One Last Reflection...

 

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.