New Years!

 It is now new years! I am currently on a plane. A plane during COVID? Yes, i’m currently on my way to New Orleans. This means, I am taking a couple days off of working on my film. I have just come to the conclusion that I need to create a whole new story. While I would love to leave that stress in 2020, I cannot. So here I am on my way to Charlotte, then New Orleans. Ive never been there, but it seems nice. I am going for my stepbrothers football game, the NCAA Sugar Bowl. I have a very busy weekend ahead of me so I won’t be doing any planning. Since I will not be on set (my room) this also means I won’t be filming. As i mention before in my christmas blog, I think it is important to take breaks and pace yourself. Personally, with creative projects, I need to work on my schedule. I will not priorities creative projects over math homework or a history test because one matters more than the other unfortunately. In the new year, I plan on creating a film I and proud of. Isolated, my film, is one of my new years resolutions as well as being more organized. I will not lie to you reader, I have slacked. I have put off working on this project in the name of other classes. But deadlines are approaching and it’s time to face the music.

New Story

 My friend got COVID, I am on lockdown. So now I am forced to come up with a new story. This is going to be extremely difficult because I don’t know what to do on such short notice. What if the new film doesn’t match the colors and theme I’ve implicated on social media. Will this create a whole re-branding, I don’t know. This is what my idea is. My first scene was going to be a “Quarentine Routine”. If i take this idea and expand it, while adding funny remarks and details, I can make it 5 minutes long. The issue with this is that there is no storyline or plot going on. This means I would need to add some dimension to the voiceover that goes over it.  I’m kind of getting stressed out about it to be honest. I have to get a whole new story, which means a whole new storyboard, etc. etc. The most convenient thing for me to do is create a story revolving around me and my room. This way, there will be no excuses as to why I cannot do it. A one-woman show if you will. I now need to start working on the storyboard. This part will probably be the most exhausting but it is necessary for a thought out film. Also, let’s find a silver lining. Although i have all this newfound stress, there is one benefit from all this. Since I have no one to film with, I can film anytime. This is convenient for me because my schedule is crazy.

There has been a change of plans...

 So today I have decided to start reviewing. The filming went well. I have a couple of good takes but I still have to do some more. But I have ran into a slight issue. There are many COVID cases in Florida. We might as well just be the epicenter for Coronavirus by now. Although my issue is the storyline, as the film is about a girl breaking from quarantine, it is a bigger issue. My co-star has got COVID. Due to this emergency, my mom has not allowed me to get with any friends to film. She hasn't let me hang out before, but this just adds fuel to the fire. So this issue is now out of my control. I am in complete and utter confusion. I now need to figure out a way of making a movie completely alone. This has gave me extreme anxiety because I have a deadline and I don't know what I am going to do with my story.  My plan is to rewrite the story but that is a problem for another day. This issue also means I have to re-storyboard as well as think of a story where I can still use my footage. Will it be in the same genre? Will I have enough time? I don't know, but that is a problem for another day, and all I can do. now is brainstorm.

Why I am not filming today or tomorrow

 I still have a lot of work to do left with my film. I just worked on my social media so I know I’ve done some progress. There is a lot of filming and editing to do and the clock is ticking. I know it is crucial that I film. Even more so since my last film day ended up so horrible. It is currently December 24, 8 pm. I did not film today nor will I film tomorrow and here is why. It is Christmas Eve, and with the horrible year 2020 has been, I need this holiday. I am at my grandparents house, with my dad, grandparents and brother from college. We just had a dinner that we spent all day preparing. Tomorrow I will wake up, come back here to spend time time with my cousins. After that I’ll go to my mom’s house and spend time with my brother and how excited he is about all his new toys. Once we get out of the Santa age, the school system has always assigned packets of work or projects to work on. To this I say, forget that. Why should I have to give up my holiday time, my family traditions and my mental break to keep up with something like school. I am not going to film today or tomorrow because there are more important things in life. Maybe on the 26th or maybe on the the 31st. But i know that while i am with my very old grandparents, i’m going to appreciate the time I have with them and give myself a break. I will have time to film, but filming on a holiday is something I won’t do to myself. Cambridge, if you are reading this for any reason, happy holidays!

Filming Again

           So now i need to film again. In case you haven’t read the last filming blog, my first filming attempt went rather rough. So now I have to re-film the first couple of scenes. I would say today was better. Because my failure, today I used my mistakes to learn and perform better. I started off by filming the bed scenes. I used my phone to check if the camera was positioned right. This was such a smart moment in my mind. I had an issue so I hacked my way around it. This helped me tremendously. It prevented me from making my previous mistake because my camera was centered the way I wanted it to be. Although that was a positive, i did make a reoccurring mistake. It is extremely hard to film in my house. I have two parents taht work from home, a 5 year old brother and an extremely loud grandmother all in a small house. This made me frustrated. I was constantly trying to find a quiet time but it was never quiet enough. There were many interruptions and random sounds. This annoyed me because I had to refilm and refilm. Finally, I got the take I needed. I would say that today was a more successful film day.

Reviewing

 So now that i have filmed one day, I need to review my film. This is important now so I know to refilm. When I looked at my footage I was very dissatisfied to see it. All my time went to waste as the footage is now useless. I am filming and producing this movie by myself. But I am also in it as well. This causes problems because I don’t have someone to help me. If i had a partner to record correctly, it would’ve saved me this misstep. Most clips were out of focus. This makes the clip irrelevant because I can’t use it in any way. Some clips were not angled correctly or centered. My camera does not have a reversible viewfinder. Therefore I have to get physically behind the camera and set it before running back into the frame. I feel like I have wasted my time because I have no footage and a day wasted. It has made me learn though. I learned my camera was set to manual focus and not automatic. This meant, the way I set it would not stay focused once I stepped in the frame. On my next film day I will took what I learned and put it into use. I will leave my camera on automatic and check each clip after being taken to see how it looks. But that can all wait because my next step is some social media marketing.

Filming Day

         Today I began filming. I wanted to start with the alone scenes because they are easiest to do. I put myself into some new clothes and i started filming. I filmed half of the morning routine. Because I am filming myself, it is very hard. I had to reshoot multiple clips. My camera doesn’t have a reversible viewfinder, so i cannot see what I am filming. That challenged my filming process because I had to spend more time refilming. I also am having problems shooting a specific angle. Some clips are top view of me laying down. I couldn’t figure out today how to film it. After filming I looked it up and got the idea to put my tripod on my bed and flip the camera as low as I can. Another difficulty I ran into was noise. I live in a house with three adults and a 5 year old kid. This means there’s constantly a lot of noise. Many clips got interrupted by a shout or an interruption. This is something I couldn’t really control and began to aggravate me. Overall it wasn’t a good filming day. My next step is to review the footage I have.

Social Media

 In the past weeks I have created social media accounts. I have created an Instagram for sharing photos and videos. The Twitter is for teaser and dates. The YouTube is for trailers, behind the scenes, and any other clips. Finally, the Facebook is for media of all sorts. Today I worked on two things. These things, balding a following and developing a theme, are important to me so I can have a strong, cohesive front. I am currently focusing on building a following for these accounts. They all have 20-40 followers. I want them to have more so I will follow accounts that are random, in hopes they will follow back. I want an engaged audience to build hype around the film. I also want all my social medias to seem consistent. In doing this, I have developed certain aesthetics for my social media. For example, certain colors, tone, etc. All of my advertisements are rather ambiguous and mysterious. I am doing this because until the film is released, I don't want to give too much of the story. This leaves things up to the audience's imagination and keeps them wondering what my film is about. Today I worked on developing some graphic designs for the Instagram. All the aesthetics I mentioned above are represented below. I also updated my website to match better. The overall goal I am trying to accomplish with my social media is a cohesive aesthetic that makes audience put it all together.