Saturday, April 14, 2018

Creative Critical Reflection (The End Has Arrived!)


        Hey guys! Here's my Creative Critical Reflection showing myself explaining my views on the project that Hayden and I have worked on and created for almost 2 months. 




I'd like to thank everyone who has taken their time into viewing my blog. This was a great experience for me, and I hope to have one like this in the future!

Friday, April 13, 2018

The Finished Product

Here is our finished film opening!


Here's the link to it if it doesn't work:
        https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-yb8Fabe8U428nMqkK3_s2_qCzx7unD1/view

I'm working on my Creative Critical Reflection, and that will be my final say on this blog!



Monday, April 9, 2018

Group Meeting Pt. 2

        Today, we met with groups for the second time to talk about the advancement of our projects. This time though, it was with a different group.

        This group meeting definitely wasn't as impactful as our last one for myself, but that's only because we were at that point in the project where we already have done enough so that we're past the point of advice for changing up our scripting or filming. I still did get some great and impactful advice, though.

        The advice that I got was for the sound technique. As I spoke about the film, my group members reminded me about the fact that we need to create a foley for some of the sounds we want to put into the film, as some of them won't come out too well without it. For example, the sound of the footsteps would need to be heard, but clearly and without the sound of wind hindering the overall sound, so we'll be cutting off the sound and making our own sounds to go along.

        It doesn't seem like much, but if there was one thing that Hayden and I needed to focus on more, it was definitely the issue of sound production and incorporation. I still view this group meeting as a complete success, as I also got to see other people's thought processing and creative mindsets in the process.

        We're filming the next part soon, so I'll be back once that's done. See you!

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Filming Pt. 2 Preview

        As we're reaching the time for us to finish the filming aspect of this project, Hayden and I have planned out the rest of our filming schedule. 

        For the next part of filming, we are completing our T.V. show scene some time at the end of the week, possibly in the weekend. This is where Hayden and I will take the roles of two sports broadcasters, reporting the injury of the athlete, whom which we have now named, Steve Bayless. We didn't actually plan on being a part of the film at first, but then we decided that it was okay for the simple scene of sports broadcasting. 

        What we've done is we've created a script for our broadcasting, with the script showing exactly what we will be saying when we report the news. Here it is:

   H: We just received news regarding the top high school track and field prospect in the country; Steve Bayless.
   F: Apparently he’s experienced an undisclosed injury while practicing.
   H: Bayless is a very talented athlete and holds scholarships from many major colleges and universities.
   F: As a senior in high school, Bayless holds the record for the fastest 400m in the country and placed first in his state championship. Nationally, Steve Bayless is the number one ranked recruit in the country in terms of track and field.
   H: as we’ve said before, the injury is still undisclosed. In the past, there have been many talented high school athletes who have experienced severe injuries that’ve derailed their careers.
   F: and with him being a senior, it’s possible that these scholarships may be rescinded
   H: it certainly isnt a good sign that no one knows what the injury is yet, as it could be a simple hamstring pull or something even more devastating.
   F: we can only hope that the injury isn’t too severe as Steve Bayless is a very talented runner with a bright future ahead of him and we wish him luck on his path to redemption.


        We plan on memorizing the scripts, but not exactly word-for-word, as sports broadcasters usually have scripts in front of them to base their news off of and such, so we will have the scripts in front of us and look to it a couple of times.

        As for the rest of our filming. we plan on having the scene where the athlete is actually watching the sports film on the weekend too, possibly the beginning of next week at the latest. Our editing will be done shortly after that, with the completion of the film production being the day after.

       I also found out that there was another group meeting coming tomorrow. More updates coming soon!

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

FIlming Pt. 1 (Analysis)

        As you guys know, we finished the filming of the track part of our film, but I never actually explained the details of each shot in our scene.

        All of these shots were filmed at West Broward High School's track. The first shot that we ended up filming was the establishing shot of the whole track scene with the protagonist running on the track. We filmed this shot from the top of the bleachers, which were next to the track. We then made two shots showing the athlete running "towards" the camera, "past" the camera and "away" from the camera. We did this by first making a shot of the athlete running towards the camera, then starting another shot with him running away from it. The next shot involved a side angle of the athlete as he was running, which we made by having Hayden jog next to Vicente and record him from the side as this happened. We then made a point-of-view shot of the athlete, with Hayden having the camera put slightly above Vicente as he jogged. This was a little harder than we imagined at first, but we ended up getting it done.

        The most difficult shot for us to film was the close shot of the athlete running, showing his face. We needed to be in front of Vicente while he was jogging, which meant that we had to have the camera ahead of him at the same speed. I initially thought of an idea where Hayden or I would run beside Vicente and put the camera in front of him, but that didn't work too well. We ended up going to backpedaling in front of Vicente while he was jogging, which ended up working pretty well. One issue that may or may not be is the shakiness that was sort of encountered in that shot. It wasn't the best, but it was the best we could do with a shot like that.

        Our last two shots of the scene were of the athlete getting injured while jogging in a long shot, and medium shot showing the athlete injured on the ground after. We changed the last shot a little, though. We ended up showing the athlete lying on the ground injured, instead showing him sitting and holding his leg.

        That's all for now! Will get back to you guys soon.

Monday, April 2, 2018

Filming Pt. 1

        After completing the planning process, Hayden and I have finally started filming!
       
        We actually did this last week, I just decided to post about it now.

        Our initial plan was to film on Cypress Bay High School's track, as it was recently getting some construction done on its track, and was a familiar environment for the both of us, as it's located at our school, and has been run on by the both of us. The only issue with this was that the construction of the track was taking longer than expected, causing us to look to a new location. 

        The Tequesta Trace Middle School track was always an option for us, but it wasn't our most satisfactory one. The track wasn't exactly the newest in terms of looks or structure, and the fact that there are little to no bleachers nearby made the chances of us being able to film our establishing shot the way we wanted to were low, while the chances of giving our protagonist the look of an important athlete were too.

        Ultimately, Hayden and I came to the conclusion of going to West Broward High School's track. One thing about West Broward's track that was surprising, but great, was the renewed track that was recently created. It created a much better look than Tequesta Trace's track would've, and further improved the look of the film itself. The bleachers weren't as large as we expected, but they were still good enough for the establishing shot of our film. We ended up filming the whole first scene of our film, which involves the athlete practicing on the track and eventually getting injured. 

        Throughout this next week, we plan on working on the completion of our film. Look out for updates!


Sunday, March 25, 2018

Film Title

The film has a title! 

        Our film has been coming along for the past month, but without a name. The opportunity to create a name has been there, but this long wait was intentional, as we wanted to have the idea and plots for our film laid out before we even tried to think of a name. But now that our film opening is laid out, both physically and mentally, so is our film name.

        Our film is supposed to be the illustration of a scenario in which someone has to redeem their self after a woeful event, with the odds of making this happen unfavorable. The plot of the film opening ends with the audience questioning whether or not the protagonist is able to come back from his unfortunate injury. All of the athlete's training and hard work has been brought to this, a gruesome injury that could possibly end his career. 

        When somebody redeem's their self, they are doing something that compensates for the bad aspects of something, a certain situation. It could be because they made an error, committed some act of wrongdoing, or just got into a situation that started out bad. The injury of the athlete must be redeemed only by an outstanding comeback. The goal of the athlete must be to perform the act of redeeming.

         The act of redeeming, "Redemption", is the title we chose for our film. More updates coming soon.

Saturday, March 24, 2018

First Character

We finally found a protagonist!

        It took a while to figure out whether or not Hayden and I were going to use one of ourselves as the protagonist, but we eventually decided not to. It took us some time to decide this part, as we weren't sure whether or not the two us being both producers and a character would go with efficient film-making. We ultimately decided that the it would be better if the producers(ourselves) wouldn't actually be in the film, and instead had somebody on the outside of the project become a part of it solely for the role of the protagonist.

        The process of finding somebody to be a part of our film was the easy part, as Hayden has plenty of friends that run track, and does it himself. Hayden eventually found Vicente Faret, a student who's also completing a Media Studies Portfolio project. Being a friend of both of ours, and also somebody who understands the objectives of the project itself , it'll be extremely beneficial to have Vicente around, as he'll understand the production techniques that we're trying to use, and will also be another voice of advice for us throughout the process.

        The benefits of having a good friend around, along with the cons of filming and acting ourselves, makes it a no-brainer to have Vicente acting as our protagonist. He's experienced on the track, so trying to make him "look" like an athlete won't be an issue. The three of us are looking forward to working together on the film, and learning more throughout the process.

Friday, March 23, 2018

Group Meeting

Hey guys! Short post.
     
        Just over a week ago, our Media Studies class was placed in groups, with each member of the group explaining their project to the others. The point of this was to have each member have members from other groups give advice in order to help each person improve and innovate their project in certain areas. No team members were placed in the same group. This meant that Hayden and I weren't placed in the same group.

        In my group, there were four people, including myself. One of the four people is completing a two-page magazine spread, and the rest of us are working on film openings. I was the last person who explained my project, which meant that I was the last person to take advice. Before I explained my project, I realized that Hayden and I had a film that were much different from others, as the other two film projects had much different genres from ours. After I explained our film story line, the other group members gave their analysis on the film itself. The overall group agreed with the simplicity of the film, but also believed that it may be an issue. They thought that it may be too basic, and that something could be added to spice up the plot a little bit.

         I thought about what my group members said, and although I decided that the point of Hayden and I choosing this film was to keep things simplistic and understandable plot, therefore not going with the idea, I understood the ideas of their statements and where they were coming from. Our production techniques must be effective in order to illustrate the plot effectively in the way we've planned it.

        The group also suggested adding some diegetic sounds from the protagonist's side, meaning that the character should probably be heard speaking or committing actions, such as the actions leading up to his injury on the track. I thought this idea was great, and Hayden got this idea from his group too, so we were on the same page. We believe it;s essential to incorporate proper sound techniques in order to help illustrate the plot ideas better.

        Overall, the group meeting was a success. It was an opportunity for Hayden and I to get an idea of how others are feeling about our plot, and that's exactly what we did. We'll be incorporating these ideas into the film production once we start with that.
         

Saturday, March 17, 2018

Storyboard Pt. 2

Like I said in my last post, Hayden and I have been working on our film storyboard, and like I promised, I’m sending the second part now that it’s done. Here it is:



Now, this is the second scene in our film, where our character is watching T.V., and eventually hears about his own injury on the television, being spoken about by sports broadcasters. Each shot shows the scene from a different perspective, as the plot continues. The film opening ends at this scene, as we believe all of the shots portrayed in our storyboard will have either eclipsed, or at least approached, our 2-minute mark. I’m doing research on the production process in films, and once I’m done with that I’ll show you guys what I’ve got.

Friday, March 16, 2018

Storyboard

        It's been a while, but I'm back with some news! Hayden and I have been planning for the production of our film opening, and we're now producing a storyboard. A storyboard is a sequence of drawings representing the shots planned for a movie. Here it is:
        Each of these cards illustrate a shot for our first scene, which includes the main character practicing. I'll be posting the rest of the storyboard here tomorrow.

Sunday, March 11, 2018

Genre Application

        Hey again! No more changes to the outline of our story, but I did still decide to do some more research on the common sports drama itself, looking at what has(or has not) made some of the most popular sports films so great. Not that I'm not so confident with the story line we have now, I just wanted to put more research into our genre. I feel that the research that I've done so far hasn't been sufficient, and there may be more I could learn about sports dramas that could help further enhance the quality of our story line and/or film-making.

        Throughout my research, I got into the issues of defining the sports film and its genres, the analysis on what characteristics make it work, and even got into the specifics of the sports drama, looking into one sports drama's incredible success and why it got so much love.

        The first part that I looked into was the general sports film, and what qualities make it great. There are many different ways to go about with a sports film, but they all seem to cross off the same main points; well, at least all of the good ones do. The best sports films usually incorporate a sense of realism, which is the quality of representing a situation in a way that is true to life. The sports part of the film itself could very well have fiction attributions to it, but the parts around it need to put together a somewhat realistic situation. The need for a hero is almost essential for a good sports film, meaning that there is someone or a certain group of people(maybe a basketball team) that represents whatever the struggle is that needs to be overcome in the sports film. Both of these characteristics usually leads to added tension, and tension allows for the elements of suspense and surprise to be more impactful in the film. The underdog story is also very popular in sports films, as audience members tend to love the "out of nowhere" or "under-appreciated" types of characters and story lines.

        The next part of my research was about the defining of genres for sports films. Sports themed films are likely to be outlined in terms of one or many different genres. The idea is to put enough different genres into a sports film in order to appeal to three different audience sectors: male viewers, female viewers and the "tertium quid" audience. The tertium quid is a third part that is undefined, but applies correlation between two other defined parts. But, in order for films to have their genre recognized, they must have a common topic, common structure and a common way of presenting the topic.

        The film "Rocky" is one of the greatest sports films of all times, and is a part of what its arguably the greatest sports film series of all time. It's a film that we've wanted to generate our strategies off of, not just with the story line, but with the way that the story line is presented. "Rocky" incorporates a simple story, with relatively simplistic characters, but uses its common motifs and predictable plot points to maximum effect. It uses an inspiring story, combined with inspirational overcome of struggles, and presents these with the right amount of realism, as the audience believes that everything that is going on is real.

        I'm not saying that Hayden and I will create a "Rocky", but we definitely believe that we have many of "Rocky"'s successful story aspects incorporated into our story line. I personally believe that the major task for us will be in the filming aspect, as we need to present the idea of our film in a way that the audience can relate and stay with us on, and these next couple of weeks' worth of posts will display our own "struggle" to make this film opening as great as possible.




        References:

          Crosson, S. (n.d.). The Sports Film Genre. Retrieved March 11, 2018, from https://www.academia.edu/27935619/The_Sports_Film_Genre
          
          'Rocky': A Heartwarming Sports Drama Reflecting Its Very Process of Creation • Cinephilia & Beyond. (2017, June 16). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from https://cinephiliabeyond.org/rocky-a-heartwarming-sports-drama-reflecting-its-very-process-of-creation/

          What makes a great sports movie? (2014, July 23). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from https://wtop.com/news/2014/07/what-makes-a-great-sports-movie/
Crosson, S. (n.d.). The Sports Film Genre. Retrieved March 11, 2018, from https://www.academia.edu/27935619/The_Sports_Film_Genre
What makes a great sports movie? (2014, July 23). Retrieved March 11, 2018, from https://wtop.com/news/2014/07/what-makes-a-great-sports-movie/
       

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Outlining Pt. 2

        Like I said in my previous post, Hayden and I would go over potential issues of our initial story outline, and as we did that, we began to develop a new story line using the issues we found, and made it an improved one. Here it is:

        The film starts out with a flashback to a couple of days ago of a high school student practicing a sport. While he's practicing, the student gets injured, and the flashback ends. The next part shows the kid watching T.V., with the T.V. being on a sports channel. The sound from the T.V. is tuned out though, as at the moment the kid is narrating, with the sound being non-diegetic. He's narrating about his injury as he's watching, explaining the injury and how severe it is, saying that it will be a while before he plays again. Then the sports show's sound comes back on the T.V. as the narrator stops speaking. Ironically, the sports broadcasters are speaking about a high school athlete's injury. The broadcasters are speaking about how good the athlete has been, speaking of the awards and scholarship offers the athlete has gotten throughout his short, yet illustrious career. As the broadcaster continue to speak about the athlete, the same flashback that came in the beginning comes back to the student's head, and after the flashback finishes, the camera shows some of his medals, trophies, and scholarship offers sitting in his home, then shows the injury he suffered as he continues to watch T.V., implying that he's the big-time athlete that got injured.

        So, same idea, just a different way of presenting it. It looks like a lot more from the description, but actually, it's less film, just more details being illustrated in each clip. The real issue was time, as 2 minutes of film isn't a lot, especially for a pair trying to generate a story start-up. As anybody who read the previous post may realize, we took out the whole scene including the radio broadcast, as we felt that it would take too much time, and we felt that it wasn't necessary in order to convey our desired idea. We feel that this amount of film will translate to 2 minutes, more or less.

        As was also stated before, I said I wouldn't post the outline of our film opening until it was completed, and now that it's done, here it is. The parts that are crossed out were part of the initial outline, but we used pencil to shade over it in order to keep the ideas there, just in case we wanted to look back at them. What isn't crossed out is what we plan on using for the film.

Outlining

        We've been developing our plot, and came up with an idea. It's not officially our storyline yet, but here's what we've got:

        It starts out with a a high school athlete getting injured during practice. He is in the car on the way home, listening to a radio broadcast. The broadcast is speaking about an athlete that got injured, and continues until the kid gets home. He gets out of the car, and walks into his house. The kid gets something to eat, and goes to the T.V. When he turns the T.V. on, the cable is on a sports channel, and is speaking about the same thing as the radio broadcast. The sportscasters talk about how successful the athlete has been, speaking of the awards and scholarship offers he's gotten from colleges. The camera shifts to show the focus on some of the medals, trophies, and scholarship offers sitting nearby the kid as the broadcasters are speaking. At the end of it all, as the broadcasters speak of the issue and the odds of being able to come back from such an injury, the camera shows the injury that the kid has on his leg. The broadcasters ask "Will he bounce back?" as the film opening ends.

        This is the first outline that Hayden and I have come up with right now, and we aren't sure if it is the last. We're going over the potential issues as of now, and whether or not it interferes with our target time of 2 minutes. If we feel that it needs to be changed, a new post later on will illustrate that.

        We also have a brainstorming sheet with our outline ideas written down. Once the outline is finalized, I'll be posting that too.

Sunday, March 4, 2018

The Start-Up Process

        Before starting a film opening, everyone has to come up with their plot, and what specifics will be in that plot. But even before that, any producer/director must know what genre their film will be based around, and that's exactly what we figured out first.

        A genre is a style of film that is based around a particular set of characteristics.The two of us have had always had an interest for sports, so we decided to come up with a film opening based around sports. Now knowing of that, we decided that we should add more to the film. Sports are usually sub-genres in films, so we decided to look into what kind of genres have had success with sports story lines. When looking at the top grossing sports films since 1976, a large percentage of the films contained either comedy or drama genres. We knew comedy wasn't really our thing, especially from a production standpoint, so we decided that a drama film would be a great fit for us, especially considering the fact that a good film opening should be able to move the audience, and dramas do exactly that from an emotional standpoint. Dramas present realistic characters, behavior, and story lines, and we feel that incorporating these characteristics with a sports film would give our audience a great feel for the story throughout the film.

        We haven't developed our plot yet, but we have a couple of ideas, so as we continue on with our brainstorming and research, those ideas will develop.

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

It Starts Here

        Hello, and welcome to my blog! My name is Farjad Tambey, and I'm here to show you the process that I go through while completing my Media Studies Portfolio Project. I've previously completed plenty of projects, but this is my first time making a blog, so I'll be trying out plenty of different ways to get my message across on here. You'll be seeing me use the word "we" a lot, and that's because, although I'm creating this blog alone, I'm completing the project with my good friend, Hayden Saase.

        The first part of the project was actually deciding which of the two options we would choose to complete. We had the option of choosing between creating a magazine layout or a film opening. The magazine layout was an interesting option, as we knew that it would give us a great opportunity to use our presentation skills to illustrate a topic in a two-page layout that is different from any nationally-recognized magazine. But for us, the option of creating a film opening was a no-brainer. Both of us have been into films with several diverse genres and ideals for a while, while magazines were never actually major sources of interest for us. Yes, in magazines, plenty of ideas are presented using words and illustrations in some of the most well-thought out processes known to writers and editors, but the idea of being able to actually put our ideas into action is what brought myself to the desire to create a movie film opening.

        I've created short films before, and having done that, I know that it is not an easy task. Mistakes will be made, but it's how the director bounces back from these mistakes that decides whether or not they will create a great film. The film opening is arguably the most important part of the film, and I look forward to showing proof of that. My partner and I will take it day-by-day, and we'll look to trust the process.