Here are the finished products!!!

 Here are my 3 components: 

SOCIAL MEDIA: @mindfull_mindset

https://www.instagram.com/mindfull_mindset/

FILM FESTIVAL POSTCARD:

FRONT

BACK

SHORT FILM: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MyICxSO2O8

Critical Reflection

 

 Here is my critical reflection on Mindfull Mindset:

  

The short film, Mindfull Mindset, is shot from a perspective to display a day in the life of a man struggling with the voices he is hearing in his head.  The dynamic of the character versus himself is the theme that also uses the character’s desire to escape this situation through any means possible.

Mindfull Mindset is an experimental film shot in a way to have audiences feel emotion or have a reaction to what is being presented.  The genre of the piece is that of a psychological drama. The target audience is young adults from the ages of 17-35. The lead of the film is a male from Ecuador and the supporting actor is a female of Argentinian ethnicity. Gathering actors of Latin-American descent brings more global representation. According to Los Angeles Times, “USC’s 2020 inclusion study of 1,300 popular films found that 4.9% of speaking roles in 2019 movies went to Hispanic or Latino actors.'' Casting Latin Americans opens the audience to those who seek diversity of ethnicity represented in productions. Common displays throughout the film are physical activities that engage both male and female viewership. To gain attention for the short film, the social media page features images and clips which were taken throughout the filming process of the lead actor.

Branding for the film was also essential in the process of creating the social media page, the film-festival postcard, and the short film. The products I produced featured colors of black, white, red, green, and yellow. The project was showcasing dark elements. Clips and photos of Antonio with captions were designated to give small glimpses into the film with captions supporting the story of the film, for example, “don’t get swept up in a mind game.” Clips on the social media page were chosen to show his strength which would then be contrasted with his vulnerability.  The film itself is shot with low-key lighting to show a day-in-the-life observation of Antonio. The film displays abruptness in shot sequences to give a point of view as an observer rather than a simple view of his life.  The communication intended is to convey emotion to the viewer, based on the vulnerability they are presented with. The postcard is used to advertise a contrast of Antonio who is dealing with the psychological drama playing in his head. He was shown to be well put together and then thereafter the cracks in his existence lead to him being a broken-down version of himself. The background of the postcard is in a diamond shape featuring the sins by their representing color. In my research, I watched other short films and delved deeper into the idea of sin. I created the film to be surrounded by controlled voices which display sins and their characteristics. I utilized the idea, “Pride: Greed for Greatness” and “Sadness is closely related to envy” when creating my brand. Short films I watched on YouTube helped me develop the purpose of emotion I wanted to address as well as the composition of my shots. "Model Citizen" | Dystopian Animated Short Film (2020) inspired me with the ending I wanted to create for this film and my reaction follows the theme of - “Growing so quickly to care for the characters and the unfortunate ending was quite an emotion caused.” 

In my research to achieve the best emotional reaction to the film, I came across multiple audio elements. The piece, Identity SHORT FILM (Award Winning Inspirational Short), brought inspiration to me through its use of distortion in the audio effects. I was very interested in what sound effects I could implement in this film and how I could manipulate the voice acting dialogue with distortion. In both cases I mentioned in my research, I was impressed with the composition, especially the tint, which I learned was very typical in the thriller genre.  I was also impressed with how the lighting choices were used to help build the atmosphere and emotions of each short film thriller. "Model Citizen '' for instance built a conformity lifestyle that made a mundane feeling in the viewer, which ended with a twist that was built on the reliability created by that of the characters' earlier actions. I was invested in creating a twist in my storyline. Thrillers do produce bad endings. My piece more specifically lets you observe a life before, and quite unexpectedly, it ends. Having the main character die and then the supporting character’s role becomes the viewing subject. Following the genre conventions of thriller pieces, I attempt to build an atmosphere with the plot sequences. I do not entirely follow the emotional aspects produced by a thriller, because they contain more packed action and suspense than this film.  However, this film may follow more drama genre convention categories. There are more emotions dealt with in this piece rather than confrontations or conflicts. The character versus self allows the audience to view the character’s vulnerability and analyze what is being presented against these aspects.  

My piece can allow for both representations of age group and even ethnicity. The age and demographics allow for viewers the desire to see representation in production. My choices follow similar happenings of choosing a male lead and female support, but I made these choices specifically for this piece. My production, especially in my eyes, would develop into more of a drama rather than a thriller if I cast a female lead. The choice was made decisively for my lead role to showcase his vulnerability but also his capacity for strength. According to womanhollywood.com, “Female protagonists were most likely to appear in comedies (32%), followed by dramas (29%), and horror films (19%).” This fact has been addressed in most films, and this perception made me critically choose who would represent my piece.   

Working on Mindfull Mindset was to experience the emotions of a struggling man and how to manipulate a viewer into an emotional state. The mediums that helped to develop this film became the versions I envisioned.  

The End is Here

 I cannot believe my project is over. From week one of having a simplistic idea of sins and mind control to having my short film be done, print component created, social media developed, a critical reflection produced, and blogged my entire experience. 

It hurt a lot when editing because I had more footage than the time permitted. I am pushing the limits by just not exceeding 8 minutes. Cutting shots that I loved and filmed was difficult but needed to be done. This whole process has been crazy and I cannot be more thankful for the friends who helped me through it. 

From hectic shooting to fitting in random moments of communication about the project. I am more proud of this project than last year's project. It is amazing to see what I have created and the issues I did have not hindering the final product by much. I couldn't have gotten all of these shots without the kindness of Antonio and Sofia. 

My next posts will be my final products and I hope that you enjoy them. It was a lot of hard work that paid off.

thank you and stay tuned...

Finishing the Project

 Working on the project I have furthered editing and have gotten more of the scenes that were complicated to get. I was struggling to get scenes done with TJ independently and Sofia independently. I finally got the last scene I needed with Sofia. 

There were complications of not being able to use her house so I reached out to one of my best friends to film at her house. We finished that filming and got our ending scene ready for editing. TJ has been quite difficult to get for filming in his last scenes. Sofia also recorded voice overs for me to use which I will input after finishing video editing. 

I got his night driving scene and now can edit that while trying to catch him for the blackout scene. During editing, my program did keep shutting down, so there was the stress of losing my work but thankfully I didn't. 

I have been also working on the social media page in the meantime. 

stay tuned...

Finishing post card

 The weekend was hectic but I was thankful to make great strides in almost completely finishing the print aspect of my project.

Photoshop was very difficult and I spent over an hour just trying to follow a tutorial and not figuring out why I was so unsuccessful. Sofia is in AP Photo and was able to help me figure out how to make any progress. One issue was the format of my photo was not correct to do any layering or modifications to, which I didn't know. Transfering png to jpg and another transferring of format had to be done. 

This is the front of the postcard image:

The back of the postcard is going to be the logo I developed a few weeks ago (just without the title on it so I can include information on top):

I then worked in canva for a couple of hours to finish the postcard:

I included the film festival and some voice-over lines that will be in the short film. My disgraceful production is my own created production name that I used last year and wanted to use again. The name seems to support the piece as well. 

stay tuned...

Postcard film festival

 To create my postcard, I need a film festival for my short film to take place. I did research on short film festivals in Florida. I refined the search to upcoming festivals that are still open. I found a promising one but could not find any submission page so I moved on to another festival. 

the mission statement that strives for independent filmmakers to feature their work

how this film festival is growing in popularity and plans for the future expansion of the film festival

I found this festival off of filmfreeway.com 

All of this information showed me that the festival is an ongoing film festival for short films that have been growing in popularity every year. There are multiple categories for awards and the event spans three days which allows for networking and exposure for my short film. 

stay tuned...

Make progress

 After editing the last post, I learned how to splice clips. I needed to do that very badly with the clips I put together and cleaned up the best I could. After editing a second round I had a random peer look over my project for the first time and help point out the awkward moments - this is where I did the splicing. 

this was before

this is after reviewing clips and editing

While I have begun editing, I also am getting the remaining film clips. I was able to shoot the morning scene and start with the print aspect of my project. I took photos with Antonio that I will photoshop for the postcard. 

Here's one of the photos taken:

I have planned to get the remaining shots on a Tuesday. Until then I can edit and do print aspects and begins my Critical Reflection.

stay tuned...

Editing!!!

 I am so happy to have started editing! I know I do not have all of the scenes filmed but I saved space in the program to insert and begin editing what I can. It is difficult to match some of the scenes but I am working with what I have and planning for the next.

working on multiple devices
- I edited the clip that I knew I needed splicing and resent to my laptop and was able to easily import the file to continue editing efficiently.

For a specific shot, I needed to splice it and I was having difficulty doing so on Premiere. It has been a while since my last experience on Premiere, so I decided to work from my phone because I knew how I needed to do what I wanted. I am so glad in my investment in buying a computer before this product that works along with my phone in production. 

I organized all of the clips I recorded on my phone into favorites (which would be useful clips) and then combined them into an album and then sent the album to my computer. From that, I was able to start editing in sections. 

For later choices in Instagram uploads, I know there are quite a few bloopers (which I would like to upload) and I can sort through these favorite videos to find the actual clips. 

I do know from editing today that I would need to reshoot those night shots I took previously with TJ because there is music that is interfering with the car audio. Planning to film tomorrow the morning scene and just carefully maneuvering the lighting to configure an early morning, because there really are no more opportunities to film in the morning. If there is extra time tomorrow, I will try to get some film time with Sofia before there are scheduling mishaps. 

stay tuned...

Starting editing process

 I am talking to Sofia about the final shot I need with her. I need the morning scene with TJ still and the blackout scene. Sofia and I will work with the needed voices and lines after I finish all of the shots and start editing. 

I just got very sick and have been unable to do much on the front of shooting or editing. I have been trying all day between the times I am resting to upload all of the content I created. My Icloud did not have enough storage to just sync the content from my phone. I upgraded my storage and have been trying many facets all day to upload the scenes I recorded. 

In the meantime, I have been able to make an Instagram post. By tomorrow I should be feeling better and will be able to get more of my content uploaded. If I did it manually, it would take quite some time to upload one video let alone the almost 100 shots I have. Included there are bloopers that I would like to edit on Adobe Premiere for Instagram.

I am now at 8 posts on Instagram and this is how it is looking: 

stay tuned...

good progress

 Thursday we were able to film the required scenes for TJ and Sofia. There was a strain on filming Thursday morning for the morning scene in the film. TJ asked to reschedule and we almost had to reschedule the Thursday night shooting. 

I talked with Sofia on Wednesday about filming the additional shot we need at the end of the film when we find out that TJ got into a car accident. She agreed to do it and we can plan to film that simple scene soon. I had an idea to film it like those films where the 50s housewife who killed her husband gets told her husband died and has to act surprised. A little malicious in intent for the scene. We also agreed to change the Voiceover work for the sins to be Sofia's voice. She can record three different voices and I will modify them post-production. 

Here are some shots I grabbed of the shooting on Thursday:

The week goes on

 Tomorrow I will be filming the morning scene for the film with TJ in the morning. Hopefully, I can take some camera shots for Instagram when I finish those shots. As always I will look through the footage for clips I can post or other stills that look interesting. I am waiting to post more on Instagram until I get a new source of different shots. I could post more shots from the gym, but I don't want to overcrowd Instagram with the same look. 

My most recent post was a character name announcement:

On my iPhone I can see the insights of my account and how the hashtags are reaching other accounts:

           

Of the images I captured and included in my last blog post, I think I may do a quick post including them to create a surrounding theme of my posts. Following 1-2-1 where the ones represent the same scenes and the 2 follow a different theme. 

I am reaching out to Sofia to film tomorrow night and I hope she is back in town. I made a plan for the voices to be represented with her voice but modified in editing. This idea stemmed from creating a deeper infliction on Antonio where the viewer would realize that the voices were her and the revealed plot twist at the end would then support her character build-up. 

stay tuned...

keeping it going

 I went through the shots I filmed of Tj and took some screenshots for the Instagram. The shots work well for the voices in his head to be added in post-production. The sound of the car on the speeding shots isn't quite loud but I think I can manipulate the audio in post-production to increase the volume. If I need more car sounds I can even ask TJ to shoot his car again or other coworkers with their loud cars.

Here are some looks of the shots:

 

I will be seeing TJ later today or tomorrow so we can talk more about the needed morning clips. When Sofia gets back, which I think is before Thursday, we can work out the scenes we need her in.

stay tuned...

Production progresses

 My production has been progressing both on social media and in filming. Thursday I was able to begin filming and friday I was able to begin to looking over the footage and utilizing what was filmed into what I can create with it. I'll show those posts I have done.

second post

third post

I then began filming and added a behind the scenes clip of my filming on my Instagram.

 

4th post

Thankfully the filming I was able to accomplish happened. TJ had a very limited availability that day and I was able to get all the shots we needed for the gym scene and a couple of driving shots in that time. TJ went out of town for the weekend, so I am going through my shots and maybe even start editing those shots. If I edit now then I will have the clips done when I need to go through other footage.

I am already working on my next instagram posts and figuring out what I can post later. 

stay tuned

ideas

I planned to film this week but scheduling has been quite difficult in that process. I was reaching out to TJ for possible times to film this week but he had agreed to a spontaneous weekend trip. Luckily, the date for the 24th to film is set but I did recently realize I will need to film Sofia one more time after that. To have Sofia address the simulation death, I thought of a scene:

 We see surrounding shots of nature or around an empty house. We see a phone on a kitchen countertop and see it light up after making a weird notification sound. We watch Sofia walk in casually and peer at the screen. She reads the screen, "subject 82155 is no longer active" we watch her response to this casually, "I thought he would've lasted longer" then "on to the next."

Working on the logo took quite some time but I am happy with how it turned out. I took multiple screenshots before the final product to include.

Before posting the final image I included - I want to run some edits over it but the design itself is finished. I enjoy the chaotic triangles that are all linked to create one that resembles a perfect shape. This idea I made stems from the three sins taking over TJ's mind and how they hold a grasp over the regular configurations. His mind is filled with negative influences that are slowly corrupting him. The logo will become my icon on Instagram and I will have a post with the title of the short film (as seen above).

stay tuned...

group meeting

Today, we broke the classroom into three groups and got to discuss our pieces. It was surprising how many other students were also doing short films. We were able to discuss our projects and receive support for our ideas. Similarly, we all have not gotten far in the filming process but are planning to do so quite soon. 

I discussed my project sequence and how I recently realized there is a gap I needed to create a scene for because my plans for shooting would not accurately equate from early morning to late night in the original plan I had. So my plan was to film really early in the morning and end my project late at night. However, going to the gym early and leaving for a run at night need a bridging scene for continuity. I was able to discuss this error of planning and an idea was able to be produced to help this sequence error. 

The idea was to create that shot I originally thought in planning a surrounding shot of Anthony having a mental rush of voices where it makes him break down. I could have this scene when he gets home and then he blacks out. When he eventually wakes up he would take a run to clear his mind. 

I am almost finished with my logo on the production side of social media and even posted my first post. 

Creating my logo has taken quite a bit of work to create the idea I envisioned. I am almost done and my new medium to produce the logo is https://www.canva.com

In my next blog post, I will show the finished product after all of the difficulties. 

stay tuned...

Designing

 

I have been trying to create a logo I envisioned but the tools of Adobe Illustrator are not so easy. I created the perfect shape I wanted however I cannot figure out how to color it and have been struggling. I looked up phrases and other ways to articulate my issue however there has been no help. Apparently, the lines I created into a shape are not a shape themselves but I don't know how to make it a shape.  want my logo to be my first post but it is not working.

My needs for my social media page are an ominous photoshoot with TJ and figuring out how to create illustrations. I tried switching my canvas to google slides for their shaping tools but I was no better helped on either software. 

slides

adobe

I may be able to see TJ later in the day if we work together so I am hoping I can pull him aside to take some quick photos for the social media page. I think Sofia works today so I can try to get a photo of her as well to follow later on the social media page. I am envisioning a serious-looking off pose so there is mystery as to who the characters are but audiences are enticed. I will do more research into my issue on Adobe Illustrator to see if I can still use the software for my logo or maybe there is a better application for that. 

Takeaways: I begin filming next week and finish filming the next. I will work towards my social media page this week and get posts going. (Of the accounts I found on Instagram I received a follow back). I need to get a day TJ doesn't work to begin filming and do a photoshoot. Either Tuesday or Thursday will be successful to work with TJ. I am going to try to get the beginnings of my photos today if I see either of my characters. Researching how to Illustrate and make my logo. Maybe get the shots I pictured for the poster and start photoshopping my idea. 

stay tuned...