All three components of my project can be accessed via my linktree!
I'll also separate them for convenience's sake :P
Thank you for joining me on my journey! I hope you enjoy my final project, I feel like a giving a piece of my heart to whoever watches it because of how much it means to me. I'm going to miss this film </3
And with that, my final goodbye :,)
Songs for 4/10 (my last songs ☹︎)
In my short film, how fast the evening passes, I aimed to capture the conflicting emotions a person can feel on the concept of change. This includes the understanding that change must occur for life to continue, and the uncontrollable feeling of loss that arises when knowing that the things you hold dear will never be the same again.
The concept of my film was created by my life currently; I’m about to go to college and everything I know will irrevocably change in just a few months. Grappling with this knowledge has been a challenge for me and made me reminiscent of my past and how I deal with change. Since my short film concept stemmed from a feeling, I began by researching experimental short films. This genre does not have a set guideline for what an experimental film must look like and gives ample creative freedom for me to use a feeling as the main focus of my product. Some films I researched include Forever, Suburbia, and Weltschmerz. Through my research, I saw how experimental films don’t follow a traditional storyline which helped drive my creative process. I also noted how the films never seemed to force one message on the viewer, but rather let the audience determine their own interpretation of the film’s message.
These films helped me build my sequence of events. The alternative narrative structure convention was one I decided to work closely with since it felt more natural to express an emotion through vague moments rather than a chronological sequence of actions. In choosing this narrative structure, I could delve into the varying stances on change through music and setting rather than plot and dialogue. I knew I wanted to capture the difference between the party with friends and the disordered, lonely party, which worked to convey the positive and negative emotions garnered from one experience. In suddenly cutting to between the two parties, it conforms to the experimental genre’s unique presentation of the storyline and depicts the simultaneous, contrasting feelings one can entertain.
Since my film was inspired by an emotion, I wasn’t creatively driven to include any scenes with dialogue. As such, I chose to highlight the setting, music, and emotions instead. This meant that for the scenes where I wanted the main character to be surrounded by friends, I knew my actors needed to be skilled performers and friends with each other so that their interactions would be realistic rather than scripted. As a result, the people who I could cast in my film were limited since my focus wasn’t on representation, but rather on the realistic dynamic of a close friend group. If I had more time to be selective about the people I had casted, I could have ensured a more diverse cast. However, my choice of all feminine presenting actors not only appealed to my target audience and added to the realism of the story through their natural relationships.
My primary goal was to depict my own understanding of change in a way that I would find visually interesting. Knowing this helped me to define my target audience. My target audience is defined as females, ages 14-26, who latch onto the past and/or have a fear of change. Because I am a part of my own target audience, I used this to my advantage when deciding on my branding and engagement plans. Since TikTok and Instagram are highly popular in my target demographic, I combined these two platforms to appeal to my target audience.
I also created a Spotify playlist and used only lowercase text with minimal punctuation to further appeal to my audience. Music was a large factor in solidifying the tone and message of my film, not to mention a major aspect of the lives of many teens to young adults. In sharing playlists with friends and crafting hyper-specific soundtracks for emotions or characters, communicating via music is an aspect of my target audience that I wanted to indulge in. As for the lowercase text, this not only established an informal, friendly connection with my target demographic, but mirrors the way people around my age talk to each other online. This way, the film didn’t appear sophisticated but down-to-earth.
Along with appealing to my target audience, I made sure to keep my film's branding consistent. I used the same fonts, graphics, and colors throughout my social media, postcard, and short film. In all three components, I used a typewriter font to ensure continuity. I also consistently used orange and red as my accent colors due to their prominent appearance in the short film. These two elements were most helpful in my goal of establishing the creativity and melancholy of my overall brand.
My accent color choice stemmed from the dramatic transitions from the bright and fun moments to the lonely, dark moments in my film. The images taken from these instances were used in both my postcard and the social media page to further my brand goal and brand feel. These components featured pictures of the disheveled party as a way to grab consumer attention and interest; however, I wish I had grabbed a wider variety of still shots taken from throughout my film. I used mainly the red-lit disheveled party images but had very few photos of the party in full color, the card game (both in full color and just red), the bedroom scene with the letter, and the middle school. If I had more images from these scenes, my content would be less similar to one another and would have provided a more fleshed-out brand. While this choice of primarily using party scene photos could be considered a way to avoid spoilers for the rest of the film, I think it instead took away from accurately conveying the feeling that drove me to create my film in the first place. In this aspect of my product--planning and social media--my branding felt underdeveloped. I wish I had spent more time preparing for this component of the project, since there are so many more opportunities content-wise that I believe I missed out on.
The progress I’ve made throughout working on this project has been tremendous. I have gained knowledge about the production and planning process that I would never have anticipated learning. Not to mention the confidence I’ve gained in myself, my creativity, and my work. Though there are definitely things I would change in all three components if I had more time, I’m incredibly proud of what I’ve created and the growth I’ve made through the duration of this project.
Songs for 4/10
As I add my finishing touches to 'how fast the evening passes,' I have a few outgoing thoughts.
I'm incredibly glad that the people I chose to work with were all incredibly professional and understanding when the guidance I gave them might not have been the clearest. They were able to work effectively with one another to convey a realistic and believable friendship between themselves, thanks to them all being friends already. I was so lucky that they were so understanding and comfortable with the filming process that they rarely, if ever, broke character or the fourth wall. Plus, they made filming so much fun and so painless for me.
I'm also super thankful I made the effort to film early, even if it made me rush research and planning a bit. With the number of extracurriculars and the timing of this project, I had so many other things happening in my life that I barely had a moment to breathe. If I hadn't filmed ahead of time, I would've had to film during tech week of my show, or another inconvenient and more hectic time. Plus, filming early ensured I had ample time to edit and clean up my film to gather extra shots and do extra research as needed with less stress in the final week. Though I completely finished editing this week, I'm very thankful I had the wiggle room to edit at a stress-free pace that worked with my schedule rather than against it. This was a very good move on my part.
I do wish I spend more time planning my social media page. I feel like the content I gathered (I'm not referring to the Tiktoks I made, those were bangers and an excellent move on my part) for posts was minimal, and in my opinion, didn't help establish the brand as much as I would've hoped. The announcement posts didn't feel cohesive, and that might be because of the color scheme, fonts, or overall design of the posts. Either way, I don't feel super confident in them. I also wish I had the time to edit and put in the effort to make a "making of" video because I took a lot of BTS footage and don't seem to have a place to put it. I have only included one BTS video as of right now, and I definitely need some more, or else that will appear strange. This aspect totally needed more preparation, though I am relatively satisfied with my (almost) end result.
One last thing, I noticed that I need to work on my confidence. While this is just a general fact about me, it is easier to break down a tall task like gaining confidence into smaller portions, such as gaining confidence in my artistic choices. Though there are definitely some choices I made in my film that isn't perfect, My concept was never bad. I struggled, even when filming, to come to terms with the idea that my film is good and that I'm a good director with good ideas. I know using the word 'good' over and over is redundant, but man do I need to get this through my skull. My lack of self-confidence prevented me from making a lot of progress in the production of my film because I was nervous to commit to a concept I wasn't in love with and was afraid would lead to a terrible final product. However, with every new person with whom I shared my idea, they helped me understand that my idea doesn't suck and the choices I made were valid. I showed Jake and my film-loving Uncle a rough draft of the film and both of them had nothing but kind words for me, even when I asked them to give me specific things they thought needed to be fixed. From last year to this year, my confidence in myself and my work has stayed very minimal, but in watching my final cut, I can say with confidence that I'm really proud of myself and happy with the outcome, even if it's not the most earth-shattering piece ever created.
That pretty much covers my main feelings towards this project. Just like last year, I'm stoked to see a concept of mine being depicted on screen, whether the work came from me or not.
See you soon!
Songs for 4/7 (two songs each day this week bc ☹︎)
Two things for today.
First off, I was reminded of the most brilliant idea.
Many accounts, like the one for my school's drama account, has this thing called a linktree in their social media page's bio. This is fantastic. This means that I can add all the different links my film has to one master location. I currently have a lot of places my film resides, Tiktok, Instagram, YouTube (soon), and my blog (hey), I figured this would be super helpful for me!
If this was a short film I was actually looking to distribute, I would have paid for the extra perks linktree offers, but since I'm not, I stuck with the free plan which severely limited my design options. No worries, I was still able to make it work with some help from a list of hex codes to make sure I picked the right colors that matched the vibe of the film and looked good together. I would've also made a separate google account for the film so the URL wasn't under my name but oh well, what can you do. Check out my linktree here!
With all these links and my linktree added to my Instagram and TikTok bios, I have one more thing to tackle, the Critical Reflection.
I took some notes on the requirements of each question and things I could use to answer them.
That's all I've got for today, super excited to start working on my CR (me when I lie).
Song for 4/3
Hi gang welcome back :D
Today I want to go over some of the choices I've made for my Instagram page! I've posted all the Tiktoks I've made, and plan on making more using the footage I've already gathered.
I did make one from my director's pov because it fits perfectly with a Tiktok audio about something happening twice and it being weird (see here) because twice one of my actors mentioned how her ex had mommy issues and I thought it was very funny and down to earth, something my audience would relate to.
Speaking of which, I would like to clarify that my target audience is mainly females, ages 14-26, who are afraid of change and/or latch onto their childhood. This is evident in the marketing strategies I've employed, like using lowercase typing and Tiktoks, my cast of feminine presenting people, and the nostalgic events in the film, like the birthday party, card game, and middle school.
I've also made a series of Instagram stories with stills I've collected and different songs that matched the vibe of my film. In order to ensure these were always available to consumers, I compiled them in a highlight on my page cleverly labeled "songs." Here are some examples of posts I made!
Other than these posts I've made, I'm sort of struggling with what else I can add to my social media page. Though I know that story posts count toward social media postings, I can't help but feel like I could be doing more to develop my brand and promote my film. I know there's more I can do, so I'm racking my brain and taking a look at other short films' Instagram pages to get an idea.
I did get a spark of inspiration from this artist who I've followed for a long time. They're in the process of releasing a short film and have a social media page for it (see here) and I really like how they made individual posts about the characters (and the crew!). Since I have photos of each of the actors, I think this is definitely something I can play around with. Though the film is animation, I believe you can get inspiration anywhere.
See you soon!
Song for 3/31
I've got a few updates on editing!
First off, I've finished my first draft of editing! Very excited about this development. I did have to ask Isa to come over and reshoot the scene of them putting up the title banner because it was dark outside when I filmed that scene last time and I wanted the banners to remain on screen longer so viewers knew that that is the title of the film. Luckily, this scene was quickly reshot so I could continue editing.
Some of the scenes still felt off, mainly the entrance scene with my extras, Neena, Gabi, and Nat. Something about the pacing and my shot choices just wasn't flowing properly. Using a technique my Uncle taught me, I brought the whole scene to a separate timeline (listen, the small editing tools fascinate me, I feel so professional using them) to try out some alternate versions of the sequence and balance the audio. After some trial and error, I have a product I'm happy with! Unless I rewatch it and hate it, but oh well, that's the creative process.
I am beginning to go back through and fine-tooth comb my work; this includes audio balancing, cleaning up cuts, and adding some transitions. My film is already just past the 5-minute mark, so I have no need to worry about timing, especially since I still need to include my credits.
I also need to add my music. I still plan on including Claire de Lune in the scene at the middle school, and I'm considering having Moonsetter begin around the entrance scene or party setup scene. I'm still debating whether to have another song for the bedroom scene. I'm not sure if having another song will be too sudden of a switch, and I'd need to find a song that matches both the vibe and message of the film (a tall task). I am up for the challenge though!
I must say, I'm very proud of my planning skills. Often times it's so easy to wait until a few weeks before the due date to start filming, but I'm glad I filmed so far in advance to make sure I had plenty of time to be indecisive over my editing choices.
That's been my progress so far! Right now, not a whole lot to report, more soon!
Song for 3/29
Hi team welcome back :P
I'm pretty proud of myself, in the on the gram (electric boogaloo) post, I talked about how I was unsure how to present posts that were just text, namely, my date announcement post.
Thankfully, two things happened that significantly helped my process.
First, in a chat with all my actors, I updated them on the process of the film and shared my social media account with them, that way communication would be easier and everyone would be on the same page. Not to mention, I could easily send all of them the finished film at once.
When I did this, Isa was reminded to send me pictures she took of the party scene while on set. I really liked them, and they were especially helpful since I needed more photos of the set to use for social media content and the making of the postcard.
With these new images in my arsenal, all that was left to do was make the content I knew I needed to make: the release date and the postcard.
Up until now, I've almost forgotten the postcard aspect of the project. I had taken some photos I could use for the cover featuring the banners (since the title is not digitally created) that could work, but I didn't have any clue what a postcard needed. I checked out a few past successful short film blogs to get an idea of what my postcard needed to include.
I noticed how many of the postcards included graphics from short films, and many had links to the film's social media accounts. Also, I loved how "afloat" included the tagline "an exploration of loss" on the front, which reminded me of the description I used on both my social media accounts and the quote Brett told me when I confided in him.
So, when creating the designs, I went to Canva to help me easily create both designs. Canva is easy to understand and use, plus has access to extra graphics to spruce up the posts. And so, the designing began. This is what my finished postcard and announcement post looks like:
It's pretty simple, but I'm not sure what else to add. For now, I'm leaving it as is, if I change anything you'll be the first to know :).
Before I go, I've got a quick editing update!
I'm currently on the bedroom scene! This means I'm almost done with the first pass of my editing process! Woohoo! Once I finish, I'll share it with my different contacts (Brett, my Uncle, my parents, Jake) to get some feedback! I do have to reshoot one scene which I'll be able to quickly reshoot hopefully either today or tomorrow with Isa.
Really like my progress so far! Next step, starting my critical reflection (yay 1000 word essay. /s). See you soon beloved blog <3
Song for 3/26
