For this year’s Cambridge Portfolio Project, myself and my team, Joaquin and Andrew, decided to go on and make the kookiest, unconventional short film of all time. We had very ambitious ideas from the start and wanted nothing but to tell a story that would not only be important to us but impact those who watch it, more in a comedic way than profound.
I’d say for sure that our original idea which was having our main character, Otto, smoke weed as a fuel of power from the devil himself and then end up killing her girlfriend was WAY out of bounds of what I wanted to create. It was out there, which I liked, but at the same time I thought it was just way too much not only for myself to enjoy producing, but for us to execute well as a whole. Not all of us were comfortable with the idea, and it was made obvious, but luckily after a couple days of researching some media texts that shared our same genre of dark comedy, we came back and upgraded our story to be much less intense with no killing of lovers involved!
When coming up with ideas for The Scourge and developing its aesthetic and overall tone, research definitely played a really big role in solidifying what exactly I wanted within all of those things. Researching media texts sharing our same genre also helped us a ton with understanding dark comedy a lot better! We learned the basics of the genre, its conventions, and how to execute it well, especially since our short tackles the sensitive topic of religion and power struggle, we really wanted to know how to do this right without being downright offensive.
The productions that my team and I took most inspiration from were The Amazing Digital Circus, The Binding of Issac, and Dan Da Dan. There were many more but those are the 3 that were the most important to myself, Joaquin, and Andrew. Through our research, we learned that dark comedy combines elements of humor and tragedy and or darker themes. As said by IMDb, the genre often also touches on taboo topics like death, crime, dysfunction, and societal issues all while being super silly to spark some contrast in an amusing way. Dark comedies are to be handled carefully, as not doing so would take away from the meaning that is attempting to be conveyed. Taking that all into consideration, we then looked at specific media texts that fall under the dark comedy genre. All these texts focus on heavy subject matters while having a silly exterior.
My personal research mostly focused on The Amazing Digital Circus and how it dives into serious topic matters while also still maintaining a silly tone (most of the time). I was really interested in how the show handled Caine's character (the AI ringleader antagonist). It first introduces him as a goofy, happy go lucky guy who wants nothing but to entertain the circus members, to making him go insane and begin torturing each and every single one of them in different ways, the most significant being with their traumas. For Annie's character, I took inspiration from Caine's personality and aimed to make him go down the path of increasing insanity. The difference between Annie and Caine though is that Annie is PURE EVIL while Caine turned bad solely because he was malfunctioning due to not fulfilling his AI purposes well. Annie isn't an AI, he's the devil!
Other media texts that were significant in the development of our film as mentioned before were The Binding of Isaac, mainly researched by Joaquin, and Dan Da Dan, researched by myself and Andrew.
The Binding of Issac touches on religious themes while not being afraid to pull any punches as Issac is literally being traumatized by religion throughout the entire game. Joaquin took this as inspiration and as a result we ended up with an insane product touching on religious subject matter with Biblical references like Cain and Able, The Golden Calf, and The Binding of Isaac. We wanted to make our film a sort of an uncomfortable but yet amusing watch, similar to how The Binding of Isaac video game did it.
This is sort of similar to how we also took inspiration from Dan Da Dan with the goofy, yet uncomfortable amusing tone. The anime also isn't afraid to pull any punches, especially the visual ones (ghghhhg). I mainly took inspiration from Dan Da Dan for the general vibe and aesthetic of our short film. I wanted our brand to be goofy while also making it quite ominous with the way we interact with audiences along with the color palette and all. I admire how incredibly weird Dan Da Dan is, so I really wanted to take away something significant out of it and do my best in making our short film a literal embodiment of all our weirdness, Joaquin, Andrew, and I!
Along with us, our target audience are also pretty unconventional. The Scourge mainly engages with audiences through its visual humor, snappy pacing, and general vibe and aesthetic. Our target audience consists of predominately young individuals that are fans of dark humor who fall under the alternative and queer categories. They are also mostly Americans who fall under the middle/upper middle classes with income, as our film is in English (lol required) and takes place in during the 2000s in suburbia south Florida.
As for our social media, target audiences are mostly engaged through the way we interact with them along with the aesthetic that we brand our film around. Each one of my posts have a consistent, cohesive color palette that draw in members of our audience who are fans of art along with the ominous, occult vibe. Along with my page's color palette, it also maintains a unique brand through the font used consistently throughout. The font I've been using for each post is called Ghastly Panic and it does the job perfectly in making them stand out and setting up the tone for our film, both silly and goofy with a spice of profoundness and seriousness!
For the print component, our postcards maintain the brand I developed with the social media and our final film through implementing the same black and red aesthetic and similar fonts, which once more stands out to those in our target audience interested in our production's artistic direction and general vibe. One of our postcards is very similar to the one seen in our final film as Annie gives his "card" to Otto, the only difference being that we made the title of our film the largest text on the front of it. We wanted to have a nice little call back from our film's narrative to engage better with audiences and make them go all like "woahhh that's the thing we saw in the movie that's so cool! woah!! these guys are so awesome!!"Our other postcard will be the same as the first but with some nice key art on the back that will engage with audiences by showing each important character featured in the Scourge, standing out to Otto, Annie, Issac, and Mable fans all around the world! Our short film itself especially engages with our strange peculiar target audience with an almost non sensical plot filled with power hunger and evil entities disguised as a friendly neighborhood southern fella. Each shot in our production also has a warm, dark tint to it that is synonymous to the brand we developed in our social media and postcard, especially the night time scenes, they do an amazing job with branding!
Heya super awesome blog readers! As you all may know, this project is beginning to come to an end! Time has never seriously flown by like it did for me these past few months, it was a little scary just how quick everything was. Now it's suddenly time to reflect! Even though we're not completely done yet it's definitely well worth to just take a breath and look back on everything that happened for this project. My journey, even if it went by fast, was truly a significant one and I have a lot of things to say :] So sit back, relax, and enjoy one of my last couple posts on this blog :]
THE END OF MY DIGITAL DAYS
I am definitely NOT the same person I was when I first started this project back in late February. I have grown, I have changed, and I have learned a couple new things that I'll take away for a very long time.
My experience with media production increased by a LONGSHOT during last year's project but this year was different..way different! This year I was no longer surrounded by only CBTV kids and even though they were amazing people to work with, it meant that I got CARRIED. Like CARRIED CARRIED. I made up a term for this while talking about my project to my bestie westie Isa, and it's called "CBTV buff." It's real! And it's a huge bonus! This time around I no longer had the CBTV buff (although Juaco used to be in tv and has good media production experience but still :D)!Throughout all of our filming days I did some other things that were very productive instead of just acting and I'm really happy I got the opportunity to do so :] It was exactly what I was striving for in the start of this project. I had to take care of revising the script, positioning the camera for some shots, and even doing the line edit!
It's also very worth mentioning that I wore the pants in my group :D
I like being honest even if it's hard and since this post is all about reflecting honestly, I am going to be honest now. During spring break, my group procrastinated. And HARD.
Throughout the week I really wanted to get things going with the social media, the postcard, the script, the storyboard, the costume design, and figuring out what days we wanted to film. By the end of it, I had a couple social media posts out with more in the making, a name for our film, a bit of a postcard, nice costume desgin.....buttt no script. Or film schedule. Orrr storyboard.
I was very disappointed and worried to say the least (!) Again, and I will say this till the day I die. My group is lovely, they're my friends and I'm happy to have gotten closer with them throughout the making of this long project. However, had they not procrastinated, had we a had a script done and ready to go during spring break, had we made good progress (from all of us) during that week, we would have been in a much better place during week 7. I was INCREDIBLY busy during spring break too. I had not only this project to take care of, but also my C3 presentation to finish up for AICE Global. Not only that, but during the middle of the week, I had to fly up with my mom and brother to NYC and then attend a State MPA performance on Saturday all day back here in Florida. I got some nice breaks here and there, but other than that, spring break was EXHAUSTING.
It just felt not so nice coming back from the break with a good amount of work done from my end for this project after being SO BUSY with so many things and seeing my group have not much to present during our group meeting. There are no hard feelings at all, I just wish it all went differently. I was very frustrated, and it was just hard expressing those feelings to my group since I don't like being confrontational and find it hard to be completely utterly honest to people I care about. You guys know me though, and I will also keep saying this until the day I die! I am the physical embodiment of perseverance! Despite everything that happened, I kept on going and kept my faith up for this project!
It honestly took me a long time to actually get accustomed and comfortable with the story we were making since I didn't want to make anything that could cross a grave line or anything that didn't align with my morals. Because of that, I made some edits throughout pre prod and I'm glad I did because it made producing this thing easier for all of us :] After making those edits and after taking a chill pill and reminding myself that we aren't making anything too serious, I began to feel SO much better about this project. I began to feel attachment and love for our characters and got pretty excited when seeing everything start to come to life! When I actually started drawing Otto and Annie and building up the social media, that's when things really clicked for me. What we are making is pretty dang cool :D
I unfortunately didn't keep that attitude all the way through the making of our project as there have been so many moments where I was just so incredibly anxious and stressing over our video component since I really wanted it to be the best it could be so we could all end up with something we'll stay proud of for a long time. This anxiety is something I haven't ever really felt when creating videos for this class and it threw me off a bit. I think I felt it so dang much because we have so many followers on our social media page anticipating our film's release along with the fact that this project will be seen by my dearest friends, my lovely partner, and my family.
As a creative, there's always a huge need to make everything PERFECT not only for yourself but for those that will consume it, and I get that need SO OFTEN. You'll never catching me creating art unlocked. I am ALWAYS LOCKED when it comes to that stuff and given the fact that my name is VERY MUCH on this project, even more than it was last year, the anxiety really really skyrocketed more often than not. This is also my last big project for AICE Media. Like ever. This class seriously means so much to me and it'd be great to go out with a bang :] We still have yet to submit, but I hope that future Emi will be happy with her final creation. SOSO much time and dedication went into the making of this project and I know it will pay off one way or another.
I think in comparison to the other groups in my class, my team definitely had the most filming days. Some groups I know had 2, others like 3, but us?? WE HAD 7. SEVEN. SEVEN DAYS OF JUST PURE FILMING WITH LITERALLY NO BREAKS IN BETWEEN. Welll I mean maybe there were some here and there but we never had actual actualll cut out time intended for breaks. You'll always find yourself goofin around on set with your buddies no matter how locked or unlocked you guys are :] During our first day of production, I was honest to God so incredibly nervous.
That same day we had a group meeting with Tstok and it was quite frankly incredibly disappointing knowing just how behind we were, especially because we did not have a script yet and got it literally the day of production day 1. Thankfully, we only got the first few opening shots and truly came back again to film more during the weekend. Because the script got sent late, we didn't have a storyboard on that first day, so on the days leading up to the weekend I worked my BUTT off to finish up a storyboard (especially for the scenes we were planning to film) to make our lives A LOT easier. We constantly referred back to it when planning out shots so I'm really glad I ended up doing that. We were going down the improv route, and I knew if we kept going that way we would have crashed and burned, so yay for the storyboard! :D After having a ton of storyboard done, the rest of the filming days felt a lot lighter and I began to feel a bit more confident in our video component and how it will end up turning out :]
I'm a very positive person but with this project I've literally only been thinking about the worst scenarios possible. I have truly learned that when it comes to making something so high stakes and so important to myself and the people I care about, I turn into an anxious, pessimistic, stressed out chud of a person. This phenomenon I felt, is truly out of character because in reality I'm quite literally the opposite of all those characteristics I just mentioned and I never really truly stress SO MUCH about anything most of the time! Anxiety kinda comes with everything I do but never have I once CARED so much about anything I was making. Never once have I turned into a nocturnal monster wanting every single bit of her project to be absolutely and flawlessly perfect, and never once have I been late in writing a blog post for the week because I'm too busy producing the video component!!
I'm still working on it, but through a lot of self reflection over the past couple months and year of my life, I have found that I am a person with VERY high expectations, especially on myself. Any minor F up would usually have me in SHAMBLES. It's not quite like that anymore but on some days it hits worse than others. These incredibly high expectations have leaked all over the production of this project and I just needed to constantly remind myself that IT'S NOT THAT DEEP. Sure it's for a very important school grade and college credit BUT EMI. CHILL. We are literally STUDENTS making a 5 MINUTE film about silly devils and stuff, you are NOTT looking to be nominated for an Oscar and YOURE NOT making the Godfather. You can chill!! PLEASE.
Just chilling has been really hard these past couple of weeks and even though I do indeed set my time aside for other priorities in my life, most of my free time has literally been SOLELY dedicated to this project. I have entered tunnel vision, I entered it last week, and I am not leaving until The Scourge is up and available for you all to see!
My expectations are still high, but I have learned to chill them out a little bit and just have fun along the ride. And I must say! The ride was very fun :] Sure at some moments it was incredibly stressful, painful, frustrating, and just overwhelming, but it was still the most fun I have had making something in Media Studies A level. And that's something I am just so happy to say. I already expressed this a bit ago a couple posts back but one of the hottest takes I have is that I enjoyed AS Media significantly more than A level. Not to say that A level is awful or anything! I just really miss the magic of stepping into the art of media production and studying it in depth for the very first time. This has genuinely become a passion of mine that I’m looking to pursue but A level, while it felt like a nice DLC (deluxe content) of AS, had a different type of spark and magic than AS did. It had a more mature spark, and that was something I wasn’t really ready to handle when first stepping into the class. I think I’m just growing up and my hyperness and excitement for absolutely everything including media is growing a backbone just like I randomly grew one at the end of my sophomore year :D It’s a bit sad to know that loud annoying Emi has never been seen since then. But hey, I legally become an adult and will be on my own a year from now so it’s about time I grow up :]
In complete summary, this project has truly affected my life, who I am, and how I see myself a pretty significant amount. What I enjoy most about these things is just looking back and realizing how much time has passed and just how much I have grown since the beginning. I have learned the absolute importance of time management, creative integrity, and most of all friendship :] It was a pleasure fostering meaningful connections with people I haven’t normally worked with.
I thank this experience and everything AICE Media has given me these past 2 years of my life. I’m saving a bit of the sap for my final blog post for forever and ever and ever but I just want to say thank you super awesome blog reader for following me along the way :] You literally have watched me grow up a bit! Isn’t that so beautiful? :D
Goodbye for now my flying cupcake monkeys! This isn’t the end JUSTT yet and I’ll be right back with two more posts this coming weekend :] Chau chau!
Guys we did it. WE DID IT. WE FINALLY. FINALLY FINISHED FILMING. Oh my goodness im telling you now the entire thing has been a very fun, overwhelming, enjoyable, crazy mess of an experience that if I had to the opportunity to go back, I would NEVER do so. Being with my friends and making an insane movie with them is cool but Emi can only take so much cortisol. I am so ready to get this over with. And not even in a mid way NO NO this is going to be PEAK. 4 days left? STFU! IVE BEEN THEOUGH THIS BEFORE IVE PLAYED THESE GAMES BEFORE I CAN GET THROUGH THIS. WE CAN GET THROUGH THIS
GGRHRGAHAHAHAHAHAHAGATDTTNYTJGHRTKKREOJSWJ WE’RE ALMOST THERE EVERYBODY.
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i LOVE this shot
This entire long weekend that I had we have spent FILMING FILMING FILMING AND FILMING. We reshooted scenes, we re did audio, and we shot and finished up a whole 3 other scenes. ALL IN THE SPAN OF 72 HOURS. I AM STILL EXHAUSTED AND WILL FOREVER BE EXHAUSTED. HERE'S A QUICK LITTLE RUNDOWN BEFORE I DIE
HOO HA: FILMING DAY WHATEVER PART 1 (FRIDAY)
You may remember this little fact from a couple posts ago, but the car shots that we had for Otto and Mable at the beginning of our film were kinddaaa poopoo! Especially Otto's! She was out of focus! And so, to fix this up and make our lives easier while editing, myself, Joaquin, and Isa met up at about 6pm on Friday at the Indian Trace Plaza to reshoot the scene and then move on to Joaquin's house and get some Mable shots for the finale since the time we had with her left was limited and we need to squeeze out as much of it as possible :D! The reshooting of the car scene went pretty quick and we got it in done just in time as the sun was already going down and inviting us to film some of the finale scenes! Here are the brand new car shots compared to the old ones for you folks that haven't seen my editing post yet!
oldd otto shot
newww otto shot
olddd mable shot
newww mable shot!
By the time we got to Joaquin's house it was like 8PM which meant we had one more hour left to get a lot of Mable shots before she had to boogie at 9PM. That day we focused mainly on the shots after Mable shoots the devil with her TOTALLY NOT NERF GUN THAT EMI JUST PAINTED BLACK
lol i forgot to mention that
i keep thinking we're like not allowed to talk about guns here and stuff but uhh cambridge! I made a nice lil cool gun! :D By only using an old nerf gun owned by my brother, putting a lot of black construction paper over it, taping it all, and then finally completing everything with a nice fresh coat of black paint! It wasn't perfect of course, but it looked real to the point my parents were like "emi BE CAREFUL bro" so it was a success :]! If you're concerned about what my parents said to me, do not worry your little self my lovely flying cupcake monkey! Throughout the entire Mable shoot, we made it very clear to Joaquin's neighborhood that the gun we had out WAS JUST FOR A MOVIE. We yelled it, we danced around, we jumped up and clicked our heels, ANYTHING TO NOT GET INTO TROUBLE!
Then we filmed and got some really sick ass shots :D I cannot thank my bestie westie Isa enough for taking on the role of Mable and mogging the ENTIRE time. This isn't something she normally does, and the amount of care she put into her role surprised both Joaquin and I! Isa, if you're seeing this, you're the GOAT. G-O-A-T. THANK YOU SIGMA
THIS IS SO SICK.
After a couple really cool shots, it was already like 9:20PM so that meant Isa had to book it! She didn't have a car available for her to use that day, so I took her home and eventually got back at about almost 10PM :D Friday was a success! We got some really awesome reshoots and some GREAT finale scenes that will take a while for me to get over.
HOO HA: FILMING DAY WHATEVER WHATEVER (SATURDAY)
We got Mable for this one again to fully complete her night scenes along with reshooting some Issac scenes and redoing some audio for it :D! I don't think I've ever told you guys yet, but the day after I believe filming day 3, I checked and listened to every single piece of audio to ensure nothing was tweaking out but then found out (to my despair) that some audio was MISSING! THE BATTERY FOR MY MICS WENT OUT! DUN DUN DUNNN! I obviously freaked out a little bit over this but knew deep down that it would be okay in the end cause it's just audio and can be fixed easily with enough care and precision :] So with this in mind, Joaquin and Isa came over to my house at about 5PM to reshoot and re do audio for the Issac scene!
I bought out my computer to show Joaquin what I had for the line edit so far and show what shots specifically we needed to reshoot to make the scene even better and eliminate any bad, boring shots. I say the shots that we ended up getting came out pretty awesome! :D I like them 10x better than how they were before. There's more movement, better lighting, and better composition so this was a win in my book! Here are some of the shots I'm talking about:
what the helly is going on here
kane and mable
gahhh my nose gahh
After we got all these lovely Issac reshoots, we went to Joaquin's car and just chilled there for a bit until the sun began to go down! Once it did, we revved up the car and went on our way to Joaquin's house to finish up all of Mable's shots ONCE AND FOR ALL! Isa's official last day of acting in The Scourge was beginning to come to a lovely close, and once I released that I got a lil teeny tiny bit sentimental cause man bro filming this thing with my bestie westie by my side has been SO fun. Genuinely, I don't think I would have enjoyed filming this project as much as I did if it weren't for my best friend being there :] We finished off the day by filming the shot of Mable getting dragged away by Annie after Otto kills her with her gun.
We also got a close of shot of Otto holding Annie's glasses to add to the coolness and context of the scene :D I really love this shot and how dark it is, it definitely holds up with the aesthetic and brand that we aimed to create, and with color correction it'll be even more awesome! After this entire shoot, we could confidently say that we had half of the finale done along with the entirety of the Issac scene 100% complete! All we need now was to finish up the finale with the Otto, Annie, Issac parts and film the Otto and Annie interaction scene at the beginning of our film. Things began to really look up, and we were SO excited to be near to completion and finish everything off once and for all on Sunday!
ok lol thats funny cuz
HOO HA: FILMING DAY GAHFAHHAHGFAHFGAFHAHGAHGHA (SUNDAY)
This day was expected to be the FINAL day of shooting and obviously because of that we all pulled up to Joaquin's house excited and SO ready to just FINISH THIS. FOREVER. This whole thing was so exhausting for all of us so we were seriously expecting a huge sense of relief and joy after the filming day. And I'll say! The day surely had its ups! Joaquin told me some good news as soon as I got to their place, telling me that they got Renn to be the passerby that get's run over by the car in the car scene! YAY! It was nice having my best buddy over to help out, it was very fun :D We finished all of Renn's scenes at approximately 5:30 and sent him on his way to go to a friend's house since he needed to be there by exactly 5:30 BAHHAHA that was funny.
After Renn left, Joaquin, Andrew and I, finished up the rest of the car scene shots that included Otto and Annie talking to each other about actuall bullcrap. I'd say we wrapped it up pretty quick and I'm happy with the results that we got but one very small minor issue was that we ended filming the car scene at about 6:45PM when we knew we had limited time to head over to the church before the sun went down to film the Otto and Annie talking scenes from the beginning. GAHHH IT WAS A WHOLE THING. First we had to go to my house to print out a better version of Annie's in-universe postcard which took a little bit, I'd say up until 7:30, then we had to go back to the church and find a good parking spot which also took a little bit because it was the lovely holiday of Easter and that meant the church was packed. Once we finally found a spot, we began to immediately gather everything to quickly head over to the outside of the church but to our demise, Joaquin forgot Annie's black blazer.
The rage was REAL. This all meant that we had to meet up again tomorrow at about sundown hour to film the scene, which was really a huge frustrating moment for all of us. With anger and a smidge of sadness running through our veins, we decided to just go back to Joaquin's house, with Claire De Lune playing on their car speaker, to pick up their blazer and then went back to the church to film the beginning of the finale, which takes place outside of the church at night. One thing though that really set us back was a really silly mental blockade that we all unanimously created which, looking back, is hilarious because it wasted so much time and energy. When we got back at the church, we noticed that everybody was leaving the last mass of the day and because of that we were all like "oh no what if the church closes their gates and we can't get out?" and so because of that blockade, we came to the conclusion that we had to park all the way in regional and walk THE ENTIRE MILE to the church.
I was so insanely tired and exhausted to the point where I just took it, but obviously that entire time something in me was like "GHHRHGHRHGH THIS SUCKS I DON'T WANNA DO THISSSS I WANNA GO HOME I WANNA BE WITH MY PARENTS I MISS MY PARTNER I WANNA GO HOMMEEEE" but you Cambridge people know that for this class I do ANYTHING to end up with something awesome. I jumped into an ice cold pool and sweated buckets for last years projects, and now I'm destroying my back, my face, and my feet for this year's portfolio. I do NOTT back down without a fight. If we HAD to walk all the way to the church, then heck, whatever dude let's do it.
Once we actually parked in Regional Park though we began to doubt and tried to find another location that is closer to the church that we could walk from, and to our luck, Andrew found a place called Weston Public Works that was right next to the church and we thought that it was worth checking out.
Very funny thing though, once we passed by the church we noticed that the gates didn't close yet and in reality, everything was just fine and will probably be open for a longer while, especially considering the church officials in there that had to clean everything up and stay there for give or take a couple more hours. HOW DID WE NOT THINK OF THAT??? I don't know, I'll just give us the benefit of the doubt and say that we were just way too exhausted to even think about logistics.
Being so for real, all of this wouldn't have happened if some of us didn't procrastinate, I love you my friends, but we really should have stayed locked since the beginning, and I should have pushed things more than I have. I pushed and pushed and PUSHED but most of the time it just didn't get through. But enough of that spheal, I'm saving it for the reflection later this week :] We then parked outisde the church and got out of the car immediately to go outside the gates and begin filming the beginning portion of the finale.
Luckily we did it pretty quick, and even though the shots were simple, the fact that it was a convo scene made up for it. By the time we finished, it was almost 10PM. We then went back to Joaquin's house to finish up the finale and stayed there UNTIL 12AM. WE STAYED UP. A whole 2 hours later, we completely wrapped up the filming of the finale and could not be anymore relieved by the end of it all. Of course we still had one more scene to film the very next day, but we had EVRYTHING ELSE done and ready to go so THANK GOODNESS for all our hardwork the past 2 weeks. I am seriously still very exhausted from it all.
As for the next and final filming day, Monday, we wrapped up the one scene we were still missing and felt the biggest weight come off our shoulders after we were done! Filming is now officially wrapped up. Forever. And now all we have to do is finish putting it together, add some pretty colors and graphics, and get it going here for you all on April 10th :] We were pretty tight with everything but I have a good feeling about this!
As for now though super awesome blog readers, I must depart! I got a lott of work to do in order to get this done successfully and I’m going to do just that!
guys for some reason i like roll my eyes anytime i see the word CCR plastered on my to do lists. why does it make me mad? what about it makes me go like UGHGHHGHGHGHGH? I DONT KNOW. LITERALLY MY EXPERIENCE WITH THE CCRS LAST YEAR AND THIS YEAR WERE JUST FINE BRO
emi calm down
this ones gonna be easier
u have time
CALM DOWN
today im gonna be digging in a little bit on questions 1 and 2 to get a nice lil head start :D LETS GOO
THIS REFLECTION IS NOTT CREATIVE: DIGGING IN (QUESTIONS 1 AND 2)
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me and twin when we see a supernatural monster on the streets
QUESTION 1! MORE IN DEPTH! (emi this is a rough draft do not go insane please u have so much to do right now)
HOW DID RESEARCH INFORM MY PRODUCT AND THE WAY IT USES OR CHALLENGES CONVENTIONS?
When coming up with ideas for The Scourge and developing its aesthetic and overall tone, research definitely played a really big role in solidifying what exactly I wanted within all of those things. Researching media texts sharing our same genre also helped us a ton with understanding dark comedy a lot better! We learned the basics of the genre, its conventions, and how to execute it well, especially since our short tackles the sensitive topic of religion and power struggle, we really wanted to know how to do this right without being downright offensive. The productions that my team and I took most inspiration from were The Amazing Digital Circus, The Binding of Issac, and Dan Da Dan. There were many more but those are the 3 that were the most important to myself, Joaquin, and Andrew.
Through our research, we learned that dark comedy combines elements of humor and tragedy and or darker themes. As said by IMDb, the genre often also touches on taboo topics like death, crime, dysfunction, and societal issues all while being super silly to spark some contrast in an amusing way. Dark comedies are to be handled carefully, as not doing so would take away from the meaning that is attempting to be conveyed. Taking that all into consideration, we then looked at specific media texts that fall under the dark comedy genre. All these texts focus on heavy subject matters while having a silly exterior.
.My personal research mostly focused on The Amazing Digital Circus and how dives into serious topic matters while also still maintaining a silly tone (most of the time). I was really interested in how the show handled Caine's character (the AI ringleader antagonist). It first introduces him as a goofy, happy go lucky guy who wants nothing but to entertain the circus members, to making him go insane and begin torturing each and every single one of them in different ways, the most significant being with their traumas. For Annie's character, I took inspiration from Caine's personality and aimed to make him go down the path of increasing insanity. The difference between Annie and Caine though is that Annie is PURE EVIL while Caine turned bad solely because he was malfunctioning due to not fulfilling his AI purposes well. Annie isn't an AI, he's the devil! Other media texts that were significant in the development of our film as mentioned before were The Binding of Issac, mainly researched by Joaquin, and Dan Da Dan, researched by myself and Andrew.
The Binding of Issac touches on religious themes while not being afraid to pull any punches as Issac is literally being traumatized by religion throughout the entire game. Joaquin took this as inspiration and as a result we ended up with an insane product touching on religious subject matter with Biblical references like Cain and Able, The Golden Calf, and The Binding of Isaac. We wanted to make our film a sort of an uncomfortable but yet amusing watch, similar to how The Binding of Isaac video game did it. This is sort of similar to how we also took inspiration from Dan Da Dan with the goofy, yet uncomfortable amusing tone. The anime also isn't afraid to pull any punches, especially the visual ones (ghghhhg). I mainly took inspiration from Dan Da Dan for the general vibe and aesthetic of our short film. I wanted our brand to be goofy while also making it quite ominous with the way we interact with audiences along with the color palette and all.
PHEWW OKAY NEXT ONE
QUESTION 2! MORE IN DEPTH! (emi once again this is a rough draft pls do not go insane)
HOW DOES THE SCOURGE ENGAGE WITH AUDIENCES?
The Scourge mainly engages with audiences through its visual humor, snappy pacing, and general vibe and aesthetic. Our target audience consists of predominately young individuals that are fans of dark humor who fall under the alternative and queer categories. They are also mostly Americans who fall under the middle/upper middle classes with income, as our film is in English (lol required) and takes place in during the 2000s in suburbia south Florida.
As for our social media, target audiences are mostly engaged through the way we interact with them along with the aesthetic that we brand our film around. Each one of my posts have a consistent, cohesive color palette that draw in members of our audience who are fans of art along with the ominous, occult vibe. Along with my page's color palette, it also maintains a unique brand through the font used consistently throughout. The font I've been using for each post is called Ghastly Panic and it does the job perfectly in making them stand out and setting up the tone for our film, both silly and goofy with a spice of profoundness and seriousness!
Our postcards maintain the brand I developed with the social media and our final film through implementing the same black and red aesthetic and similar fonts. Obviously the font being used on there isn't as spooky scary looking as we want it to be as clear and legible as possible to people interested in our film but it will still strive to achieve a bold look. One of our postcards is very similar to the one seen in our final film as Annie gives his "card" to Otto. We wanted to have a nice little call back from our film's narrative. Our other postcard will be the same as the first but with some nice key art on the back featuring each important character shown in The Scourge. Our final film STILLL (kudos) maintains the brand identity even while strictly not having red and black colors plastered all over it. Each shot has a warm, dark tint to it that is synonymous to the brand we developed in our social media and postcard, especially the night time scenes, they do an amazing job with branding!
front and back of our in-universe postcard :]
nice night time shot of mable :D
OKOK THATS IT FOR NOW! I HAVE TO GO OUT A FILM ONE MORE JUST ONE. MORE. SCENE. AND BEFORE THAT I HAVE TO WRAP UP THE LINE EDIT. GUYS WE ARE GETTING THIS DONE WE YES WE!!
GOODMORNING BLOG!! Been a while since I've been on here! My team and I have been HARD at work to bring you all the best project we can possibly make! It is now April, and that means the finish line is only getting closer and closer! With that in mind, a couple days ago I began the line edit for our short film along with adding audio and color correction :D Joaquin and I are the main people taking care of post prod so I'm confident that we will end up with something that looks pretty awesome cuz the power of friendship rocks!
oki im gonna talk about it in depth now r u ready
BBRR BRRR BRRR BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
CUTTING UP MY MOVIE AND STUFF: THE LINE EDIT
wait thumbnail
more on that shot up there soon mwahhaha
hello i am easter emi
I don’t remember the exact day I started the line edit but it was as soon as possible so we could get a nice head start on post because personally, I think it’s a very arduous but fun process that can take awhile, but luckily I won’t be alone in this!
omg dude i exited out of this post for a minute and everything that i just wrote after that little sentence disappeared
i am red
emi is mad
she is never mad
HGRBIEJAEDKSJDAK AOFIGEHRUJKGHFDISHFGGKFBGJFDKSESJS JK SJK FSJK FSKFKJDSGNHJHEWIH
oki i try again emi is happy now :D
AS I WAS SAYING. BLOGGER I AM GOING TO END YOU. At the end of every single one of our filming days, Joaquin gave me their SD card because I have a lovely USB thingy at my lovely home to transfer all the lovely footage to my computer and make progress on the lovely edit! This USB thingy is a blessing idk where we would be without it! I got it way back around the 2nd quarter of my Sophomore year after buying a GoPro typa bodycam except it wasn't a GoPro so my dad and I called it GoBro BAHAHHA to film some marching band rehearsal videos to save for future Emi to see and be like "woahh Breathe 2024 was lit" (watch Breathe 2024 im in it :D it is indeed lit :D). After recording my last rehearsal of the year, I went back home, watched it, and then was like "man i wanna like have this thang on my phone and computer and stuff" so then I asked my papa to buy a USB thingy so I could do just that! It supports both SD and micro SD cards so I could transfer to my hearts content!
Thanks to sophomore Emi and her need to watch her marching video on her computer, I now have a USB thingy to transfer all my movie clips and stuff so I can like pass this class! YEAHHHH HOORAY FOR GOBRO AND THE USB THINGY! Everything indeed does happen for a reason!! WAHOOOO if u look around here you can see a lovely photo of myself and my USB thingy posing for the cam cam and being awesome and stuff :D! Call the chriopracter Im back!! USB thingy is back! Emi how do u spell chirocparcater? Idk Emi u tell me how to spell cheiuiroapctror! Dude I literally just told you that I do NOTTT know how to spell fhvchriaiaportor! ARE U KIDDING!?? CMON DUDE YOU HAVEEE TO KNOW HOW TO SPELL CHRICOPAOAHERT!!! DUDE I LTIERALLY JUST TOLD YOU I DONT KNOW HOW TOSPEPL LCHDCSIIERIIGBNGJGTEOROTPRTORGAHHAHHAAAAAA GAHHHHHHHHHHH GAHHH FGHGAHAGAAAAAAAAAAA
constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated! :D
all roads lead to emi's tadc hyperfixation
oki wait let me just save my work rq here so i dont almost jump off a microwave again
anyway BAHAHAH WHO AM I
while working on the line edit I came to a realization during the Otto and Mable car scene that a close up shot of myself was out of focus! DUN DUN DUNNNN!!! I tried to find a way to fix this in Premiere Pro since it was INSANELY out of focus but it was to no avail because it still looked pretty poopy butt after I tried fixing it soooo Andrew Joaquin and I agreed that we were going to refilm it on Saturday 4/4 along with Mable close up because Joaquin didn't like the way that one turned out! :D Hoorayy!!!
Hallo this is Sunday Emi speaking! :D Happiest of Easters! Easter bunny! I love Easter bunny dude i ate so much sugar today at Eclair Affaire you guys have to go eat there NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWJWHERERGTJER JE WJKHEGRHAHAHAHAHAHHA
anyway look we filmed the car shots they came out pretty awesome! More on this stuff in the next post :] For now just look at the comparisons and be like GUAOOO EMII WOWWW WOWWWOWOW UR SO COOL AND AWESOME AND SO IS UR TEAM GUAOOOOOAHHAHAHA EASTER BUNNY
okokokokokok ready ready ready
olddd otto shot
newww otto shot!!
olddd mable shot
newwww mable shot!
YAYYYAYY!! With the help of these two lovely shots, the line edit (and everything else edit) began to look SO much better! These shots and the rest of the shots that we got this past weekend have been FIREEE and I am SO excited to see how they turn out put all together! Anyway time to hand the mic to the other Emi now :D BAIIIIII!
For the line edit, I went all the way up to the end of the Issac scene since that was all we had in terms of footage. For the parts where we didn't have footage yet (which we will get VERY soon), I simply just clicked on the text box, inserted a black screen, and wrote "INSERT SPECIFIC SCENE HERE" so we can have a good idea on what holes we need to fill to complete this thang safely and soundly! :D
like dat :D
That's pretty much it for the line edit for now! Chances are since we're gonna be refilming a couple shots, that I'll have to change the entire edit but theres no harm in that! Just ends up making our film all the more better :D Hooray! Now let's talk about audio cause I have indeed spent a lot of time with the audio! Man dare I say it's the hardest part! Help!
CUTTING UP MY MOVIE AND STUFF: THE AUDIO
So as I probably have mentioned before, for this short film we are recording audio on my phone with some nice new lavalier mics! At first I was very unsure about how the audio would end up sounding like but after giving some audio clips a listen and importing them on Premiere, I was like "hmm okay this is not that bad! :D" but then, once I tried syncing up the audio with the video for the first time I was like OMG WHAT IS THIS HOLY SHIT WE ARE GOING TO CRASH AND BURN GHAH WHATS HAPPENING!!!!2121!! I was quite freaked out, but once I got back home from school with more composure in my bones, I got out my computer and just really started to dig in on the edit, especially with the syncing. And yay!
At the end, it came out pretty decent :] We got good audio for the Otto and Mable car scene and for the Issac scene! There was a huge problem unfortunately with the audio during the Mable parts of the Issac scene though...and that was that the audio didn't go through! Why you ask? CAUSE THE MICS RAN OUT OF BATTERY! I THINK I TALKED ABOUT THIS ALREADY BUT STILL ACT SURPRISED EVEN IF YOU HAVE READ MY POTENTIAL "uh oh our mics died" LINE A COUPLE POSTS AGO! We will fix this issue soon once Isa, Joaquin, and I meet up again this coming weekend by recording their lines and putting them back into Premiere! Should be peachy keen :] Despite this issue though, I am pretty happy with how the rest of the audio turned out! Shout out to my phones Voice memo's app for keeping all our audio nice and organized!
voice memos- you're welcome emi!
emi- awwwww what a sweetie
I admit, syncing up audio is pretty annoying and probably one of my least favorite parts of editing this film so far, but can be SO satisfying. No feeling tops that of PERFECTLY aligning the audio with a specific clip ITS SO NICE. It's also worth mentioning that since this weekend we are reshooting some of the Otto Mable car scenes, I may also have to switch up the audio in my timeline a WHOLE lot, probably to the point where I'll have to restart some scenes entirely. But heck, the reward of getting it all done is so amazing and I got some more experience on my hands to go at it sooo I'm up for the challenge!! 10000 HIGH STAKE FILM PROJECTS VS 1 EMI WHO WINS? EMI.
alrighty time to color a lil bit
CUTTING UP MY MOVIE AND STUFF: THE COLOR
So for The Scourge's general art direction, I have chosen to have the entire film have very warm colors all throughout. The entire story of our short canonically takes place over the course of 4 days, the first scene (opener, otto and annie convo, mable otto convo) happening on the first day at sundown, the second (Issac, car scene), happening on the second during early afternoon, and the last (finale), taking place the next during the evening. So basically the warm colors are gonna be like: Warmmm, kinda warm (!), darrrkkkkk but warrmmmm mmm warrmm i love warm :D I have done a teeny tiny bit of color grading on my edit, so far only officially with the opening sequence but I plan to follow the warm uhh kinda warm darkk format that I have set in stone up there for the rest of the shots :] I don't have that much experience with coloration if we're not counting the CCR's from last year, but I'm not totally new so I have a good idea what I'm doing! This movie's gonna look very cool everybody I am saying it now!
nice lil comparision of no color vs yes color :D i love coloring no matter what art form :D
Anddd that'd be all for today super awesome blog readers! Stay tuned for much much muchhhh more in the future! Gameday is soon and we are close to gettin this thang done! As for now though I'm gonna like idk play Roblox or something :D
I am quitting this blog. it just has become way too much for me to keep up with and i think it's better, even though this is part of my grade, to just put an indefinite pause on blogging and focus on the rest of my project. So...this is my last post. I am sorry super awesome blog readers, cambridge lads, and tstok. I hope you guys understand.
BAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
BAHAHABAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAH APRIL FOOLS BAHHAHAHAHAHAHAA
THIS IS MY THUMBNAIL BAHAHAHAH I HAD A GROUP MEETING BAHAHAHHAHAHA
ME LITERALLY THIS ENTIRE DAY HAHHAHAHAHAHABAHABABAHAHAH
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHA
ok i have a lot of work to do lets get this started
HAHAHHAHAH ITS APRIL FOOLS AHHAHAHAHAHA: EMI TALKS TO THE SAME + NEW HUMANS ABOUT HER SILLY DEMON MOVIE
For this second and likely last group meeting, I was paired up with Aneesa, Samara, Audrey, Adriana, and Vicky! Very veryy similar to the last group that I worked with except for Audrey and Samara, so it was nice to hear updates from the og's while also talking to some new people about their super awesome creations and such :D! So without further to do...you know what time it is my flying cupcake monkeys!
Aneesa started us off by explaining what she has done so far with her film, and even though I already knew this cause I maybe do not definitely stalk my classmate's blogs every once in a while, her and her team decided to change their entire idea from the sentient camera falling in love with another person besides the main character to a really cool mean girls x heathers x uhhh evilness type of story! I thought it would have been really awesome if they found out a way to pull off the sentient camera idea but honestly I could seriously understand from a writer's standpoint just how hard that may be to write and develop a whole story around, so I definitely support this change :D I think it's sick!
Aneesa then went on and showed us, since she didn't have any footage on her device, all of the social media postings her and Nico have been working on to build a nice cohesive brand for their piece and dude THEY LOOKED SO COOLLLLUGHHH i ADORE the tarot card idea that they went for that was genuinely such a good creative choice. As of present day, Aneesa's group has officially started up their social media page on Instagram and I saw a whole ton of other tarot card meet the cast/crew posts and really loved what they were making with their page so far! The crew's colors are in purple while the cast's colors are red which definitely creates some nice contrast while also staying true to their brand. On the back of each tarot card (second slide), there is a nice description about either the character or person behind the production which I thought was also another super awesome creative choice :]! I cannot wait to see the rest of Aneesa's social media! WAHOO!
Aneesa also touched a bit on the filming days she had with her group within the last couple of days and while showing some really cool bts pics, I was surprised to see that these guys are using a black backdrop given to them by Sam's dad to film a "void scene." I am genuinely so looking forward to see how that will end up looking like! Black backdrops are so cool, I wish they were real :D All in all, Aneesa's project, even though they had a little bit of a setback with the scrapping of their original idea, looks to be doing really good and just knowing the sheer skill of everybody in her group? Ts is gonna be CINEMA.
2. Emi (idk who this person is)
Genre: Dark comedy
Film title: The Scourge
Blog link: dude i genuinely do not know
Yours truly went right up after Aneesa and explained to my group that we were also a tad bit behind on filming and started doing so the week before and then showed off two of my favorite raw shots that we caught throughout our lovely filming days! The first was the very beginning establishing opening shot of my film showing a cross on the roof of the church with the sun behind it, making it look REALLY cool and given by the reactions of my group, I could definitely tell they thought the same :] I'm glad that my short film will be starting off on the right foot! Even though the left is the side of the devil! WAHOO! With some nice coloration, which I'm working on right now (forshadowinggg!!), this shot, and the rest of the shots in my film will look ten times cooler and will be ten times more aligned with the art direction I' going for, so I'm having some high hopes right now :]
After I showed my group the sick ass sun shot, I then pulled up the shot of Otto getting absolutely slimed by Issac as she's putting up evil Calfism signs which advertise Annie Christian's fake, low budget, scammy cult and they also thought it was pretty awesome which I was glad to see :D! When my class has a nice little watch party of every single portfolio project and when we're watching my movie, I will be anticipating to see everybody's reaction to that shot BAHHAHA ITS SO GOOD and with sound effects it will be even funnier! YAYAYAYAYAYA!!!!1121211212
LOOK AT IT
its so cold in this classroom yo
1 emi vs AC who wins
I then went on to show my group some of the social media posts, specifically the meet the crew/cast to give them a clear demonstration of my brand along with the people we have chosen to act for each character (literally the 3 of us + my bestie westie Isa as Mable :D)! Along with those posts, I also showed off my very first post that went up on Insta, that being the super duper awesome promo art showing Otto smiling sinisterly with "THE SCOURGE" in a sick font right on her side.
I primarily demonstrated that post to my group to make clear what type of font/typography we were going for with our film and again, they thought it was really cool :] I love these group meetings, because genuinely they make me feel so much less alone and make me just trust the process much better. We will be just fine, and that is something that I really took away from this second group meeting :] To anybody in my group currently reading this, I'm wishing the best for your project and hope it turns out the best it could possibly be! Thank you guys for hearing me out and offering nice feedback on everything I had to show!
Next up was Adriana! She began by explaining the general plot for her short film for those who don't know yet (lol now that I'm thinking about it I should have also did that but BAHAH its okay). If you're not an avid reader and follower of my blog, Adriana's film is basically about this guy who uses a penny to teleport and do good deeds but he messes up every time.
Adriana has been filming, and her partner David did in fact get some shots while he was in Europe so that's pretty cool but she expressed some feelings of stress and concern about the overall progress she has on her project so far since she's behind on social media and still needs to shoot some more things. She plans to film some interviews with the cast/crew for the social media and finish the postcard ASAP along with editing! She showed us a bit of the postcard while asking for some feedback and I thought it looked really cool :] I love the bright color palette she is going for with her brand!
After Adriana presented, the group and I said that she will be okay which again, is something that I really loved. I'm very sure with enough hard work and dedication, Adriana and David will come out with a really awesome film that they will be proud of! I adore their plot and can't wait to see it come to life :]
Vicky followed up right after Adriana and began by explaining her film plot and showing off some of the raw footage she caught with her team these past couple of days :D She finalized filming the day before the group meeting, filmed three reels for social media, and started off her page with some really cool meet the cast/crew postings! Her and her team seem to be on a great track right now, although I do know they had a couple of difficulties getting started with filming due to spring break along with some other things as I'm good friends with Renn and I know about some of his happenings :] As for her postcard, Vicky and her group haven't exactly started designing one yet and plan to do so ASAP so they won't have to deal with much during the final week of the project. She did do a photoshoot for the postcard so great progress is already being made!
renn i did NOT steal this from your blog you are crazy
I'm pretty hyped to see this short film soon :] The general plot sounds so interesting to me and I know for a fact I'll be impacted by the message of this production! Hooray!
Audrey then went right up after Vicky and explained a bit of her plot and what progress she had made so far with her short film. Out of all of us, she seemed to be the one most concerned about said progress, especially with the filming component as her and Mariana haven't exactly filmed yet due to some complications with actors and time management but plan to do so ASAP, that being Wednesday as said on our shared google doc! So uhhh they must have filmed today! YAY! I'm glad that they are making as much progress as possible :]
Audrey also told us that she is the manager of her team's social media page and showed us a couple of the posts she has made which were some meet the crew/cast designs that looked pretty awesome! I liked how she put different colors behind each character to match their vibe and personality, I really thought that was a great idea! After Audrey talked about everything she has done along with all her concerns, the group made it clear once more that she was going to be just fine, and I myself am hoping for a successful journey to completion for her and Mariana! I'm looking forward to seeing how their production turns out :]
I think like every group in our class had a token person who isn't doing a short film. In our case, Samara was the token :D She is the only one out of allll of us doing a documentary and her topic is really interesting! It's all about Latino culture and the specific snippet she's filming will be all about Latino dance and music which is SICKKKKK.
Samara began filming before spring break and during the break itself which means she already has made some really good progress with her film component! Along with that, Samara told us that she is interviewing 3 subjects, though it was originally supposed to be 4 but got changed due to some conflicts. These interviewees include Samara's grandma, dad, and a dancer that she knows. As for her social media, she has about 5 posts up and running and has developed a very vibrant and colorful brand filled with various Latin American flags which communicate the theme and purpose of her documentary very clearly! Samara seems to be in a good place right now, and I'm wishing her well for the rest of her documentary production! I'm excited to learn some things about Latin dance and music as a Latina myself :]!
Okie dokie super awesome blog readers! This should be all for today! :D Just a nice lil group meeting yap sesh to start off the second to last week of this project (HOLY GUACAMOLE WHY DOES TIME MOVE SO FAST) :] As for now though, I must put on my PJ's, brush my teeth, and maybbeee go unconsious for 9 hours after posting something new on my social media page cause it's about time some new content gets released to my lovely fans!
As for now though!!
boa noite blog readers hermosos <3 Los amo mucho!! Boa noite!!nlkk ,,, snll j j j j j qhjte tired i should post this thang soon! Gooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnightrnrrrrrrrrj Chauuuuuuuuuuuuuu
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