Critical Reflection

A year ago, when I started to plan this idea I was so set and stone on this specific movie idea. A young girl visiting a museum after her mom has passed away and seeing how different things are. I was so excited to go forward with this idea to the point where I've made about 5 different word docs regarding just ideas upon ideas. And while I was preparing myself so much this I ought to realize I should've been preparing myself for backup plans. But as time when on and we slowly started to gravitate towards the research process I started to keep an open mind about other options. I like to think that I did a decent amount of research regarding films that touch base on the grieving process and losing a loved one.

Goodbye; a short film

For example, the short film Goodbye happens to be a really good representation of losing a loved one. A man who doesn't live in the constant meddling grief of losing his brother but honoring it. He does things that his brother would want him to do. He even takes his urn everywhere he goes. Not only is it sad but it also adds that bit of happiness knowing he did everything in honor of his brother.

Research

Another film that I personally love, The Fault in Our Stars. Even though this story is based off a box they did a really good at telling it. This is a love story, but it also talks about concepts of how it feels to lose a loved one and how difficult it can be me. I wanted to mix in both of those themes. Losing a love isn't easy but you can also live in spirit of them. I feel like it would've been cool to kind of juggle both concepts within the same storyline. 

With this research it helped me be aware of things I needed to look out for and ways to approach certain topics. In my film I didn't want the overall theme to revolve around death but much rather the approach of it. The things that lead up to it and how our main character, Elena dealt with it. I know it wasn't something that was going to be easy, but I was determined to try to do it. 

Nothing Expect Everything Promotion

Additionally, I was trying to find social media pages on Instagram regarding either the movies I've researched or movies within that genre. But I unfortunately had no luck. However, I came across this short film on YouTube called "Nothing Expect Everything." The film revolves around losing a loved one but it does revolve around the idea of losing yourself a bit throughout your last year of high school. And I think this is something Elena can relate to. Something we show in our film is that Elena is a senior in high school, and throughout the film we sort of build up on the idea that she loses herself not just because it's her senior year but because of everything that is happening with her mother. She feels as if she can't do enough to help her and she eventually loses herself in the process because she doesn't know what to do. But going back to this Nothing Expect Everything, I've noticed on their Instagram page they show a lot of visuals regarding their actual film. They either show behind the scenes, a clip from the film, or sometimes photos. 

My Social Media Page 

 

 

That is something that I decided to do. Since my targeted audience is from the ages of 13-21, I wanted for my social media page to be appealing towards those specific age groups. Considering I'm a teenager myself I wanted to do something that catches my attention but not something that is too long either. As my generation continues to grow, I've learned we don't have very long attention spans especially when it comes to stuff like this. We just have the tendency to swipe and swipe. So, that's why I've my page simple but also appealing. 

My postcard 

With that being said this allows me to explore the brand of alcoholism and struggling with battles in film. It also gave the spotlight to talk about how sometimes people oversee the issue of drinking. They think that the person who is consuming it will eventually grow tired of it. But what if that isn't always the case. People fail to realize once an addiction starts it's something they can't break unless you force them out of it. And even now, us humans are don't like hearing other people opinions or receiving help even if it helps us. I like to think we are too stubborn. Like yes, don't get me wrong it's good to stick with what you want but not if it hurts you in the long run.  

Another issue we touch base on is that we don't cherish the people the around us. I've seen this firsthand. Kids treating their loves one with such disrespect when they did nothing to deserve it. After a certain age I think us, teenagers lose the sight of the things people do for us especially our parents. They are the people in our life that support us the most and are always there for us no matter what and we just don't appreciate them enough. This also goes in hand with the drinking issue because that same liquid that people drink to "escape reality" is the same liquid that ruins and destroys relationships. Alcohol makes you not only do but also say things that you regret. It gets in the way of people's relationships and their life. Almost like a poison that kills you slowly without you realizing it. 

And as Elena is finishing off her last year of high school, she wants to receive those "I'm proud of you" or "I knew you could do it" but she never did. Toward the end of our film, we sort of deliver that idea but then pull away because she realized her mom wasn't being true to her word. Her actions spoke louder than words. This is when Elena loses all her hope and respect towards her and just gives up. Which is another issue we tackle. Your actions speak louder than your words. You can say one thing, but your actions mean a whole different other. You can always tell people you are going to change but they won't believe it until they see it. 

Overall, this film was really important to me because not only did I get to demonstrate these issues but also because I got to see a in more depth film making process. Considering I've been planning for about a year and things had to change during the development process. I also like how we didn't over do the idea. I think we showed it enough to the point where people get it. However, I do feel wish it was 10 minutes instead of 5 because I wanted to go into so much more detail but I'm happy with our result. This was great learning experience and has definitely taught me a lot about the development of an actual short film. I can't wait to see what I make next in the future! 

Project Components

 THE TIME IS HERE

Front side of the postcard: 

Mi Corazon Esta Contigo - Google Drive

Back side of the postcard:

Mi Corazon Esta Contigo - Google Drive

Social Media Page:

Briana (@kb3production.co) • Instagram photos and videos

Short Film:

(149) Mi Corazon Esta Contigo - A Level Short Film - YouTube

Talking with our Sound Designer

 

Our song options 

 

At the beginning of this project this is the one song I was set on for using in our film. I had no clue how or what to do with it, but I knew I wanted it. In a previous post I've mentioned the meaning behind it. And originally, we were going to use the original version but since there is now dialogue, I thought we will be better off with the instrumental version. The original instrumental version would've worked fine but there is the drums and it sort of adds this uplighting mood which I wanted to avoid. This film is almost nowhere near that, so the music would've made it confusing. But I ended up finding an instrumental version of the school but it's just strictly piano. If anything, I love this way more than the original. The piano just adds this kind of sad mood which was what I was looking for. It adds that perfect sense of sadness and dwell. 

In class, when me and Baliey were talking about the music, I suggested the piano option, but she thought it would be cool if she can edit the original version with lyrics and piano version together. She wanted to do this because towards the end the only thing you would hear is the voiceover of Valentina and then the credits roll. So, she wanted to start off with the piano and then blend in the lyrics so when the credits roll you hear "along without you by my side, so you love me, why'd you leave me?" The lyrics fit perfect with this because the whole storyline is that Valentina eventually passes away from her drinking problem. And even though her and Elena didn't have a perfect relationship she still misses her mom and wishes she was still by her side. 

KB3 Productions Co.

 

Social Media Page 

   

First thing first, I decided to delete everything I had on my social media page and start all over. The page didn't feel like me or something that I think people especially the younger audiences will find appealing. My main goal with the social media post is that I want to be able to draw attention from young adults. I've seen so many different social media pages where they are promoting their film and it made me realize they don't really type long paragraphs or show too much of what's going on until the final product. They like to keep their viewers on their toes. I kind of used that as a guide to help me "promote" my film. 

Post #1

I started off with an introduction to our production company. I wanted for people to get a gist of what and who we are without going into too much detail. 

Post #2

Instead of just mentioning that we are making a short film I went ahead and posted some behind the scenes pictures from the second day of shooting. I decided to add three photos because I wanted the locations to vary. I wanted for people to sort of play around in their head of what exactly we are doing. It's a way to play around with our viewers and see their thoughts. 

Post #3

Since I released a mini teaser, I also introduced my cast. I choose pictures from us being on "set" and wrote mini captions about what kind of characters they are. I wanted to give that little insight of who these people are. 

Post #4

This post is actually a reel. The good thing about using Instagram to promote our film is that it allows us to vary our post. We don't have to stick to pictures or videos, but we can do both. The reel is video that Karnia took off her cellphone that shows a scene from our film. I wanted to steer away from the photos for a little and give our audiences a little more depth about what our film is actually about. And I purposely choose a scene with dialog so people can somewhat know what is happening. It's a scene that is sort of tense and has you curious about what is going to happen next.

Post #5

As I've mentioned we did have to reshoot, and I thought it would be a good idea to keep our viewers updated with this information. So, I made a post regarding the issue and about how it's going to push back our film release date. We don't actually have a release date but considering we are trying to promote our film, I just added that to the caption. However, I did mention how these photos were actually sneak peeks of our film and I choose two films, specifically one where younger and older Elena were in, so people knew that we still kept the same cast and possibly same story line. 

Post #6

Postcard. I didn't want to be boring and just add more teaser like I did before so instead I added my postcard. I added both front and back so people could see what it looked like. As for the caption I wrote "My Heart is With You" it's the translation for our title, "Mi Corazon Esta Contigo." I did this because maybe there is there is some viewers that don't understand or speak Spanish. I also just wrote the title in the caption because I have yet to mention it and with everything I've shown or talked about in the previous post I want for people to start to make those connections.

Post #7

The last post which is our final product. In the caption which I kept brief and somewhat short I wrote a "thank you" to the people who helped and how much this film means to me. I also wrote a little note that said " just in case no one has told you, we are proud of you, and you are loved. I did this because in the short film Elena doesn't receive that motherly love that she feels she deserves. And regardless of how independent she might be she wants to hear those things from her mom. So, I wrote it as a little saying to everyone telling them there is someone out there who is proud of you and loves you. 

Fixing my Social Media

 

Changing profile picture and username 

I've realized I made a mistake with my Instagram page. I for some reason decided to make the name of my page our actual film title and include a profile picture regarding our theme. I came to realization that I actually wasn't supposed to do that. I'm saying this because at the beginning of this school year we had to make a pitch meeting presentation to show our school administration and our fellow classmates' ideas we had for our major task, and we needed to make a company name with it. We went with KB3 productions company. We went along with this because K stands for Karnia, our editor. B3 stands for Baliey our sound designer, Brendan our cinematographer, and me, Briana our director. Moving forward when I started to develop the social media page, I originally made it the title of our film. I've seen short films like "Nothing, Expect Everything" make a separate Instagram page for their film so I just decided to use that as a guideline. But when I looked at the mark scheme it mentioned that "the page should reflect the overall branding of the main product and the use to demonstrate an understanding of how products target their audience." Once I read that I immediately changed the name of my page because our film isn't our branding it's the "company" we made that is. And for the profile picture, I thought to myself "if I came across this page, I would've not expected for this to be related towards a film company." So, I decided to add a photo of a film projector, so people get the hint that is page is relating towards filmmaking. Also, the profile picture is what draws people's attention because it's one of the very first things people look at when coming across a page. 

Shooting over spring break

We weren't initially planning on filming over the break, but it had to happen because we were running out of time. It wasn't something I wanted either because I just wanted to get a break from all of my schoolwork for just a little but luckily filming went really well. We managed to film everything we needed in about 2 hours which was great for us because the last time we filmed it was nearly 8 hours. 

Like I've mentioned our main narrative/focus was a couch. It made things so much easier overall because it didn't require our cinematographer, Brendan to move the lights around and adjust them. We also decided to shoot in order. This is something you normally get told NOT to do but since our locations didn't vary, we thought it would've made it easier for all of us. 

Shot list 

So, before we started shooting Brendan suggested that we made a detailed shot list so we know exactly what we need to film and how we should film it. He went scene by scene so when filming we weren't confused. I think this a mistake we made at the very beginning of our production. We didn't make a detailed shot list. We just kind of just went off the script and off top of our head. And the problem with that is that we aren't thinking about everything we need to film and when editing it made things harder for Karnia. So, him making a shot list made things way easier for everyone.  

Scene 1

Since we went in order we filmed the first scene. The scene did need to be at night, but we had to film during the day, so we had to work around it. Brendan did his research and said in order to make a scene that is being filmed during the night we need close all the blinds, make the lighting very blue and obviously make it dark. And luckily for us we didn't have to change or move the lighting around that match. Elena and Valentina are sitting on the couch and are cuddling together. Elena eventually ends up falling asleep but as Elena falls asleep Valentina decides to pour herself some wine. Once Elena falls asleep Valentina takes her to bed. 

Scene 2

The second scene pretty much revolves around the same idea but this time they are just separated. We wanted the concept of as time moves on, they grow apart. One thing that I decided to add right before the film was that since Valentina is drinking wine from a glass cup, we should have Elena drink from her kid cup. I think it touches bases on that concept of the fact that a glass cup represents sophisticated and this sort of adult fellowship while the kids cup represents her innocence and youth. It plays with the idea of Elena being young and being clueless. She doesn't know yet what her mother drinking problem actually entails. 

Scene 3

This scene again is the same concept it's just Elena is now older. But the thing that makes it different is that growing up Elena and Valentina were always on the couch together watching something, whether it was a movie, tv show, cartoon, etc. But this time instead of Elena already being there Valentina has to call her over and when Elena sits down, she sits away from her mom. Since she's older she now knows the drinking issue that her mother suffers from. Elena actually calls her out and is mad at her that they can't even have a moment together without Valentina having to drink. And we sort switch roles here because usually it was Valentina taking Elena to bed or waking her up but now it's the opposite. 

As the film progresses Elena starts to sit closer to her mom in hope to convince her to stop drinking. Elena is going to graduate very soon, and she wants her mother to be there to support her. Eventually when she thinks that her method might've of worked, she realizes it didn't. Things just kind of went back to square one and Elena just gave up. I don't have any more pictures to show but in the final product you'll see how we approach this idea. 

Making a new script and planning

 

Over the weekend Baliey, Brendan, and Karnia decided to plan for us to reshoot. I unfortunately couldn't make it, but I still gave my input. 

They thought it would be a good idea to use something as the main narrative instead of multiple things. One of our biggest issues with the other film was that too much was happening with not a lot of time. We wanted all these things to happen, and to be seen but 5 minutes just wasn't enough. So, with this new idea we decided to use a couch as our main narrative. We still kept the same concept; it shows Elena and Valentina relationship from when they are younger, and you see Valentina drinking problem evolve over time and how it affects their relationship. The only thing that we made more apparent was Valentina drinking problem. We want to keep the scene of younger Elena and Valentina in the museum and Valentina has a bottle in her hand, Elena takes a sip because she thinks it's water but in reality, it's alcohol. We think it establishes her drinking problem since Elena was younger. We thought it would be better off addressing her drinking problem from the beginning then to just randomly add it in the middle of the film. 

As the film moves forward you start to see Elena and Valentina relationship fall apart. We initiate that timeline as Elena gets older the more distance they become. Yes, they still care for each other, but things just aren't in their favor.

Having to reshoot

In my previous post I talked about how I made a document clarifying where certain things will go so our editor can make a shorter version of the rough cut, which she did.

Here we are rewatching our rough cut, which is now about 5 minutes and 30 seconds. But even after she shorten it, it was still very confusing, things felt out of order, and I don't think any of us were really content with what we had. Like yes, there are some very good shots in there, but it doesn't really into the film. We even showed one of our classmates our rough cut without any context and she basically told us that she sees what we are trying to do, but she doesn't fully understand it.

We were thinking of rearranging the order completely, but even then, with the footage we got, things will still not make sense. This brought us into the idea of reshooting. Yes, it sucks having to reshoot considering our deadline is approaching very fast, but we want to make our film the best it can be. In AS level of Media studies, we are supposed to create the first 2 minutes of a film. And including dialogue is an option, considering they are focusing on visual technique. But in A level in order to get a higher score, we feel as just focusing on the letter being our main narrative isn't a smart choice. We feel like including more elements of audio and technique is something they will be looking at more this time, since we are meant to advance from our last portfolio. 

So, our best bet is reshooting and just get overall better footage. It's one of the only ways for us to show our true and best potential. It was something we were trying to avoid especially this late in the process, but things happen. But we are planning on reshooting at a completely different location that we have more control over. And frankly, I think the new plan we came up will be easier not just for me but also for the rest of our group including actors.  

Trying to organize the film

 

I'm so thankful that my computer has this feature where I can split the screen into four tabs. It helped me so much with this because I didn't have to switch between tabs. But my group ended up showing a rough cut to our class for feedback and to sum it all, things didn't go as planned. Our rough cut was about 16 minutes long. And since the scenes weren't even in order it just made it 10x more confusing. It even left me confused. But I've realized it's because I didn't tell Karnia (our editor) exactly in what order certain shots and scenes were supposed to go. 

So, once she told me about how confused I decided to make a google document narrowing down what each scene is. I specified as much as I can, so it was clear for her. I included little details about what certain shots mean. I wrote everything in order so when she goes back to edit it's easier for her as well. And we decided to rearrange things around because the film was just not making scene. 

Instead of the letter being read later in the film, I thought it would've been better to start right after the first scene and have the voiceover of it playing for the rest of the film. I think it makes more sense since it touches on things that are being shown in the beginning of the film. However, I did have to break up the letter and signify what line will correspondence with what scene. I think this might've taken the most time since I had to keep going back and forth. It was definitely challenging but I was able to do. 

Ran into a problem with Instagram

 

Error message from Instagram

As I tried to make another social media post, this message kept coming up. I tried to reload, exit out the tab and even restart my computer and it just doesn't want to work. At first, I thought it was maybe because of the photos I tried to upload and sizing, so I made it smaller, and it still gave me the same problem. It's frankly annoying but I will try again later and hopefully it works. But as of right now, it doesn't let me post anything. 

Social Post #3

Thankfully Instagram has this wonderful feature where you can upload multiple photos or videos all within the same post. For example, if you want to post some cool pictures you took, instead of just uploading each photo individually, you can upload them all together in the same post. 

For the third social media post I decided to post some pictures that we got on filming day 1. I wanted to give a small insight of what we were doing. And I only posted 4 posts because it's not too little but not too much either. I think it's a good amount. But I posted different pictures with different in different locations. I want to leave it up to people's imagination and let them kind of decipher it. 

Photo from the social media post

Reviewing Footage in Class

Reviewing the footage in class

AND THAT'S A WRAP!!! Since, we are officially done filming we can start editing. But before Karnia and Bailey can start the process of editing, Karnia is going to make a rough cut because our teacher thought it would be best if we show our rough cut to our class so we can get feedback and tips. I like that we are doing this because say if someone catches something us four didn't, we can either fix it or make changes as needed. Also, we never really had the chance to sit down and talk about which clips we are going to use and which ones we are not. We did about three takes per scenes just in case some shots look better than others. 

Re-recording Audio

Rerecording this audio was a little different compared to how we did it last time. Because this time we had to record two separate audios. And these audio recording are going to be used for voiceovers. 

The letter

The first audio that Karnia recorded was the letter. But the way she did it was sort of odd. Since no one was inside the house, there was this bit of echo. So, she had Maria go inside a closet, closed the doors and record it in there. Since the confined space won't have an echo and you can hear the audio clearly and entirely. 

The doctor note

And she pretty much did the same thing for the doctor note. But instead of having a female voice read it, we actually had Brendan read it. We thought it would've been better if he read it since he as more of a clearer and professional voice. Another thing, that helped recording in a confined space is that you won't have an interference with outside or background noise. Suppose she decided to record the audio in the living, there could've a car that passed by or people talking outside. Small things like that would've caused a bit of an issue for her during editing. 

Filming Day 2- Title shot

 

Filming the title shot

As I've mentioned we wanted the title of the film to be in the actual film itself then to rather be at the beginning or in the end for the credits. Hence, the importance behind the painting. And funny thing, the other painting that has the heart flower was already hung on the fridge when we got there. But I decided to keep it because one symbol that's importance in this film is love and the words "I love you". So, it was kind of perfect that that painting was there.

Elena was meant to be leaving for a party when the title appears. So, when she opens the fridge, the audience catches a glimpse of the title but when she grabs what she needs and closes the doors that's when the camera will focus on just the painting and people watching can make that connection. 

Filming Day 2- Flashback with present moment

 

Elena discovers the necklace

At this moment in the scene Karnia and I thought it would be best if we had a voiceover of Maria (Valentina) reading the letter. For example, we can time it up perfectly to when Valentina tells Elean "You always had a smile on your face..." and it cuts back to the present moment of Elena being at the museum with a smile on her face. And there is more moment in the letter then we match up with certain clips of the film.

                                                                                                                                                                     

Elena examines the necklace

 This is the part of the scene where Elena goes to her mother dresser and discovers the angel necklace. When she discovers the necklace, she examines it closely and decides to put it on. And when she puts it on it cuts back to Elena being the museum clutching the necklace. Our goal is to sort have the present and past moment going back and forth between each, so it matches up with what Valentina says in the letter. 

Filming Day 2 (Bedroom scene)

Setting up the camera 

We decided to work a little backwards for this shot. Liked I mentioned since we wanted to start in the bedroom, and we had problems occur but when Brendan finally solved it, he didn't want to mess with the lights and just leave them alone. So we did the shot of Elena laying down on the left side of her mom bed, while the letter and urn was placed on the right. We had that side of the bed undone to give the indication that someone was there, but it hasn't been touched since. 

Shooting from a different angle

We shot this particular part of the scene from different angles to capture different viewpoints. Because for the first couple seconds of this clip, Elena is looking up to the celling but then looks down to the right.  And I also wanted people to grasp the idea that the letter and urn is significant to Elena and connects with her. 

Filming Day 2- Lighting Issues

Trying to fix the issue

 The very first scene we shot was the bedroom scene, which is one of the last scenes that collabs with the scene we filmed at the museum. In this scene, we wanted to create this sort of warm and comfortable environment. Since this scene Elena is in her mother bedroom, we wanted the mood to be soft and warm-like but also keep it a little dark because Elena did just come home from her mother funeral. But a problem that we unfortunately ran into was that one of the lights didn't want to work. To be more specific, the exposure was way to be bright and it had this blue color tint to it. We wanted a yellowish color and not blue since the walls of the room were already yellow. With the blue lighting it kind added this weird shadow in the back which we didn't want. We even tried to use some sort of yellow blanket or towel to throw over the light, but it made it too dark. But while Brendan was trying to assess this issue, I continued to read through my lines and map out how the scene will look. This ended up pushing us back almost 2 hours. Our goal was to start filming at 5:30 we didn't start until 7:12. It did make me a little frustrated since it wasn't my home we were filming at but actually my aunt's house. And it made me feel bad that she couldn't be in her own bedroom, but we ended up getting the problem solved and we started shooting. 

Rehearsing before filming (Day 2)

 Filming day 2 has finally arrived! So, before we even started filming, I wanted to mentally prepare myself and really put myself into my character because I knew it was going to be a long day. In total we spent 8 hours filming. And the thing that made it a little tricker was that the weekend before we started, we only filmed about 2 scenes. But on this day in particular, we had 6-7 scenes to film. As someone, who's never done that much it definitely was tiring but I'm glad with how things came out. 

As Brendan was sitting up his lighting equipment, Maria and me (Valentina and Elena) did a read through. I was trying to get into character since I knew that the scene in the bedroom was going to be shot first. And for that scene I had to really put myself into character since it's a sad scene. Also, I thought it would be a good idea to do a read through so Maria can have a sense of what's it like to be like Valentina. I already shared the script with her earlier in the week, so she can become familiar with her lines and the storyline. 

One thing I would like to mention is that I told Maria to not memorize all her scenes all together word for word because I've watched interviews of other actors and they've said that they memorized the content of the story, like the main points and they've memorized the scenes they were only filming at the moment. It makes sense to do this because, I feel like if you memorized everything all at once, your brain will be fried and when you are filming your mind just goes blank. And personally, it didn't matter if we didn't say everything word for word as long as we got the main points and the general dialogue for the scenes. 

The Title

Painting for the title 

The whole idea of making this "painting" is to make it seem that when Elena was younger her and her mom made a heart painting made out of their hands, and Elena wrote a little saying. But that saying is actually the title. It's a little hard to tell with the lighting but for Elena I decided to do pink for her because I think pink represent innocence and youth. And I decided to do Blue for Valentina because I think it contrast well with the kind of mood she's in throughout the film. You never really see her happy and you just see her in this sad and somber mood. And with for the actual title I did purple because it represents this sort of mystery sense because when we show the title in the film the audience won't know yet if Valentina lives or dies. We want people to linger with that idea. 

Filming Day 1 (Raw Audio)

While Brendan and I were filming, Bailey and Karnia were trying to record clips of them walking, or just the noise that was happening inside the museum. They wanted to capture the raw audio because since Bailey is our sound designer and Karnia is our editor, they want to be able to use these sounds to make the scenes have a bit of background noise, then just pure silence or the characters speaking. 

 

For example, Bailey recorded a video of Karnia taking steps on the carpet inside the museum. They did this because for shots of Elena and Valentina walking around, with the actual camera you can't pick it up as much as if you were to record the audio separately.

And they decided to do the same thing for the wood floors since the sound is different. 

Recording the TV audio

For one of the shots there was this tv that audio playing through a pair of headphones. As Elena was walking around and she came across this she decided to put on the headphones. The tv was playing some sort of gaming music. So, I told Brendan to record the audio so Karnia and Bailey go back to edit when Elena puts on the headphones, you can hear the audio that is being played and can match up with the shot.