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.

Dark Comedy, the Ultimate Oxymoron

     To aid me in my journey of creation I will be researching different pieces of media in the same or similar genre as my own piece. I have come to the conclusion that I will be marketing my short film as a dark comedy. A dark comedy is a style of comedy that makes light of a subject matter that is generally considered serious or painful to discuss.

     The following are pieces that I’ve found helpful for the development my own production.

     The Good Place is an NBC show that began airing in 2016. The show is about four individuals who have died in different outrageous ways and have now ended up in the afterlife. They are told they have ended up in “The Good Place” for having racked up enough points from the righteous actions and decisions they made on Earth. After reflecting on their past life, the four characters: Elanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason come to realize that they are not in some form of Elysium and they have actually ended up in “The Bad Place.” I bring up this series because of how the creators have constructed the afterlife. At face value it seems as though they are in a heaven, the mise en scene elements are all very cheery, appealing, and pretty, from the landscaping to the housing to the costumes; what makes this place hellish however, is what actually happens to them throughout the show. The characters are living in their own personal versions of hell and this is something I want to translate into my short film. My main character will experience what is in her opinion the worst, while maintaining visually pleasing and nice mise en scene elements. I also like the idea that is presented in The Good Place which is making the immortal beings of the show work the afterlife like a corporate job.

     Obviously it is very important that I watch plenty of dark comedy short films to aid me in the actual structure and presentation of my own piece. Every Six Month, is a short film I found on Youtube while researching. According to its description it is “a dark comedy about a woman who wakes up in a mysterious room. It’s full of taxidermy. The door is locked. And her delicate mind is getting the better of her (youtube.com).” In watching this short film I was reminded of a few components that I cannot forget to put in my short film such as, the title of the film as well as end credits. Every Six Months contained limited dialogue and the silences were filled with music of a mostly playful tone as well as suspenseful almost creepy stings and natural sounds, I imagine that at least half of my short film will lack dialogue so I must begin looking for music, stings, and other overall sound elements that I can add into my piece to develop the tone and contrast and balance of dark comedy that I see illustrated in other pieces of the same genre. This piece began directly into the action of the story, it did not waste time with unnecessary backstory. Rather, the backstory was developed throughout the course of the piece. The resolution was an ending open to interpretation although I like this concept I think my own short film will have a slightly more concrete ending than Every Six Months.





     Welcome to Hell is an animated short film posted to Youtube in 2013 (youtube.com). Although my short film is live action and not animated I feel the need to bring up this short film because it was extremely impactful to me when I first saw it in seventh grade, as it is what peaked my interest in filmmaking. So, when my instructor suggested I transform my plot into a more comedic one I immediately recalled, Welcome to Hell. Welcome to Hell is about a young person named Sock who murdered their parents and has been sent to Hell, assigned a human, and instructed to convince that human to kill themselves. I thoroughly enjoy the comedic aspects of this dark plot, it makes a nice contrast and balances well for the story. I’d like to use this piece to aid me in creating the comedic aspects and elements of my own piece. Similar to The Good Place, Welcome to Hell also paints the afterlife as a corporate workplace. I would like to implement a similar idea into my own work as it has proved successful for this scenario.