outline final!

My partner and I met up and created a final outline!

Outline

• Man wakes up to the radio  . House is very bare but very bright. Cant see face yet and is avoiding.

• Amore Mio Aiutami -esque music playing
• Intermittent radio chatter “remember to smile” “always be happy” radio gets progressively more aggressive 

1. Feet on floor
2. Walk to kitchen
3. Make coffee
4. Take showers
5. Brush teeth in fogged up glass 
6. Get dressed 
7. Look in mirror 

• Man smiles a toothy grin at himself and and turns around 

1. Feet on floor
2. Walk to kitchen
3. Make coffee
4. Take shower
5. Brush teeth in fogged up glass 
6. Get dressed 
7. Look in mirror

• Man looks in mirror smiles without teeth

1.  Feet on floor
2. Walk to kitchen
3. Make coffee
4. Take shower
5. Brush teeth in fogged up glass 
6. Get dressed 
7. Look in mirror

• Man begins to play with his face to try to contort a smile. Takes out a marker and draws a smile 

1. Feet on floor
2. Walk to kitchen
3. Make coffee
4. Take shower in dark 
5. Brush teeth in fogged up glass 
6. Get dressed 
7. Look in mirror

• Man twists coat hanger to try to make himself smile

1. Feet on floor
2. Walk to kitchen
3. Make coffee
4. Take shower in the dark 
5. Brush teeth in fogged up glass (cuts on side of mouth)
6. Get dressed 
7. Look in mirror

• Smiles at himself in the mirror and contorts his face again violently 

1. Feet on floor
2. Walk to kitchen
3. Make coffee
4. Take shower in the dark 
5. Brush teeth in fogged up glass (cuts on side of mouth)
6. Get dressed 
7. Look in mirror

• Man cuts a smile in the side of his mouth (think joker) 

1. Man doesn't like what he sees
2. Cuts again, this time deeper and more erratically
3. Stares at screwed up face, which is now half blood/half skin
4. Puts down knife and gets dresses->gets blood on clothes
5. Gets in shower to wash blood
6. Puts on clothes
7. Greets other person at door, their face is also scarred over/deformed

• CUT BLACK

outline (will be updated)

Outline

• Man wakes up to the radio  . House is very bare but very bright. Cant see face yet and is avoiding.

• Amore Mio Aiutami -esque music playing
• Intermittent radio chatter “remember to smile” “always be happy” radio gets progressively more aggressive 

1. Feet on floor
2. Walk to kitchen
3. Make coffee
4. Take showers
5. Brush teeth in fogged up glass 
6. Get dressed 
7. Look in mirror 

• Man smiles a toothy grin at himself and and turns around 

1. Feet on floor
2. Walk to kitchen
3. Make coffee
4. Take shower
5. Brush teeth in fogged up glass 
6. Get dressed 
7. Look in mirror

• Man looks in mirror smiles without teeth

1.  Feet on floor
2. Walk to kitchen
3. Make coffee
4. Take shower
5. Brush teeth in fogged up glass 
6. Get dressed 
7. Look in mirror

• Man begins to play with his face to try to contort a smile. Takes out a marker and draws a smile 

1. Feet on floor
2. Walk to kitchen
3. Make coffee
4. Take shower in dark 
5. Brush teeth in fogged up glass 
6. Get dressed 
7. Look in mirror

• Man twists coat hanger to try to make himself smile

1. Feet on floor
2. Walk to kitchen
3. Make coffee
4. Take shower in the dark 
5. Brush teeth in fogged up glass (cuts on side of mouth)
6. Get dressed 
7. Look in mirror

• Smiles at himself in the mirror and contorts his face again violently 

1. Feet on floor
2. Walk to kitchen
3. Make coffee
4. Take shower in the dark 
5. Brush teeth in fogged up glass (cuts on side of mouth)
6. Get dressed 
7. Look in mirror

• Man cuts a smile in the side of his mouth (think joker) 

WIP

Film cards!

Right now my partner is focusing on the logistics of the film so I decided to focus on the minor tasks. I already addressed the website so now I'm going to focus on the film cards.

A while ago I saw this tweet:

and it got a ton of attention on twitter.  The second I saw these I knew I had to make my film card similar to this. While I can't make the actual postcard right now because right now the film is only on paper but I can start planning colors and shape and other elements like placement I want to include. 

Here is a ticket I made on Canva (which is most likely the program I'm going to use to create the postcard. As I was researching postcards I found some of the typical things that are put on them. Most of the time they are handed out at film festivals to generate buzz and possible buyers for their film. The film card includes the specifics of the film like the festival its going to be shown at and I looked at past portfolio projects to see how other people used the postcard to advertise their film. 

I also thought of putting a QR code on the ticket which could link to the film's website or a short promo video which is an interactive aspect that is very accessible. 

Many of the film cards that I looked up have included a still from the short film which definitely is an option but I don't know if it would be more powerful to make it very simple and just include the film's name and a QR code on the back. 

Above I attached an example of the simple postcard with a work in progress title for the film. I really like this design because I feel as if it embodies the film's intention and a QR code is accessible on every device with a camera. Right now the QR code just goes to my blog I could even include 2 or 3 QR codes with a caption above like "choose wisely" and have the card holder pick for themselves; where each QR code leads to a different promotional aspect. A postcard if done incorrectly can deter a potential buyer or investor. This simple design allows those with the postcard to view for themselves in an accessible and personal format. 

Jack Stauber! (and other music!)

There is this lovely artist by the name of Jack Stauber and he created a song I would love to use in my project. The song is called "Hope" and the reason I like it is because its of its happy tune but slightly off color lyrics and video attached to the song.

I would love to use his song but I knew I must get his permission first so I contacted him on a platform he uses called Bandcamp. 

I am not overly hopeful for an answer but at least I now have an idea of the type of music I'm looking for for this piece. 

As I was researching postmodern films I stumbled upon an animated series called Autodale  which is an animated dystopian short film series on youtube. I watched a few but the one that I found to be the most similar to the piece we are trying to create is called "Model Citizen". Not only was the storyline fairly similar but the music often contradicted the actions on screen and made the actions on screen appear too perfect to be true. So I decided to go on bensound.com  and find some contenders for our film. 

Below are links so possible song choices:

https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/clear-day

https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/little-idea

My partner and I are also looking at other ways to progress the story such diegetic sounds like a radio or an alarm clock but we are both leaning towards a mix of music and other sounds to progress the story since there will be little to no dialogue in the film. 

Website

I made a website!
https://gbrickstudios.weebly.com/

Right now the page has nothing else except for the words "Are you happy now?", "coming soon" and the name of our production studio. The website will be updated to be more interactive and specific to our film once we actually film. I'm actually happy I decided to make my website so early even before filming because I got to create suspense from the very beginning of this whole process. While this project will be looked at as a whole and the website will not stay this way for final grading, I believe that I would begin with a very non descriptive website at first anyway even if I wasn't doing this for school.

Inserted is a screenshot of the website before filming


The picture that is on the website right now is from a past music video I created independently but by blocking out the artist's face I achieved a very similar look to how my partner and I want our film to look. The color of the text contrasts with the picture behind it and almost appears condescending.

I am looking forward to improving the website by including interactive elements to the site. The Madagascar  website is very expansive and appeals to a wide audience. An aspect I would like to include in my website is the newsletter tab they have on theirs.

They have a tab up top that stays when you scroll through the page about the newsletter and at the bottom as well. This is a great marketing tactic that can be used to keep the attention of audiences for future films and not only the one being advertised.

The Birdman website was another website that was very well done as well and from this website I would like to take inspiration from the layout. 

It is essentially just a picture until you click through and it shows you a trailer and other things pertaining to film. My idea was to do something similar and keep the cover I have now and force the website goer to click through to learn more about the film. 

I created a website in AS Level for a project and had a lot of fun doing it and I'm very excited to improve my website for this project. 

What we have so far...

Gus and I only got to meet once before we had to begin posting to our respective blogs but we did jot down a few ideas about possible ideas that we can make our film about. 

As you can see we do not have a ton of ideas so far but we do have ideas that are in the same genre and range. I've already started thinking of props for the highlighted idea. This idea came from an excerpt of a screenplay I wrote (which is attached). Since this screenplay was written for my creative writing class, doing the screenplay is undoable because I included big budget elements but the idea itself is very much doable and I believe we can adapt the screenplay to our liking and produce a really good product. 


Another theme I'd like to include is the whole dystopian society theme. A big inspiration for my desire to do a dystopian film was watching 2081 which is a film inspired by the short story "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut. The idea that everyone has a handicap to ensure equality is a really interesting concept that I would love to mess around with if we choose to go with the idea that "everyone has to be happy" in a dystopian society. It is for sure my favorite idea so far because I feel like we can incorporate my top 3 (and personal most important elements) color, art direction, and story telling.  

Color and being uncomfortable!

Towards the beginning of the year I watched a youtube video my friend suggested titled Don't Hug me I'm Scared which's sole purpose is so cause discomfort in its viewers. I watched the video and my first though was wow that's uncomfortable and my second thought was how am I going to make a film that's this uncomfortable too. I actually found the email of the creators of the video and decided I was going to email them to ask how they made the video so uncomfortable. If I do end up emailing them I will definitely update with the email and hopefully a timely response on how to emulate certain aspects that they did in the video. 

Very few films I've watched have made me feel uncomfortable but I will never forget the feeling in my stomach that I got while watching the surgery scene in the 2017 film directed by Jordan Peele, Get Out.



As I said in my last post, we have not made a decision on the story itself but we have agreed on certain elements that we both would like to include. I am completely obsessed with color, art directing, and storytelling and I think a specific combination of those things created a really creepy feel to both Get Out and Don't Hug me I'm Scared (but in this post we'll just be focusing on color). Pictured above is a still from the scene and the first thing I noticed was the color palette.  

Above is another still from the movie but this combination of colors is synonymous with the horror genre. 

The Ring (2002)

The Corpse Bride (2005)

While not every horror film follows the blue-ish theme many include the colors including Don't Hug me I'm Scared which I made a color palette for out of curiosity. 

and while there are brighter colors the darker ones are there as well. Movies like The Shining don't limit itself to a single them of color. 



My goal is to not limit myself to only one theme of color to create a well rounded and creepy ambience for the entire film.


I also did some research and came across two really good references to use when my partner and I decide what theme is right for us:
https://www.cinema5d.com/film-color-schemes-cinematic-color-design/
http://slides.com/oliviareilly/colour-in-horror-films/embed#/

With the little my partner and I know about the actual storyline,  we have a good idea of what we want it to look like which I do think is a good start.