my goodness this is the most dreaded blog post out of the entire 8 weeks dude
you hear the word ccr and then you get all like AHGRGEAEHGAAAHAAAAA
but in hindsight it's actually not that bad :D Let's get it out of the way now so I can get some sleep and be somewhat functional tmrw :D
OMG THE THINGS I DO FOR THIS CLASS DUDE COME ON GIVE ME AN A
LA C LA C Y LA R: CRITICAL CREATIVE UHH WAIT NO CREATIVE CRITICAL REflec CREATIVE CRITCAL REFLEC CRITICAL OMG GUYS ITS SO LATE
So thanks to you Cambridge lads being the most goated people of entire time and not requiring us to make 2 whole other videos along with our super duper rigorous, hard to make short film, I feel a little lighter and less worrisome about this years CCRS! WAHOO! The questions here this year for A level are a bit different than last year's so I think it's pretty worth taking the time and going through each question and plan out what I may answer each of them with so I won't be scrambling by week 8 :] Luckily, throughout our documentary time of the year, Tstok provided us with a super awesome lesson on CCR's so now we're chilling and now we know what to do :D Check it!
Some very nice christmassy themed ccr notes for you all Cambridge lads to see! :D Now I yap for the next 10 minutes for a good grade and immediately hop into bed! Woohoo I'm excited to sleep! I have to wake up in like 6-7 hours! HAHAH! Help!!
Here are all the CCR questions in suggested order everybody!
1. How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?
2. How do your products engage with the audience?
3. How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of "branding?"
4. How do your product's represent social groups or issues?
ALRIGHTY LETS GO! MY BED IS WAITING FOR ME!!
QUESTION 1. RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH!!!:
Emi needs to talk aboutttt
All the dark comedies I researched way back in the day like The Amazing Digital Circus, Dan Da Dan, ENA, Jojo Rabbit etc.
All the aspects from each media text that gave me inspiration/aspects from each that I researched in depth for my own film
Big discussion on dark comedies
Give specific examples from each media text that inspired some of the choices I made for The Scourge
QUESTION 2. AUDIENCE AUDIENCE AUDIENCE!!!:
Give super awesome in depth description of The Scourge's target audience that I luckily already established within my branding post a couple weeks ago :D
Discuss how my social media engages with target audiences (or how it doesn't)
Discuss how postcard(s) engage with target audiences (or how it doesn't)
Discuss how final short film engages with target audiences (or how it doesn't)
QUESTION 3. BRANDING BRANDING BRANDING!!!:
Describe brand that I developed/wanted to developed (refer back to brand post)! I am a master on our film's branding so this question will be a nice and breezy piece of cake!
Discuss how my social media develops a consistent brand (it does)
Discuss how postcard(s) develop consistent brand
Discuss how final film develops consistent brand (oh I will CHIP MY SOUL AWAY to achieve this well I'm telling you all NEOW)
Talk about what can change to improve some of the brand development
QUESTION 4. SOCIAL GROUPS AND ISSUES SOCIAL GROUPS AND ISSUES!!!
lol this one will be crazy
Discuss representation in our short film while including commentary on iconography + other representation terms we learned in the past
Consider if The Scourge is successful in developing representation goals (do we develop the representation of harmful cults good, right? We develop idea of doing dumb things for power over others right? :D Stuffs like that!)
Okie dokes blog! Short and sweet post today because honest to all good in this world, I NEED REST. LIKE RIGHT NOW. I FEEL MY EYES SHUTTING!!
Buenas noches blawg! Pasta banana a todos, los amo mucho <33333
omg blog what's up we actually got so much work done these past couple days
energy is DEPLETED but spirits are HIGH!
the duality of man (raw shot from today!) (wahoo!!)
EVIL OTTO KANE FROM KENTUCKY: FILMING DAY 3
Despite some challenges, we actually got a really good amount of our film done during day 3 :D This was Saturday, 3/28 and we all fully met up at the church at about give or take 10:40 AM to get things rolling! We then went to my neighborhood and filmed on the side walk right next to my house. There we got a good chunk of the Issac scene (scene 3) without Mable since she wasn't available just yet (stay tuned for day 4) so it was only Otto (me!) writhing in pain and cursing after getting punched in the face and Issac (Andrew) talking back and yeah the entire thing took a good second but we got it done and we got it good :D! During the entirety of this scene, I had to lie on the ground while the sun was hot and blazing and all the way out of the clouds so I was literally getting burnt to a crisp like a fried egg while also "bleeding." The things I do for this class dude I swear!
The harsh experience was all worth it though since we got arguably the hardest part of the Issac scene done since it required some action and a tad bit of stunt! I'd also like to mention for the said action part, I got some "blood" added to my face for some nice effect and because Otto kinda like maybe breaks her nose and that mighttt need some blood! Wouldn't make sense for my face to get slammed in and not bleed! The details are important everyboday! I don't have a very clear photo of my fake bleeding and rather would not show it here on my blog but pretend you just saw a picture with a bunch of fake blood around my nose :D Pretty cool right :DD We got everything for the Issac scene done within about an hour and 30! Nothing too crazy yet nothing too short, that scene was some hard work!
Afterwards, we decided to go to Joaquin's neighborhood and get started on the infamous car scene where a random passerby see's one of Otto's fliers and gets run over twice! This part was HARD. Even before the actual car part it was already pretty difficult!!! Since Otto breaks her nose in the last scene and canonically gets taken to the hospital by Annie she has a bunch of bandages on it afterwards and during the first shot we tried to film of the car scene, it falls off as she puts up another flier. This time, Otto has her notorious iconic red and black hat on gifted to her by Annie so things are starting to get a little more real! Level 2 Otto! So close yet so far!! The thing that was the absolute hardest to film in the first shot was the BANDAID ARHGHRHhHAhaHAH! This thing literally had a mind of its own. Some takes it would fall down way too early or just not come off at all and it literally took us SO MANY tries to finally get it down BAHAHAH keep in mind the heat was EXCRUTIATING and was thirstier than a dog outside! I literally won't do anything like this for another class.
After that one shot of Otto that took us the entire space time continuum to get right, we then transitioned to the other side of the street and tried to rehearse the car scene a bit to see how it would look like. Take back everything I said about the last shot up there and let me just say that this scene will be the hardest part to film in terms of finding out what shots will be best to use in order to make it look like someone actually got ran over. GHHHAHH! It can surely be done completely though very soon with the help of my lovely storyboard so I have a lot of hope and faith and all :D! Also, we were thinking of having a whole other actor for the passerby that gets run over, that being Joaquin's dad, but we figured it'd just be easier to have Andrew with a cap and sunglasses to be him. We love efficiency! This thing is due pretty soon yo!!
The passerby but pretend he has a cap and sunglasses
(this was just rehearsal :D sunglasses guy will pu soon :D)
After a while of experimenting, we decided to call it a day and come back another day, with everything fully planned out for the car scene so things with it can flow a lot better and more smoothly! Don't worry car scene! We'll be RIGHT back!! I'm glad we at least got some experience with it though. You always learn through trials and tribulations! Right after we called it a day, we all went into Joaquin's car and he then took us home and then yeah for the rest of my Saturday I worked on more media! My life has been a never ending cycle of media media media and media! Not saying that I'm hating it! I'm just quite tired! Can't wait for summer break!! ahahha help!
we didn't get that much bangtan boys on filming day 3 but some bangtan boys is better than no bangtan boys so it was okay :D Actually lol i lied we got a good chunk of bangtan boys but its all on my digicam and i lowkeuniely wanna go to eep so just pretend you saw some of the bangtan boys caught on my rebel t7 okay yes yay okay :D Dw it'll probably appear on my social media :D
when yo nose broken af
andrew as our test subject for the day
wait guys i lied here's my "bloody" nose :D This isn't an actual shot from the film just a lil something before actually filming a scene :D! DISCLAIMER NO EMI'S WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS MOVIE!!!
dont be like otto kane everybody
guys im so excited to get this done
EVIL OTTO KANE FROM KENTUCKY: FILMING DAY 4
LMFAOOO this filming day was literally the best one in my opinion I genuinely had so much fun!! This year in media A level I've had some fun during group projects but definitely not as much as AS and because of that for the longest time I was all like "yeahh i like AS better I miss the happy go lucky goofy making a fun film with your friends feeling" but today was the day all that turned around :D! I finally got more than 5 ounces of pure happiness and enjoyment out of this filming day and felt even more confident in the project we were making! This time around our Mable pulled up (my bestie westie Isa who offered up to act in this film props to her) and we made her the absolute priority! We got a whole ton of Mable footage down, that being TWO WHOLE SCENES! The first scene we need Isa for was the Otto and Mable scene inside the car when they're talking right after Otto makes the deal with Annie and the second was the rest of the Issac scene! AND WE GOT THOSE ALL! WAHOO!! Up top over to your left there, you can see a nice raw shot we got of Mable eyeing Annie Christian very suspiciously after he raised his hat and revealed his horns a bit! Mable's catchin on to something everybody! Sound the alarms! Wee woo wee woo!! Here are some other cool raw shots we got today with our lovely Mable :D
driving da car (nonchalantly)
resting against a tree (nonchalantly)
when ur sisters stupid (nonchalantly)
Everything from this filming day went pretty smoothly despite all the time that we spent together :D We started rolling at like about 2:40-3ish and went on until 7! One huggeee huge hugee GARGANTUOUS conflict though! Today was a little rainy! And little is quite an understatement! We planned to all meet up at my house at 1:30 because 30 minutes before it looked all clear and quite nice so I gave my team and Mable the green card! HOWEVER! IT BEGAN RAINING AGAIN! BY THE TIME IT WAS 1:30!! GAHH! Very fortunately though, the only person who was there by that time was Joaquin so we had the opportunity to wait a little bit for things to clear up and for the rest of the crew/cast to arrive! For literally an hour, while we were waiting for Andrew to come, Isa, Joaquin and I just sat in the car and bonded :D It was very nice seeing our star of the show for the day get along well with the crew (well I mean obviously she gets along well with me cause she's my best friend but still :D)!
After Andrew arrived, the sky was clear enough for us to get outside and make an attempt at getting some good shots...buuttt to our ultimate demise rain starting coming in like a TSUNAMI BRO LMAOO IT WAS SO SCARY. In a frenzy, my friends and I BOOKED IT to Isa's car since it was the closest while Joaquin went inside my garage in order to prevent getting equipment or important documents like my storyboard getting damaged. Isa's car was victim to a whole ton of water but with the power of friendship and enough cloth, we got it all out :D Then we just sat there for a bit while wiping off the water a bit more! Waiting! And Andrew filmed a bts video!
By this point, we doubted that anything would be able to get done for the day..BUT TO OUR LUCK! WE HAD A GAME PLAN! We could get one whole scene that doesn't really concern the sky and that scene was the Otto and Mable in the car scene! Wahoo!! So once the rain stopped being so dang heavy, we coordinated the location and started making our way! I went in Isa's car while Joaquin and Andrew went into Joaquin's car. We met up at a nearby Publix and went from there :D Pretty successful shoot of the scene! However, I do have one little minor concern for when we post prod everything....why are Mable and Otto parked? No food is really shown in each shot so uhhh why are we here? I might be wrong with the food thing cause I do vividly remember picking up the popcorn chicken that Joaquin brought and just having it in my hand during one take so hopefully that showed up well so we can use it well :D! Oh yeah I think it's worth mentioning that Joaquin got popcorn chicken from Publix for this scene. They made a lovely bts video about it :D
bros literally just walking
We finished up this car scene pretty quick in the end and had some time left on our hands to make an attempt at the Issac scene despite some of the sparratic cloudiness that kept haunting us throughout the day. Nothin that a good post prod can't fix though! I'm optimistic about this :D One thing though that I noticed when everybody went home including myself, was that some of the audio, in two files, cut out and I could not hear anything as a result. Of course that made me go all like GAHHH!! but it can for sure be solved so I'm not gonna waste a lot of energy on it :] That's something to discuss with my media friends next class, not at almost midnight :D sigghhh technology these days
As you may have already seen, we got a lot of bts during filming day 4 and they're all my favorites :D I am literally not kidding when I say that today was awesome. Like I said last blog post, the power of friendship prevails! TAKE THAT, APRIL 10TH! MWAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA
oki bangtan boys time! Just gonna put a couple here for now cause I am quite tired and need to get that ccr post done before i get flashbanged tmrw
im mable kane from mable kane
us realizing the absurdity of just one popcorn chicken bag
mable killin it
andrew downing some samoa cookies
mable seeing something sus (devil horns)
boom
Alrighty that would be all for today super awesome blog readers! Thank you for coming along today's journey, we truly had a lot in store for ya and will continue to have a lot in store! Stay tuned!
HI BLAWG! I'm back and alive again after spring break :D Just as you recall, it was a great one!! I personally got a whole ton of work done both with this project and C3 Global among many other things!
And now I have some updates!
Lemme spew them out real quick before I dive into our first few prod days!
For the thumbnail! Me and my team after filming day 1 :D
For this short lil sesh, I'm gonna enter serious emi mode, because genuinely the feelings I've had these past couple days have been quite strong, and I am now gonna let it out:
Over spring break, I designed costumes, bought them, came up with a name for the film, started the social media page, made 3 posts, 2 more blog posts annnddd that's all I could have done! Cause by the end of spring break we didn't have a final script yet! Why storyboard with no script?? I made sure to message my group every other if not every single day about this project so nothing can be forgotten, especially looking out for the script that still had yet to be sent.
now it's the week after spring break
and i really wish we got at least some filming done last week
ARGHBHJKHKLLDL
last media class we had graded group meetings with tstok to discuss progress with our project and after it, the three of us knew that we had to step up our game. Since I rely on my team a lot and make that very obvious with the messages I send very frequently to the group chat, I was quite glad this group meeting happened, even if we didn't feel too pleasant after it. I love wake up calls. Mine sent constantly in the group chat were at a normal volume, but Tstok's was LOUD.
look, I love my group, they are my friends, but I HATE procrastination. And I am no saint! I have been a victim of procrastination many more than twice in my life, but when the project is high stakes? When it takes up a huge portion of your grade? When it's something that I'm gonna put my name on and have other people watch, anticipating something amazing? THAT'S WHEN I GET ON LOCK!! Before the graded meeting, I was already kind of worried, especially for my team, and after our meeting with Tstok, I really began to WORRY. What if we won't get this film done in time? What if we end up with something we're not proud of?? What if it sucks??? What if? What if? WHAT IF. My brain became an intrusive, living whirlwind, and for a moment, I genuinely doubted what we were doing.
but y'all know
if you're a dedicated follower of this blog you know
MY MIDDLE NAME IS PERSERVERANCE
I AM. PERSERVERANCE.
100000 EMI'S VS BIG FILM PROJECT WHO WINS
THE 100000 EMI'S.!! ALWAYS AND FOREVER!!!!!! AGERHRHAEGRHAHHAAHAHHAHAHA
I do not CARE how much I have to suffer, if I have to stay up till ass o'clock I WILL, if I have to dedicate all my energy to this project I MUST, if I want our film to end up being KICKASS, I will ENSURE THAT IT WILL END UP KICKASS. IT WILL BE AWESOME. THROUGH THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, WE WILL PREVAIL!!!
Even though there have been a fair share of obstacles along the way of this project, I know myself and my friends, and I know damn freaking well that with enough hard work, passion, and drive, we will be able to get this done okay :]] I'm not as worried anymore now that we have 2 days of filming down, and feel a bit better that some other groups in my class are in the same exact boat. This project is hard everybody, this is definitely not something I'm not completely used to as I've never made a short film in my entire life. But through anything I succeed :D We succeed :DD!
Now with all of the past week's business out of the way, LET'S GET INTO THINGS!
So since we couldn't get any filming done over spring break, we decided on locking in the SECOND we got back. We decided on pulling up Tuesday to film since the script was supposed to be completed by that day and we were all available :] We got sent the one of the final draft's of the script at about 4:45 and finally had a stable foundation to work off of. Joaquin added an extra scene with the priest character which I thought was pretty funny, but one thing that really stood out to me where all the fucks flying around which is something that I suppose you Cambridge folk are not too crazy about, so I asked Joaquin if we can make some changes with that and they said sure :D More on script changes soon, but for now I continue on yapping about filming!
On Tuesday we only really focused on the opening portion of our short film which included no dialogue so it was pretty nice and breezy! We also triedddd filming a bit of the first scene of Otto and Annie interacting but only got like one shot and called it a day cause Andrew had to go back home. The shots from that scene filmed on Tuesday probablyy won't be used in the final film but it's good that we got some experience and preparation under our belt!
One thing though that made me feel a little wonky donky about our first filming day was the fact that we didn't have a shot list nor storyboard to work off of. Fortunately, since we have insane,clear imagination in all of our brains, it wasn't so bad :] Still though, for the big filming days coming up this weekend, I WILL have a storyboard alll drawn for every single scene of our piece. So far I have the entire first scene and a bit of the second done and will spend literally all I can today to get it done.
Storyboard aside for now though, we got some pretty nice shots on Tuesday! I still have yet to put together some of the clips in Premiere Pro but I'm pretty confident nonetheless! I do really have to see how these clips work together though, probably most likely well but a girl has her anxieties. The opener was only like 4-5 shots of Otto in front of a church, standing while holding a rosary and looking at the cross at the top. She then loosens her grip on the rosary she's holding though and it falls to the ground. Spiritually lost, and physically alone, Otto walks away from the rosary, and that's when the title is supposed to come in! I liked what we did here! The pic below is a reshoot from the second day but shh shh shhhhh pretend it isn't this was the shot the whole time shhh
One little thing that needs to be addressed before I get slimed! I am indeed aware that a rosary is pretty sacred and important to many people, so instead of slamming it on the ground or doing anything insane with it, the only thing we did was have Otto (in reality Joaquin behind the camera), drop it gently and leave it out of focus since Otto no longer finds any use for herself in Christianity. The shot isn't saying "ARRHGHHR CHRISTIANITY BAD YOU MUST LEAVE IT NOW" nah it's more like
"Yo Otto's kinda bummed out and literally doesn't know what to do with herself so Christianity is out of focus for her and she'll then find another external factor that'll fuel her hunger for power and will end up working with the devil cause she's a dum dum."
A quick little confessional, I tend to overthink our short A LOT since I'm not too familiar making things touching on or basing on sensitive topics. It's okay that we're touching on religion but it's also important that we don't cross any ethical lines in this film like promoting satanism or saying Christianity sucks, that's something I made clear since we first started brainstorming our idea. I'm Catholic myself! But then again this is a dark comedy! Of course it's going to be strange, absurd, and touching on the taboo while also being very funny! I always forget that bro, it needs to be engraved into my head.
da devil bad, making deal with devil bad, devil no good
Buttt yeah! That was pretty much all we focused on filming day 1! Quite a success I would say! It definitely made me worry a little less but of course we still had a whole ton of other scenes to take care of so the load wasn't entirely lightened. It's still kinda heavy! But kinda heavy is miles better than AGRGRGRHGRERGRRHEGAGAEHSH HELP ME
Also we got some nice BTS :] I'm gonna share it with you Cambridge lads cause I know you like em. You never told me that you do but I just KNOW IT. Isn't my blog your absolute favorite like all the time ever, England? You answer BETTER be yes.
Before I continue on to filming day 2 I would like to touch on a bit on the script because I bet some of you are wondering a bit about it :D A couple hours after filming day 1, with getting Joaquin's permission first, I opened the second draft of the script and began to edit some of the dialogue to make better sense for the actors and crew alike to work off of, also to develop the characters a little more and make some story beats hit harder :] I sent the revised script at like 12am and that was that! The day after the day after during media class we went over the revised script and edited any more things that we didn't see as fit and boom bam pow we had a 4th, final draft version of the script up and ready to go for the rest of our days! I'll link it right down below ya :D
Filming day two was on Thursday, 3/28! Originally Joaquin and I were planning to meet on Wednesday same time same place just without Andrew cause he had work, to reshoot some things in the opener along with the first Otto and Annie talking scene. This got pushed back to the next day however since I had a dentist appointment that would take up most of my time to plan out some things before filming. I still had a lot of storyboard to get done, so we decided on Thursday and used Wednesday to get prepared for the important scenes that require dialogue and such!
Wednesday was a very productive day, I got so SO much of the storyboard done and felt very ready and more confident after finishing up drawing out the Annie and Otto scene! Wahoo!! To your right you'll be able to see some of the storyboard I cooked up :] I lobe storyboard :D It gives me excuse to draw :D I lobe draw :DD
So then on Thursday, Joaquin and I met up at the church and went right to reshooting some of the opener scenes along with filming some new ones, and it went pretty well! We didn't really have to do much except reshoot the rosary shot along with adding a mid shot of Otto looking up at the church so it was very nice and breezy! I loved how the rosary shot turned out (we're gonna invert it in post so it can flow better with the location Otto is going to after the scene), but think the mid shot we got might have been a bit too dark due to the fact the building created a huge shadow over us, but if we do want to put it into the final film, it could work. Buttt we'll see!
aforementioned rosary shot
midshot of Otto that mightt be a little too dark but it might work
Right after we got these shots, Joaquin noticed and told me that their camera was on low battery so then we were like oh shit (!) and started to look around the place for any charger outlets. Unfortunately, there were none outside so Joaquin went inside to go see if there were any outlets there where we could charge for a bit. And fortunately there was! WAHOO!
After Joaquin set the battery to charge, we sat outside on the curb for a couple mins waiting waiting and waiting and after like 5 minutes, Joaquin went back inside and came out the entrance with what seemed to be a fully charged battery! We were back on track! Joaquin and I then gathered all of our stuff and began moving to the outside of the church to film our very first full scene of our short! We sat on the grass and rehearsed a couple lines from the script first to get used to things and then got to shooting! For protective measures, we went to film the entire scene in one take as one big mid shot and I gotta say that was pretty challenging BAHAHHA I have acted a whole bunch in the past, but this is probably the time I have had to speak the most! We eventually got it down though with no problem...........welll except one!
This time around, we did NOTT have the power of the lovely church to charge the battery since mass was beginning and we didn't wanna interfere. We stood there for a while all like "awww man what do we do??" until Joaquin told me to stay sat and began going to their car to check if there were any outlets in there that supported his battery charger compartment thingy butttt unfortunately there weren't any! CRIKEY! This meant that we had to cut filming short that day, ending at about 6:45-6:55 instead of our scheduled 7:30. Rip filming day 2 you would have loved Annie's postcard! Fortunately, we had the rest of the weekend to lock in on other scenes for film and I have a strong feeling we will end the week with a lot of footage and more confidence on our hands :]
For this filming day, despite how short it was, I gathered A LOT of BTS with my lovely Rebel T7 and could not be happier with the funny moments I got :D! One of my favorite things about these types of projects is having a good time with the people you're working with and getting closer with them as a result :] Yay for the power of friendship! I shall now show you my Bangtan Boys!
Alrighty super awesome blog readers! That should be it for today's post :] And a wrap on our first two days of filming! We feel much more secure and confident now in what we are doing and I know that confidence will definitely increase by a long shot by the end of this Sunday! So stay tuned! I have another super awesome prod post comin up for you all to enjoy!!! As for now though, I must make some social media posts, drink water, and uhh like idk eat crackers or something :D
Whaddup blog! I'm in the plane right now :D I'm going home!
lol I just wanted to start this post while in the plane I thought it would be funny
hello i am flying in the air
WOAHHHHHH
WAIT SNEAKPEEK
woah hey look it's me :D
I love jetblue but im currently trying to upload/make some more posts for the social media but the wifi here is taking FOREVER to load holy guacamole. I think it's best if I start writing up some stuff here just to get things done and lift more weight off of my back :] oh also watch episode 8 of TADC right NEOW. IT WAS INSANE. I'M STILL IN SHOCK
hi its emi and im home now :D
What a trip I have been on! I genuinely adore New York and the time I had with my family there :] Thankfully, as worried as I was that I wouldn't be able to get any work done for this class and Global, I completed a HECK TON! I got my entire presentation for Global done and ready to go, wrote a whole blog post while posting to social media on the side, all while enjoying the Big Apple! WAHOOO!!!! Obviously, there's still some more stuff I need to finish up this weekend but luckily it will all be super easy since I got the big scary parts done (making a presentation, posting on social media). Even though I have Jazz MPA on Saturday, I'm still going to (maybe rest a lil bit) then LOCK in the second I get home!! I'll maybe even continue my Global transcript on the bus! omg thank goodness I have privilege on Sunday
BUT ALAS! Academic worries aside! Even though I'm writing this blog for the purpose of doing well in my last academic quarter of the academic school year!!!!! (I also just really love talking to you guys don't get me wrong mwah mwah love u super awesome blog readers)
I GOT A HAIRCUT!!! I LOVE IT. This serves me in so many ways bro I got an AICE Global presentation tomorrow along with a whole ton of filming and acting as Otto this week. MY LIFE WILL BE SO MUCH EASIER LOOK AT THIS FLAWLESS TRANSFORMATION
CALL ME AN A-LIST CELEB THE WAY I HAVE LIKE 3 FOLLOWERS: THE MOST AMAZING EPIC PART 2 OF EMI'S SOCIAL MEDIA ADVENTURES
Soo back when I was at the airport on Friday to go back home, we found out after TSA that our flight got delayed by not one but TWOOO HOURS. We were scheduled to fly out at like 1:30 PM and get home at 5 PM but then it got changed to flying out at 4 PM and getting home at 8 PM. That day I had a jazz band rehearsal that I was a bit 50/50 on before the delay since it was at 6 PM, but after the delay, I immediately emailed my band director saying "bro naw sorry we got delayed x2 I can't make it"
emi (airport version)
GAHHH THE AGONY
But it was okay cause for the next 120 minutes of our existence, my brother and I whipped out our computers and LOCKED IN. I'm glad I wasn't alone on the loads of homework I had to do over the break as my brother also had some stuff to get working on before the next week. YAY! I WAS MOTIVATED!! And luckily I was cause I got a whole ton of stuff for my social media page done :] Which I will now talk about before you Cambridge folks come to my house tomorrow for not posting all 3 of my blogs in time!
So as you may recall from the planning-out-social-media post I made a while back, I told you all that for my first batch of postings I wanted to make some meet the crew and cast posts to give us all a nice introduction before showing anything else. After asking my group to send me their favorite pictures of themselves, I got right to work on making some meet the crew designs on Canva! I opened up some black canvases, inserted the pictures, andddddd then immediately downloaded and exported the entire thing to Photoshop to apply some text :D This was a nice little collab between the two programs again :DDD
I'm quite new to Photoshop but luckily my task on there was very easy once more as it literally just involved me pressing the pretty little "T" button, typing what I needed to type, and moving it to the right place, which was above and below each respective picture! After I did all that, I amped up the grain on each one to achieve that poster-y professional look that an actual social media page would have and left it at that!!
or so I thought...
SOMETHING WAS MISSING! MY EMI SENSES WERE TINGLING!!
YOU HAVE TO AGREE
I knew for a FACT that I needed to add some decoration to these designs but I didn't know exactly WHAT decorations to add! Once more, I stalked a whole ton of social media pages from last year to get some inspiration and luckily I did get some out of it! I decided that I needed to implement a symbol or signature that's important to our film and slap it on every page! Since I would have died if i did this on Photoshop though, I imported each file into Canva and got to work. At first I tried adding some "pentagrams" around the designs to add the flare I was looking for but..it just didn't look right.
EMI SENSES BEGAN TINGLING AGAIN
YOU HAVE TO AGREE
I needed something better, something simpler, something that builds a cohesive brand while still making sense! And then, with an ounce of hope still left within me and my designs, I pressed on the "shapes" option in Canva and BOOM! THERE WAS MY ANSWER!!!!!!
STARS!!!
4 CORNER STARS!!
THAT ARE RED!!
LETS GOOOO
I went ahead and immediately added the supa awesome stars to the corners of my designs and holy guacamole they looked so much better and became much easier on the eyes. And even better! They even looked like little devil horns if moved to the side enough! I noticed that early on and was like OHH YEAH BABY and only made one sharp end appear on each corner :D This took me like a good 15-20 minutes to fully complete and I seriously cannot be any happier with the result I ended up with. YAY FOR EMI AND HER EMI SENSES!
BOOOOMM
BOOOMMMMM
BOOMMMMMM
BOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
This page is starting to look real good my friends! I'm really excited for all the progress that is yet to be made to end up with a super awesome final result. More to come with time!! I must go to sleep now because even though I have junior privilege tomorrow it's important I still get some good rest to wake up all nice and refreshed at the amazing time of like 7:40 AM! Here I am quarter 4! All of me! YOU'RE NOT READY. 2 MORE MONTHS AND BEING A JUNIOR WILL BE OLD NEWS. LETS GOOOOO
boa noite blog de quiero bai bai hope you guys had a lovely amazing wonderful spring break like I did :]
Hey all!!! :D Hope you super awesome blog readers are having the most amazing spring break of ALL time right now! I know I am! I started it off with a crazy ass sleepover, spent the next couple of days locking in on this project and for AICE Global, and ending it off with a nice and breezy State MPA Jazz Band performance :]
oh also i'm in new york
wait before i yap look at my art
IM GENUINELY SO PROUD
otto lookin super cool and sinister
EMI IS IN NEW YORK? EMI IS IN NEW YORK
Yes! This is my 3rd time visiting the Big Apple but this time around it isn't for like a week ANDD WE'RE IN THE BRONX!! THEEEEE BRONXXXXX we've never been before and so far I would say we had a pretty nice experience despite what I've heard about this place in the past. Very different vibe from Manhattan but I'm still really loving it :] My mom, brother and I only pulled up here for a quick lil side quest, that being a really cool campus tour at Fordham University since my brother is maybe probably going to grad school there! Very prestige! My bloodline is filled with academic warriors!! Including myself even though I'm like that one video of IShowSpeed every single quarter! I still get straight A's and B+'s though! Star student!!! BAAHAHHAHAHA
how bro be actin all semester but still
gets impeccable grades (that's me I am bro)
Before I start, I'd like to show off some super awesome pics I took during the tour with my lovely Canon Rebel T7 :] OMG I NEED TO CHARGE IT THANK YOU EMI I LOVE YOU EMI NO PROBLEM EMI MWAHMWAHMWAHWAMHWA
This university was EXQUISITE. Even though I'm probably not going to go to Fordham anytime in my life, it was still an amazing time and opportunity seeing such a beautiful campus that's been around for so long :] Some nice adventures today! NOW WE BAWL.
BLAWG I GOT STUFFS TO UPDATE YOU ON!!
EMI IS NOW AN INSTAGRAM INFLUENCER: THE MAKING OF OUR FIRST SOCIAL MEDIA POST!!
Starting my page was absolutely one of the most euphoric experiences in my entire life. I like made something really cool and posted about it, and and and you're telling me we're doing this for SCHOOL? CAMBRIDGE I LOVE YOU
As you may recall, I started planning out my entire page about a week ago on March 10th to really make my entire posting career for like the next 3 weeks a PIECE OF CAKE and holy guacamole I am so glad I did that because I feel so much more lighter and much more certain and relaxed about my page and what I'm going to do with it :] I know myself and I know that I am a creative PERFECTIONIST at heart so this page will literally probably have the best branding and art direction I could have ever squeezed out of my soul. And as of right now, I proving my point right! So far, so pretty good! Before I left for NYC, I sat myself down for like a good 2 hours and drew my most favorite piece of Otto artwork so far, that being the thumbnail I embedded a couple minutes ago up there.
I created this piece with the intention of making it our profile picture but once I sent the set up page to my group, Joaquin thought the pfp wasn't as professional looking and said that I should make it Otto's crappy pentagram instead, but since we all agreed that the art I made was super cool, I went ahead and made it the very first post! Promo art as a nice lil introduction! WAHOO!!! As for the profile pic, I opened FireAlpaca on my computer, got my mouse, and drew the best "pentagram" I could with my one hand :] I'd have to say, it was definitely a much better fit making that our pfp so thanks Joaquin! :DD I'm really glad we made this change because that really meant I had a lot less work to do. The original plan was to use the drawing as the profile picture, then making a whole other drawing as the actual promo art which would have taken tons more time!! The art I made of Otto was definitely absolutely for sure meant to be promo art given how gnarly it is so yay everything does indeed happen for a reason I love the universe cambridge you should love the universe too :D We should all love the universe!!! YAYYYYYYYY!!!! Down below I'll put some supa awesome pictures of my art processes so you English lads could be all like "wowee this emi valdivia is super duper cool and talented we should give her an A+++++++++++ on her exam wowwww I am totally not writing this sentence to fill up this empty void of the page lol lmao WHAT are you talking about bro you are CRAAAAAZZYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
Another thing I'd like to mention before I shove my art down your throat! The promo art was drawn on paper! What I did to make it look extra profesh and 1000x gnarlier was mess around a bit with the camera settings on my phone to get the exact look I wanted! The difference is HUGE man I am so happy we invented technology I love this computer I sometimes love my phone guys life is beautiful
Joaquin's "pentagram!" I based my version off of this :]
Our supa awesome profile pic! :] I love Otto's crappy pentagram
Raw shot of promo art
Grilled and ready to eat up shot of promo art!
Soon after making all these things, I combined all them together into one super awesome Instagram page!! WAHOOO!!!! YAYYYYYYY!! SHE DID IT EVERYBODY! EMI IS NOW AN INSTAGRAM INFLUENCER!! I was super stoked to start this, but at the same time I was like "woah wait lol what do I put as my username, what do I put as my bio, what do I put in the description of my first post?? GAH!!!" When it comes to making things like Instagram posts I always tend to overthink how to caption them. Once more I am a creative perfectionist at heart so this was a challenge for me! To help, I stalked a bit of last year's A-level blogs and went through some of their social media pages for inspiration on what to put on my own, and I'm happy to say it really helped! I followed a teeny tiny bit of a format, by first stating what our film is about and stating that it was all a project for AICE Media, buttt at the same time I put my own flare into it! Like always! Man I love when I do that!! If you look at that beautiful image I embedded up there, that is what I ended up with :] Guys have I ever mentioned how much I love this class
Then it was time for the real deal...making my first post ever! Thanks to the lovely Past Emi who planned out her entire page, I already knew what my goal was, and that was to post some promo art revealing our short film's title! The drawing part was easy since I already had it done so really all I needed to do was go into Canva, find a nice font, slap it on there, and boom bam! Post!
lol it wasn't that easy
Sooo I thought Canva was the way to go but finding a good font that matched the kooky, weird, occult, eerie vibe of our film was pretty dang hard! I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled and scrolleedddddd down the fonts list to find something decent and I did end up with something! But it wasn't quite right...both my group and I thought it definitely could be sharper! I always imagined my short film title to be super dupa sharp and eerie looking and yeah I wanted it to make a statement basically saying "YO THIS MOVIE IS CRAY CRAY AND KINDA MAYBE A LIL BIT SPOOKY!!" From Canva, I ended up with two versions of the same image, one with the title and "SPRING 2026" underneath it to tease the release and another with just the title. The one I ended up sending to my group though for feedback was the only title version cause something didn't quite feel right about the first version and I trust Emi intuition :D Down here I'll put all the two results I ended up with after working on Canva!
Canva version #1
Canva version #2
These looked too soft! Too friendly! Change was needed! I began then looking for other Canva fonts that had sharper edges but after like 15 more minutes of scrolling something in me was like, "yo emi you gotta get out of Canva and surf the web for some cooler fonts" and then I was like "yes!!! ur so right, something in me!!" So I got straight to it, went on Google, literally searched up "scary fonts" and got a nice result on https://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=110! The font I chose was the first one, called Ghastly Panic and I thought it looked SO GNARLY.
Ghastly Panic was literally was the exact look I was searching for and matched the vibe of our film perfectly! Luckily the font was downloadable and free to use so I pressed the pretty grey button to save it onto my computer! Thing was though! I was confused for a good amount of time BAHAHHAHA. I never really downloaded a font before since for all the media projects I've done in the past I've usually resorted to Canva, so this whole process was definitely something new to me and it took me a couple re-downloads, some Canva checks, and a few searches that ended up actually being useful! The overall result I got when searching "uhh lol uhhh how do I use downloaded fonts" was "go to Photoshop and you should see it there :D" and then BOOM KABAMMM BOOM POW EVERYTHING CLICKED!
Since my school county is the goat (sometimes), I was able to download Photoshop through Adobe Creative Cloud for free! WAHOO! I then began downloading and waited a couple minutes and yay there I was on the lovely software for the first time! I was immediately highkeyeuninely a little overwhelmed from just how much buttons and other stuffs were there but luckily my task was super simple! I just had to press the amazing "T" button, look for my downloaded font, and BOOM!!!!
It took me like 7 tries and then some to get it done all the way
LMFAOOOO
It's important to trust the process guys :D One day I will be an Adobe master. Wait no not even an Adobe master nahhhhh THE Adobe Master. Search up my name on Google one day in like 2050 everybody, you will see Emi Valdivia and underneath it will say "THE ADOBE MASTER" and then you'll be all like woaahhhhh she's so cool woaahhh can she sign my face waaoooohhhhhhhhhh
I ended up with something pretty cool :] I'm proud of myself for figuring all this out
Down below is the full on result + the actual Instagram post! I teased both parts of this image before, pretty cool seeing it all put together isn't that right ;D
BOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM
BOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM
Alrighty amigos, that'll be it for today's post :] I'm currently at the airport and my flight got delayed by like 2 hours so I'll be here a bit working on some more stuffs for the social media and blogging while I'm at it! This is SO awesome, I had so much work to do at the beginning of this break and now that it's ending, I got a heck of a ton out of the way and now feel so much better and ready to tackle the last quarter of my junior year :] Just 2 more months and I reach the big leagues everybody!
Bai bai sayonara blog :D See you all very soon in the next post!
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