Group Meeting #2

Well, here we are. Next week is the big week: the 4 CCRs are due as well as our final film project. We got to touch base again with some other groups for a final group meeting. It was really eye-opening to be able to hear how its been going with the other people in class. Everyone had at least one issue pop up and everyone’s been working hard: we all shared this in common. I wanted to give you a recap of how some of the other projects have been going. I’ve also included links to their blogs in case you want to check them out.

My Project: Coming-of-Age through Visual Storytelling

For my project, I talked about how we really leaned into visual storytelling rather than relying on dialogue. Because of this, editing became a major focus for us. We needed to make sure that we incorporated visually interesting and varied screenshots to make sure the story comes through clearly. One of the edits I’m most excited about is an overlay shot, where we put in visuals of us studying while a calendar counts down to decision day. We also played around with the pacing of the story to try and make sure that the emotions felt real. Our biggest challenge was trying to tell the story through dialogue in the beginning and we just couldn’t do that well with only two minutes. That is why we went dialogue-free and focused on our visual storytelling.

My Blog: Gotcha, you're already here ;)

Sienna: Coming-of-Age with a Party Scene Aesthetic

Sienna’s project is a coming-of-age film about Piper, who is about to graduate and walks into her own surprise party. The film dives into the nostalgia aspect as Piper looks back on her high school memories. One of these memories was about sneaking out to a gas station with her friends. One of the big challenges Sienna’s group faced was filming a car scene at night, which made lighting really difficult. They also had to shoot formal outfits for the graduation party, making sure the mise-en-scene of the party scene looked good. They were happy with how that came out.

Sienna’s Blog: https://studentblogger325.blogspot.com/

Sarojini: Switching Genres/Vintage Aesthetic

Sarojini’s group wanted to create a horror film initially but decided to switch to a rom-com because they wanted to break away from the usual horror genre. Their movie is inspired by movies like To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Clueless. It has a 1970s-inspired aesthetic to it. The plot is about a worker named Ethan, who finds a "Help Wanted" sign for a house. He meets Lilly, who is a "dream girl" type character. Their opening is all about the contrast between the two characters’ personalities. They had some issues with lighting while filming during dusk and that required them to reshoot on another day. They want to add a vintage filter in post-production to really nail the aesthetic they are after.

Sarojini’s Blog: https://sarojinicambridgeportfolioproject.blogspot.com/:

Santi: Technical Challenges/Special Effects

Santi’s film is almost completely done. However, he mentioned that they will need to change gas stations, and this will require a reshoot. The reason for this is that there was a gas station manager that was not too friendly with them and had an issue with filming at his site. Their biggest technical challenge has also been filming at dusk. They also struggled with lighting. So note to self, avoid filming at dusk in the future… Another cool aspect of their project is that they will be using CGI using After Effects. This is something not a lot of groups are doing.

Santi’s Blog: https://santisillyblog.blogspot.com/