Production: Day 2

Our second day of production was a lot less filming. On Thursday at 5:30
Rachel and I met up and we went through our footage. After our first day of
filming Rachel had already pointed out that we were missing a shot for an
eyeline match so we knew we would have to go out and get that but before we
did we wanted to make sure we didn't need anything else. I made sure to bring
all of our props just in case we did need to reshoot any footage, luckily the only
shot we were missing was that eyeline match of the tree so there was no need
to repeat the hair and makeup process again. We quickly drove to The Ridges
at around 6:40 and got the shot of the tree that we needed.

From there we went back to Rachel’s house and got to work on editing. From the
beginning one of our biggest concerns would be that we wouldn't have enough
footage, because it’s hard to estimate how long each shot will be based on just a
storyboard. Rachel had already chopped up about half of the footage and our
problem ended up being that we had too much footage rather than not enough. So
we spent some time making the shots nice and tight as well as speeding up some
of the shot we felt went by too slow, we couldn’t completely omit many of the shots,
which was our original plan if it came out too long, but the shots all work together
in a sequence to tell the story. We did however, manage to cut our opening down
from 2:48 to 2:08

.

Then came the music, Rachel and I both really liked how the song I found, “English
Country Garden” fit with our opening but it really was too short, so I have spent some
time trying  edit the music, but, basically recomposing the music is not something I am
too well versed in so I’ll be giving it a few more tries and if it doesn’t work we have
already started looking for other options.

Foreal Foreal Filming

First Day of Filming: CHECK ! Yesterday Rachel and I finally began shooting
and it was actually a lot of fun. We started off around 2:30, we went to Office
Depot and AC Moore to buy the last few props we needed which included a
pink pen and a bunch of fake flowers (that just so happened to be on sale !).
From there we went to our local public library and borrowed their last copy of
Moby Dick. We stayed at the library, since it was near our filming location, to do
any last minute props - the to-do list and the fluffy part of the pen- and we also did
all the hair and makeup in the back of the library, I was so worried that we would
get kicked out but we stayed very quiet  and courteous so none of the librarians,
or security, or other library goers seemed to mind to me curling Rachel’s hair.

At around 5:30 we headed towards our filming location, The Ridges, we spent
the next hour or so waiting for golden hour by setting up our garden of fake flowers,
practicing the staging of some of the shots, and making sure our tree was in fact climbable.

By 6:30 golden hour was finally coming around. Knowing we only had about an
hour before the sunset we really began to grind as much as we could, I had brought
copies of the storyboard and the script so we could both follow along. We had to
shoot all the shots in chronological order since we wanted to make sure the lighting
was realistic and the sun didn’t seem lower at the beginning than at the end , it also
helped us stay organized and not forget which shots we had already gotten and which
we had missed.

Everything was shot on my iPhone 7, so once we finished our day of filming
we headed back to Rachel’s house and immediately airdropped all the footage
to her Mac which was super efficient and simple. We looked through the footage
quickly to see which version of the shots would work best, and then I went home.
Rachel then continued to crop the videos and play around with saturation and color
grading. I’d say it was a pretty successful day of filming !

Nearing the Final Weeks

I have just returned from Tampa a few hours ago and let's say it was a
fever dream of a trip. Unfortunately, I was unable to record the audio for
Mother Winola’s line while on the trip due to time constraints, hopefully
later in the week I will be seeing Caitlin so we can actually get the line recorded
or we will have to get someone else to do it.

Most upsetting of news to deliver in this blog post is that our actress for Alice
will no longer be able to perform the role for personal reasons. Rachel and I
have decided that Rachel will instead be taking on the role because as the say
in the theater, “the show must go on.” This project has definitely proven itself a
challenge considering all of the things that have not gone as planned. Nevertheless,
Rachel and I continue to work with what we have. Tomorrow we plan to begin
filming, as of right now that is all we have planned since intense planning hasn’t
exactly been working in our favor these days. After tomorrow we will assess the
footage we get and decide if we need to reshoot anything and from there we will
begin the editing process.

The Voice of our Lovely Tree

Mother Winola is what we have named our fantastic talking tree. As I’ve already said a
million times she is a sapient, wise, caring tree who provides comfort and guidance to
Alice as she goes through life. I stumbled across the name Winola while looking for
names for Alice, I felt like the name was a bit too mature for a little girl but that it would
suit an older woman, the name means charming friend and since our film is about the
friendship between Alice and the tree I felt that it fit well. We decide to add the “Mother”
to her name so that she could have a title with a familial vibe to it, like Grandmother Willow
from Pocahontas

Rachel and I knew that the person who voiced our tree needed to have a soothing
and guiding voice. Ideally we needed a grandma, but, unfortunately we had none
at our disposal. So, I began my search for the perfect voice of our tree. I thought of
all of the adults I knew who might want to help us out but I felt that none of them
could give the delivery and performance that we wanted. I moved on with my search
by going through my friends who’d like to help and I came up with two people

Ameerah Adetoro and Caitlin Turner, funnily enough they will be sharing the role of Ms.
Darbus in our production of High School Musical, this year. I felt that these two both
captured the essence of Mother Winola. Their voices have a more, for lack of a better word,
mature feel to them and I knew that either one of them would have no trouble giving all the
emotion that Mother Winola’s one line demands. Originally I had asked Ameerah to supply
her voice because I happen to see her more often. But with my trip to Tampa, getting Ameerah
to record for me would’ve been a little difficult. Luckily, Caitlin will be going on the trip with
me, and not only that but she will also be rooming with me ! So, we have planned to create a
makeshift recording studio in our hotel room to get production rolling. I’m writing these blog
posts in advance since I won’t have too much time while on my trip but hopefully I’ll be able
to attach some photos of the recording process before posting this to my blog.

So, What is our Ultimate Goal

When audiences come to view our film we want them to be transported to a sort of
fantastical place that lives in the mind of a child. We want varying age ranges to
come into this film and leave feeling like they were able to connect with characters;
whether they see their current selves or their past selves, by focusing on that element
of childish wonder we want audiences to have an emotional response when they
walk away.

So, how will we get our audience to feel all of this ? Well I guess I should start with
who we want to view our product; our primary target audience will be kids age 8-16
and our secondary audience will be the parents of these kids/adults age 30-50. At
first Rachel and I thought we should begin by distributing our film at a film festival
and then moving onto bigger screens as the film gains traction and becomes more
successful, but then we realized we have no idea if our film will receive enough
attention to make it to box office. We have decided instead to release our film on
Netflix. The benefits of releasing content on Netflix are plentiful, they have a built in
audience with currently 125 million paid streaming subscribers all around the world far
more than Hulu, Sling TV, and Youtube TV combined. Moreover, many people in
Generation Y and Z have never subscribed to a paid TV service and older people in
Generation X (our secondary target audience) are starting to adopt the habits of their
children/the younger generation with wanting content available on mobile devices.
Which is why we have decided to release our film on Netflix. Although we will have
to rely on word-of-mouth to get our film popular, it is the platform that will be most
easily accessible and convenient to all of our audiences.

Real Life Situations in a Make-believe World: The Rest of our Film and its Role in the Media

In case anyone was not aware Rachel and I will not be filming a 2 hour long feature film
unfortunately, but, I thought it would be a good idea to discuss what we would want the
plot of our film to be if we had the opportunity to create the entire movie. That way we
can all have a better understanding of how our film “fits” in the media.

Essentially, in our film we are developing this relationship between girl and tree over the
course of 3 years - starting when Alice is 12/13. We want Mother Winola to be a grandmother
type figure to Alice so we would depict Alice coming to visit the tree everyday and she’d tell
the tree about her day and her problems and Mother Winola would give Alice advice and explain
to Alice her role as a human in nature. The central conflict introduced in the film would be that
Alice finds out the area where Mother Winola resides will be destroyed and deforested to make
room for a big corporate factory. After learning about and spending so much time in nature with
her tree, Alice knows she must put a stop to this. Mother Winola who always has the right advice,
tells Alice that she should not get involved since she is just a child and has no real power in this
situation; for the first time ever Alice goes against what Mother Winola tells her and attempts to
put an end to the destruction of her favorite place. In the end she succeeds and begins an initiative
to protect the environment and plant more trees, Alice proves to herself, Mother Winola, and
everyone else that it doesn’t matter how old or young you are, anyone can provoke change.

We’ve decided to label our film a fantasy drama. Because of these mystical elements
that we want to incorporate, a talking tree, obviously in our two minute time frame we
will not be depicting much else of the world Alice lives in, that will be left to the
imaginations of viewers, however it can be inferred that Alice does live a quite
fantastical life. So we will be taking advantage of the magic, made up creatures,
and supernatural aspect of the fantasy genre side of our film. I have a whole blog post
about the fantasy genre, and since we will be staying true to most if not all of its conventions
that post will definitely be a point of reference in making and marketing this film. As for the
drama genre side we will also be incorporating many of its conventions. For instance,
creating characters that the audience can empathize with, building tension that leads to
an intense climax, ultimately we hope to move the audience emotionally and leave them
with a lasting impression.

We want our audience to question their role in nature. Deforestation and the destruction
of our Earth by man is an extremely prominent issue at this time, according to the United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, an estimated 18 million acres of forest are
lost because of deforestation each year. Audiences should leave thinking about how
kind they’ve been to the environment throughout their lives, and if they haven’t been
very kind to hopefully give them a change in perspective. In addition, we will also be
representing the idea that anyone can provoke change regardless of age, color,
orientation, religion, etc. In our film a little girl decides she wants to abide by her morals
and stand up to a big corporation that is trying to destroy the home of her friend which is
also at this point a home to her as well; in all her efforts, she succeeds we want this to
resonate with our audience, to show all the little girls watching that they too can make
change if they work hard enough.

The Magical Youtube Audio Library

Youtube has this amazing feature that gives anyone with an internet connection
access to over thousands of copyright free music and sound effects. It is beyond
easy to navigate and super simple to use, simply go to https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music
or just google “youtube audio library” and you are immediately transported to a heaven of free
downloadable music !

The tracks come up seemingly at random when you are on this page, but at the top
you have options to browse for a specific genre, mood, instrument, duration, and/or
attribution. Personally I wasn’t completely sure what I was looking for so I spent
some time just scrolling and playing different songs I thought might work based on
the genre/mood description given on the right side of a given track. I found a few that
really liked and thought would fit the tone we want to set; I’ll be sending them to Rachel
to get her opinion, but, I don’t think we’ll have decided which song to use until after filming.

Here is a list of the songs I found and might be using, and some extra comments as well:
“Mysteries” by: Dan Lebowitz
“1940s Slow Dance (sting)” by: Doug Maxwell/Media Right Productions. I think this
sting could work for our opening/establishing shot to play while the title shows; it kind of
gives me a Wizard of Oz vibe and I love it.
“Campfire Song” by: Chris Haugen
“English Country Garden” Aaron Kenney. I really love this song and think it fits the
tone so well, my only problem with it is that it’s a little short.
“Parkside” by: Dan Lebowitz
“Morning Mandolin” by: Chris Haugen

To download the songs is extremely easy, all you do is click the downward facing arrow
that is on the right hand side of the screen that corresponds with the track you want and
it gets downloaded to a folder on your computer. Here’s how it looks on mine.

Our First Draft of a Completed Storyboard

I finally had the chance to finish drawing our storyboard which is amazing because
now we have a visual aid to help us during the filming process. I say the “first draft”
since I’m not sure if we will be adding shots or omitting some shots yet, but we will
find out in due time. There’s really not much else to say about this so I’ll let the
drawings do the talking !

Location Scouting

Well, on a lighter note last Friday directly after school Rachel and I visited
various locations we thought would be suitable filming locations. We visited
three different locations and took loads and loads of pictures before deciding
on the best area for filming. We knew that we wanted a big field and obviously
a tree that would be easily climbable so we set out to find the perfect contender.

First we went to The Ridges. The Ridges is a gated community in our city; a
few months ago, I’d seen a photo of two girls in a field of blue flowers that
had been taken in the ridges. Since coming up with our idea I’ve had that
location in the back of my mind. Getting into The Ridges was a bit of a challenge
since neither Rachel nor I live there so we both had to reach out to absolutely
everyone we knew who lived there and finally after messaging about 7 people
the last person I contacted said it would be fine to use her address to get in. So
we made the 5 minute trek from school to this community and drove around for a
few minutes, unable to find this field of flowers we stopped at a playground instead.
This area was naturally very well lit, it  had a nice field of grass, and 3 trees we
thought might work for the purpose of our project.

The next location we visited was Tree Tops Park. To get to this park we had to leave
our city so it is slightly out of our way and on weekends and holidays there is an
entrance fee, making this location less attractive. However, this park is well known
for its extensive quantity of trees. We found a nice location near a lake that we got to
via bridge, it had many different trees that all seemed climbable, and pretty white
flowers sprouted out of the ground. I loved the little flowers on the ground and the
wooden bridge that led to this area, I felt they would perfectly fit our narrative; there
were also plenty of options for our trees. But, the problem with this location was
actually that there were too many trees and they blocked out the sunlight and made the
area look spooky rather than cheery, which is the tone we are striving for.

The last place we looked at was Vista View Park, this park is interesting because it’s
built on a landfill so it is extremely hilly which is uncommon for Florida we thought
this might make for more visually appealing shots. It’s about a 17 minute drive from
our city so not the most convenient location.  I’m currently in a boot due to a sprained
ankle so I was not able to walk up the hills in search of our location but, Rachel went
up and was able to facetime me to show me what she found. Unfortunately she didn’t
end up finding very much, because although the lighting was nice and there were little
flowers growing everywhere, all of the trees were too difficult to climb.

We have chosen to film at the Ridges since it is the location closest to us, there is
no entrance fee, the lighting is nice, and the trees are climbable. Here is the tree we
have chosen to star in our film opening.

A Slightly Stressful Change in Scheduling

Alrighty so, there is about a week and a half left until the end of this grading
period which means teachers have decided to assign the most amount of work
and assessments and students have the least amount of energy left in their systems.

About two weeks ago Rachel and I decided that we would begin filming
this week, as soon as this was decided I contacted our lead actress and
asked her if she was free for the weekend of March 15-17, she told me
that unfortunately she’d be busy the whole weekend with Cappie shows
and we agreed to start filming during the week, we chose Wednesday since
I don’t have dance. But, yesterday, Sunday, while at my dance competition
Rachel told me that Wednesday didn’t work for her anymore due to a Dr. appointment
and another prior agreement; it was a minor setback, I told her not to worry, I could
miss a day of dance if it meant we could start the filming process. Rachel and I
decided that Monday, today, would be our best option. I shot Eva a text apologizing
for the short notice and she told me that over the weekend she had sprained her
ankle and would not be able to do much physical activity, so climbing trees was
definitely out of the question. At this point I was getting really stressed because
we had made and set these plans what felt like ages ago and it now nothing was
working in our favor. Eva will be out because of her injury for at least a week and
the following week she and I will be attending State Thespian competition in
Tampa, which means filming next week is not an option either since it’s the end of
the grading period and we’d need to make sure all of our work and tests get done
on time.

As of now I think that the best option for us will be to begin filming as soon as
Eva and I get back from States, at the beginning of Spring Break, at this point it
is too late to find a new actress to play Alice and even if we did find someone else
we still wouldn't be able to film because of how hectic these weeks are. To my
knowledge Rachel, Eva, and I will all be here for Spring Break so if we manage
our time well we should be able to film and edit our opening during that week.
Furthermore, during State Competition I plan on taking with me a copy of the script
and a copy of the completed storyboard so that any down time I have I can look for
Eva and we can discuss her character in preparation for filming so that when we get
back we can go directly to filming and not waste anytime.

As someone who gets stressed very easily this abrupt change in process is not
great, does not help that I have a sinus infection and am swamped with work and
assessments mostly for AP Bio and AP Lang. So, for the next few weeks it’s positive vibes
only, we will get this done and keep our sanity in the process!