THE DAY IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
With a lot of excitement and anticipation, I'm happy, proud, and relieved to say:
I HOPE YOU ENJOY.
With you, ladies and gentlemen.... is Headed Out.
To begin, my film takes place in a small
town, specifically Weston, Florida, where a young teenager named Soul who is
played by my sister, Elisa, suffers from a terrible mental illness,
Schizophrenia, and has been trapped her whole life by her mother Portia, played
by my mother Rosalba, who we don’t see in the opening, in fear of the dangers
of the “outside world.” Moreover,
as Soul’s symptoms worsen over time, she finds herself curious
of what is really out there and the beauty of it all but instead, the universe
only brings her the worst.
Unlike other mental illness-based movies who
usually portray these illnesses negatively, and leave the audience with a sense
of pity and sorry, my film is solely aimed to advocate and bring awareness to a
group who’s only struggling as much or more than others. In my film I aim to
establish the setting and who Soul really wants to be and overcome to better
her mental health, only that to do so, she must overcome everyone’s biggest
fear, getting kidnapped.
My film is classified as a psychological
thriller. this genre combines the thriller and psychological fiction genres and is commonly used to describe
movies and books that deal with psychological narratives in a thriller or thrilling setting. They’re also the type of
movies who will leave you wondering your entire existence, probably. What makes
a thriller psychological is that the biggest questions revolve around the minds
and behavior. Psychological thrillers often incorporate elements of mystery and
include themes of
crime,
morality,
mental illness,
substance abuse,
multiple realities or a
dissolving sense of reality, and unreliable narrators.
So, in my film, the main character would deal with not only a
mental illness but crime and morality as she fears for her life just when she
started to explore it.
Because the film is modern and based on today’s world, almost
all kinds of shots will be included as well as numerous camera movements. Additionally,
slow-motion editing was heavily used as well to show distress, fear, and suspense. I would always try to film close to dawn but ended up
filming darker than planned every single time.
I learned to play with the colors in every shot and added an almost blue
to gray filter in every shot to resemble
spookiness and terror while at the same time giving a sense of nostalgia and
sadness as these colors often resemble such feelings. I achieved the perfect
scenery by bringing down the exposure and brilliance, desaturating the colors,
and bringing shadows, highlights, and warmth up while giving it a blue-ish tint
at the same time. Furthermore, I
achieved a more professional look by adjusting the camera settings to go from 720p
HD at 30 fps to 4K at 60 fps.
All these tips and suggestions not only were discovered while
I played with the editing and camera settings but also inspired by Greta
Gerwig, director of Lady Bird but also an old student from Media Class who
offered to help me achieve the look I was looking for. Greta’s suggestion was
to resemble a scene to a picture to give it a more nostalgic feeling.
The plot I had initially
thought of was simple. Soul's mom would knock on her door and they would
exchange dialogue with the whole "we're going out tonight, no going
out" thing. As I was editing, the first scene, which was mom and Soul,
took up way too much time away from the rest of the film, so, what did i do? i
took it out. I made a whole different plot and idea for the movie that at the
time, I didn't even know would be possible. The second thing I did was, I made
a whole plan and thought about how the opening film would be a background story
to what the movie would actually be about. The opening film is a compilation of
scenes while jump-cutting to others and at the end, it introduces the title and
THERE is when the actual movie starts.
Soul’s dad is not mentioned in the opening at all as later on
it is mentioned he’s a very busy and well-known man who can let this secret of
keeping her daughter captive get out to the public.
Anyways, as said before, I planned on having dialogue
and having all types of birds chirping, maybe some cars passing by, etc.
Yeah... no. While editing, I realized the less sound there was on each scene,
the more aesthetically pleasing (if you will) it looked. I didn't entirely take
out all sounds, however. Soul rolling over on the bed, opening the window,
grunting after falling out of the window, doors closing, the car engine, etc.
were things I decided to keep while the rest is silent and it definitely gave
it that sense of suspense.
As far as music goes, I did
use iMovie's audio to play some spooky background music. I know Mrs. Stoklosa
said we should ask for permission first so I did some research to see if
iMovie's audios were copyrighted and if I was able to use them and found
this:
My license: iMovie Software License Agreement
So yes, basically I can use
iMovie music and sounds free as they are licensed to me only for reproduction,
modification, publication, and distribution of non-copyrighted materials,
materials in which I own the copyright or materials I am authorized or legally
permitted to reproduce, modify, publish or distribute.
Finally, Designing the
titles was actually one of my favorite parts of editing my film.
I used Canva.com and
generated my own fonts and titles. I actually paid a subscription to get
"professional features" and it helped immensely. I then proceeded to
remove the background and place on the scenes I wanted the titles and credits
to be displayed.
On the other hand, it is important to consider how my film
will be distributed and how it engages with my target audience as well, so… how
will I do it? First, I would start by reaching out to multiple artists who
would collaborate in my film and make a song that will be familiarized only
with my movie, for example, in the movie fast and furious, the song see you
again was written as a tribute to Paul
walker, one of the cast members who tragically passed away while racing. Another
example is all of the starts by SZA and Kendrick Lamar which was written for
black panther bringing a much-needed sense of musical identity to an element
often overlooked by Marvel movies. By doing this I can bring not only the
artists fan base to watch my movie but the movie will forever be remembered
every time the song plays. Furthermore, psychological thrillers have shown to
increase their demographics after “The joker” and “Get out” came out which
means majority of my target audience would be anticipating my film and be
excited to see another thriller like one of those. As learned in Media Studies this year, social
media has played a huge role in advertising any form of media such as music and
film. To promote my film I would make sure not enough teases are posted on
social media by the actors who sure have a great social media following and
influence as well as I do. Also, I would try to get my friends to help me spread
the word. Furthermore, a lot of people are familiar with Vimeo which is a
website or app where aspiring filmmakers like to post their work for recognition so that would also be the main
platform to display my film and for free! And the last but not least way to
promote my film would of course be one of the most important ones, film
festivals I can find it on my area and also have to do with younger people
getting involved with film. Furthermore, my school usually hosts a film
festival so I would try to display and promote my work there for other students
to watch it and share their opinion on my work. The last step would then be
going bigger and aim to display my film on Netflix, Hulu, DVD, and more.
My production skills have developed immensely throughout this
project. Not only have I been impressed with what two minutes of film can
communicate to an audience but also how hard it is to perfectly achieve. I have learned how much research and effort has
to be put into not even on the whole thing but just the planning alone. Things
such as costumes, getting everyone together, figuring out the lighting and
audio, and even outside factors such as this years coronavirus that have played
a huge factor in the outcome of this project. Long hours of editing and filming
just to get the perfect shot is very time consuming and sometimes can be
dreadful. And at the end though, my skills have developed to become stronger
and even more professional than they were at the beginning But of course doing
everything by yourself will be impossible so considering the help of other
people is definitely an essential to achieve your vision. The main skill in major lesson that I came out
after all of this, was definitely manipulating the lighting and color hue as
they were both incredibly important for my setting as filming in the dark is
very difficult and sound editing as well since at night is easy to hear outside
noice from insects, cars or even the light poles.
Finally, The integration of technology made most if not all
of my project. First of all, I recorded the entire Process on my online blog where I included
pictures, outlines, and everything I encountered while working on my project.
Of course are used Google and safari which helped me research not only the
genre I was working with but also infinite information about the most important
thing, schizophrenia, I had to make sure I did it perfectly to not offend
anyone and make justice to such horrible disease. Furthermore, I also watched
videos on YouTube on experts breaking Down mental illness-based films and
explaining what they mean and also those breaking down psychological thrillers
and what goes on behind them. Thanks to suggestions from my Media Class I was able
to find some soundtracks on ASCAP which is the American Society of Composers,
Authors, and Publishers.
In terms of hardware however, I used my IPhone camera along
with the headphone’s microphone to film outside. My computer and IPad were also
very helpful to edit the footage and research the information on my blog. In
terms of hardware, I used iMovie to edit my entire project which was suggested
by many peers and previous media students and it’s actually the one I’m using
to edit my CCR as well.
