Decided!

After discussing various holes between each of our stories and the pros/ cons between them, we have finally decided on which plot we are going to develop, The Chef.

Though the story is not about a chef, we are just going to refer to our short film as that until we have agreed upon a new title. 

So now that we already have the outline created, we are going to focus on the color palette we want to achieve in the short film along with its mise-en-scene to set the tone of the piece. I found an article where Art Director Roxy Radulescu was analyzing different films and stills, creating their color palettes and explaining how they convey the tone of each scene.

Color palette for the film 'Se7en'

Specifically, this palette really drew me in and I would like to incorporate the darker colors and blues into our own piece. I feel like the darker blue is able to reveal the depth within our story and how the child is questioning the morality of their mother and the length she would go for them. The darkness would also help portray the mystery behind the whole situation, keeping the audience in suspense along with the child. Until the beginning of the third act when the viewer finds out the truth of the meat's origin, unlike the child. The hints of blue can also create visually pleasing shots and we could be able to play around with different lighting and filters to create these blue tones and shadows. 

The Chef

As mentioned in the previous blog post, we needed to change the execution and plot of our short film ideas after the instructor meeting. For the chef, we realized that the piece would rely HEAVILY on mise-en-scene elements at the restaurant and its atmosphere. I'm sure no restaurant would allow us to film there in fear of being seen as a place that serves human meat, and it would be extremely difficult to create our own restaurant props and set design for the short film.
So the new plot is a low-income family of a single mother and child struggling to buy necessities like food, and the mother reverts to feeding her child human meat that she is able to attain at her job as a hospital custodian. The child becomes suspicious of the meat but never comes to a conclusion of whether it's animal or not because they could never imagine their mother doing that to them. This is supposed to have each character question their morality and the extent his mother would go for the child.
Here is how the new plot of the short film would be developed.

Instructor Meeting

 Today in class, we were taught a lesson on writing screenplay. It was very helpful in further developing the ideas that my partner and I currently have, which brings us closer to our final decision of which plot we will be executing for the short film. Here is the outline that I created for the Lemonade Mules story and how it would be executed.

Major Plot and Character Description

After the presentation, our instructor called everyone up to discuss our progress and blog postings to ensure they are meeting the needed requirements. Her and I decided that our final two picks should be the Chef and the Lemonade mules story, but she offered advice on how to execute them properly.

How the short film would be developed

After writing these, she said that it may be best to do without the drugs as the conflict since we do not have enough time in the short film to properly develop the conflict. That instead it should just be focused on the age difference between the two, how they come from different times and how they may be willing to compromise. But I'm not sure how we should execute that with it still being engaging. Personally, I wouldn't want to watch a 5-minute film on kids debating with an older man about a lemonade stand, but I trust her judgment when she said that simpler stories are much better than trying to cram a larger story into such a short frame. To make it entertaining, we could be able to incorporate some comedy to the piece by having each of the characters go back in forth like the man pushing their stand away and then he begins to walk away and as he gets back home to turn around he sees that the kids are already back. I will need to further discuss this with my partner, but next post will be regarding the changes made to the chef story. 

Our ideas and genre conventions

So while my partner and I are still decided on what storyline we want to go with, we decided to do some more research on each of the ideas genre and what limitations they may have on us. Essentially helping us decide which story will be the most realistic to convey with our time frame while still being interesting to the audience.
1. Lemonade Mules
This short film would definitely fall in the crime genre and we'd like to embrace typical conventions of this genre rather than challenging it due to our limited familiarity with it. We'd probably play around with lighting and the brightness of the actual footage to make it seem much darker and mysterious when the shots are focused on the children to symbolize the danger they're getting themselves into. Along with this, we'd contrast high and low angles between the man and the actual children to express the man becoming suspicious of them. The High angle would signify his power over them because he could easily tell on them and the low angles would establish that despite them conducting serious crimes, they are just kids. Along with this, our mise-en-scene would be heavily focused on their wardrobe to reveal the kids are low income while the man isn't, to relay a theme of social class differences and how they are just trying to make ends meet. This could be done by casting an older white man and have him be dressed in a blue button-down and a nice pair of jeans while the children are contrasted with darker, faded and worn-out clothes.

2. The Book Club
Though the idea is not so comedic (in my opinion), Ricardo wants to classify this as a comedy. So most comedies tend to have a natural and realistic vibe to it when it comes to wardrobe, lighting and the actual camera work to make the characters feel more real rather than actors on a screen. Which is pretty ironic since the people we would be portraying aren't some you'd hope to be real. We'd probably rely on mid shots and two shots to reveal each of the character's relationships with one another. Each guy within the book club would be a different typical character in comedy movies like one who's socially awkward, another who's overly confident, the one all of them make fun of, maybe throw in a super nerdy guy, you know like every other character in a Seth Rogan movie. The wardrobe would be extremely casual with jeans, a graphic tee or a polo shirt for the nerd, and some basic sneakers to further emphasize how they want to be seen as normal when society may look down on them. And not much creativity will be had with the lighting, just enough to portray natural sunlight throughout the house.

3. The Chef
This short film would be in the horror genre and we'd probably have this film be more on the eerie side. We would definitely utilize close-ups and extreme close-ups especially during scenes with the chef touching the ground human meat and the reactions of the high-class characters eating the food, being unaware of its origins.  Low key lighting would be used throughout the scenes inside the chef's kitchen and cooler while more natural and yellow hinted lights could be used in the restaurant to juxtapose the portrayal of the normal restaurant to the unknowing that goes on in the kitchen. And though I didn't touch on sound for the other topics, in order to create a more horrific and dramatic sense to the film we will have to carefully pick stings to use. These would be used to build tension and drama from what is actually happening during the cooking of humans to it then being served onto a plate of an unknowing customer.

Plot ideas

As mentioned in the last posting, we have a few ideas of storylines for the short film.

Each of them is very different from the other, making it a bit difficult to chose which one we want to go with especially because my partner and I have different biases. The three highlighted options were the original three I had favored but only two of them were mutually liked by both of us. 

The three we decided on choosing between are Lemonade Mules, The Chef and Sex Offender Book Club. So I'm just going to give a brief description of each one of them along with a personal ranking. 

3. Sex Offender Book Club

Genre: Comedy

Yes, you read that correctly. An overview of the plot is that within a community, a group of male sex offenders begin a book club because they find it is the only way they can come together without being looked down upon by others. Then one day a female sex offender joins the club and a variety of reactions are had by each member causing them to deliberate whether she should stay or not. Though I have to give Ricky points for creativity, I believe this will be extremely difficult to portray especially in a comedic way without coming off as too inappropriate or distasteful. Also, it makes me just a bit uneasy to imagine helping film in a room of 5+ men acting as sex offenders. 

2. Lemonade Mules

Genre: Crime

Here, a group of kids would have a lemonade stand along the street of another man's house, close to his yard. Annoyed, he asks them to move and even offers to buy out their stand, but the kids ultimately refuse because they are selling drugs from the stand without seeming suspicious. Now, the man is unsure of what to do as he just became involved with their activity and faces a battle of morality. I really like this idea and I believe it wouldn't be as difficult as #3 to portray. The only thing I am worried about is casting children because they are restricted as to what their parents will allow them to do and many may not feel comfortable with the story. 

1. The Chef

Genre: Horror

My personal favorite out of all the stories, The Chef. A chef in an upscale restaurant becomes very distraught because of the difference in class between himself and the people he is serving. So as a form of revenge he switches out his animal products, to those of humans, like human flesh and meat. We are not yet sure about how the customers would find out of this scheme or if they even do, but I really do like this story. It just seems very intriguing to me and could create some very nice visuals especially with dim lighting and some red-tinted shots.  Our only dilemma is having to construct our own makeshift restaurant or finding somewhere to let us film. 

So these are our final ideas, and by next week, we should have chosen which one to film! :D    

scheduling

As we start our portfolio project, scheduling needs to be taken into account to ensure that we don't create a rushed product and ensure that we will be proud of the work we create. Ricardo and I discussed early in the year how we should approach the project but now we have a legitimate timeline of how the project will be conducted. 

So for this week, week 1, we decided on narrowing down the short film plots we had come up with into our top 3 contenders and researching different genre conventions within in them and how we would adapt them into our films. 

For the second week, we will have already decided on our storyline and begin to establish a script outline. By doing this we will be able to contact different actors and see if they are interested in helping us with this project. Hopefully, by the end of this week, we would have all the actors we need, as well as the locations we plan on in filming in and specific mise-en-scene elements we need for the plot. 

By the third week, we will have all the finishing touches done on our script and location scouting so that we can finalize our storyboard and begin filming!

In week four, we will finally begin the filming and editing process along with creating different title sequences like finalizing the name of the short film. 

Then in week five, we will begin the second component to our portfolio project while wrapping up the film editing with some general sound adjustments. When capturing footage during filming, we will also be taken photographs that may be used for our postcards and website. 

And lastly, week six will be completely dedicated to our CCR so that we have the appropriate time to construct all of our reflection and are not stressed out to make any last-minute changes to the actual short film.