In class this week, I focused on writing my script. I had originally planned on finishing it and beginning filming on Saturday March 2nd, but I then realized that was entirely unrealistic, especially if I want to create something of real quality. I did still end up getting some shots at my dad's office, since he has a pretty empty conference room so I can practice and experiment with editing and have some content for the social media page, but more on that in the next post.
I am not yet done with the script, however as I am writing I am realizing more how dependent the piece is going to be on specific props and costumes in order to tell each character's story in the most effective way possible. This is going to be even more challenging since I am limited to the resources I currently have and a very limited amount of money I could actually spend on getting props that I can't find on my own. Good thing the dollar store exists.
Throughout the script, I also decided to not add names to the characters. They are simply identified by the color that characterizes them, or in the personification of death, just "Death". I thought of doing this because in not giving them a name, the characters can represent anyone. It is also just more simple at this point in the writing process. Them having or not having names will not effect the plot, however I do acknowledge they could represent anyone even if they did have names.
"Stare"
Another realization that dawned on me while working on the script, was that I needed a title for the short film. At first I thought of naming it "The Room" since the main setting took place in a room, but that didn't go with what I was trying to create. It made the short film feel more like a horror situation, which is not what i am going for. Just "Room" didn't work either as, again, it didn't quite go with what I wanted, and also there is a very popular 2019 movie staring Brie Larson with the exact same name. I tried experimenting with maybe making the title the name of the character that would be personifying "Death" but I couldn't find a name that really stuck, and I also didn't want "death" to be something that could be so easily identified by a name since the whole point of the short film is how death can be perceived in many ways, and it is not just tied down to one label or perception.
I still had no title for my short film and felt completely stuck. Out of no where, I'm washing my hair and getting ready to go to the office to get some practice shots for the project, when the name "Stare" dawned on me. It was perfect. It encapsulates my film as a whole without giving anything away. "Stare" literally refers to the fact that the personification of death is always staring directly at the camera, but it also refers to the idea that all the characters which "Death" encounters, have death staring them in the face, and subsequentially, so does the audience.
I unfortunately grossly overestimated the amount of time that I had this week after school, and while I've been working well throughout the week, I still found I scheduled out my week wrong. Regardless of my miscalculation, the show must go on, and I will make sure that this upcoming week I properly organize myself. This week was time to start researching our social media component for the portfolio project. Below are three social media pages for pieces of media that either inspired my film idea, or are of a similar genre.
Midsommar
Social media tool:
Instagram
Description of types of posts:
The posts consist of a healthy combination of pictures and videos. In the week leading up to the release of the movie, there is a series of posts counting down the days till the release. In each post, clips of the movie are shown, each seeming to follow and introduce a different character or different significant aspects of the film. As the posts go on, they get more and more intense as well.
Before this, the pages first two posts consisted of the movie's posters, clips of the trailer and movie, as well as one post that has an image or clip from the film with a quote from critics praising the film. In these particular posts, the use of what looks like a piece of paper burned at the edges is used to display the quotes.
Description of how branding is developed (or not):
Throughout the page, the color is consistent, with a very pastel color palette, and overexposed images that are consistent with the aesthetic of the movie. There are also a lot of colorful flowers included throughout the social media that are very important to the premise of the film. Despite the pleasant color design and flower elements, the content includes content that raises fear and suspense with the audience.
BoJack Horseman
Social media tool:
Instagram
Description of types of posts:
The account takes on a creative approach to promoting the show, by making the account a personal account for the titular character of the show, BoJack Horseman. Through out the page there are pictures of him promoting the Netflix series itself, or promoting the projects that he is shown being in with in the actual show. All the posts consist of the animated characters in the show.
Even the captions on the posts are very indicative of BoJack's personality, and fit right in with something viewers may see him say or do in the actual show. There are even screenshots from notes apps, that give further insight into the life and mind of some of the characters.
Description of branding and how its developed (or not):
On the Instagram page, the brand is developed through the developing of the main character's personal social media page. Through this, the show's overall cynical and day-in-the-life of a celebrity tone. The use of posts of the animated character's promoting their work and sharing moments with one another, makes the viewer feel like these are real celebrities, which is perfect for the show since it often includes the names and faces of celebrities from the real world, as well as parodied versions of things that exist in the real world too.
World of Tomorrow
Social Media tool:
YouTube
Description of types of posts:
The YouTube page for which the short film is promoted on Don Hetzfeldt's page. On this page he promotes World of Tomorrow by posting clips of the short film as well as a trailer, and clips of episodes that come after the original film. Its important to note that this film is based on YouTube, so the platform it's promoted on is the same platform that it is shown on.
Description of branding and how its developed (or not):
The brand for this short film is very futuristic, and almost ominous. All of the clips and trailers have ominous music playing in the background. This along with the black screens with various quotes of praise for the film interjecting clips from the film itself help to create a very particular tone that is incredibly futuristic and mysterious. The page itself uses images from the short film as the profile picture and banner, highlighting it as Don Hertzfeldt's most popular project.
As I mentioned in a previous post, my short film is going to follow the personification of death as they encounter different people and witnesses their reactions to "death". For the film, I want death to start off as all black and white, and as they go through each person, they will gain the color of said person until at the very end, "death" is colorful, representing how death is anything that people view it as. Each person and their view will be visually represented by costumes and especially their color scheme.
Each Character and their Color
In no particular order right now, one of the characters that "death" encounters will be blue, representing an individual who is perfectly at peace with the idea of eventually dying, believing that there is a better life awaiting after. The yellow character will be obsessive, fixated on avoiding death by illness at all costs, consequentially becoming dependent on pills in the process. The next character will be purple, depicting the fantasy or delusion that this character can simply avoid death all together, causing them to be reckless and over confident. The orange character would be someone who happily welcomes death with open arms, almost as if they were longing for deaths warm embrace. Green will represent a person who is dealing with survivors guilt over someone who died in a car accident they were both in, envying their death and wishing that they were the ones who died instead. Finally, the pink character would be someone younger and innocent, who does not quite grasp the full idea of what death is and what it means to die.
While I'm not sure if I will have enough time in the film to flesh out the character for every single reaction and color listed above, my overall idea is to try to incorporate as many depictions and reactions to death as possible in the most meaningful and effective way I can.
Since mise-en-scene is going to be extremely important in my short film, especially the colors, I feel that it's important that to do research how colors work in film to help convey specific tones and meanings.
Different Presentations of Color
Color is more than just its hue. According to a 2020 article by Josephine Holmstrom, "How Movies Use Color to Create Emotion", colors are described by three aspects, hue, saturation and value. A color's hue is what what would be seen on a rainbow or color wheel. Blue, red, and yellow, for example, are what we'd use to describe the hue of a color. Saturation is how intense the color is, for example pastel blue and neon blue are two different saturations of the same hue. The more saturated the color, the more intense it is, and the purer form of the color it is. The final aspect of colors is its value, or how dark it is. An example of this would be the difference between dark blue and light blue. A high-value color is a color that is lighter or has had white added to it, while the opposite is true for low-value colors. It seems to be noted that in films with less saturated color palettes, more pastels, typically take on a more light hearted tone, while more intense saturations and darker shades take on a more serious and intense tone.
How Each Color Works in Film
Colors can help create a specific tone or feeling that a filmmaker wants to portray, and each color can be used to portray different emotions depending on the filmmaker's vision. Red, for example, can be used to highlight aggression and anger, as well as love and passion. Purple is often used to depict mystery, delusion, and even death.
Green can be used to depict abundance and nature, but it is also often used to depict envy and even evil like in many Disney films.
Outer Banks (2020)
Orange can represent vibrance, enthusiasm, and warmth.
Titanic (1997)
Blue can depict cold, depression, peace, and loyalty, while yellow can often signify insecurity, obsession, and illness.
Pink is used to depict femininity, sweetness, and charming. However, in some cases like Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix(2007), the great amounts of pinks used for the costuming of the character is used to starkly contrast her actually cruel and cold hearted personality. This technique can be used with all colors, and in this case, the contrast makes the character appear all the more sinister.
Color can also be used to draw attention to important aspects in a film. For example, in Steven Spielberg's 1995 film Schindler's List, there is a little girl in a red coat, the only thing that is saturated throughout the film. This not only draws the viewers attention, but is also representative of the imminent danger that awaits her.
These are just some of the ways that color can be used in film. In my next post, I will discuss how I plan to use these colors in my short film.
In attempting to create a better concept for my short film, I decided to do what I always do, and start writing down any words that came to mind when I thought of what I wanted to do for my portfolio project. I started out with writing the names of of media pieces that have been on my mind a lot recently and that I wanted to use as inspiration for my short film.
Bojack Horseman
The first was the Netflix original series,
Bojack Horseman. I thought of this show in particular because I recently started re-watching it while I was home sick. I really like how it portrays really deep issues like addiction, as well as existential dread, which is shown through a lot of the main cast, especially with Bojack himself. I like how the show is existential and even unsettling a at times in terms of its visuals. I want my piece to be something that forces the viewer to look internally, maybe even get a little uncomfortable in terms of thinking of the existential.
Opal
The second was the work of YouTuber Jack Stauber. Particularly his animated short film Opal. This short is by far my favorite of Stauber's work, and I love how unsettling and dark it is. The short follows a young girl Opal who lives in a very cheery household where her family sings about how they see her and love her and they eat cheese burgers. All this while reminding Opal to not pay attention to the house across the road, Opal however, becomes increasingly drawn to the house. She eventually goes to the house and goes inside, encountering the horrifying residents that live there, one by one. From this piece I really like the atmosphere of it all. I, unfortunately, can't do an animated short film as I am not an artists in that manner. However, I want to create a similar atmosphere in my short film, one that is weird, and once again slightly unsettling.
World of Tomorrow
While I had written both of these pieces down, I still had no idea what I was going to do, and how I would incorporate the color elements into my short film. When I asked my friends in class about it, an kind of told them how I wanted to make something weird but that still had a message of some sort, my friend Ace recommended I watched the short film World of Tomorrow by Don Hertzfeldt. He said that it was very colorful and had a sort of atmosphere that I was talking about. I immediately decided to watch it, taking notes on techniques that stood out to me and that I'd like to incorporate into my project, like the heavy use of foully sound. Besides that however, I was not getting much that could help me draw ideas, that was until future Emily described her first job of working with robots on the moon, and programming them to fear death as a way to keep them in the light side of the moon. This sparked an idea.
Short Film Concept
For my short film, I've decided on creating a psychological film about the different views of death. The idea is that death will be represented as a person who will start off in all black and white in an empty room. As they move about the room, different people appear in front of them, reacting to them in extremely different ways, this being representative of the various ways people view death and the after life. This can vary from coming to terms with death and being at peace, being in denial about eventually dying, being mortified of the idea of dying, and feeling depressed and like nothing matters because they will eventually die anyway. All of these would manifest in different and very extreme ways like drug/alcohol addiction or Each person will be characterized visually by a different color. As "death" moves between each person, they will gain the color of the last person they spoke to, until at they end they are colorful and have adopted the color of every single person they encountered. The adoption of color is meant to be a visual symbol of how death is whatever anyone thinks it to be, that any ideology on death is equally valid.
For the colors I was thinking of using colored lighting, costuming, and editing to make the drastic color differences. For the black and white to adopting color I am thinking I will rely a lot on editing, however I need to figure out how exactly I would go about it. While I still have to solidify how exactly I am going to execute the color changes and changes in color, I’m very excited for this project and how it will turn out.
For my project, I've decided it would be really cool to show different perspectives on the same event, using colors as a driving force of how the character's emotions are visually portrayed. While I am still on the fence about it, right now I am thinking of using my idea of the kids' reaction after a parents divorce, however, instead of the mise-en-scene coinciding with he stages of grief, I want it to reflect the two kid's reactions to it. For example, one of them blames themselves for the divorce and is very sad, so the mise-en-scene is primarily blue. The other one knew something the other kid didn't, like one of the parents was unfaithful, so they're very mad about the situation and the mise-en-scene is primarily red.
For this I would most likely only use two to three perspectives since the short film is only around five minutes, I want to make sure I am able to properly develop each perspective in the piece. This week I plan to finalize my short film idea, do some research on color theory in film, and on Friday, watch Hero (2004) to get ideas for how I can format the film and see a movie which follows the format of showing different perspectives/versions of a story.
For this project, it's crucial to have a set and organized schedule in order to get everything done, especially since, at least for me personally, the first few weeks of this project are going to be extremely hectic due to extracurriculars involving theater. Below is a rough schedule for how I plan to approach this project.
Week One:
-choose project genre
-research genre and story ideas
-begin developing full film plot
-post to blog
Week Two:
-continue research on project components
-continue to develop story – land on final ideas
-post to blog
Week Three:
-continue to research/plan project components (digital/print)
-develop script or outline
-develop filming/editing schedule
-create shot list/storyboard
-create social media tool
-post to blog
Week Four:
-continue to research/plan project components
-begin production of video component
-document production process (for social media and blog)
-post to social media
-post to blog
Week Five:
-continue to research/plan project components
-continue production of video component
-start edit video component
-begin planning print component
-post to social media
-post to blog
Week Six:
-continue post-production of video component
-continue planning of print component
-post to social media
-post to blog
Week Seven:
-research information relating to Critical Reflection
-finalize video component
- work on print/digital components
-post to social media
-post to blog
Week Eight:
-research information relating to Critical Reflection
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