Converse Review!!!

Hey guys!

Trendy Mom here back with another review for you fellow moms! I am hopping back on here to tell you guys about my latest find. As you know, I am a big fan of shoes, more specifically heels. I love how confident they make me feel but I don't have too many opportunities to wear them anymore so I decided to switch it up and buy sneakers for a change.

In an era where shoe design and trends change yearly, with new fads and patterns, there are few brands that remained constant. One of the few is Converse, more specifically the Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars. They have remained virtually the same since 1949. it has become possibly the most iconic pair and brand of shoes in the world. I don't know how I have gone my 40 years of life not having my own so I decided to change that.

I went to my nearest Converse store and bought myself the classic black high tops. To really put them to the test, I decided to wear them all day and let me tell you, I was not disappointed. Being a stay at home mom requires me to be on my feet all day so I knew this would be a good test for them. To start, they were really easy to put on because of how adjustable they are. It took me a second because I had never worn them before but they were easy to figure out. From walking from my front door to my car I could already tell they were insanely comfortable. I was able to run all of my errands wearing them all through Walmart, Target, and HomeGoods. I even got a few compliments from a group of teens! My feet weren't hurting at all at the end of the day. I also really appreciated that because they were high tops, they also supported my ankles. They kept them stable through all the walking I had done for the day. I also wore them when I had to walk Rocky, our dog, for about an hour and they were still holding up! I kept them on until I had to take the boys to practice and after that, I took them off. Not because I was uncomfortable but I was just ready to end my day.

Overall I must say I was very impressed with these shoes and how well they were able to work with me during the day. They were comfortable and the quality was 10/10. I now understand why all kids nowadays have a pair. I will happily add them to my sneaker collection and perhaps buy another pair in another color. I was thinking navy blue or a baby yellow! You guys let me know what color I should buy in the comments and I'll get back to you guys next week. Thanks for reading! And here's a picture of me with my shoes!

 

FINAL PRODUCT

It has been my pleasure to take you guys with me during this production process. Without further ado, the moment you've all been waiting for, my team and I present to you our film opening, By Your Side.

link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10HV-59Wg8LTQ09FW8DlbfIpDlPBOIljT/view?usp=drivesdk

This has been fun. Hope to talk to you all soon, until then, Lore.

My CCR

 Hello guys! In this post I am leaving a link to my critical creative reflection. Here I talk about genre conventions, integration of technologies, my groups target audience and distribution methods, and so much more. I reflect on this project and talk to you guys one on one. 

link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ki3_WSzMzvgy1AYANEmQ6OyNo6t5fD8Y/view?usp=sharing

Stay tuned for the ifnal product at 5:00 pm est.

Til then, Lore

Nearing the End

    Hey guy! Feels like it's been a while with everything going on. I hope everyone is doing great. I am hopping on here for my final post before uploading the final product! I will also be uploading a video of my critical creative reflection as well so stay tuned for Tuesday! In this post I am going to talk about the last few things my team and I have done during these past few days along with some key moments during this process. 

    Going into this project at the beginning of this year, the concept of both filming producing short films was new to me. I hadn’t done any editing or filming since middle school so I feel this whole experience has revealed a lot about the production process. Especially the hardships that come with the process as whole. I feel my team and I may have underestimated how much work this was going to take but as time went on I feel we really did a great job. During pre production, the act of sharing all of our ideas and coming up with the content we wanted to create was so fun. My team members and I work very well together so it made the process smoother as a whole. Though production itself was a lot of work, it was still very fun to be a production crew and bring our ideas to life. Personally, my favorite part during all of this was filming. Spraying the blood in the shower and creating the different colored lights was really cool. Our most recent endeavor, post production, has been a lot but we all worked together to make sure the opening was turning out the way we want it to.

    Overall, I believe we were able to create the perfect thriller/coming of age opening and hope you guys enjoy it. A lot of work has gone into this project we can't wait to share. See you Tuesday!

Music and Sound Effects! (post prod.)

    Good afternoon fellow readers and bloggers! Today’s post is going to be about my groups final music choices that we used in our opening and a little about the sound effects were using during post production.

    So as you know, Thiago had reached out to an artist he knew named Silver Sphere to see if we can get the rights to use some of her songs (which we did) to use in our opening. They have actually been friends for a while so their friendship made this a lot easier! We wound up using two of her songs, ghosts and i'll go goth. We played one while Betty was getting ready and another in the car with both James and August as well. My favorite one we used was ghosts. After listening to them so many times on film day, I actually realized I liked them and even added them to my playlist on Spotify! 

    To use them we had them playing in real life while we were filming during both scenes and we plan to add them over that audio in post production. This way we can adjust the volume of the song and make it sound a little more clear. We really think this will add to the quality of our video and make it look more professional.

    In regards to other sound effects were using, there are a lot. We are adding a honking noise we recorded into the video so we can again adjust the volume and make it sound a little louder than normal. We are also adding the sounds of the shower and running water or scene one along with a few others! We think these Foley techniques are what are going to make our opening stand out from all the rest. My team and I are so excited to go through the post production and editing phase and bring you all along with us. In those posts you guys are really going to see us get to work and perfect our final product!

A Little More

Hey guys! So as promised I am hopping on once again to talk about some extra details and bumps in the road my group and I overcome on our film day pt. 2. So we originally planned to use this steady cam device that fit our phones to help us film both scenes and make our pans and tilts smoother but it did not go as planned. 

We spent a good thirty minutes trying to get it to work but we couldn’t figure out what was up. We downloaded the app and even looked up tutorials online but we realized that the clock was ticking and we had to get our show on the road. To solve this issue we wound up just using our hands and the built in stabilizer on our phones. After adjusting the video quality in our settings we did our best to avoid shakey hand movements. Larissa was amazing as this as we realized her hands were the less shakey than mine! 

 

Hope this post gave you guys a little more insight about that day! Happy reading :)

Camera, Lights, Action!

     Hello! I hope everyone is doing great. I am making this post to tell you guys about how our first day of filming went on our day 2! So as you know, my group and I were able to successfully film scene one last weekend where we did the scary shower scenes of our opening. Though we were not bale to film all in one day, we filmed this week to wrap it all up.

    This week we filmed the other half of our opening which was the scene of Betty getting ready in her room and then meeting our other two characters, August and James in the car to talk about where they are headed and the plans they have. This is where we really wanted to reflect how happy they are and the level of comfort between them. They are best friends after all. This scene comes after the black screen saying "four days prior". The actual filming of the scene was really funny because our three actors our best friends and real life so it took them a second to keep themselves from laughing but before long, we were able to successfully film the scene.

    We filmed it from two different angles. I was in the trunk filming from the back left corner and Larissa was filming through the window of the drivers seat. We made sure to follow the 180 rule when doing this! The purpose of filming from two angles at one was to ensure that the dialogue was as natural as possible and to strengthen the flow of the scene as a whole. Re-filming certain lines from different angles can make it seem abrupt which is the opposite of what we wanted. Much of the dialogue actually was enhanced with a little improv and some stutters to seem more natural as well! If you guys are interested, I will be posting more about this day so stay tuned!

Overall, filming went great! We are so excited for what comes next in the editing stage! Stay tuned for more and happy reading :)

Group meetings!

     Good morning! I am hopping on real quick to tell you guys a little about the group meetings I just had in class. So group meetings are something my teacher, Mrs. Stoklosa, does for team members from all different groups meet in a breakout room on Microsoft Teams and talk about our work. Here we all get to give each other feed back and give ideas to others on ho to improve their projects to make sure we all excel! 

    In my group, I was with Kenneth, Marcos, and William. I had never spoken to them before so I was a little nervous but nonetheless we all spoke about what we were doing. I honestly loved all of their ideas for their projects. One of my favorites was Kenneth's as he is doing a thriller kind of opening and he wants to have it set on Valentine's Day. I loved that idea so much. I also appreciated Williams idea of filming in an abandoned house but we all told him that it maybe wasn't the best idea haha. I also got a chance to see Marcos's ideas and how they evolved into his opening now! All of them are doing great work and I can't wait to see it.

    When it was my turn to speak I showed them  my story boards (which you can see in a recent post I did!) and they loved it. I got nothing but positive feed back about both the story boards and the idea as a whole. I told Thiago and Larissa and they were thrilled! I cant wait to do another group meeting soon!

How It Went!

     Hey guy, we did it! We finally were able to get the cameras rolling and successfully film scene one of our opening. 

    Before we all met up at Thiago's house, we made sure to quarantine another three days prior to ensure we had no symptoms and limit who we were seeing. When the day arrived we all coordinated the times and things to bring to get ready to film. That day we were able to film scene one (the shower scenes) with our actresses Dani and Gaby along with Thiago who played James. We made sure they looked extra scary and bloody in the shower shots and close ups to ensure that their confusion and anticipation is transmitted through the screen on to the audience! The fake blood we made looked so good and didn't stain the actresses clothes or bathroom! We also stuck with the idea to use the records in front of a professional light to use different colors for each of our characters. Here's a picture!

    I don't want to say too much because I want you guys to be surprised with our final product but I will say it went great and it was awesome to meet Larissa and Thiago in person again! We all get along so great and work well together. We have had numerous group meetings and facetime calls but seeing them in person was something else. 

    So let me give you guys a heads up on what's to come! My group and I plan to meet again to film scene two next week. We sadly have to have it so far ahead because it is the end of the quarter and we have all had a lot of extra work and studying to do along with matching everyone's schedules. Regardless, we still made sure to have it as soon as possible! Finishing filming that soon also leaves my group and I over 10 days for post production where we'll edit and work on our reflections! I'll tell you a bit more about that soon!

Until then, Lore :)  

BLOOD!

  Hello guys, I just wanted to make a little post with an update about our fake blood! So as you know we have scheduled to shoot this weekend and to do that we needed to buy fake blood. So the original plan was to buy some but we slowly realized that we do not want our bathroom tiles to be stained red! Or of course to stain the skin of our actors! So, after some research we realized we could make our own by using some corn syrup and red food dye. Here's the recipe we are using:

https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/fake-blood-51199810

We are going to try the recipe tomorrow to make sure it works and looks real. If that does not work well maybe red washable paint could...? Hopefully we figure it out soon! This was such a last minute thing we were a bit frazzled but I think my team members and I are handling it well :) I'll be back with more updates regarding the production process soon!

Our Script!

     Hey guys! So I know I have been telling you guys about our script for a while now and how we were working on it. We just really wanted to make sure it was as perfect as possible to be prepared to film and send copies to our actresses so they can get get familiar with them. So, here's a screenshot of the beginning and I left a link below for you guys to take a peek!

    So again, the majority of the dialogue in our script starts about 30 seconds in to our opening because as I have mentioned before there is no dialogue in the beginning shower scenes.

script: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v0dgCoj2BuDVDMfg5tdkql8XJCNJ6gZFCdzY0VfSkaE/edit?usp=sharing

Slight Change In Plans

    Good morning! I am coming to you all with some news about changes that are being made (nothing bad don't worry). So originally my team and I were still in search for a male actor to play our James but because of Covid and college stuff coming up, its been difficult to find someone available. So as of right now, Thiago will be playing our James unless someone pops up. We think this is going to make the whole production process more interesting. It may even become easier to film as him being a part of the team ensures that he knows our vision. The two actors we have, Gaby and Dani, are actually Thiago's best friend in real life as well so three best friends playing three best friends is a win-win! \

    

    Another little update for you guys is that we had to update some of the mise en scene we originally planned for the scene of the characters getting ready. We have officially altered changed when we are going to play the music so we can leave more room for dialogue and increase the intimacy of the dialogue. Changes are completely normal and bound to happen all the time when it comes to projects like these. Bound are more to happen so we are definitely ready for what's to come. Also, our script is so so close to being done so stay tuned for that! 

    Til next time, Lorena

Our Betty and August!

     Good morning everyone :) Today's post is going to be all about introducing the actors that are going to play our characters today. Though we all asked around, Thiago's friends Gaby and Dani to be our Betty and August! They are both juniors who attend Cypress Bay with us. I personally do not know them I am confident that they are perfect for the parts from what Thiago has told us. When he told them about the project they were extremely excited to take part in it with us. Though we are still in search of someone to pay our James, we are confident that we will find someone within the next couple days before shooting. Of course with the circumstances at hand we all plan to get tested three days before hand to ensure we are being as safe as possible. We also plan on everyone wearing masks who as long as they aren't on camera. 

    That's it for this post but stay tuned for my next one! Until then, Lorena.

An Update

     Hey everyone! Today I am going to be sharing the shooting schedule for our film opening. After many group calls with both Thiago and Larissa we have settled on aiming to shoot on March 13, 2020!!! We are doing this because we believe it will give us more than enough time to finalize our script. It will also give us tons of time to finish gathering and buying props/materials for he actual shoot and confirm who can play the roles of our characters, Betty, James, and August. We already have people in mind and are asking them to confirm as soon as possible! In other news, we are almost done with the first draft of our script and are hoping to do another group call next week to tweak and improve it to have it ready. I hope to share the script with you guys as soon as possible but until then, have a good weekend and come back next week for more!

Story Boards

     Hello fellow readers. I hope you guys had a great week! I was very very productive as my team and I have now finished our story boards. Larissa and I worked very collaboratively to draw out and organize all of our shots of each of the scenes. Thiago of course was right there with us as he spot checked them. Today I am going to be sharing the story boards I personally drew and will provide a link soon when Larissa and I upload them to google drive :)

    Here they are! So in this image you can see the first 14 shots we plan to have in the opening which will of course be brought to life very very soon. The majority of these shots will not be on the screen for long as we want to incorporate very fast paced cuts to again increase the tension of the piece. We plan to use a combination of lighting and fake blood to do do this as well. My personal favorite shots are the close ups and blood spiraling down the drain. I think they are going to look so cool and add a lot to our opening and really strengthen the fact that corresponds to the horror genre. I am so excited and hope you guys are too! Please please please stay tuned for our script and shooting schedule, happy reading!

Shot List!

     Hey guys! I hope everyone had a great day today. In today's post I am going to share my group and I's finished shot list! We spent a lot of our time time make sure everything was thought out and planned perfectly but of course things are subject to change we actually film. Here are two screen shots of the first couple scenes.

    Here they are! I know they may be a little hard to read but I swear if you zoom in just a little bit you can see it all haha. We created our list through multiple group meetings before settling on these shots so I hope you guys appreciate the ones we chose. Before I go, I just want to go into a little depth on a few of my favorite shots and why we chose them. Right away my first favorites are the panning shots cutting to the close ups in the first photo. Though they may seem pretty ordinary, they are really going to come to life later on during the editing process. The panning shots will each be a few seconds but once we cut to the close ups the shots are progressively going to get faster and faster. We want to do this to of course convey the anticipation/anxiety of the scene and just intensify it overall. This will not only work to intensify the scene but reflect the emotions of the characters on to the audience. These will include more than just anxiety but confusion, nervousness, chaos, etc. These shots will also come to life during production as we plan to use different colored lighting for each character. These kinds of moments in films are my personal favorites and I am so excited to bring them to life in my own project with my team.

    Before I go, I hope you guys have a great week and are excited to see what's coming next! Stay tuned for our story boards and more preparation to start filming next week!

  

What's to Come

     Hello everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend. I am hopping on to give you guys a preview of what's to come in the next few days. I'd be excited if I were you hehe. So as you know, in my last post I published the mood board for me and my groups film opening! and since then we have already started our shot list and story boards! While Thiago is working on the script. Larissa and I are working very hard on finishing our story boards to have them done in the next few days. We are all spot checking each other to make sure everything is going smoothly and we are all on the same page.

    We plan to have a group meeting tomorrow after school to continue working hard and talk even more about the details of the opening! We plan to have a shooting schedule done by the end of this coming week and hopefully start shooting as soon as possible. We are still looking for actors but other than that everything seems to be sailing smoothly but for now, I think we are done for the day. I hope you guy have a good day tomorrow, talk soon :)

Mood Board!

     Hey guys! I am hopping on here to share my teams newest progress! After my last post of describing our outline of the plot, my team and I decided to create a mood board. We did this because we feel it will further prepare us to ensure we create the tone we intend to for our audience. We also believe it serves a visual for our writing stage of this whole process!

 

    Here it is! So the images we have here coincide with what we want to be in our opening. I carefully picked out some pictures that I believe captured the genre we are going for, coming of age/horror. In the bottom left you can see we have three teen best friends from what is one of my favorite coming of age films, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The board also has one of the main characters, Charlie, standing in the back of a truck in another image. This scene is one of my favorites ever and truly captures their youth. The majority of the other images coincide more with the horror factor. We have the blood spiraling down the drain which we will of course have a clip of and an unknown figure in  a hood. This represents the fact that we are not introducing the antagonist in our opening but we are making his presence known with a shadow. The other images in the board are details that essentially are ones my team members and I want to keep in mind while both filming and writing! I hope you guys like it and are excited to see what's coming soon! Happy reading :)

The Plot!

    Hello! Today’s post is going to be filled with all the details regarding the final plot and outline for our opening!! So after tons of conversation and brewing of ideas this is the plan.

    Like I have mentioned before, we are going to have three main characters, Betty, James, and August. Three teen best friends. We plan to show them in the very beginning of opening in the first clips. We want to show fast paced cut clips of close ups of their faces looking down. We really want to do this to show the fear and confusion in their faces and increase the intensity of the situation. We want this to reflect on to the viewers and transmit the characters emotion through the screen. We also want to show clips of their hands with blood on them. The location they are in is a bathroom staring downwards towards the drain and blood spiraling down (much like Alfred Hitchcock’s infamous shower scene). This would hint to the audience that there was some sort of murder or death and the teens are exposed to it. Following this we were thinking of  including a scream from one of the characters and cut it off after a few seconds to a black screen where we'd display the title. 

     We then plan for there to be some sort of flash back and after that clip comes on we'll have text at the bottom saying "four days prior". That scene would go straight to the rooms of one of the characters getting ready to hang out with the rest while listening to music (which my team member Thiago already emailed an artist for!) and maybe a shot following them outside to the car with the others. My team members and I want to also get a shot from inside the car with the characters talking and laughing; essentially being best friends. We do not want to reveal the antagonist in our opening but we do want to hint he is there by maybe showing his shadow. We are still missing some of the details and of course mise en scene but stay tuned for that next week!

    For now, I hope you guys our essential plot so far and can't wait to bring you guys along for the rest. Talk soon :)

Digging Even Deeper (Sound Edition)

     Hey guys! So I know I know, I already posted about 'digger deeper' with some of my research, but I want to share everything we do to create this film opening and research is a huge part of that. Today's research is a little different from the one before. I am going to touch base with more information regarding how to prepare before creating our film.

    Through our research we were already familiar with most of what we found. This includes knowing the concept of our film, writing/planning a script, storyboards, etc. but while searching online we completely overlooked the sound element for our opening! By this I mean we know what kind of sound we want but are now on a search for the perfect one. We just now spoke about seeing if we can email an artist to see if we can get the rights to use their music. I personally would LOVE to use Shepard Tone. If you are unfamiliar with what Shepard Tone is, it's a sound illusion that seems that it's getting higher in pitch but isn't. This is used by many famous directors to increase the anticipation and intensity of a scene which I think would be perfect (I left a link at the bottom of the post for you guys to listen to Shepard Tone and an explanation of it if you're interested!). As for the rest of the opening we want to use upbeat/happier music to essentially demonstrate a dramatic switch in tone from their present and what led them there. Most likely something in the pop genre but nothing super crazy or loud. 

    That's all I have for you guys today but let me give you a little taste of what's to come this week. We plan on giving you guys the final outline of our plot and opening in the next post, a possible mood board, and much more :) Get ready for next week where you'll I'll be sharing a bit of our shot list and a sneak peak of our story boards! Thanks for reading and stay tuned, have a great day :)

Shepard Tone: https://youtu.be/RQlrSvnG3dg