A Bittersweet Moment

I'm finally done with my portfolio project! It has been a long and stressful journey, but also extremely rewarding. You can access them by clicking the link to the folder that has all components or see directions below!

Portfolio Project

Shortfilm: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hUOCrPJ7iF8QM_OqbBbIdJMZpAJk5ZuK/view?usp=sharing

Postcards:

Instagram:

 @chasingghappinesss

 

Critical Reflection

    My short film, Chasing Happiness, deals with the overwhelming fear that one has to find their sole purpose in life that will bring them happiness. It conveys the message of truly living life and enjoying the small moments that bring happiness into our lives. 

    When researching the genre of coming of age, I found that they deal with the distresses that many face in life growing up. As someone who is about to embark on one of the biggest changes of their life, I can say that I am utterly terrified and excited. With this in mind, it is common that many people believe they have to find their one true purpose or skill that they should pursue in life. While this is true to a certain extent, a large group of people have a difficult tie dealing with this mindset, including me. This was a typical convention of a dilemma that many young adults or people in general go through. One of the typical conventions of a coming of age genre is illustrating the protagonist dealing with relationships surrounding them and how the communicated with others. By only including one character, the protagonist, I wanted to focus on the internal struggles she was battling within herself and society. A specific research I conducted on coming of age films was how they deal with presenting the conflict and resolving it within this short amount of time. Since I was the one creating this project from the start, I assumed some ideas and themes were easy to understand, but after hearing from other people t was maybe not so clear to them. The end is not explicitly stated that the protagonist learns this life lesson and is basically reflecting on these small moments, but some people when watching it might not understand. 

    The main target audience for Chasing Happiness includes young adults from ages 14-28 as this is a coming of age short film, but it contains various thematic concerns of life that can apply to a broader audience. There is something that anyone might have related to at one point in their lives. My project is not successful in including a wide group of representation like I intended to at the beginning. I originally wanted to include more characters and make them be from a diverse background but with the change in my story I had to scrap that idea. I was able to represent the struggles of growing up and finding yourself amidst all the thoughts society puts on you. 

    I conducted much research on the Pixar and Disney shorts because they have this brand and sense that I was looking for one where they deal with relatable issues through hidden messages. One common factor I found in the short films that were in the same genre as mine or conveyed a message, was that they contained very little dialogue. The story relied on the shots and characters and that is what I tried to do for mine. Bao was one of the first shorts that came to mind and that I further researched because there is no dialogue and it contains a message, the power of a mother's love as she deals with her son growing up and leaving her nest. I was heavily influenced by these Pixar shorts, but it was difficult translating my imagination into a real life scenario because since they used animation, they had more creative freedom to create than me. Another short film that I researched but wasn't animated was titled Different. It was a closer representation to what I wanted to create because it was more realistic to my ideas. 

       Throughout this entire process, I worked with the mindset of creating a brand that displays the minimalistic and joyous parts of life. My social media page displays the small details and focused frames that go hand in hand with the message of paying attention to these smaller moments that make life so special. I tried to use the same colors or the same color scheme on my social media as well as on my postcard. The short film postcard focuses on an important part of the story, the whiteboard, where the protagonist keeps track of all her potential purposes. I decided to capture her staring up at it because it symbolizes how much she looks up at that whiteboard and how she believes it is the answer to her happiness and purpose in life. I would consider the back of my postcard to not properly display the information and theme of the short film because I wasn't too sure on what exactly to include even after my research on it. 

    Overall, I am proud of the work that I completed and how all three components work to create a brand for my short film. One critique of mine would have been to spend more time on the social media account. Considering my target audience is also the group that is most consistently on social media, especially Instagram, it is one of the most important advertising tools for my short film. 

Filming Day 2

 Today we continued filming and just like on day one, the weather wasn’t exactly how I wanted it to be but maybe I should have just planned better. Overall it went very well, with some tiring moments but we made sure to have some brigadeiros (a brazilian sweet) as a motivation to finish everything. One of the scenes I did want to film and include was the cooking scene where Judith (the protagonist) fails miserably at cooking a meal, but it was turning into too much of a mess and hazard because we were worried on actually messing up and ending up in a dangerous situation. 

I took this picture of the sky because I wanted to include an image to show one of life’s beauties but I completely forgot to shoot it horizontally…..

Sounds

 While I wait for this incoming weekend to finish filming and refilm some of my other scenes I started looking for sounds to use in my project. During my group meeting with other students from my class, we shared tips with each other and shared our projects, and asked any questions that we might have had about our choices regarding the portfolio project. One of my classmates in my group mentioned Epidemic Sound. I looked it up to see more of what it was about and it is a website that has a variety of high-quality music and sound effects to use for videos, streams, and podcasts. You have to pay for a subscription but luckily for me, they have a free trial that lasts a month so that is more than enough time to use it to the best of my ability and look up the perfect sound for my short film. I started looking for more feel-good music, the type of background music that is usually included in short films without any lyrics. It was hard for me to describe what I am looking for because it was just an idea and vision that I have in my head. I also looked for sounds on YouTube because that is where I've found most of my sounds and music for past projects. I thought it was easier trying to convey what I was looking for but I did not quite find what I was looking for. 

Filming Day 1

 This past weekend I started filming for my short film. It went smoothly except the one thing that kept bothering me was the quality of my phone camera. I would be able to use a friend of mine’s phone but it would be at a later date and I did not want to wait that long. Here are some images from filming day. I’m going to use some of these images for the social media page because I love how they turned out and I think they capture the essence of the short film. 

Social Media

 One of the other big components of my portfolio project is the social media account to advertise my short film. I created an account on Instagram for the social media section. This is actually a great tool for my target audience because as I had mentioned before, my target audience is mainly young adults but it ranges from fifteen to thirty-year-olds. I can use the Instagram account to create a cohesive brand for my short film as I try to connect this brand between all three components: the short film, the social media account, and the postcard. It is an opportunity to engage and interact with my audience and try to reach a larger number of people than I wouldn't otherwise be able to promote it to without the use of the internet. I can entice my audience and diversify my social-media posts with well-crafted information, quotes, still images from your film, and the link to view your film. 

Using posts such as images from parts of my short film gives the audience a look into the short film without giving away too much, but grabbing their attention. I am able to incorporate images and talk about certain things on my social media account that is related to the theme of my short film but I was not able to explicitly include them in the short film. Behind the scenes, posts are another thing that I have included in my social media account because I think it gives a more personal look into the project and what it is all about, making it more humane in a way. It illustrates the process and how everything came out to be. 

Schedule

 Now that I have most things figured out I created a schedule to better organize myself and make sure I am on track. This Thursday I am meeting with my friend who is going to be acting on my short film to take pictures for the short film. My filming days are going to take place on Friday and Saturday as I have the entire day off to film as many shots as I need to. While I was waiting to schedule a day to meet up, I started working on the layout for the post cards to have it ready and envision what I want. 

Coming Up With a Title

 After having done this for various projects, I can say that this is sometimes the hardest part. I want to capture the essence of my short film and illustrate what it is about but it's so difficult to do in in so few words. The title should reflect the story and journey of the character, while hunting the audience at what the short fim is about. 

I am taking these questions into account:

• What’s the genre of the short film?
• What’s the short film about?
• Who’s in the short film?
• What’s the problem/conflict in the short film?
• Where does your short film take place?

These are some ideas that I came up with:

- Desiderium 

- Life’s Joy 

- Lost in Life 

Advertising Postcards Research

While I am almost done with my storyboard I needed to take breaks because I can't do everything at once so I decided to do some research on one of the components for my portfolio project. The advertising postcard is extremely important in promoting and giving the audience a first look at your short film. Before starting any research the first app that came to mind that I would be using was Canva. I am familiar with Canva since I have used it several times in the past for various projects, but I wanted to do more research and see if there are any better options. 

First I did some research on postcards themselves to be more familiar with them and see why people use them exactly. They are vital because they give the audience the first look into what the story is about. You need to grab people's attention with it and make them intrigued, while also designing it to be an embodiment of what your short film represents. The design has to be easy to look at and understand what you are seeing so the image chosen matters profoundly because everything else kind of revolves around it and the image has to be a representation of what it is about. 

 Based on the research I did, some important information to include on a postcard is:

- Title

- Nomination and selection 

- Director/Producer/Actors name(s)

- URL of the films website (in my case I will probably include the social media page URL)

https://www.slideshare.net/RichieBatey/film-festival-postcard-research-121446703

https://www.unifiedmanufacturing.com/blog/film-postcards-festival/

Screenplay Software

I mentioned in a previous post while I was doing research on drama that one of the websites provided a link to a free screenwriting software and it provided a picture with an example of what it looks like. It is a great tool with many resources and options available. When I first created my account and selected to start a new project, it gave me various optional features that were included. This is great to help me keep organized and give me more tools to incorporate into my process while keeping everything in one place. I was pleasantly surprised with how many options they give you no matter what you are doing, such as when I was creating the script it asks you if you want it to be a screenplay or freeform document. 

While I was in the process of creating a file for my portfolio project, I was reminded that I have to come up with a title for it. I've been labeling everything "Portfolio Project" that I even forgot to give it an official name. I really need to get into the habit of writing everything that comes to mind down, I remember that for some time I had a name in mind that would fit this short film and I was somewhat set on this title, but it has escaped my mind and I can't seem to remember it. 

I did read an article from studio binder with other screenwriting software that was also free in case I did not like theirs. They provided detailed descriptions of these other options such as Final Draft 10, Movie Magic Screenwriter, Writer Duet, Highland Software, etc. 

https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/screenwriting-software/ 

Setting + Shotlist

I created a shot list on separate google docs with some shots and scenes that I am envisioning. I find mine to be very disorganized because it is more difficult for me to describe in words what I have in mind and have it be translated well onto paper. Once I finish my storyboard I'm sure I am going to have more shots and specific scenes that are not included right now on it because it enables me to piece the scenes better together. Also, I wasn't sure if I should have separated them into the three acts to be more organized so they are just into one big list but maybe I will do that later so it is more concise. 

I want to focus the story to give the vibes of mundane life in the suburbs so I'm going to film everything in my city, but I do have a few places in the mind of where specifically I am going to shoot.

- My house

    - bedroom 

    - bathroom 

    -kitchen 

- Car

- Neighborhood 

- School 

Overview

I have finalized the broad idea of the story into the three acts and began working on the shot list and storyboard. It is just a feel-good short film to bring light to how most people growing up have this mindset that they have to find their one job that is their purpose and what they are meant to be doing in life when I think it truly is about the mundane but joyful moments. This is more of a rough draft, so when I am creating the shot list it will de more detailed and contain more specific scenes. 

 Act One:

- protagonist wakes up

- shows list with her possible "purposes"

- doing these activities and seeing which one gives her a spark 

Act Two:

-  protagonist experiences the low parts of her day 

- struggles of finding her purpose and becomes anxious 

- crosses out everything from this list 

Act Three: 

- as she goes to sleep and closes her eyes 

- display of mundane moments throughout her day 

- she realizes there is no single purpose or path one has to take 

Target Audience

 One of the most important aspects of any part of media or filmmaking is the target audience. I learned that if you know who you target your brand or product to, you can focus better on how you can improve and market whatever it is you want to. For my short film, the target audience is mainly young adults ages 14-early 20s because the plot of the story follows a young adult graduating and feeling lost and anxious about what the future holds. While I believe that is my main target audience, there are other aspects and themes to my story that applies to any living person struggling with changes and uncertainty. 

Looking at the aspect of the genre, young adults will also be the target audience for coming-of-age films and teenagers around the age of 12 to 18. They can relate to this genre better since most of them are currently in this stage of growing up into adulthood. Everyone can reflect on their own experiences based on the message and experiences the characters go through. With it being a drama short film too, a broader audience can also be appealed to it. Drama films vary on the target audience because it is a very broad genre and it usually depends on the sub-genre of the film such as if it is a period drama, romantic drama, fantasy drama, etc. This will attract an older group of people of any gender because of the broad group. Still, the main target audience will be teenagers and young adults. 

Since young adults are mainly going to be interested in my short film, this will benefit me in the long run when I make the social media page because that is the main age group for social media usage. 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/471370/us-adults-who-use-social-networks-age/ 

Drama Research

I chose to conduct some research on the genre of drama considering I plan to incorporate some elements of drama into my own short film. Dramas follow a clearly defined narrative plot structure,  portraying real-life scenarios or extreme situations with emotionally driven characters. According to this article by No Film School that talks about the genre of drama in film and television, the main character usually has a "strong moral stance or view of the world around them. the characters in these films are always dealing with what life has to offer." 

In the short film History of  Civilization by Zhannat Alshanova, the audience follows the emotional journey of the protagonist dealing with her decision to move out of the country and leave behind everything that she knows, while having to deal with people's comments on her decision. The story is a great drama example of dealing with the emotional components of this genre and how the character and her emotions drive the plot of the story. The conflicts and struggles she is facing within herself but also with other outside factors are taking a toll on her, but ultimately she is left alone to make these decisions and figure out what is best for her. I thought the short film does a great job at illustrating her internal struggles and I interpreted it as this being the most challenging part of her journey, having these thoughts and problems with herself. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-ViEQo1suA

The link below lists some short films that are sorted based on genre, as well as some insight into short films and tips on writing a story for one. The website also links a free screenwriting software that I want to further look into to see if I can use it to write the script for mine. I have yet to do research on apps and software for screenwriting, but it seemed easy and practical to use. 

https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/best-short-films/#drama-short-films

Some other films that fall under the drama genre:

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-identify-film-genres#13-classic-movie-genres

https://nofilmschool.com/drama-genre-film-and-television

New Story Outline

 As I'm coming up on my last three months of high school I've found myself extremely anxious for the future. Don't get me wrong, I am so excited to meet new people and move to a different place but it is very bittersweet leaving your hometown. I keep complaining that I cannot wait to move out and that I'm just getting tired of things here, and everything being repetitive. Well, while I was sitting in my car at my school parking lot, I was feeling extremely nostalgic and appreciative of my school and my routine.  This inspired me to create a new story for my short film.

My story follows a young adult dealing with the uncertainty of the future and feeling like she is running out of time, this causes her to only look at the negative things that are happening to her throughout her day. At the end of the day as the protagonist is going to bed and she closes her eyes. Flashback scenes to mundane but happy moments of her day appear, contrasting to all the bad stuff that happened to her during her "bad" day. This focuses on the aspect that there is happiness in "normal" moments and she is able to see that even though her life is is difficult right now, she is going to miss it when it is gone. I created a mood board to have my ideas in place and have a general outlook of what I am envisioning. I'm hoping to compare it to the final product and see how what goes on in my mind translates into film and social media. 

The struggles of growing up and feeling like you are running out of time, and not appreciating the present enough 

Setbacks + More Research

I should have known better!! 

I tried doing a test run of filming with my dog to see how it would go before I finalized anything. It is safe to say that I will be changing my short film idea because it was extremely difficult to have her cooperate. I really loved this idea but not I’m sure how much patience I would have the day of filming with her and if I would be able to film some of the shots I had in mind. While she is a very well-behaved dog that listens, she hates staying still for long especially when I’m standing right in front of her and she just wants attention. I obviously really wanted to bring this story to life because it is something that resonates with me a lot, it would mean so much more but I think this would create more problems than what the end result is worth. 

To get more ideas flowing again, I spent a majority of my time in class watching other short films that contain a moral message or life lesson of sorts to get inspiration and see what kind of short film I wanted to produce. The first video I watched was all animated shorts so they had more creative freedom to create their short films. One of the short films included was titled Snack Attack. The short film follows the story of an elderly woman who wrongly assumes the young man next to her is stealing from her, showing him no patience and just assuming he is in the wrong, only to find out she was mistaken all along. It does a great job at making the audience believe one thing and towards the very end, showing that plot twist and giving another outlook into the story. That is the kind of short film I want to create, not have the theme be revealed until the very end. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0EUuxSOsss

The second short film I watched was Different. Just like the previous short film mentioned, it contained barely any dialogue. It relied on the background noise and foley sounds to emphasize the character's actions and emotions. This is influencing me to include little to no dialogue on mine, so the audience can conclude the message on their own and interpret it mainly from what they are seeing. I also noticed it is very common for short films to not have any dialogue. I will do more research on this because now I am intrigued to see if there is a reason most short films don't contain dialogue. Different also does a tremendous job at making the audience believe one thing just to reveal a plot twist at the end. I was extremely shocked when I first watched it because it was not the direction I thought it was going, but I loved the message it gave the audience and how simple but emotional the piece was.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu24PZIbkoY

Here are some other short films I watched that I loved:

A Moving Story About Gratitude - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tznztJVsW9E

The Painter - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSZjVrvzsMQ

See You Soon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9ZYsDbQUFE

Ideas

 After brainstorming many many ideas I've come up with an idea. A shoutout to Mel for helping me out! From the beginning I've known I wanted to do something realistic and that I can relate to. I'm really leaning towards this idea of having a dog's perspective with dealing with the kid in the house leaving for college. I think this is something very common that people go through, and myself included, has been thinking about this for a long time. I'm going to leave home in a few months and I'm dreading having to leave my dog home and leaving the house that I've known for the past seven years of my life. The only thing is I hope this isn't a very overused idea because I feel like this might be common, but I want it to be original. 

If I go through with this idea, I was imagining doing pov shots from the dog's perspective and shift throughout the short film to shots of the teenager seeing the dog and what she is going through. I absolutely love Disney and Pixar short films, they always have a deep message behind them that many can relate to them. I think they always accomplish what their goal is, so I definitely watched them to get my ideas flowing and taking inspiration. Here are some of my favorites:

 

While all of these short films are animation and that is not the route I am going for, each one has a message for the audience. 

Short Films

 This is my first time ever creating a short film. Maybe it's just the nervousness of starting a new project, but I'm having trouble coming up with a specific storyline for this short film. It also doesn't help that some of the ideas I have, I feel are too long to be able to fit into a five-minute story. Most of the short films I watched are coming of age short films but they have a different genre to them too such as drama, thriller, romance, etc. 

The first short film I watched it called Angst. While I don't think the structure and format of this short film is something I will do similarly for mine, I think it captured the essence of being a teenager well. It had many concepts that many can relate to, so I think this was a strength for this but at the same time I want to focus my short film on only one topic. 

The second short film is titled Bru'dhars. It follows the story of these two siblings as they navigate life and their relationship while dealing with trauma and his past. It definitely has a more deep and emotional aspect to it than the previous short film, which is something I hope to incorporate into mine. The short film below is a little over fourteen minutes, so they had the opportunity to explore the plot and characters more but I enjoyed the format, it truly felt like a story that I was following along. It has less montage and more dialogue within the scenes compared to the first short film. By watching these different short films, it is helping me visualize mine and see what I like and what I don't, so that when it is time to create my script, storyboard, and film it, I will know what I want to include. 

The following short film is not necessarily coming of age and it is animated, but it is one that I have seen before and impacted me a lot. I take inspiration from it and hope to create a piece that is just as impactful and emotional. It is called If Anything Happens I Love You. According to the synopsis, it revolves around "Grieving parents journey through an emotional void as they mourn the loss of a child in the aftermath of a tragic school shooting." It is something that I think touches people on a deeper level and as someone who was deeply touched by it, I think people leave with watching this short film with many changed perspectives on life. This is the type of piece I want to inspire mine from, to have a beautiful yet impactful message on the audience, whether it is a happy or tragic one. 

Genre Research

 I have decided that I'm going to create a coming-of-age short film with some elements of drama. I found this great pdf that goes into detail on the genre of coming of age that I'm finding it to be extremely useful. The main focus is to highlight an event or lesson that the protagonist (a teen) has learned about the world or themselves that changes their perspective. 

I'm wondering if I should focus only on short films or larger films too. So far my research has been primarily on short films and their process because that is more specific to my project, but I think researching coming-of-age films will be helpful too. I found a website called Think Shorts that has amazing short stories and I was able to look at only coming of age short films, so that was helpful. On one of my upcoming blogs I will discuss some short films that are in this genre, along with some others that I really like and have given me some inspiration Here is the link for the short films: https://thinkshorts.com/subject/coming-of-age  

Films that deal with coming of age that came to mind and I researched were The Edge of Seventeen, The Princess Diaries, The Perks of  Being a Wallflower, etc. 

I noticed that in a lot of these films comedy is a strong common factor, but for mine, I'm going to go for a more deep route and get straight to the message, after all, I only have about five minutes to tell the story. I'm going to further my research on coming-of-age stories that have a more serious and simple outlook on the story, but I want to take a different approach when creating it. 

Portfolio Project

From now on my blogs will be based on my journey as I complete my Portfolio Project and how I deal with my challenges and successes for the next two months. I began working on my portfolio project last week and so far I have been extremely undeciding. I was between choosing the short film or the film trailer and after much consideration I'm going to choose to create a short film. 

Now for my ideas, I want to create a piece that is deep and realistic. I'm trying to be realistic with my abilities and don't want to go too much over my head, just to end up not being able to bring these visions to life, but this does not mean I'm not going to push myself and try to create something unique. My goal is to keep it simple and impactful. I want it to be about a life lesson or something that many can relate to. I'm not the best at using visual effects and creating things on the computer, so I think this is my best shot. I've been researching steps to create a short film, and while I know there is no "right" formula, I just want to get my ideas flowing. Looking at past blogs from students that took AICE Media A Level and created a short film has helped a lot too, because I am able to see their process and mistakes, as well as how they overcame them.