director had to leave at around 3:30 and the meeting was said to be done at around 4:00. I had to tell my director this and he was frustrated as well, after all, this would've turned out to be another shooting delay. I, my friend playing Rowan, and my director waited outside the auditorium in hopes that the meeting would end quicker than expected. At around 3:40, my director had to leave because his mother was waiting on him, but, to my surprise, the HOSA meeting had just ended. My director didn't have much time so we quickly shot the scenes with my friend since we both knew that he wouldn't be available on another date since he had to go to Tampa the following day. 

These are some frames from the scenes we filmed: 

We recorded about 20 seconds of footage, a decent amount considering the circumstances. After we shot these scenes, my director had to immediately leave because he had to drop his mom back home. We scheduled to shoot the rest of the project this Thursday, so I'm looking forward to it. 

That's it for today! 

Group Meeting!

GROUP MEETING 

3/15/2022

Today in class, our teacher put us all in groups of about 5-6 and we all discussed our projects together. We went one by one and presented our ideas to the group and showcased each other's blog posts. It was a pretty cool experience, as I was long-awaited to hear what other people are doing for this project. There were some pretty good ideas I heard, and it was nice to discuss how each of us can improve on our setbacks and difficulties. There was one issue that I had with the filming process that I discussed with the group as well; I didn't know how to sync the audio from my voice to the drone recording, as the drone doesn't have any mic. They suggested that I use the apple headphone microphone and use the "Voice Memos" app on my iPhone. I could sync the audio from the app to the recording of the drone, it seemed pretty efficient to me. All I need to do is use both files and sync the audio from the Voice Memo onto the recording. I probably wouldn't have thought about this if it wasn't for the group meeting. 

One of my group members also had recommendations of different media in their blogs, I might start doing that too so stay tuned! 

I’m planning to film today after school so this tip should come to be incredibly useful, I gained great insight on my own project and others as well. 

Next post should be shots from my opening- be ready!

ANOTHER Shooting Delay

So, I was planning to film the project on Thursday, and it didn’t go to plan. Last minute, my director got called into work at HIALEAH!. Which is like 40 minutes away from Weston, which meant he had to drive there straight after school and get there before 3:30; meaning he couldn’t stay after school to shoot the film. I was annoyed because I was expecting to film that day and it didn’t work out, although, I thought it wasn’t that big of a deal since I can just film it tomorrow.

Then Friday came, everything was ready: my director had the drone, I had the outfits, and there were no disturbances detected for that day. When it came to about 2:40, I gathered around the auditorium with some of my friends when I then found that there was a club meeting, I wasn’t worried about this since club meetings typically take 15-20 minutes. Then, unfortunately, my friend from drama said he and a few of his other friends would be rehearsing their piece that day in the auditorium. As a result, I couldn’t use the auditorium on that day either! I even had to tell my director that he had to go back home since we couldn’t film it today. Now I have to try and film it on Tuesday since I have rehearsal on Monday. All in all, It is what it is, I still have time to film the project.

There’s never a good project made without some delays!

Storyboards Done!

 YOO, just finished the storyboard and finalized some story elements/aspects, made some big changes so let's talk about it! 

This is the scene right after the conversation with Rowan, Jim is disturbed by the fact that he wasn't able to do his monologue in one go and now he immediately gets back on track. The next lines are hard for him though, he can't roll some words and he can't get certain emotions out. He tries multiple times to sophisticate his performance, but he never seems to get it right. There are many cuts in this sequence of scenes, it's not drawn on the storyboard, however, there are uses of Jump Cuts and quick cuts during this scene. I want to indicate that Jim is rehearsing for a prolonged period, so I think that this is the best way to accomplish that. When Jim feels like he has momentum, he starts from where he left off and he delivers the lines with ease. After this, Jim leaves the stage and then the film cuts to the next day. 

Side note: I did cut the bathroom mirror scene because it was taking too much time of the 2 minutes and it felt irrelevant to the plot. The same purpose of the bathroom scene is being served by this scene since both are portraying Jim's frustration. 

This is the end scene; it kicks off right when Jim leaves the stage. In the second shot, the next day appears, in this shot, the lighting would change, and a figure would be present in the audience and become situated. Jim would also have a new pair of clothes, which further indicates a new day. In this scene, Jim walks on the stage and grabs a chair, and sits down to perform his piece in front of the judge. This, sadly, is the last shot of the opening. The opening cuts off right when Jim sits down for his audition. The audience would be left wondering how his audition went and what the outcome was. 

There ya have it, folks. That is the last of the storyboards of my opening. It's been a long journey with many twists and turns but I FINALLY completed it. I will try filming in the next couple of days and start the editing process asap. For now, adios!

                                                   

Finished Screenplay

 Hey guys! Coming in late tonight with a report on my FINISHED SCREENPLAY!!. I'm happy I finally finished the story aspect of my opening and now I can - after thousands of years- can start shooting. It's took me a while to get to this point but I've finally made it. I started the screenplay about a week or so ago and now it's completed. I may review it a few times in the next couple of days when I start shooting, but, for now, I can rejoice. 

So, here it is, the masterful screenplay of my film opening....

Film Opening Screenplay

In all seriousness, there are some flaws to the opening, I may change some of the dialogue, but, I think it's fine for now. 

I will try to finish shooting by the end of this week, if not, I can always finish shooting at the start of the next week. For now, I am in a relaxed state of mind in consideration to this magical opening and soon, I will post the finished storyboards. 

Side note: I've been watching the opening of Black Swan quite frequently. There's not much connection between my opening and the Black Swan opening, but every time I view it, I always get new ideas for my own work. 

Black Swan Opening

Props and Costumes

 Alright, we're at the end of the week and I'm now about halfway done with the screenplay, I came up with a lot of shot ideas for some specific scenes. I thought it would be a good idea to post a blog addressing props and costumes that I'm going to use for the film opening.      First off: Chair 

This is probably the most used prop in film history that is always used no matter what genre. The chair is actually very important in this film opening; Jim uses this chair for his performance, the first 20 seconds of his monologue is spoken while he's sitting on the chair. The chair is present for almost half the opening, so it's crucial. 

Second: Table

                Yes, yes, yes I know this is a very basic prop, but It's one of the two props that I'm going to be using for the opening and it does serve its importance. The table is going to be used for the judge who would be reviewing Jim's audition. It's the table that he would write his notes on. 

Costumes: 

There's nothing special about the Costumes in this production, as Jim and Rowan are both teenagers who are theatre kids. They have a very basic style as compared to other teenagers in my generation.

                                                            

As I said, pretty basic. In the coming week, I'll do my best to finish up the screenplay and storyboard. I'll keep you guys updated!

Quote Opening!

 Ok Ok Ok, I just had a very good idea pop up in my head regarding how to establish the opening of my film. That idea is...... A QUOTE! 

I was thinking myself earlier "what are the ways I can establish the overall theme of the opening" and I thought "why not a quote". There have been many movies that have established an aspect of their film through a quote. Star Wars with their "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away" or Lady Bird when Greta Gerwing had this quote as the opening "Anybody who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento". These quotes give a sense to the audience of what the story would be based on or highlight a theme that is present throughout the film. A quote that I am going to employ for my film is a quote from Whiplash (yes I know, I have an unhealthy addiction to Whiplash), but the quote I chose really exemplifies the story and it helps set the theme of the opening. 

Terence Fletcher: There are no two words in the English language more harmful than "good job". 

This quote fits in perfectly with my piece, Jim is a character who isn't favorable of compliments and he values criticism much more. He thinks that compliments of his work would make him feel less motivated to do better. Determination and hard work are also common motifs in the film opening, so I feel this quote fits in pretty well.

Shooting Delay :(

 

Good news first though, I haven't posted in a few days since the SAT, but I am back and ready to use my full power on this project.

So, bad news, my school is performing the musical "West Side Story" next week: March 9-12th. They have been rehearsing all this week and unfortunately, all of next week. As a result, I can't film next week since the cast of West Side Story is going to be using it all week. I won't have access to the auditorium due to this, not the best thing that could happen. I was planning to film the opening next week, and then maybe do reshoots at another time; it seems as of now that I would have to film the opening on the week of the 14th: the following week. 

But not to worry, for I am Sachate Kaul and I will get it done and edited at an appropriate time. No, but seriously, this is a drawback, but I'm not worried about it, it will give me more than enough time to conclude my story elements and to finish all pre-production work. I had just finished my SAT as well so I can FINALLY have my full focus on this production and not have to worry about an annoying SAT. 

Setbacks are common in productions so this shouldn't be a problem to worry about.