Planing, Schedule, Location, and Materials

With the script we have now, we have a general idea of what we want and need for the project to come out exactly as we want it. It is not much since it is a drama and is supposed to resemble real life very closely.

It is very hard to get us four to find a good day in which we can all meet up and film and talk about the project. As of now, we are using class time as a way to plan out our project and the materials that we need. Outside of school, we are thinking the weekend of March 16 as a day of getting together and filming the fighting scene itself. This is the only day that we can all get together as Jonathan works almost every day, and Tomas and Arianna are going on a field trip the following weekend.

For location, we have in mind using the back of a hardware store for the scene of the fight. We like the loading dock, backstreet type of feel that the back of the store gives. We have to get permission first as it is private property. If we can't film there, we have also thought of the back of a supermarket or a big open field at a local park. all of them are viable options that work equally as well. For the hospital scene, my dad is a doctor, so I asked if he can see if we can use a hospital room to film. He said that it might be possible, but he has to ask, and that we would most likely have to film in a trauma room at night on a weekday; something that may be hard to do with our packed schedules. If we can't get a hospital room, we will make this scene in just a regular room in a house. We would like a hospital room though since it gives a more dramatic effect.

For materials, we are relying a lot on Tomas to use his equipment to film. We also have access to equipment that we can borrow from the school board that can come in handy if there is something specific that we need. The boxing gear and cars will all come from ourselves. Tomas an I both have boxing gear that we can use, such as gloves and mouthpieces. The cars we plan on using are Tonas' Jeep, our friend Armando's Jeep, my friend Maor's BMW, and my Mazda Miata. All these cars add the effect of backstreet, sort of retro feel that we want to give.

Storyboard and Info: Take 1

I think we decided ourselves on a drama, where it begins with a fight scene, where the main character gets knocked out and wakes up in a hospital room without knowing who he is or what to do, and where the rest of the movie, it is about him trying to find himself again and get ready for his next big fight. Below are pictures of notes and ideas we brainstormed along with a screenplay that we have been working on. 

 In this page, we drew what we wanted the first initial fight scene to look like. We included how many cars we want, where we want the extras, and how we want the drone to fly in to start the exposition shot. We also wrote down a person that might be able to do the makeup, and that we need to find someone who could help choreograph a fight. We also wrote down that we wanted to include a lot of low angles during the fight scene.

On this page, we included more of jotting down ideas on which we could work on. Our idea that we are doing as of now is not included on this page, but it does include a lot of the thought process of how we got to the idea we have now. We also have a simple list of things we might need to film. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OsIQyJwe2Bail_d-LovZYsf4whZIDTaS/view?usp=sharing 

Above is a link to our film opening script as of now. It is a very rough draft that Tomas and I worked on. The script includes not only the dialogue that we want to include, but it also includes the shots that we want to include when the specific scenes are happening.

Overall, I think we are off to a very good start and have decided ourselves fairly quickly on what we want to do. Hopefully, there won't be much change to come since I am pretty sold and convinced that this as of now is going to be a great film opening.  

Research: Sci-fi

One of the options mentioned to us by our teacher was the idea of making the second part, the one after the fight scene, a sort of sci-fi type scene, where he is dead because of some supernatural, or weird phenomenon, but to the viewer, he is actually alive. This idea wasn't very liked by my other team member, but I thought it would be something interesting to research, and if I could come up with a good idea, I could influence or convince my groupmates to consider a sci-fi part of the film.

According to AMC Filmsight, "Science Fiction Films are usually scientific, visionary, comic-strip-like, and imaginative, and usually visualized through fanciful, imaginative settings, expert film production design, advanced technology gadgets (i.e., robots and spaceships), scientific developments, or by fantastic special effects. Sci-fi films are complete with heroes, distant planets, impossible quests, improbable settings, fantastic places, great dark and shadowy villains, futuristic technology and gizmos, and unknown and inexplicable forces." This means that for our film, we would have to create one or more of these aspects to be able to fully consider the film a sci-fi film; something that would be very hard to do, especially on our budget. 

Sci-fi films require a lot of special effects and a lot of post-production editing to reach the audience correctly. With Tomas' and Adriana's editing skills, this is completely possible, but it would most likely be very hard to get the real cinematic feel that we want to give to the movie. 

Some famous examples of Sci-fi movies include:

The Matrix (1999)

 RoboCop (1987)

 The Thing (1982)

 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

 Solaris (1972)

 Children of Men (2006)

 Star Wars (1977)

 Alien (1979)

 Frankenstein (1931)

 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

 Brazil (1985)

 The Fly (1986)

 Planet of the Apes (1968)

 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

https://www.filmsite.org/sci-fifilms.html

https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/best-sci-fi-movies-of-all-time-ranked

Research: Dramas

We decided that we most likely are going to film the boxing movie. YAY! With this though, a couple of questions were raised. The most important one was probably what genre of movie we wanted to make. Was it going to be sci-fi? a drama? a comedy? an action movie? we truly didn't know what genre to make the movie. All we knew is that we wanted to have the fighting scene previously mentioned that ended with a bang and a knockout. The problem with that though was that we didn't know what we wanted to happen after the character was knocked out. In this post, I will be researching dramas, finding the common shots, angles, and content of dramas.

A drama is defined as a serious presentation or story with settings or life situations that portray realistic characters in conflict with either themselves, others, or forces of nature. Under the drama genre, there are a bunch of subgenres that can work with our film opening. These include: biography, courtroom, dramedy, historical, melodrama, period piece, political, romance, and tragedy. All of these all have the same principle that they deal with usually a main character or group of characters have a problem that they have to solve or confront. 

In our movie, there are many different routes that we thought about going with the drama aspect of the movie. We've thought about the character having faked his death, but we don't know a reason why he would have faked his death. We also came up with him using fighting as a way of raising money for his family and taking care of his children. Another option was to make it that he was being paid to lose his fights by another person that was betting on his fights. The idea that I'm pretty sure is winning, for now, is that he gets knocked out and wake up in the hospital with no clue what he is or what he has achieved, and the rest of the movie is him trying to get to where he was before, and him trying to become a better version of himself.

With regards to camera shots, angles, and editing, dramas can really contain any element at any time. A lot of two shots are used to show when two charters are having a confrontation, and are communicating with each other. There is also a lot of exposition shots that help set the scene by establishing a setting, the characters, and introducing what can happen. other than that, there is usually nothing that is truly specific that pertains to just dramas.

Famous examples of drams include:
Black Panther (2018)
Lady Bird (2017)
Citizen Kane (1941)
BlacKkKlansman (2018)
Moonlight (2016)
Wonder Woman (2017)
All About Eve (1950)
Metropolis (1927)
Dunkirk (2017)
A Quiet Place (2018)
Spotlight (2015)
Casablanca (1942)
Selma (2015)
The Godfather (1972)




https://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestofrt/top_100_drama_movies/
https://thescriptlab.com/screenplay/genre/952-drama/
https://www.filmsite.org/dramafilms.html

A Boxing Movie

YES, I want to do a boxing movie. Tomas and I had talked over some burgers about what we thought would be cool. We came up with an intro where in an empty grass field, there would be a circle of cars pointing in with their lights on to a pair of boxers in the middle fighting. Around the cars, there would be a bunch of people yelling and fighting and betting on which fighter is going to win. The shot would begin from above, with a drone that Tomas owns. The drone would then spiral down into the circle and continue filming around the fighters as they are fighting. There would then be a point of view shot, where the viewer can see the other boxer throwing jabs and punches at the camera. There would then be a very large Boom, and the screen would go black. The next shot would be the fighter laying on his bed. this is where we got kind of lost though, we didn't know if we wanted the next scene to be set before the fight, and make the rest of the film about his journey leading up to the fight, or if we wanted to pick up after the fight, and make the rest of the movie about him working harder to win his next fight. I personally think that the first option is the best, and that it would be cool to start with a hard beginning. We also spoke about making it a memory, but starting the movie in the time before the fight, so basically, not knowing where the memory came from. I like that idea too, but I feel like it would be hard to explain this. I really like the whole concept of a boxing movie, and feel like there is a lot of room for change if we want to do something different, or incorporate other group member's ideas. I'm looking forward to trying to convince my group members to make a boxing movie.

Undecided

Yes, as the title of the post says, we are still undecided on what we want our intro to be on. And to be honest, we are all over the place. Balancing the ideas of the four has proven to be something very hard to do. When we decided that we were working together, we had an idea of a little girl looking into the future of her being a racer. We would begin the film with a bunch of shots of a car doing cool stunts, while the viewer can't see that it is a girl. Then we would cycle through shots of the little girl playing with cars and being on an arcade race game. We ditched this idea as it would most likely pass our two-minute mark and would be very hard to film, especially with the stunts we had in mind. Since then, we have bounced ideas, and have come up with a lot of different things. We had an idea of making an intro like Pulp Fiction, where the viewer gets very confused with what had just happened, but it sort of ties together after that, but again, we felt we would be restricted on time. We also thought at one point that we wanted to do horror but found that it would be very hard to instill horror in the first two minutes of a movie. We have also thought about doing a high school/coming of age movie, sort of like American Pie, but felt that it would be hard to find a lot of actors and extras to do a party scene that we wanted to do. We also thought about doing a boxing movie, where it starts off as a streetfight. That being said, we wanted to something similar to many famous sports movies that start off with the end of the movie. But instead, we wanted to make the viewer feel like it was that type of movie, but it not end up being like that. Other ideas included kidnap movie, but we decided that it would be hard to establish characters and the kidnap in the first two minutes. Of all these, I have a favorite that I can imagine perfectly and feel that would best fit our idea with no problems. I will be writing about this in my next blog post, so stay tuned.

Representation

Representation

In our film, we are considering making a film about a female racecar driver. Women are usually considered to be bad drivers and never able to make it to the big leagues in racing. This is primarily because there is a common thought that women can only ride horses and be pretty and can't get down and dirty and drive like a man can. In our movie, we would like to challenge this thought to show the beginnings of a girl becoming a driver. Her dream since she was little. 

Women are usually considered to be terrible drivers. They don't look both ways before crossing, they are always crashing and making dumb decisions while driving. Even worse, in the racing community, it is very rare for there to be female drivers, especially at the pro level. Women are seen as too gentle and too pretty to be able to get to the same level as males and aren't able to achieve the same level that men are.

In our movie, we would like to challenge this common misconception and show that some girls are capable of being good drivers, even reaching the level and higher than most male drivers can reach. We can do this by showing a normal pretty girl driving racing, and performing the same as her male counterpart. It is super important that we make sure that she is shown as a typical girl that can do regular girl things too.