Prop Making pt.3 : props to me for playing prop master

     Today marks the start of the seventh week! And, it hopefully also marks the last week of filming. AND, it also marks the start of my first week of virtual school which means I will be having to adjust how and when I work on my project. As of now I am trying to work on the film a little bit each day as something I can use to take my mind off of school for a little.

     This week I plan to get done with the last two scenes I need: the opening scene with the demon and the remainder of the scene where Jael kills her husband. I began my week by making some props! I love making props, it’s like arts and crafts, I get to just put on some cartoons and make things look fun. My supplies are slightly limited since I am really trying not to leave the house so I just have to make do with the things I find in my home. Yesterday I spent an embarrassing amount of time making a baby shower banner which was honestly a lot of fun and kind of relaxing. I think arts and crafts is my true calling. I crossed out the part of the sign that says “girl” and wrote sinner in a red marker for the purposes of the film. This will be hung on the wall behind the demon on the opening scene.

     Today I went ahead and made the rest of the props I needed. I revamped a party hat to read Happy Death day. I made a “laptop case” out of some paper as well. The last thing I need to figure out is how I’m going to get balloons and a party horn, I might be able to find some in my house but, chances are I will make them out of paper as well unless my mom is feeling generous on her Walmart run.

   

Postcard Process

     Since I had to put a slight pause in filming as I regroup and make changes to work around my situation, I took the opportunity to get my postcard done.

     From the beginning I knew I wanted to have a bite taken out of the corner so I built the composition of the postcard around that. I played around using some screenshots from footage I had before actually sitting down and getting some pictures to use.

     I spent part of yesterday taking pictures and editing them for the postcard. I used an Iphone app called “Picsart” to edit the photos and will add the before and after of the photos below. I had one black background and one white to coordinate with Jael’s costumes in the film. The color scheme I want to develop in my branding is black, white, and red. For the front of the postcard I’m using a photo of Jael in the wedding dress holding a bible and a fork since I think those are prominent symbols in the story. For the back of the postcard I’m using a photo of half of Jael holding her cake in the right third so that I could use the center and left thirds to include information for the film festival where this will be distributed. I have chosen the Orlando Film Festival since it is in October and hopefully by that time this pandemic would’ve died down and the festival can carry on as expected. At the bottom of the back I have also added the logo for my production company, “Act Bright Films.”

     While developing the postcard I had been using the name “Let Them Eat Cake” but as I kept working on it I began to dislike this title more and more, so, after consulting a friend the name was changed to “Til Death Do Us Part,” I think this name suits the short film much better.

     Here is my postcard. I will probably rework it some more, as I’m not completely satisfied with the bites taken out of the corners. I also feel like it looks a little bland, it’s not as eye catching as I would like. I’m glad I got working on now, so that I have time to sleep on some ideas and rework it to create something I am truly proud of. I will definitely be poking around other promotional pieces for other films for some inspiration

Shelter at Home

     As of Thursday March 26 the city I live in has been in shelter at home status which means I can no longer film at my dad’s house because he lives a couple cities south of me and it is important to follow the safety precautions being issued right now so that this can all be over soon. So, I will have to adjust my original plans in terms of set. Luckily I got most of the shots I needed from the kitchen at my dad’s and only had to improvise the few of the shots I had left to film in there. Close ups have turned into extreme close ups, and although the shots are not what I had envisioned in the first place, they will have to suffice as I can no longer access my original set. For one of my shots I had my mom stand in as a body double so that I could properly frame the shot in a manner that you couldn’t tell it was taken in a different kitchen, this was made even more difficult since my mom has hair very different to mine.



     Before we were put in shelter at home status I was able to reshoot the shot that was having audio problems which was great! But, the reshoot is having the same problem! I’m so frustrated with it I really don’t know why it’s happening, obviously it’s not the shot itself since I have tried it with two different clips; I think it might just be that section of time?? But that doesn't make much sense. I’m going to try a few more ways to fix it, such as detaching the audio and then trying to put it underneath the clip, my last resort will be to reshoot just the audio and try to attach it to the clip. Hopefully it does not come to that because I have a feeling it won’t look/sound too clean with that method. 

     Beyond that the rest of the editing is still going, whether it is going well is a whole other box to unpack so I will leave you with that for today.

Change and Adapt

     On Tuesday morning my instructor held an online meeting for our A Level Media Class in which we discussed the future of our projects and of our class. Many of my classmates shared their dilemmas and we all tried to come up with ways to continue producing our portfolio projects within the confines of our homes.

     After Tuesday’s meeting I scheduled a private session for Wednesday morning with my instructor to discuss my project and ways that I could “save” it. I spent the rest of the day trying to come up with ideas I could present to her for how to continue the piece.

     This morning we had a quick meeting and I am already feeling much better about the future of my project. We agreed that since half of it has already been filmed it would not make sense to completely start over; I’d need to adapt to my circumstances. It wasn’t too difficult to figure out what to do with the scene of John Sullivan, since he has no lines of dialogue and I could get away with not showing a face, I’d only need a body, I have convinced my older brother to stand in. It took plenty of begging but he is on board now, he has no choice, and it’s not like he’s doing much more than online school right now; unfortunately, I will have to let Lucas know that he is cut from the cast, I’m sure he will be extremely devastated. Beyond that,we decided that I should play the demon character myself. And, by playing both characters it would be symbolic of how you are your own biggest demons. She recommended that I watch the film Us, to help me with the concept of having one person play two characters; I will definitely be looking into that soon.

     I will hopefully be filming the missing scenes from my most recent day of filming tomorrow, and I hope to get the shots with my brother as well as the scene with the demon done next week.

COVID-19 Can Catch These Hands

Hello everyone happy week six! And happy Coronacation week two!! 

     

     These social distancing practices have made my peers and me quickly realize that this project would begin to get quite difficult to carry out in terms of production. I think from my end I got pretty lucky since I only have two other actors aside from myself that I need to rely on for filming. I did this on purpose, when I was developing my short film my original goal was to have only one character/actor and either play that character myself or have someone I really trusted play that character. I wanted to do this because last year in my AS Portfolio Project my lead actress dropped out at the last minute and my partner had to fill in instead; I was not looking to repeat something like that again.

     While I’ve done quite a bit of the filming already I am still missing a few important scenes that require my two actors. In my original schedule from week one I had planned to get all the filming done this week, but that will definitely not be happening.

     On March 10 I contacted my friend Lucas, asking him to play the role of John Sullivan; he was eager to become part of the production and we scheduled to film on a day in the weekend of March 20-22. On Tuesday March 17, at this point school had been cancelled indefinitely, I messaged Lucas again and with the best outlook in mind we rescheduled for the weekend of March 28-29. Now as I am writing this almost a week later it seems like that probably will not be happening.

     The future of filming is uncertain. My priorities right now are safety and health so, for this week I will adjust my production schedule and hope for the best. I have planned to continue editing as well as begin working on the website and postcard. I will probably start getting into branding and marketing on my blog too, I definitely have plenty of time to sit around and research on this my senior year Spring Break.

stay safe

-a

Post Production Day 2 [sort of (it’s also 3 & 4)]

     I had the opportunity to move my footage over from camera to computer on Friday, it took forever! Since my primary laptop doesn’t have a regular USB port and I currently cannot afford an adapter my process has become to transfer all the footage to Google Drive using my old chromebook which luckily does have a USB port and then accessing the drive via my MacBook to then download and import to iMovie. This process works fairly well, it's just time consuming and kind of annoying. However, this time around the footage was giving me some problems, it wasn’t loading on the google drive so I couldn’t download it onto my computer and I began to get a little frustrated so I set it aside and decided to come back to it the next day.



     On Saturday the footage had finally loaded into the drive and I was able to download it which was an incredibly long process since there was so much footage and it would not let me download more than one at a time. Regardless, it got done and I imported everything into iMovie and got to thoroughly reviewing the footage as well as editing. Upon reviewing the footage I have come up with a list of shots that for some reason I forgot to film they are as follows:

• An over the shoulder shot depicting the recipe.
• A close up on Jael’s hand pushing the recipe away in protest.
• A close up on Jael’s injuries as she grabs her necklace before pouring in the poison.
• The ending shot where she’s back in the kitchen after consuming the cake.

     I will be making time soon to go back to my dad’s house to get these few shots so I can close out the editing of these scenes. As I began to edit I quickly came across a problem; one of the clips was having audio problems where halfway through the sound would cut out, and it happened to be the half with dialogue in it. What was strange was that this clip was only having this problem on iMovie, when I played it on the camera and on my laptop’s video player the audio was completely fine. After an extremely frustrating hour of looking for a solution I stopped, got out of iMovie and decided to try again tomorrow.



     On Sunday I got to work, I moved past the clip I was having problems with and decided it would be best to just reshoot it since I had to go back and film the other scenes at my dad’s anyways. As I was editing I could already tell that it was going to be too long and I’d have to cut down my footage an insane amount, I am already nearing the 5 minute mark and I don’t even have half of it done which is frustrating but, I am going to continue how I was going and once I get all my usable clips cut I will decide which parts to sacrifice. An idea I have been considering is turning this into a noir film, honestly it would save me time in post production but I think it could also enhance that creepy undertone I am going for.

FILMING DAY 2

     On Tuesday after going to vote (yay civic duties !!!) and after printing out my fancy Canva made cake recipe, I packed up all of my props, costumes, and supplies and headed over to my dad’s house, which is where the rest of this short film is being filmed, and got to shooting. It was an incredibly long and exhausting day of filming, I didn’t get back home until around 10:30 pm! But, an overall successful day.

     I decided last minute to change the Jael costumes from pants and a blouse to two different dresses. For Jael A.D. she is in a white dress and cardigan and for Jael B.D. she is in a black dress.

 

     I began by clearing out the kitchen; I took everything off the counters, I emptied some of the cabinets, my goal was to make it look cold and uninviting. Originally, the concept of clearing out my dad’s kitchen did not seem at all daunting, he spends most of his time traveling so there’s not usually much in the kitchen to begin with, but with this COVID-19 pandemic happening he is not travelling at all and actually using his kitchen and filling my set can you believe the nerve of this guy, HAHA! After I finished clearing the kitchen I set up my camera to a wide angle shot, I decided I would begin by filming all the wide angle shots first since most of these scenes are composed of wide angle shots and it would be easier on me to keep the same angle for an extended amount of time instead of trying to replicate the same shot each time I move the camera.

     In one of the shots I cut up an apple so I took a bit of a snack break after that to regroup and figure out how I would organize the rest of the shots considering costume changes and such. I realized you learn a lot about someone from their kitchen for instance, while i was raiding my father’s kitchen for my snack break I learned that my own father is a chunky peanut butter kind of man, as a smooth peanut butter connoisseur myself this was incredibly disheartening and eye-opening but I managed to find it in me to forgive him for his nut butter choices because he brought me mango and piña with chile late at night after hours of filming so all was well and balance was restored.



     Filming the parts where Jael pours poison into the cake components was quite possibly the most stressful part of the night. My poison was a bit of water mixed with green food coloring in a tiny mason jar. I apologize to my dad for any dish towels that are now permanently green because that sucker got EVERYWHERE, especially all over my hands. I really hope it’s not visible on camera and it doesn’t look like I’m transforming into an ogre or something.



     Definitely the most intimidating part of the night was when I had to refrost a cake. When I went to my local Publix, now ravaged by pandemic, they didn’t have another vanilla cake with vanilla frosting, but I had close to a thousand tubs of canned vanilla frosting at home from my cake baking fiasco last week so I made the decision to get a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting and strip the cake of its chocolatey coat and give it a new vanilla suit. This ended up going honestly much better than I had anticipated and I ate SO MUCH chocolate frosting it was gross. In the end it all worked out and now I get to review the footage, I already know I am missing some shots that I’ll have to return for, but I was so exhausted from filming that I called it a day and headed back home.

 

Prop Making pt. 2: The Recipe

     In the scenes I am filming today one of the props is a sheet with the cake recipe written on it so I whipped this up on my favorite graphic design platform ever, Canva. Canva is the best, it makes print components so efficiently and elegantly. They have so many different outlines and templates at your disposal. It is so easy to navigate and operate, you can even easily upload your own photos and videos. I will definitely be creating my postcard for this project with the help of Canva.

     To make my recipe I used a blog graphic and searched up “recipe” on the template search engine and opted for one of the premade templates that was spaced to my liking. I ended up not changing the colors in the template since the palette fit for my purpose. I did change the graphics on the side to suit my recipe better and of course I altered what was written in the recipe itself. Attached is a vegan cake recipe I developed myself, it is very tasty when you’re not baking in a time crunch (RIP my homemade four-layer cake) so I definitely recommend trying it, sans the poison of course.

before 

after

Post Production Day 1

     Today I moved the footage from Sunday from my camera over to my laptop and was able to start playing around with some of the clips.

     To edit my short film I will be using iMovie. I’m not extremely proficient in this program on the Mac platform as I have only gotten my macbook fairly recently, however I have been doing a fair share of googling and youtube searching to learn how to create some of the effects I will need in the final product. I’ve learned how to crop the framing of the video clips, how to split the screen into thirds, and how to zoom in on a clip in post production, though I am still working on this technique.

     In addition, I’ve actually gotten started on the editing process. So far I’ve clipped up all the clips I want to include in the final scene that depict the course of consumption of this cake. My short film currently has a run time of 1 minute and 13 seconds, woohoo! I didn't do much today in terms of white balancing and color grading or sound editing which I know I will have to dive into in the near future. But, I am a firm believer in spacing out the editing process since I usually find myself with a fried brain hating everything about a piece when I try to edit it all in one go. So that is all for today’s dose of editing in moderation.

FILMING DAY 1

     I ran out of Melatonin on Thursday night and let me tell you, the amount of hours my days have increased by is remarkable. Insomnia is a pain when you’re responsible for operating a motor vehicle everyday, but with everything I drive to having been cancelled due to COVID-19 I’ve been able to be so productive with all the time I don’t use sleeping. Last night I stayed up prepping for filming in the morning, playing around with the camera, getting costumes ready etc. I managed to force myself to fall asleep for about two hours and then I was up and at ‘em at 4 am. I started my morning by making a crumble I wanted to top my stOrE-BoUght cake with. While it baked I did my makeup, which came out looking super cute. I was lucky enough to enlist my mom’s help this morning, so, we proceeded to pack her car with props and supplies and cake; and we drove down the street to an open plot of grass near my house. When we got there the sun hadn't quite risen yet so we spent the time waiting for the natural light by getting everything set up. From there it went pretty smoothly; I ate cake for breakfast at 7am and we were done before 8am. Overall I’d call that a success.

              

     From what I have reviewed on my camera’s viewfinder, the footage came out acceptable. Now I just have to get my hands on an adapter to get the clips onto my laptop and truly review the footage and make sure it is disposable.

Day 1 Shoot Prep: Making the First Full Cake

     Wow! Today’s prep went so well check out the masterpiece of a cake I made!!

                            

     Just kidding :( unfortunately today I’ve run into my first big obstacle. My day started off early, I went to the grocery store to restock on baking supplies and by 11am I was well into cooking my cake. Everything was looking great; I had four circular cakes and four jars of filling.

     As my contents cooled I began making my frosting; I tried out a new recipe as well as the one I’d made before. Both of them came out too liquidy. Regardless I slapped the cake with frosting, shoved it in the fridge, and prayed.



     The cake was looking terrible and the top layer had ripped down the center. I rushed to the store for some premade frosting and a serrated bread knife. I tried to salvage the cake by shaving off the perimeter and crumb coating with the store bought frosting. Then I chucked it in the fridge, things were starting to look up. I checked on my cake a few minutes later and it had fallen apart, everything was sliding everywhere, and there was a giant sticky sweet mess! Thus, was born the slop trough which is where failed cakes go to die (and become cake pops) sort of ironic I guess.

















(<-before)
(after->)

    

(the slop trough)

     I was upset, but after consulting my mother we came to the conclusion that the cake would have to be store bought. It almost brought me to tears! I rushed to the grocery store for the third time today and got myself a $10 frozen cake from the bakery. It felt like admitting the ultimate defeat, but alas, I had no other choice, I need to film tomorrow.

     The cake I got is a lot smaller and obviously doesn’t have the elements I wanted but it will have to do. As my little foreign mother put it, “is a prop for your video,” that really spoke volumes to me today haha! In complete seriousness they were exactly the words of encouragement I needed.

     Looking back at the day’s events I can’t help but laugh. I felt like one of those contestants on a baking show where everything that can go wrong does. The dramatics sure were high today and I probably would've been eliminated had this been a baking show. Lucky for me there was no elimination at the end of the day and I can carry on tomorrow with a fresh mind for filming. I just hope that the little store bought cake will read well on camera. But, I mean I’m sure it’ll read better than the monster I made today (which has now been repurposed into cake pops).

Jael Aveline

    Today’s blog post will be all about my main character, Jael! So, who is Jael Aveline? In few words she is a good Catholic girl. She is someone who grew up in the church and has spent her life as a devoutly religious woman. She met her fiancé, John, at church and she became engaged to him at a young age, around 18.

     Jael’s costume will include a small engagement ring, pearl earrings, and a necklace of a cross. For the scenes on Earth, B.D. (before death) Jael will wear a black top. And for the scenes A.D. (after death) she will wear a white top. In the baking scenes she will don a red apron over the white top.



     For the scene filmed this weekend she will wear a white dress to mimic a wedding dress as well as a veil. To make this costume I’ve layered a white dress I already owned over an old ballet costume that I wore in Don Quixote. The veil is a piece of tulle cut out of the ballet costume glued onto a hair piece. 

            

     Jael’s makeup will be kept minimal and simple. Some foundation, concealer, blush, light mascara, slight brown eyeshadow to define the eyes, and some faux freckles to highlight her youth.

Prop Making

     This weekend I will begin filming, and I have decided to start by shooting the end. I will be filming the scene in which Jael has finished her cake and is transported to her grave.

     In this scene Jael finds herself in an open field sat at a table with the cake in the middle. In front of her are two tombstones one is hers and the other is of the man she killed. After much consideration I have decided that this man was her fiance and his name is John Sullivan, a good Irish Catholic name. Jael is forced to consume her cake in front of these graves as part of her punishment, it is a reminder that she was buried next to her abuser. I decided to add this to play into the conversation that I spoke of in an earlier blog post which is, the just nature of killing in self defense; should someone who has purposefully taken another person’s life for the sake of their own safety suffer consequences just as severe as a murderer.

     Basically, what I’m getting at in all of this is that I have tombstones to make. Here’s how I made them.

     I began my journey at Sam’s Club to look for empty cardboard boxes that I could cut and paint; I had thought of buying foam or wood to make the tombs, but in the end cardboard was the most easily accessible and most importantly the most free. Lucky for me the Corona Virus has left stores like Sam’s pretty empty so there was plenty of cardboard to choose from. I took from the first pile I saw and was in and out within 5 minutes with my two empty boxes of Halo oranges.




     I came home and used a white wall paint I had in my garage and got to painting. My goal was to make them look sort of like marble.

   
Then I realized I had to figure out how to make the text on the tombstones appear as if it were chiseled out of marble. I spent my entire economics class trying to teach myself how to shade letters (I really get a whole lot of work done in that class, oops). After hours of scrolling through fonts online, trying to draw the letters by hand, and even inquiring with a friend who will be attending art school (causing her to question her career path), I came across a font I felt I could work with.








(the text conversation between my friend and I after I nearly caused her an existential crisis)






























(The winning font)

     When I printed them out I colored in the top letter with a black sharpie and proceeded to cut out each letter to try and give it the effect that the letters were carved out. I cut the boxes into some tombstone-like shapes and hot glued the letters onto the cardboard. I even gave John a middle name just to spice up the tombstone and because I had some extra letters. I’ve decided the extra A stands for Adam, John Adam Sullivan.






















     To be completely honest they’re not exactly what I had envisioned but I feel as though I could still make it work if in the short film I use them for comedic effect. Yes, these tombstones are supposed to look funky on purpose. It was an artistic choice, thank you very much.

VLOG: Cake Trial Run

Click here for Baking vlog :)

Shot List and Concept Art

     Personally I find it a bit difficult to translate the images and shots I see in my head onto paper in terms of angles and orientations. So I find storyboarding quite difficult, which is why I’ve decided to instead write down a detailed list of all the shots I want in a way that I will understand best when it comes time to film, instead of having to decipher a bunch of funky little drawings.

LINK TO SHOT LIST !!

     That being said I have a few pieces of concept art that I created before writing the script that I am attaching as well. I used these drawings to almost write the screenplay around because I knew I wanted these stills to be in the final product, so hopefully I’ll be able to compare the drawings to the actual footage later.

Screenplay: First Draft

     Here is the first version of my screenplay. I say first only because I imagine I will continue making revisions to it as I get more feedback from others and as shooting days get closer. Clearly, as I am still workshopping titles.Here is the first version of my screenplay. I say first only because I imagine I will continue making revisions to it as I get more feedback from others and as shooting days get closer. Clearly, as I am still workshopping titles.

Screenplay Link :-)

Women in the Bible

     For my short film I’d like to explore different themes presented in the bible regarding women. Many of the most iconic and memorable women in the bible are depicted with negative connotations. For instance, Eve, arguably the most popular female character in the bible became known as the reason for humanity's downfall by luring Adam and introducing sin to the world. Prior to her “evildoings” Eve was silent and lacked free will, and a few verses later she is seen consuming the forbidden fruit and making friends with a serpent; she is never truly painted as a good character (theconversation.com). In my short film I want to allude to Eve’s story, I am currently developing a cake recipe with apple filling to match the forbidden fruit.

     In addition, I’d like to touch on the topic of punishment and consequences. In my story the main character is moved to murder her betrothed because of his abuse to her, and still she is sent to eternity in purgatory as punishment despite her actions being in self defense. In my research I found stories about women in prison who are facing anywhere from 10 years to life for the murder of their intimate partner (christiancentury.org). Up until the 70s, women who had killed their abusers were often acquitted on grounds of self defense or insanity. However, now the argument for their imprisonment is that if women were killing in order to get away from abuse, they should be punished to the full extent of the law. These imprisoned women were presented with the story of Jael in the bible; although the bible does not contain a woman who killed a violent man in a similar pattern by which these women fought back against their abusers, Jael kills Sisera in her home, with a weapon, while he is sleeping. Jael had given Sisera milk and a place of shelter and then chose to kill this violent oppressor with a tent peg and a hammer and was lauded for her actions. This raises the question of when is it just to take another person’s life, this is especially interesting in a religious aspect since the fifth commandment taught in Catechism is “thou shalt not kill.” Over the years Catholics and other Christian religious denominations have interpreted and specified what this means. For instance, one source I read deemed, “the act of self defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor… The one is intended, the other is not (vatican.va).” In my interpretation, and for the purposes of my short film my main character has been sentenced to punishment by God in the afterlife for her murderous actions on Earth.

     Having been inspired by the story of Jael I have chosen to name my main character after her. In addition, I’ve taken inspiration from The Woman herself, Eve for a surname and present to you my protagonist, Jael Aveline.