Second day of filming...

    Our second day of filming didn’t go so smoothly… Lighting is NOT our friend. We were filming the gun scene today, which meant we needed to somehow figure out a way to get the lighting work to make the background dark but the subjects (Jessica and the doll) bright. We decided to shoot in my dads office which had neutral/dark tones as the color scheme, which was much better for filming this particular scene than it would be in my room (which had a bright color scheme). We put black garbage bags over the window of the office, which made the room almost pitch black if the door closed and no other light was turned on. However when we added our strategically placed lamps and flashlights and had Jessica stand in the position in which we wanted her to, we could still see the background no matter what we tried. After much frustration from trying everything we could to make the background dark on my DSLR, we decided to use filmic pro on my iPhone7 (which helped our problem immensely, yet didn’t solve it). Then Daniel, the artistic mastermind, had the idea of putting black garbage bags on and hanging from the wall. Once we found enough tape, put them all up, and tested the set with lighting- it was perfect. We were able to manipulate the lighting to make the background barely show at all! DIY tricks really can make a difference.

        Throughout filming we still had many issues trying to get the perfect lighting for the shot we wanted, but everything ended up working out. A huge issue was trying to get the doll to stay on the table when Jessica slammed her hands on it. We ended up gluing the doll to the table, and when we needed to move the doll, we would move the table- very fun. We not only made Jessica look like a "baddie" with the dark lighting, but with her costuming/makeup as well. We wanted her to be wearing all black, but needed something about her to pop-which is why we chose her to wear the purple lipstick. The purple lipstick also added to the blue tone which we tried to emulate through digital methods on the filmic pro app. This shoot definitely took a lot longer, but all our time trying different things and trying to find the best option was totally worth it- the shots came out beautifully.

Until next post!
Nicole Abuid

F. (2014, March 28). How To Light For Darkness! Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15tYFWR4cvA

The Basics of Lighting for Film Noir. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://filmmakeriq.com/lessons/the-basics-of-lighting-for-film-noir/

D. (2016, March 24). How to Shoot in Low Light. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flh31ZosL-Y

I STEPPED ON THE PRETZELS

   
      Hey y'all! It's time to talk about Sunday- our unusual day of filming. We filmed the entirety of the claymation scene and it went incredibly smoothly quite to my surprise. Since we had already set everything up on Saturday we went straight to shooting. I had already written on the storyboard what lines were to be said at each shot so we knew exactly what Jessica, our actress, needed to say exactly when she needed to say it.

 Some of the issues which we had, yet fixed within a short amount of time, included:
-Getting into the right position to achieve a specific shot
-Changing the ISO depending on the varying light of what area of my room we were shooting in
-Doing manual focus pulls
-Trying to decrease the noise of our shots without majorly changing the ISO
-(More like a mishap) At the beginning of filming we shot a couple shots with Jessica wearing the wrong outfit and we had to re-shoot
-...Audio

       Let me expand upon this. We didn't have a lavalier microphone, so we decided to just use the audio captured from the DSLR...with a back-up plan. We made our own makeshift boom microphone. We taped my iPhone to the end of a Swifter Sweeper and I held it above Jessica (and above the frame of the shot as to not appear within it) and used the voice memos app to record the audio at every shot which required her to speak. Most likely we will use the audio from the DSLR, but its better to be safe than sorry. We will use a voice over in certain shots (the scenes where Jasmin's mom yells at her through her door) but level the audio in post production in order for it not to sound out of place.

    We were incredibly satisfied with the color scheme we chose for Jasmin's room, for the claymation set, for the the doll, the costuming (for both Jessica and the doll), and the filter we achieved through manipulation of the white balance setting. We wanted the color scheme to consist of pinks, oranges, and yellows- for specific reasons. Pink represents happiness and playfulness, yellow represents brightness and creativity, and orange represents courage and confidence- all characteristics which our character possesses. My room already had strong orange tones, and we emphasized the other tones through props and the box set we made for the doll.

Until next post!
Nicole Abuid

Color Psychology: How Different Colors Are Influencing You. (2016, April 16). Retrieved from https://facthacker.com/color-psychology/

The warmer the better!

      HELLO EVERYONE! THERE IS SO MUCH TO TALK ABOUT! This weekend was rather hectic for Daniel and I. We spent both Saturday and Sunday on the creation of our film intro.

    Saturday was dedicated to getting the set ready as well as testing camera settings. There were SO MANY discoveries and mishaps which we made throughout this process. We started off by creating the claymation set which we would place the doll in, and which we would get many shots of Jasmin playing and tweaking with. My room quickly became a makeshift art studio- we had paint thrown in one area, clay in another, clothes, cardboard boxes, tiny figurines, and cellophane paper strewn about everywhere. Daniel would be working on one aspect of the room (such as our doll's clay bed) while I worked on another (painting, then blow drying the doll's dresser). 

     After finishing the makeshift doll-house set, we went about transforming my room into Jasmin's. We brainstormed and worked tirelessly in order to make my room into the cave of a bohemian-indie-quirky-nerdy-teen filmmaker. We added posters, blankets, strategically-thrown yellow clothing, and other minute details such as hangers, pens and pencils, water bottles, half eaten food bowls and backpacks in order to achieve the aesthetic we wanted for her room. 

    THEN CAME THE LIGHTS! Now this was a struggle. Everything else before was child's play compared to us having to figure out how the lighting scheme would work, what color cellophane paper we would use, and what setting to use/manipulate on my DSLR. We kept the central lightning of my room's fan but covered it with pink and yellow cellophane paper in order to create a warm room tone, and also covered my desk lamp with the same colors for the same effect. We added a clip-on light to my closet in order to be the main light shining on Jasmin's right side and covered it with only pink cellophane paper (the warmer the better right?). We also added white string lights on my back wall, mainly because string lights look incredibly pretty and give off the "hipster" aesthetic. After we were situated with our lighting, we moved on to figuring out what exactly we were going to do with our DSLR. This is where the bulk of our frustration with the lights came in. We looked up articles about f-stop, shutter speed, and ISO and figured out which settings would be best for us- and then we had to figure out how to access those settings, which lead to ANOTHER round of looking up articles. Daniel then came up with a fantastic idea... we could trick the camera.

    Now hear me out, it makes sense! He said we could work with the white-balance setting to trick the camera into thinking that white was blue- which would then give the film an orange tone. After multiple tries with multiple different colors and objects (once we took a picture of blue cellophane paper reflected onto a piece of purple paper) we decided to use the blue of my wall in order to white-balance the camera. After that, the camera created a beautiful orange filter. I was amazed that we could create that filter just through manipulation of the DSLR and not in post production- it looks so much more natural. We kept these settings for our shoot the next day, which I'll talk more about in my next post!

Until next post,

Nicole Abuid


Mansurov, N. Understanding ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture - A Beginner's Guide. Retrieved from https://photographylife.com/iso-shutter-speed-and-aperture-for-beginners/

Manipulating White Balance for Artistic Effect. (2009, March 02). Retrieved from https://digital-photography-school.com/manipulating-white-balance-for-artistic-effect/

PUPPET FUN

     


    Hi guys! Long time no see! Well, only a couple of days, BUT STILL! I want to dedicate this post to the beautiful puppet which Daniel has created for our film. 

     Our protagonist Jasmin has a strong interest in creating stop motion animated films, and has created this doll with her best friend John who has shared this interest with her since childhood. There is one particular doll, the one shown below, which is very meaningful to her, as it is the first puppet that she and John made together (and it is pretty amazing for just the work of a couple of ambitious kids).
                                          

    The doll itself represents Jasmin's friendship with John, and who Jasmin was/is as a person with him- who she became with John in her life. This leads me to finally talk about the structure of our introduction. 

       The first scene of the introduction is of Jasmin in a dark room interrogating the doll, yelling at her, and then killing her with a gun. However this is all metaphorical, and only in Jasmin's imagination. This scene comes from a later scene from further in the actual film. Then there a graphic match of the barrel of the gun to the lens of a DSLR which Jasmin is working with on a claymation set. This is the next scene, where Jasmin is working on her set with the same doll from the gun scene, until her mom calls her that her friend John is downstairs. 

     The puppet is an essential part of the film and an essential part of who Jasmin is as a character. Daniel spent around 12 hours making her! He started off making a wire base, and then covering her torso/legs and head with air dry clay. Her hair was made with black yarn, and her chest/arms area was covered with yellow fabric. Yellow is a very important color within our film, and I'll talk more about the color psychology I used within this film soon.

Until next post!

Nicole Abuid

She's coming out of her cage and she's doing just fine!

Hey everyone! Many things are underway! When Daniel and I met up this past Friday we created a storyboard draft for our film introduction! Then over the weekend Daniel, being the ambitious and artistic genius that he is, made a clean digital version of the storyboard on Photoshop (which are the photos below). He also made a sketch of what our character, who we officially named Jasmin, will look like. We discussed what we would want the set design to look like, the costuming, and the props which we would need/need to create. The props needed and our set is an extremely crucial element of our film, because they are highly representative of our character and very much needed in presenting her accurately (but I'll talk about that more in the next post).

While Daniel created a digital version of the storyboard, I wrote a very basic draft of the script! It is still a work in progress and it is not nearly in a proper format, but here is a special sneak peak of what I have so far:

First/Gun scene-

Jasmin: So. We meet once again. Face to face. Fake to Fake.

You know you think you're a big deal huh? You're some big shot?

Sure fooled me.

BUT THATS ALL OVER NOW ISN'T IT

It's been over for a long time...
I just didn't realize it

Well not anymore...

It's been nice knowing ya

First/Claymation scene-

Jasmin while playing with the stop motion set: Look at you. You're a star. It's your big moment. Now just stand still- perfect! They like you, they really like you! Now just a little to the right. Good-great! Give me sad give me pouty give me-
*SHE COULD MAKE MOVIE REFERENCES

Mom: Jasmin!

Jasmin: Yes! *continues playing with set*
Where were we? Ah yes, you being absolutely brilliant that's what! Just slide a bit to the left now and-

Mom: JASMIN!

Jasmin: WHAT!

Mom: Come downstairs! Johns here!

Jasmin: Okay coming!
*gets up from set and walks towards center of her room* "Just gotta choose my outfit..." (at the end she says it slowly as she looks around her messy room)

*While choosing her outfits with the jump cuts she could be saying things like "no" "nope" "nah" "ew"   "UGH" and when she finally chooses her outfit she says "voila!"

*Jasmin is about the exit her door and whispers* "I'll be back for you later"

~

I need to make a lot of changes to this unofficial "draft" and make it in the form of an official video/audio format script (which I intend on working on during class tomorrow). I also need to make a shot list! I found some advanced shot list formats which I can use as an aid, as they are incredibly necessary for any type of production. One can never be too tedious in the planning of their film, as every single meticulous detail matters in order to make one's vision a reality.

Until next post,

Nicole Abuid

To Whitewash or Not To Whitewash?

To cast a Latina actress for a Latina character or to cast a white actress for a Latina character? That is the question! Although the answer should be simple.

There has been much controversy surrounding the subject of casting white and/or white passing actors for roles intended for people of color. This practice within films is known as whitewashing, and according to Tom Brook of BBC, "The practice of casting white actors in non-white roles is still prevalent in Hollywood – despite widespread condemnation and protest."  A recent example of this is shown in the casting of Scarlett Johansson, a white actress, in the film "Ghost in the Shell" where the protagonist of the film is Asian.

In some cases actors cast in film and television do come from descent of the race which the character itself is of, however they are cast because they are "white passing." As the protagonist for our short film is a woman of color, we want the actress presenting our character to be of Latina descent, and to have the appearance of it.

We intend on casting our friend Jessica Granados as the actress for our film. She is of Cuban and Chinese descent, and it is apparent in her features. She is a high school senior like our protaganist Jasmin and is incredibly willing to help us. I find it important to find an actress who is the same age/around the same age as our character so that the film appears more realistic.

Until next post,

Nicole Abuid

Stimac, E. (2003, Nov 12). Not Acting Your Age: Playing Older or Younger Than You Are. Retrieved from https://www.backstage.com/news/not-acting-your-age-playing-older-or-younger-than-you-are/

Byford, S. (2016, Nov 13). Ghost in the Shell director defends controversial Scarlett Johansson casting. http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/13/13613614/ghost-in-the-shell-director-defends-controversial-scarlett-johansson-casting. 

Brook, T. (2015, Oct 6). When white actors play other races. http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20151006-when-white-actors-play-other-races

Face to Fake

HELLO EVERYONE! Daniel and I just had the most productive meeting after school! We created a storyboard draft for our short film AS WELL as a completed outline for it (which is the loose ends we needed to tie before I shared it). Now… for the moment you’ve all been waiting for… here is our story:

Jasmin is our Latina 17 year old high school senior protagonist. She would be childhood best friends with John. John is her 17 year old high school senior best friend. They were everything to each other and were platonically in love. Jasmin is bi-sexual and does not feel anything romantic/sexual towards John. They developed the same hobbies as one another together throughout their childhood and as they grow older. However, during their senior year John gets a girlfriend, Alexa. It is to be kept in mind that Jasmin is a liberal and John is a left-leaning moderate. Alexa absolutely despises Jasmin and is incredibly jealous of how close she is with John. Alexa completely discredits Jasmin being bisexual and believes her to be nothing more than a greedy lesbian. She is jealous that she can never have the closeness with John that Jasmin has with him- so the only thing she can do is destroy that closeness. She tells John that she doesn’t think that Jasmin is a good influence on him and she doesn’t like that they are hanging out with one another. John starts to hang out less and less with Jasmin, and he begins to take on the beliefs of Alexa regarding Jasmin. Jasmin isn’t jealous of Alexa, but it is clear to her that John is unhappy and that this isn’t who John really is. Jasmin is under the illusion that maybe John is unhappy because of something that she is doing. Jasmin tries to save their relationship, attempting to revive it by bringing back the old memories and interests which they shared-but it isn’t working. She becomes upset when nothing that she is doing seems to be working. Jasmin and John get into a huge fight, where John tells Jasmin that she is acting fake. She thinks, “Well, maybe I am, maybe everything John and I had together isn’t real. Maybe I didn’t really care for everything we did, and maybe I just put on a persona of someone who I’m not.” John tells Jasmin that she needs to leave him alone forever. She is incredibly upset about this, and has a breakdown. During this breakdown she attempts to metaphorically kill this puppet which she and John had created as children during their filming adventures. She associates the puppet with everything that she and John were, believing that the old her was just a fake persona which she created for herself. After this breakdown she decides not to pursue her interests anymore with the mindset that she only liked those things because John liked those things. She soon realizes that despite her giving up the pursuits which she and John enjoyed together, John still doesn’t want to be her friend and she is very unhappy. This makes her realize that she genuinely enjoyed those hobbies and that they are things which matter to her. Although she is sad about her broken friendship with John, she can find happiness without him, and she has to put herself and her interests first.

*wipes forehead* That sure was a lot! And again, not everything written here will be included in our introduction, but making an outline of an entire plot allows Daniel and I to create an introduction that is a part of a whole rather than just a part in itself.

Until next post,

Nicole Abuid

Kramer Bussel, R. Why Don;t People Take Bisexuality Seriously? https://www.damemagazine.com/2015/01/14/why-dont-people-take-bisexuality-seriously

IDEAS IDEAS IDEAS

Hello everyone! How are you doing? *crickets* Well I’m doing great because Daniel and I discussed SO INCREDIBLY MUCH in class on Tuesday and I’m very excited to spend more time developing our project!  We planned a very simple draft for our plot, and we will go much more in depth with time. Of course we won’t use everything we plan due to the fact that our project is only a two minute introduction, but we think it is necessary to have a general understanding of the film as a whole in order for the film intro to not feel as if it is separate from the rest of the hypothetical film (we want it to flow well).

While planning on Tuesday we came up with a multitude of ideas as to what story our film could follow, one of them being that our protagonist falls in love with both sides of a relationship. In order to avoid confusion, I will give the characters temporary names. Jasmin (protagonist) would be long-time best friends with John and Alexa who have recently begun to date. The issue would be that Jasmine, who is bisexual, has a crush on both of them. This plot easily opens up opportunities to explore the subject of polyamory.

However, Daniel brought up a very interesting point which I had not considered. There is a strong stigma about those who are bisexual being “greedy.” In the article “I'm not greedy, confused, or seeking attention: I'm bisexual” the author states, “There are as many different types of desire and love as there are people. Everyone feels and wants different things. There is no such thing as "greedy" when it comes to sexuality.” and, when talking about his own experience with his bi-sexuality, “In fact when it comes to me I find it very hard to hold down a relationship with either a man or a woman as often people find it hard to believe I can be in love with just them and not be looking for someone else to quench my insatiable lust.” Although this stigma is false, nonetheless we decided to stray away from that particular plot.

We then thought of another idea, with a somewhat similar concept. I had actually thought of the idea from an experience which I had went through with two of my old friends, which has made me even more passionate the plot. We officially decided that this idea would be what our introduction will be based on.

More after the commercial break! I apologize for the suspense, but Daniel and I still have some loose ends to tie up before revealing the entire plot.

Until next post,

Nicole Abuid

Scott, Spencer. R. (2015, Sept 29). Bisexual? That's Just Greedy. https://medium.com/@spencerrscott/bisexual-that-s-just-greedy-4da231838199#.webml7jj7

Firthsen, J. (2015, July 9). I'm not greedy, confused, or seeking attention: I'm bisexual. orhttp://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/im-not-greedy-confused-or-seeking-attention-im-bisexual-10378268.html

Veaux, F. (2015, August 25). What, like, two girlfriends? https://www.morethantwo.com/polyamory.html

Who is she

Hello there again! Nice to see you, how have you been? Have you explored any french coffee shops lately? maybe you've received a secret photographic code from a masked young woman? No? That's unfortunate. Do you know what isn't unfortunate? The french film Amelie, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.




Daniel had told me about this film and urged me to watch it as soon as possible because he had gained ideas and inspiration from this film for our own character in our film. And after spewing ideas back and forth by text which lead to an hour long phone call conversation with one another (regarding our film) on Saturday, I watched finally watched the film today. The film creates a unique character which stands out from the crowd with such ease. Something I found interesting was that Amelie is a quiet woman- yet she still stands out, and is incredibly interesting and layered. Many films that go the route of attempting to make a quiet character interesting do not achieve their goal, at least in my view when watching it. The attempt that these films make to create a character unique usually end up telling the same story over and over again, which a character who seems rather manufactured- but this is the  exact opposite of what occurs in Amelie, and I'm excited to start to delve into the creation of my character.

In that almost two hour conversation with Daniel, we discussed not only who we want our character to be, but what path the story could take with our character (more to come with that in the fourth posting). 

We officially decided that our character will be a queer Latina. We talked about our character being witty, very smart, comfortable in her own skin but at the same time she is a bit shy. She isn't super vocal (especially about her queerness) - she is rather quiet. her quietness does not mean that she won't stand up for herself- she will hurt you if you mess with her or her friends... but she'll do it in a way where no one knows it was her. She is very contentious, but doesn't act on it directly (this is one of her character flaws). In this way she is similar to Amelie. Amelie is quiet, but mischievous, and very good at hiding it.

Until next post!

Signing off,
Nicole Abuid

Jean-Pierre, J. (Director). (2001). Amélie [Motion Picture]. France: UGC-Fox Distribution. Retrieved March 8th, 2017, from http://www.miramax.com/movie/amelie/

LATINA POWER!

     Hey there again! I’m ready to delve into the information which Daniel and I have discovered through our research. We primarily researched representation patterns in the media of those part of the LGBT community, especially women within it, since we decided that our main character will be a woman. However the gender of our character is not meant to determine their personality and/or story -building the character solely on their gender would be counterproductive to our prospective theme(s). Nonetheless I would like our character to be a woman because queer latinas are not represented within mainstream media nearly as much as queer latinos are. In fact, while researching queer latinas I could not find any sources specific to that minority group. I could only find research on media representation of heterosexual latinas, which is still relevant information.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, latinos make up about 17% of the U.S. population. Although latinas make up a little over 12% of the total female population within the U.S. (according to HRSA) they deserve better media representation than the stereotypical tropes that are seen oh-so often within countless films and television shows such as Gloria from Modern Family. These stereotypical tropes include that latina women are “sexy, sassy, and spicy”  (loud, complaining, having a strong sex appeal) or a cleaning woman/maid (typically submissive and quiet).

In a report by the UCLA Williams Institute, they estimated that 1.4 million (4.3% of U.S. hispanic adults are a part of the LGBT community. In a study regarding LGBT representation within studio films by GLAAD in which they took data from seven major studios, they found that out of 102 films there were only 17 which contained LGBT characters. Only seven of those 17 passed the Vito Russo Test (which is similar to the Bechdel test). The test has “its own set of criteria to analyze how LGBT characters are included within a film”.

Daniel and I intend to not use the typical stereotypes and tropes which surround both LGBT characters and latina characters and give our character the unique personality and characteristics which she deserves, and which all LGBT/Latina characters within the media deserve.

Until next post, 

Nicole Abuid

Latimer, Brian. "Latinos in Hollywood: Few Roles, Frequent Stereotypes, New Study Finds." NBCNews.com. NBCUniversal News Group, 22 Feb. 2016. Web. Website

"New Report: Estimated 1.4 Million Latino/a Adults in the U.S. Identify as LGBT." The Williams Institute. N.p., 2 Oct. 2013. Web. Website.

"Sexy, Sassy, Spicy: The Portrayal of Latina Women in American Television." N.p., 10 Aug. 2015. Web. Website

Simon, Rachel. "New GLAAD Study Finds That LGBT Representation in Movies Is Embarrassingly Bad." Bustle. N.p., 22 July 2014. Web. Website

"The Vito Russo Test." GLAAD. N.p., 21 July 2014. Web. 13 Mar. 2017. Website

"Women's Health USA 2012." US Female Population, Women's Health USA 2012. N.p., n.d. Web.

Levitan, Steven. Llyod, Christopher. 2009-present.  Modern Family [Television series]. ABC.

A new start

Hello everyone! You probably are opening this blog with NO CLUE as to what I’m going to talk about! Well, except the fact that the website has “Nicole’s Project” within the title, and that the title of it is called “Nicole’s Film Intro.”

My partner Daniel Duboulay (one of the most talented people who I have the pleasure of knowing) and I have decided to create a two minute film introduction, which I believe is the best choice due to our strengths. The more technical elements of film production is my strength, while the art direction of a film is Daniel’s strength. We have worked together on multiple projects in the past, and have used our individual strengths to our advantage.

We both have begun to brainstorm ideas as to where exactly we want to start and what we want to work with and we decided that we wanted to base our introduction on a character, rather than a story. The story element will most certainly play an important role within the film (it is essential!) however we were thinking that we would focus on a particular character while they go about their particular situation/life.

I drew inspiration from the introduction of the film American Psycho, directed by Mary Harron. The introduction is a great example of introducing a character (and their quirks, tendencies, and personality) that leads into the rest of the film which then bases their story off of said character.

However, the main character of American Psycho (Patrick Bateman) is the exact opposite of the character which I want my film to be based around. Bateman is rich, white, and a terrible, murderous person. I would want my character to be a minority, who comes from simple upbringings (the extent of that simplicity is yet to be determined). Daniel agrees on the matter with me, and after thinking about which minorities we do not find enough representation of in the media, we decided upon on our character being a queer latina.

We have already begun researching on the representation patterns and statistics within the media of queer women, latinas, and (although incredibly hard to find, as they are so rarely represented) queer latinas. I will talk much more about the research which Daniel and I have begun to find in my next post.

I’m incredibly excited to begin this journey of pre-production, production, post-production and everything in between. I’m even more excited that you will be following me throughout this process. 

Until next post!

Nicole Abuid

Harron, M. (Director). (2000). American Psycho [Motion Picture]. United States: Lionsgate. Retrieved March 8th, 2017, from www.filmforager.com