Title ideas

 This is going to be a blog posting that's on the shorter side, because I am coming up with title names for my short film and it's definitely something I'm a little stuck on, so I'm trying out different things and testing them out and I want to take you with me through my mental process for each one. My idea is to make the title small, about 1-3 words if possible, and try to incorporate a word about twos. So far, my first idea and my main idea that I may be sticking with the most is Seeing Double, because of the two sides to the disorder I will be showing, as well as the fact that the disorder can be one that is incredibly disorienting. The second idea is Reaching Equilibrium, as the main character tries to navigate life with a disorder she is just beginning to treat and is and is attempting to reach stability. My third idea is a bit of a work in progress and is definitely on the longer side, extending past my preferred limit and it is There are Two Devils on the Shoulder in this one. Probably will not be doing this one, but I also wanted to get across the idea of the devil and angel on the shoulder that is the inspiration for my piece when personifying the disorder. So far these are my only ideas, I will create another blog post if I come up with any other ideas or fully decide on a title!

Character background

   Hello again! I wanted to talk a little about my planning process for the main character of my short film. I decided to plan the character out and make my idea of them more well rounded in the hopes that I will further be able to develop the plot for my piece, which I discussed briefly in my last posting. Making characters is the fun part! So I am excited to share my character with you.

  My main character's name is Evelyn, but she goes by Eve for short. She is 18 years old and a senior in high school, getting ready to graduate soon and move on to college. Senioritis is hitting her just as hard as any other senior in high school, so that is relatively normal. However, Eve has bipolar disorder that she was only recently diagnosed with and prescribed medication and other treatment plans. So she is trying to navigate the end of an era but the beginning of recovery and the rest of her life that she has no idea what she wants to do with. So you can imagine that senioritis is hitting her twice as hard. 

  She lives with her single mother, who is a nurse, and isn't always there physically but is a great mom who shows up for her daughter emotionally whenever she has time off work to take care of her. She also has a sister two years younger than her and who she considers her best friend, they're very close and thats partly to do with the fact that she doesn't have very many close friends so she hangs out with her sister most of the time whenever she's not alone, but for now this doesn't bother her too much.

  I've decided to go with no physical description because I want to be flexible in my casting of actors for this character's role, as well as for the actors playing the personification of her bipolar disorder.

Group meeting and inspirations

   Yesterday during class I had a group meeting with some of my peers to discuss our projects, bounce ideas off of each other and get some help on things we may be stuck on in the planning process. It went really well! Some areas I mentioned that I have been stuck on mainly throughout this whole thing so far is coming up with the main plot so that I can thoroughly plan out filming dates, locations, as well as draw out a storyboard of my shot ideas and write up a script. I got a few good ideas that I think I plan on sticking with.

  One of my peers mentioned something that I didn't even think of. It was that if I'm casting three people, instead of having the third represent either a mixed episode/stable period/transition between manic and depressive episodes, I could instead have that be the person experiencing bipolar disorder, and have one of the other two people act as a personification of the manic episode, and the other person act as the personification of the depressive episode. 

  This immediately made me think of something similar in the Netflix show Haunting of Bly Manor (spoilers ahead, sort of.) This show is the second season of the show Haunting of Hill House, they both have a different plot entirely with different characters but they are played by almost entirely the same actors. Both are horror/psychological thrillers that basically take the concept of trauma and mental illness and make it abstract using these genres, because they are both very abstract things to deal with. In the show Haunting of Bly Manor, it's about a young American woman who moves to England and gets a job as a nanny for two wealthy children who recently lost their parents. They have an uncle who hired this woman, and this is important to know in just a second. This uncle was having an affair with the mother of these children for a while up until they had both died. Just before they died, his brother, the father, found out about this affair (and also found out that his youngest child, the daughter, wasn't actually his child but was his brothers) and forbade the two from ever seeing each other, meaning he could never step foot onto Bly Manor again. He calls him a monster with a, and this is quoted from the episode where he finds out, "with a shit eating grin." Right after this, the parents leave on a trip to India where an accident happens and they die.

  The uncle is grieving and filled with guilt, so he doesn't take care of the children because his daughter who believes she is his niece is a reminder of her mother and the events that took place, and refuses to go to Bly Manor (taking his brother's words quite literally.) So he hires a nanny to take his place. He becomes an alcoholic who uses alcohol and work to keep himself occupied, spending most of his time in his office where we are introduced to another character that appears to him only at night. Except he is identical to him, because he's another version of him. He is all of the guilt and the traits he doesn't like about himself packed into one person. He taunts him at night by making him insecure and makes him have flashbacks to traumatic memories he doesn't want to remember, and he does it all with a horrible grin on his face. He's meant to be the part of the character that is the "monster with a shit eating grin".

  So when one of my peers brought up that idea, it was kind of like the whole angel on one shoulder and the devil on another type of thing except both are the devil in this case. But I immediately thought of that concept that is used in Haunting of Bly Manor. I may not be able to find two people who look exactly alike and I don't have the tools to be able to just make that happen with one actor but that kind of concept is what I want to go for.

  Other ideas my peers brought up were for shot types just to help get some ideas flowing for me and it definitely worked. They mentioned how for the depression scenes I could do different shots showing the state of the room. Also to portray the thought patterns of someone with the disorder and still personify the episodes I can do close ups of them whispering in the person with the disorder's ear. Then, as for general plot of the short film, I can make it someone who suffers with the disorder going about a regular day that for people without the disorder would find something so simple and easy to do. The person would go about the same day but the way the day went would depend on what symptoms they are experiencing. I plan on drawing up a storyboard soon which I will share in a future blog post.

Costume and makeup design (Pt.2)

   For this blog posting, I'm focusing on the costume and makeup design of the character that represents mania. Since a high rise in creativity is just one of many symptoms of this, the artistic and whimsical route is the way I want to go. Due to this, I have plenty more inspiration than in the last so I will get straight into sharing the outfit and makeup inspirations!

Costume and makeup inspiration (Part 1)

   Depicting the tone of a scene doesn't just rely on lighting, editing, or color theory. It also relies on costume and makeup design. It is going to be especially important in mine when communicating the emotions and feelings of the characters and what they represent. I used an app called Combyne to piece together the outfits, and drew inspiration from makeup looks on Pinterest. For this blog posting, I'm focusing on the representation through costume and makeup of depression.

Not much effort will go into the outfit choices of this character, and will be designed along the lines of this. This is because depression often times leaves a person unable to take care of themselves, depending on the severity. Sometimes it'll leave you in the same clothes for days at a time because they are comfortable and there is no energy to leave the bed, shower, change clothes, or do basic hygiene and self care things like leaving your room to eat or putting away dirty dishes in your room because you managed to get up and eat but not bring the dishes back to clean them and put them away. For this look makeup wise, there will be little to no makeup. Any makeup that may be there will be slightly messy and smudged, some areas gone entirely, due to being unable to properly take care of themselves. But for the most part, will probably have no makeup.

Camera lenses

  I've been thinking more and more about the physical production of my piece and how I really want to make this look as good as I possibly can. I can't afford a fancy camera with all these cool lenses, but I recently remembered that you can order different lenses to attach to your phone's camera to get similar effects to that of a professional camera! So I decided to do research into the different types of lenses I can get. I am looking at their function and the effect they have on footage, the quality of the product, and how much each one costs.

The first one that immediately caught my attention was the Criacr Phone Camera Lens Kit for $20 on Amazon. Three different lenses come with the kit, and they're all clip on so you don't need a special phone case, or any phone case at all. The lenses are a fish eye lens, a wide-angle, and a macro 10x lens. This would be perfect for a beginner in using different types of lens for filming other than just the standard phone camera, as well as perfect for a student's project as I don't need anything fancy, and it's perfect for my budget!

  The next to catch my attention was the Godefa Cell Phone Camera Lens with Tripod and Shutter Remote. This one goes for $29 on Amazon but you get a lot more for less than just ten dollars more than the other kit shown above. Each lens is also clip on and accessible with or without a phone case so there is no need to invest in an additional phone case. The lenses that come with the kit are a 18x telephoto zoom lens, 0.63x wide angle lens, 15x macro lens, 198 degree fish eye lens, six different kaleidoscope lenses,  a CPL filter lens, and an additional tripod and Bluetooth camera shutter that can be used for both snapping pictures and recording videos. This one has even more options than the last one and fits my budget really really well, and can still give that professional look to a student's project. This one is definitely winning so far.

  Another one on the more pricey side of my budget is the Hitcase Truelux Lens Bundle. It goes for $100 directly at Hitcase and comes with three lenses, superwide, wide, and macro, so it's all the basics I would need. The higher price probably produces a higher quality that I would be willing to invest in, the only downside to this is it doesn't come with a clip for the lenses as it is something that has to be ordered separately for an additional $15 also at Hitcase.

  Many of the other phone lenses I researched were very pricey for my range or may not have included everything I was looking for, these were the best kits I could find for reasonable prices. I think my best option is definitely the second one listed. It comes with a lot more and can give a really professional look to short film shot on an iPhone. It is also adaptable to almost any smartphone so it is something I can keep for a long time and use for future projects. It's a good investment for a starters kit.

Scheduling (Part 1)

   As it is coming up to about a month until this project is due, I need to start thinking about when and where I am going to film and also planning other aspects of the project. This is a little bit tricky because I have a very busy schedule despite not going out much. I am obviously a student with other classes to attend to, not to mention having an after school club I attend meetings for every Monday and Wednesday, as well as being an officer for a club that meets every Thursday after school. I also have a job and work a regular schedule of every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday night from 6:00 - 10:30 pm. Additionally, I am learning how to drive in order to hopefully get my drivers license by the end of the year and to also be a confident driver so that I can take myself to work and eventually college next year. So I am planning on taking professional driving lessons at least once a week starting next week, which was already difficult to schedule since I have a limited amount of space in the week to do so.

  Before I can create a good filming schedule, I still need to figure out the whole casting situation. Since I will be working with multiple people, I will need to figure out the dates and times that are good with them as well as making sure that they all line up well with each other. Even further though, in order to do that I need to cast people for the roles to begin with so that I can actually come up with a good start date for filming to begin with. I'm aware that even when I do figure all these things out and create a calendar for filming that it isn't going to be precisely followed, but it will serve as a rough outline and a plan to stay on track with as best as I possibly can. I'm hoping to get at least one or two days of filming per week leading up to the due date so that I don't have to spend long hours of filming last minute. I'll be making a second posting about scheduling once all of these things are settled, and I plan on casting people very very soon which I will also post about on this blog. Stay tuned!