✩Discussions, Improved Ideas, and Extras

In AICE Media today, we were split into groups to get feedback from our fellow classmates about our plans for our openings. When I told my group about my plot, they all mentioned how it was pretty similar to the movie, Tenet. I had heard of the movie and watched the trailer, and though I’m very interested in the plot, I never found the opportunity to watch it. Everyone in my group said that I should watch it to make sure my film’s plot doesn’t get too close to Tenet’s plot. So, the next thing I’ll do to progress on my film will be to watch Tenet (and likely make a blog post about it). I don’t think Tenet and my plot have the same aesthetic though, Tenet appears to have more of a sci-fi/action feel whereas my idea tends to lean more into a coming of age feel. I will still take a look at the movie (especially because I’ve heard it’s really good) to see if it gives me any ideas.

(The poster for the aforementioned movie, Tenet)

Another thing my group recommended me was in regards to the actual opening shots. I told them that I wanted my opening to feel like a coming of age movie so that the integration of fantasy elements made the film more intriguing. I was given the advice to have Julia sitting in a coffee shop, doing her thing, and then she can bump into 404. This idea to open the film is neat, and I think starting with Julia already doing something rather than the stereotypical “getting out of bed to get ready for school.” I would like to note that I forgot to mention to my group that I didn’t ever want my main characters to meet, they would be talking via text/phone calls. So, as much as I think having them meet up right at the beginning could be cool to play off of, it’s not what I had envisioned. I could still make it work though, and tie it into my original idea where 404 is passing by locations that would be important later in the story.


I can start with an establishing shot of a coffee shop (or some similar building) where we can see a character seated nearby. The camera then shifts over to this character, 404, who is looking at her phone with something like sadness or remorse. She then puts her phone away, gets up, and walks away, turning back to the building briefly. As she continues walking, she passes by Julia. From there the focus shifts away from 404 to remain on Julia as she enters said coffee shop/building. I imagine her listening to some music (which means I need to find some non-copyrighted music and/or reach out to an artist which is a little scary lol) and then Julia receives a text message (or phone call, I’m still deciding) from an unknown contact that says something along the lines of “I have to go, I’ll miss you.” This leaves Julia confused, and she texts (once again, or calls) Forrest about this strange message. They pick up and essentially tell Julia that it’s just a random number, nothing for her to worry about. I think that would be the end of the opening. It would introduce something weird that would later be expanded on, but on the first watch, the audience would not suspect anything about this interaction.


I have two more things to quickly touch on before I finish the post:

1. I spoke with some of my friends from other media classes and we spoke briefly about collaborating on the project. I’m not sure if this is something we are seriously going to act on, but it’s comforting to know I have some friends willing to help if I reach out to them.
2. Since I envisioned Julia listening to music as she walks into the building (mainly to avoid any awkward silences in the film), I need to find some music. At the moment, I have three options:
• Instrumental tracks from Homestuck. I’m pretty sure they don’t have copyright but I will have to check on this, and also dig through the vast number of songs from the comic to find the one that fits.

(The cover of one of Homestuck’s albums titled “coloUrs and mayhem.”)

• Songs from Wilbur’s album “Your City Gave Me Asthma.” I also don’t think this has copyright, and though most of the songs wouldn’t fit the film, the song “Since I Saw Vienna” is one of my personal favorites, and has a nice tune that is simple enough that it might work.

(The cover of Wilbur’s album, “Your City gave me Asthma.”)

• OR a song by mxmtoon. I know she has excellent, chill music, and the song “Fever Dream,” feels so perfect, but I am pretty sure I would need to reach out to her in order to get permission to use her songs. Reaching out to her would be a little out of my comfort zone, but I would do it if I needed to.

(The cover of mxmtoon’s single “Fever Dream,” which was later the first track on her album “Dawn.”)

And that's it! You’ve reached the end of the post :)

(Fun fact: I wrote this whole post while at the beach)

✩Characters? Characters.

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about my film’s characters, both in what their names are and what their personalities are like. So I did a few things.


First, I took a look at Pinterest to get some inspiration. As soon as I saw this photo by artist alaylays, I knew that this was exactly the type of character I wanted One to be like.

(Art by alaylays! Check them out on Instagram! Similar to how I envision One)

I love the comfy yet stylish indie aesthetic that this character has going on, not to mention the long hair with bangs really fits to me. At the moment, I’m not sure if I have an actress who would fit this description, but I do want to make sure the indie aesthetic is visible. This way, she can appear as an interesting character to follow, while also not appearing too much like a traditional main character. Though I want to make sure she doesn’t hit the “I’m not like other girls” trope typically seen in teenage films (she's probably going to be a teenager because I’m a teenager and have other teenagers at my disposal to use as actors). So, I don't want to make One appear too quirky, instead, I want One to be more goofy and plain. For example, maybe she plays guitar and watches a lot of popular TV shows, but isn’t particularly fond of sour foods and high-risk scenarios like bungee-jumping. I also want to make her LGBTQ+, likely bisexual; however, this won’t be something the film focuses heavily on, merely something mentioned or implied.


Now for a name for character One? I feel like the name Julia Summers fits. I want her name to fit her unique, indie, yet almost overlooked persona. I ideally want her to appear as nothing more than a regular girl whose story at first glance doesn't seem eye-catching or movie-worthy, something I feel a lot of people can relate to, especially in my target audience (teens and young adults) due to the popular trend of assigning people as roles in a movie.


I’d also like to give Julia a best friend that she can turn to in all the confusion that Two brings Julia’s life. I feel it could be super neat if her best friend was pretty skeptical of Two’s existence but would continue to help Julia on her search for the truth because they care for Julia. Though they wouldn’t get a lot of focus throughout the film, I feel they would be a valuable character to add to the story. I imagine this character, whose name I like as Forrest (I don't have a last name for them yet), to be very close friends with Julia for a long time, and a lot calmer than Julia. They would be able to understand Julia and help her by being a good listener. I totally didn’t plan this, but the image I had in my head for Forrest matched up really well with this image I saw on Pinterest by the same artist I linked above, alaylays, featuring the character design I showed above for Julia.

(Art by alaylays on twitter! This is how I imagine Julia and Forrest’s appearances and dynamic)

Now, for Two. Honestly, I don't have a solid idea for her, though I know she will be female, lesbian, and have an edgier aesthetic. I ideally want her to appear (that is if I decide that I would like to start my film with Two visiting locations seen later in the film) much different than Julia or Forrest, to solidify that she is not from the same world as Julia and that she is here to fight (what she is fighting, I don't know yet). This artwork by leecheedoodles on Instagram of Buttercup from the Powerpuff Girls gives a good idea of what I would like Two to look like. Also, the character Lake/MT from Infinity Train season 2 gives off the vibes of the tough, strong, but emotional type of character that I want Two to come off as.

(Check out the artist, leecheedoodles on Instagram! The version of Buttercup on the furthest right is closest to my idea of Two)

(A screenshot from the show, Infinity Train. MT/Lake is the silver character on the right)

As for her name… Honestly, I’ve grown a liking to referring to her as “Two.” And, the way that my story seems to be progressing, the audience would rarely see her, or learn anything about her until the climax/end of the movie. As a result, I think Julia (or Forrest) should give Two a nickname. Since I really like the number name and Two is not from Julia and Forrest’s world, I think the nickname “404” is very fitting. If Julia tries to find 404, she won’t be able to find anything since 404 doesn’t exist in Julia’s world, which is very reminiscent of the “404 Not Found” error pages that can be found on computers.


So, with a better idea of my characters, and finalized names, I feel I have a better idea of what my film opening will look like. Hopefully, I can begin getting ideas for different shots that will make up my film opening.


Also, if you want to check out my Pinterest boards I created for Julia, 404, and Forrest, you can check them out here.


Anyways, that's all I got for today!!

✩The Last 5 Years Redux ft. Opening Thoughts

Welcome back to the blog!! In my last post, I talked about the musical adaptation of “The Last 5 Years” and I really enjoyed the musical as a whole. So, I wanted to see if/how I could incorporate elements of this story into my film opening.


I really enjoy how the musical utilizes its two actors to independently tell the story. The method of distribution (musical) helps make this format of storytelling possible, and a movie is very similar to a musical. So, seeing how successful the reverse timeline is displayed in The Last 5 Years, maybe I could use this method to tell my film opening? In my last blog post, I talked about what my plans for my film could be. With what I have in mind, I initially thought that the story would only show the story through character One’s point of view so that the audience, nor the main character, gets the full story. This allows for fans to have multiple theories about what the truth of the story is.


Although, if I plan on using the idea for the film opening that I described a few posts ago (it would be shots of Two at locations that One would be seen at later in the film), I’m not sure how I would incorporate seeing things from both characters perspectives, primarily because I didn’t want to delve too deeply into Two’s motivations and reasons for being in One’s world. Although, in theory, I don’t have to worry too much about this, since my film opening is only 2 minutes, which is not nearly enough time to switch perspectives between the two main characters.


I will say, as much as I love the prospect of switching characters, for simplicity’s sake, I’ll likely keep the story from One’s perspective. This way, I don’t have to worry about trying to include any foreshadowing in the opening or worry about a change in either aesthetic or tone of the film alternates between One and Twos perspective.


After deciding that I won’t switch perspectives, I did want to throw out that I don’t know which type of film opening I want to go for. I’ve been thinking for a while now that perhaps I want to start off the film similar to a coming of age or slice of life film. This way, when One suddenly interacts with Two, we are just as lost as One is. (Somewhat unrelated, but I really need to come up with my characters so I don’t just refer to them as One and Two, I think that's what my next blog post will be about but shh! Spoilers!) I think that starting my film as a “coming of age” or at least one that details One’s simple, plain life (at least before Two is introduced) would make the integration of fantasy that much more impactful for the audience.


Maybe I’ll go back and watch the first Harry Potter movie to gain some inspiration for my opening, so I can start planning my shots and prepare for filming.


Later gators, see you soon :)

✩The Last 5 Years

Okay, so, in my last blog post I talked about how I spoke to my brother to gain his insight on my project. He gave me countless ideas, as well as another piece of media for me to examine. Today, I’ll be discussing the musical, “The Last 5 Years.” It is a movie as well, but I’ll only be discussing the musical version. If you're interested in watching, here's a link to watch the musical :).

(The playbill for the Broadway production of “The Last 5 Years.” )


This show follows the relationship of Jamie and Cathy as it starts and ends, and the aforementioned characters are the only ones the audience sees through the duration of the performance. If you check out the Wikipedia page for the musical, it’ll explain what happens in each scene of the show. I found it to be confusing, so I’ll take over.


The show opens with Cathy lamenting over her ex, Jamie. Since this is a musical, it is important to notice that all of the storytelling is done via song. After she finishes, the story switches to Jamie singing about how excited he is over a girl he just met, this being Cathy. At this point, one might be confused if the two are talking about the same person or not, since Cathy has already broken up with a man named Jamie while he has just met a woman named Cathy. This is where the reverse timeline comes in. Both characters are talking about the same relationship, but from both different perspectives and points in time. Jamie is telling the story from its beginning to end, while Cathy is describing her POV from finish to finish.


To simplify, Jamie is traveling forwards in time as Cathy travels backward.


Throughout the show, the two continue singing through the story in their respective directions. In almost every scene, each character stands alone as they perform, which makes it easier to differentiate between the opposing timelines and minimize confusion. It also provides for some very cool moments when the characters do come together. The characters unite at both the moment Jamie proposes and at the end of the musical. Here, Cathy is telling about her first time meeting Jamie and how excited she is about their budding relationship. Jamie, on the other hand, is bidding his final farewell to Cathy. When she says “goodbye, until tomorrow!” Jamie simply says “goodbye.”


“The Last 5 Years” gives me some interesting thoughts on how I want to make my film. I’ll discuss these thoughts in my next blog post.


Thank you for reading!! Have a lovely day/night <3

✩Getting Some Advice

It’s been a little over a week since I was given this project, and with my research into many different uses of time travel in media, I think I have a pretty decent idea of where I want the plot of my film to be. Let’s recap where my head is currently...

• Fantasy genre
• Target audience: teens-young adults
• Set in the real world
• Include magical elements, but nothing too flashy, costly, or challenging
• No ensemble cast, focus on 2-3 main characters
• The plot centered around characters living on opposite traveling timelines
• To spare confusion, don’t explain how the time-traveling phenomenon works

Armed with these concepts and my wild imagination, I decided to call my brother, Jake. I often turn to him when I am creating stories because he is an avid film/story loves like myself. We have watched many TV shows together such as Steven Universe, WandaVision, Cobra Kai, Voltron, and the Dream SMP. The two of us have spent countless hours discussing lore, characterization, motives, and symbolism in the media we indulge in. Not to mention, he took AICE Media when he was in high school and is currently taking courses in filming at UF, so I highly value his opinion. Thankfully, he had some time to chat about my film opening ideas.


I shared with Jake all my thoughts regarding my project, and he really liked the ideas I had come up with. He thought the time travel idea was a super neat plotline to work with. He proposed an interesting way that I could open my film: the character who is traveling backward visits numerous locations that would be later seen in the film. (Side note, we dubbed the character traveling forwards as “One” and the character traveling backward “Two” to aid in conversation). I think this idea is super cool and definitely something I can work with; however, this implies that One and Two live in the same world, which I had not thought of. I had initially thought that it might make more sense to have the characters live in two different worlds. This would make it simpler for the audience to comprehend how One and Two can communicate. But Jakes’s idea made me rethink.


Wouldn’t it be interesting to have both characters live in the same world? The characters could talk about places the other knows about, and even attempt to find one another. It could make for a more compelling story than my original idea in my opinion. I believe there is more for me to play with if One and Two lived in the same world.


I had mentioned in a previous blog post that a theme I might want to work with is how “magic is everywhere” or something along those lines. Using Jake’s inspiration, perhaps I could make my story follow One, but they somehow stumble upon a method to communicate with Two. Though I haven’t decided what this is yet, it is perhaps something I can foreshadow in my film opening. From there, One is confused as to why Two contacted One and who Two is. Two, however, is bidding their farewell to One. This could be because Two has other places to be, and only visited One’s world to take care of something, most likely magical. From there, One tries desperately to find out who Two is and how to find them for reasons I have yet to develop. But, when One finally reaches Two's first conversation with One, One finally learns Two’s backstory, but by then there is nothing One can do to bring back their friend. One would have to continue on with their normal life, leaving the audience to wonder if the story was all made up or not.


Jake’s idea ultimately spiraled a major brainstorming session on my part, and this idea is super unique and exciting to me. He also recommended that I check out the musical “The Last 5 Years,” for it also utilizes a reverse timeline structure to tell its story, which I will discuss in my next blog post.


Shoutout to Jake for helping me out, your advice has made me super hyped to start filming!!


Well, that's all for today, thanks for reading!

✩Being Homestuck Isn’t a Problem Anymore!

The other day, I was recently reminded of a fandom that I was a part of in middle school that utilizes the concept of a reverse timeline. I knew the concept was familiar to me when I began developing my film ideas, but I couldn’t figure out where from. Turns out, I remembered the concept being used in a popular comic called “Homestuck.”


Similarly to the Dream SMP, the plotline of Homestuck is complicated and extremely long, so I’m not going to explain it in its entirety. If I did that, I would be here all week. Instead, I’ll only talk about how Homestuck incorporates the reverse timeline idea.


Since the story of Homestuck typically follows the protagonist, John Egbert, the first time that we see evidence of the reverse timeline is from his perspective. The reader sees John respond via text to another character, whose name we later find out is Karkat Vantas. At this moment in time, it is John’s first time speaking with Karkat. Karkat, however, says this:




(A photo showing Karkat explaining to John over messages about the reverse timelines when John first speaks to Karkat).


John has a hard time believing this, and so do the readers. Primarily because this idea of opposite timelines, someone knowing more about you than you do about them, and future selves speaking with past selves are unnatural concepts to humans. In our non magical world, none of these things exist, which makes it hard for our mind to comprehend abstract thoughts like the ones listed above. Karkat does do a pretty good job at explaining the basics of the reverse timelines idea, even if John remains suspicious. As we continue reading, Karkats words prove true. John continues to learn more about Karkat while Karkat seems to know less about John. And, like Karkat said, he has to repeat himself a lot. When we finally arrive at the highly anticipated first contact with Karkat from Karkat's perspective, it is a stark (and quite funny) difference in each other's first and last conversations with one another.




(An excerpt from Karkat's (grey) first and John’s (blue) last conversation with one another).


John does a much better job at explaining the strange backwards conversations the two engage in. We also are given a bit of backstory in the dialogue as to why Karkat chose to speak to John backwards. Spoiler alert, it’s because Karkat embarrasses himself. He also chose to speak to John right at the end of the available time that Karkat can converse with John, which means if Karkat wanted to speak more with John, it could only be past Johns. Note: Karkat's access to John’s timeline is never explained in clear detail, the mechanic is pretty much chalked up to Karkat and his other friends having created the world/dimension that John lives in. There's a lot of strange time shenanigans and general weirdness in Homestuck, so a lot of times the readers simply have to accept that these things just happen in the story.


By examining Homestuck, I now know that there is a way for me to incorporate my reverse timeline idea into my story successfully. I also know that I could potentially take inspiration from how Homestuck doesn’t explain how this happens. Doing so could prevent myself and my viewers' heads from hurting as I try to explain how a reverse timeline works in modern day. I mean, it has worked before. I could also provide no explanation as to how the magic works as a way to share with the audience how “magic is everywhere” or even “the power of imagination.” These themes will work really well with my modern day setting, and could be a cool take on a fantasy film. Homestuck has given me plenty of ideas that will be helpful in creating my final project.


I’ll see you soon :))

✩More Space/Time Shenanigans

To recap where my head is at regarding the story of my film, I want to do something in the fantasy genre where time travel is the main source of the supernatural. However, the time travel will be as minimal as possible to prevent complexity that could drive away consumers. I already have an idea for my story's plot in regards to time travel, but I thought it could be beneficial to explore all of my options.


I don’t think I’ve said it before, but I have been interested in a variety of fandoms. One of which is Voltron: Legendary Defender. This show was originally released in the 1980s and saw a reboot in 2016. It gathered a large fanbase, myself included. I feel the show would be classified in the “sci-fi” genre, due to its interstellar travel, advanced technology, and time travel. Though, the show used time travel in a manner unlike Doctor Who and Back to the Future. In the show, a character, Keith Kogane, leaves the main cast to go on his own adventure with his mom. The two travel through warped space and find what is called the “Quantum Abyss.” Here, Keith and his mom bond with one another, and find a group of an almost extinct alien species. For the two, they stayed in the Quantum Abyss for two years, but for everyone else, it was not even a year. As such, he time traveled. Here is a visual of what Keith’s timeline looks like compared to the story’s linear timeline:

What I’m trying to say by sharing Voltron’s use of time travel is that there are ways to include time travel (or weird timelines) in a story that doesn’t make the plot difficult to understand. I will reiterate, that I have grown quite fond of the reverse timeline concept since I feel like there is a lot of room for creativity, whereas Voltron’s timeline weirdness feels a lot more limiting. I'm starting to get a lot of ideas for my film plot, so I'm super excited to conjure my opening.


Anyways, see you soon!

✩River Song and the Doctor

If you recall my last post, I mentioned a Tiktok that gave me inspiration as to what I think the story of my film will be. In the video, the speaker talks about the Dream SMP, but also mentions “River Song and the Doctor.” Now, I had no idea what this phrase meant, so I decided to do some research, which is what I will be sharing in today’s post.


At first, the phrase sounded like a song, so I looked it up on Spotify. After an unsuccessful search, I turned to Google, which gave me some helpful results. Turns out, the phrase comes from the popular franchise Doctor Who. I never watched the show but I know a little bit about it, so I decided to pursue research. What I found, among loads of confusing terms and lore I did not understand due to never watching the show, was that the sci-fi show about time travel really likes to push the limits of this superpower.


The show used time travel in such a unique manner, unlike other pieces of time travel media. Contrary to stories where a character simply goes back in time and then returns to the present (as seen in Back to the Future), Doctor Who utilizes time travel to its fullest capacity. In this article from Screenrant, the article finds a way to simply describe the two characters, River Song and the Doctors time shenanigans with one another and throughout the course of the story. The main takeaway from the article is that River Song has abilities of which time travel is one of them, so as a young child she is trained to kill an adult Doctor, and when this plan fails she finds her parents as children and grows up with them (unless I understood the article wrong, which is entirely possible). There are a few other explanations of how convoluted River Song’s relation to the story is, but all of them are weird like the example I provided. Needless to say, using time travel in this manner is super neat, but super confusing for viewers, no matter how much of the show they watch. Take a look at this chart a viewer of the Doctor Who franchise made to show both the Doctor’s linear timeline that the story follows and how it relates to River Songs' wild timeline.

(On top of not understanding half of the terms due to not watching the show, this diagram is almost painful to look at because it is so confusing. There are plenty of other charts similar to this that you can see here, yet none of them are easily understandable to someone like me.)




I do believe it would be really cool to do something like this since many fans could theorize and chat with one another about how the time travel in my film functions; however, my target audience is teens and young adults, and many people in this demographic (even outside the target audience), might not have the energy or willpower to watch a film with a timeline system as strange as the one demonstrated in Doctor Who. Though the system works very well for Doctor Who, this can be chalked up to the show’s long runtime which gathered a massive fanbase, along with its preestablished “wibbly wobbly time wimey stuff.” For a film without a plan for a sequel, a budget of $0, and no fanbase yet, I don’t believe that making my film have a timeline like River Song and The Doctor would be the best choice of action. For now, I will stick to my idea of characters who live on reversed timelines.

Until next time :)!!

✩Brainstorming ft. Minecraft

I mentioned in my previous blog post that I would talk about some fandoms that have provided a good starting point for what I would like my fantasy film story to be like. The one that I will be discussing today is the Dream SMP.




The Dream SMP is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It is, in rudimentary terms, a play performed through many live streams on a multiplayer Minecraft server. I promise it sounds much more complicated than it actually is. Essentially, the different content creators all live stream, on platforms like YouTube and Twitch, themselves playing the video game Minecraft while they act like their character. I won’t go into full detail regarding every character (there are over 30) and the entire plot of the server since it can get very convoluted. What I will say is that this storyline does an incredible job of providing captivating lore, backstory, character motives, and conflicts that make viewers, such as myself, constantly tuning into the streams to see what happens next. Although, the way that the content is being distributed (each character/actor is able to stream and provide their own backstory, lore, and conflicts into the overall story) is a major factor in allowing this type of story to be told. Since my method of distribution will be a movie, trying to follow multiple characters and plotlines all at once like the Dream SMP, as riveting a story this could be, would be ineffective and confusing in movie format. Yet, I am such a big fan of the series that I would love to utilize some aspects of the Dream SMP in my film.

(Art by u/Every1TookMyName on Reddit, depicts every member of the Dream SMP, though some newer members are not seen here.)

Since the story takes place in a world unlike our own due to features like monsters, different dimensions, and supernatural abilities, the Dream SMP would likely fall under the fantasy genre. This is mainly due to the story being told through Minecraft; although, the world is not completely unlike our own. Minecraft is based on the real world because the game uses furnaces to cook food, pickaxes to gather stone, and uses diamond as one of the strongest natural resources. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I will be using the fantasy genre, but not in a way that requires me to create a completely different world due to my aforementioned limitations. So, since my film will be set in the “real world” in a manner similar to Minecraft, there are definitely ways I can find inspiration from the Dream SMP’s plot. Even though the cast is massive, there is plenty of ways for me to find inspiration. The story features wars over killed pets, stolen valuables, and a nation's independence, something that I could bring down to a small, 2-4 person conflict. I also really enjoy the dynamic between a loyal to a fault sidekick and a hero who turns to more “evil” actions to see their desired result.




Another plotline from the Dream SMP revolves around a character, Karl Jacobs, who can time travel. It is never explained how, but Karl travels to the past in order to try and learn more about the world of the Dream SMP, provide more backstory to pieces of lore in the current storyline, and try to fix mistakes. I find time travel to be a super interesting ability and love the variety of stories this power can help create, as one of the stories I had invented in middle school featured a character who traveled back in time to try and save the world. Though time travel is super tricky to work with, with the time loops and potential butterfly effects, as well as an effective method to portray time traveling. I do, however, really enjoy the concept and find it to be something from the Dream SMP that I can potentially use for my film.









(Fanart of Karl Jacobs from the Dream SMP time traveling by @TheLemonDrink on Twitter!)





Another thing regarding Karl’s time-traveling adventures, in one of his adventures he meets a character named James who is played by the same actor as Sapnap (see full cast photo for reference). When Karl first met James, James said “have we met before?” and fans of the Dream SMP created a unique idea based on this. In a Tiktok by user @twotrucksholdinghand (click the link to watch if you want!), they describe how the phrase could be a reference to Karl and Sapnap’s friendship in the main Dream SMP storyline, or it could be something more intricate. This being that the first time Karl meets James is not James’ first time meeting Karl (confusing, but please bear with me). After this initial meeting from Karl’s point of view, Karl time travels to another event before the first meeting, where James is once more. However, here, James knows just a little bit less about Karl since he hasn’t yet lived the day where Karl first meets James. To put it simply, Karl and James are traveling on opposite timelines, so every time Karl meets James he knows more about James as he time travels, but James knows less about Karl. If it makes it easier to understand, here is a diagram I made to visually explain the idea of the reverse timeline, though the Tiktok I linked does a great job explaining it.

After seeing this and doing some research into some other fandoms (blog posts about these soon!) I think that working with two different characters as they travel on opposite timelines is a super cool idea. I think this concept is something unique that I can work with for my portfolio project and I cant wait to see where this budding inspiration will take me!




See you all soon!

✩It Begins!

Today in class I was introduced to my latest endeavor: creating a 2-minute film opening for my Cambridge portfolio. Though this task appears daunting, thankfully I have ample amount of time to create a finished project I can feel proud about. On the whole, I’m pumped to begin working on this project.


My first task was deciding what genre to make my film. There are a plethora of options, from action, mystery, fantasy, and romance. However, I have always been a huge fan of anything and everything magical or supernatural, and I want to design a storyline that I will be motivated to work on. As a result, I will be utilizing the fantasy genre for my film opening.


An interesting fact about me, I love stories and creating all sorts of original storylines. As such, when given the task of creating an opening for a film, I found myself thinking back to all the stories I have created in the past. This ranges from middle school original stories all the way to alternate universes where I take preexisting characters from a series I enjoy and fit them into a different setting. While reminding myself of these stories I created, I took some time to think whether the stories I have previously thought of were something I could adapt into a film in a visually satisfying way. I found that the majority of my stories featured a very specific setting, one that I could not pull off in my hometown or using a green screen. Many of them also included an ensemble cast, something that would be challenging due to the virus and gathering willing actors. Others featured an intricate power system that would only look believable using special effects, something I have no experience with and would likely appear extremely fake. So, as much as I’d love to make a film opening that takes place in a forest and all the characters have some sort of magic power, it’s sadly not something within the realm of my abilities. I don’t plan on completely scrapping my story ideas, for I could find some inspiration from them when producing my final story idea.


In my next blog post, I plan on talking about some different fandoms that I have been a part of that I think I could pull inspiration from during my brainstorming process.


I’ll see you on the flip side!

✩Music Marketing Project: A Recap!

I mentioned in my previous blog post that I have been working on a Media Marketing Project. To recap, three classmates and I are tasked with creating a music video and a marketing/distribution plan for a brand new artist. Here are my thoughts regarding the process of this unique project.

As mentioned before, my group selected the song, “Aint No Rest for the Wicked” by Cage the Elephant (click to listen to the song!) which falls under the alternative rock genre. In order to get an idea of what similar, popular, bands of this genre have done to market and distribute their music, my partners and I took a look at some case studies. Namely, Cage the Elephant, Foo Fighters, Franz Ferdinand, and Arctic Monkeys. We discovered that social media is the primary method that successful modern bands utilize in order to create a large profit and fanbase. Especially noting alternative rock band’s target audience ranges from tweens to young adults whose daily life is influenced by social media. So, our band will be promoting themselves heavily via social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and especially TikTok to market towards the same demographic.

The next step was to create a band and a brand for it. After brainstorming and reminding ourselves about an alternative band that blew up due to social media, 100 gecs, we decided to emulate that strange, quirky vibe with our band we dubbed Ozone Layer. Ozone Layer’s brand would be easily distinguishable from other alternative bands due to its use of highly edited photos and darker themes. This pairs well with the song we planned to use for the music video whose lyrics tell about a mugging, prostitution, and a life of crime. To exemplify what the brand looks like, below are some photos displaying Ozone Layer's Instagram page and website.



INSTAGRAM:








WEBSITE:






Now that the brand and band have been established, it was time for Brett and me to work on the music video portion of the project, leaving our other two partners to tackle the marketing and distribution questions. Brett had created a general idea of where we wanted the music video’s story to go (full outline posted in the previous blog post), so I created a loose storyboard depicting what each shot would look like, though the order and specific shots were subject to change as we filmed (refer to below for images of storyboard). Next, we needed to get two other extras for our film. Brett and I had already established that he would play the leading character and I would play one of the featured characters, which left the other featured character and the face of the band. A mutual friend of ours, Ben, and Bretts younger brother ended up filling these two roles as they lived nearby and were willing to help us. All that left us to do was begin filming.



STORYBOARD:












On a Saturday night, the people participating in the filming process (aka. Me, Brett, Ben, and Brett’s brother) got together to begin gathering footage. We first filmed the shot of Brett mugging his brother on a sidewalk nearby his house. It took multiple takes to get the composition and timing of the shot right, after which we began working with Ben to film the promotional shots. To do this, Brett and I filmed two different angles of Ben lipsyncing the song at the same time, one of the shots being a front-facing long shot and the other a close up from the side. We filmed both shots twice to ensure we had enough footage to work with. I also gathered some tighter shots of Ben playing the guitar or having fun pretending to be a musician. After shooting ample footage for the promotional section, Brett and I continued filming the storytelling segment for the video. Rather than change locations so late at night, we filmed Brett's house specifically so that the back part of his house could not be seen. This way, viewers believe that two different locations were used when actuality, there was only one filming location. The last hurdle we had to conquer during filming was the shot where the main character kills the owner of the home he broke into at the end. We saved us the struggle of making a realistic kill scene with a budget of $0.00 and instead had the main character stab the homeowner off-screen. And with that, our filming was complete.









(Seen above, some photos of Ben, the actor used in the promotional scenes, from filming for our music video)





Though we originally planned for Brett to edit together the music video since we filmed from his phone, his editing software was having trouble so he sent all the footage to me. As such, I was challenged with editing together a music video that fit the vibe of the band and was visually appealing. I had never edited a video of this importance before, so I felt a lot of pressure to make it as best as I could. I began with piecing together the story and fixing up the lighting and filters of the shots (many of the shots were way too bright for the tone of the video) to create a cohesive story. Afterward, I began to sort through the wide assortment of shots for the promotional parts of the video to sprinkle throughout the video. These pieces I inserted where cuts were not the cleanest or the story wasn’t as interesting. I also edited the colors and saturation of these clips to match the band’s aesthetic and the video’s tone. Once this was done and I performed some final touches (including an intro and end screen telling the name of the song and the band) and the video was finished.



The time finally came to present our finished project including the finalized music video, a merchandise and website design, a discussion of our case studies, and a step-by-step plan of our marketing and distribution plan. Overall, our group did pretty well considering technical difficulties. I do feel that we would have performed even better if we rehearsed the presentation together and discussed it before we finished it, but time constraints did not allow for this to happen. Looking back, if my group had better communication and deadlines, we could have easily fixed this and made our presentation flow smoother and appear more cohesive.




All in all, I really enjoyed this project. I found it invaluable to learn how to edit together a high-quality video. I also discovered how important it is to properly communicate with group members since my group had some difficulties with this for the duration of the project. If we had better communication, perhaps we would all have had a better idea of where our minds were at regarding the band's identity and what part of the project was being worked on. Good communication skills are something I will need for the future, so it is much better to learn them now rather than later. Another thing that I learned is to have a distinct plan of what shots are being filmed. When Brett and I began filming, we more often than not strayed from the storyboard to captured other shots instead. This made the filming process much longer than anticipated and a firm plan would have made filming much quicker. Planning ahead and communicating clearly are definitely skills I will find beneficial when developing my Cambridge portfolio.