Project components  

Here is teh following is link toThank every component of our project, short film, print component, and a link for a social media account. 

Thanks you for staying with me through the whole process, until the next 

All project components 

 

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Critical Refelction

 Critical Reflection 

The short film Reaching the Bar explores the emotions of choosing between your passion and your mental health. Through the film, we explore the story of the main character (Brianna) while growing up in gymnastics, as her life gets more difficult given the pressure created by her once-loved activity.

This is a teen drama short film, influenced by the vulnerability many athletes experience in their life. As someone enhances their skills in a sport and moves up levels, the techniques get harder, and pressure to be the best starts building up as well. For our research, luckily one of the members of our group is in gymnastics and she shared emotionally distressing moments in gymnastics as she has moved up levels. Much of our inspiration came from stories of the highest-level gymnasts in her gym. The emotions emphasized in the stories were the ones we tried to present in the older phase of our main character. Additionally, we also took inspiration from different movies/short films that are related to gymnastics like “Game Night” by Joel Fendelman, and “LIGA” by Toby’s Sport. Reaching the Bar incorporates various heavy emotional themes, inspired by personal stories, similarly seen in the production we watched for inspiration. Additionally, we analyze the sharp shots and realistic noises used in the productions mentioned above. This way of filming improves the realism expressed in the production, allowing to make the film as authentic to the experience as possible. 

On the contrary, Reaching the Bar goes against many sports drama conventions, one of them being the lack of success shown throughout the film. As we decided to focus on the brutal truth many gymnasts experience because of the sport. For example, winning a competition or getting over hardships were excluded from the storyline as we wanted to keep the mood of the film deeply emotional. Furthermore, we decided against developing relationships with other characters because of production constraints, since we were limited in filming time. 

The target audience for Reaching the Bar, comes from the main character of the film, as she is a teenage female gymnast. As result, the movie will be targeted toward teen girls ages 12-20 as who participate in a sport or extracurricular activity they've enjoyed since a young age. Our short film reflects emotions they most likely experience through their life as someone who found their passions at a young age, just like our main character. 

The brand developed for Reaching the Bar highlights undesirable experiences in gymnastics, as it engages with people with similar circumstances. Our social media presence on Instagram shows a contrasting view of the short film, as a different aspect of the film is reflected in said platform. This helps us express an easier marketed side of Short film to attract the most viewers possible. The shift between both sides of gymnastics (positive and negative) throughout our content, is an aspect that would be well understood by our target audience as gymnastics has two drastic sides to the sport. 

The Instagram page for Reaching the Bar serves to reach viewers that celebrate both the beauty and the ugly of the sport. As much of our content is inspired by other production accounts like the “Not Okay” movie, and a “League of Their Own” show, both productions with strong social media presence that successfully exposes the character, themes, and lifestyles explored in the productions. For example, we have a few posts that introduce the characters and open the door for the viewer to ask questions to the actors, as well as highlight key moments in the film. The social media does fail to develop the true themes of the movies however, does show an appreciation for the sport and its enjoyers  

The brand of the short film is as well developed through the print component. Before developing this component we research various productions and their components like posters, logos, and postcards. We were mainly inspired by those that don't focus on the actors but more on the look of the film. The front of the postcard shows a person grabbing onto a bar, you can't see her face just her hands, in the back it's a girl's hands with her gloves on for practice. The postcards also are mainly composed of blue, white, and red as they are usual sports colors. Throughout the postcard we include information about the short film, similarly focusing on celebrating the sport through our print component.  

One of the shared interests of our target audience is being athletes, Reaching the Bar also explores themes that appeal to audiences with health interests. Our main character is someone that struggles to keep her mental health in check because of the pressure that gymnastics puts on her. We show her having mental breakdowns and self-doubtful thoughts from her lack of skills in her sport. We did want to further develop the reasons for her mental health (like parental pressure, piers pressure, etc) however, because of casting issues it wasn't possible so we stuck with one example, of comparing herself to others. Moreover, we were able to emphasize African American presence in gymnastics as many media production companies lack diversity when it comes to sports dramas. Even when worldwide known gymnastics stars are people of color. This was one of our goals, to highlight a minority group in the sport and show a universal experience through them. Although Brianna’s storyline doesn't show any culturally specific issues, I and my group believe having a diverse cast shows the culture without having to point it out verbally. 

After working on Reaching the Bar for the past few weeks, I reflect on many of my choices that were done and how I would've done them differently. Honestly, my vision for the film I talked about in my blog, wasn't the one I was able to produce. The sports drama I wanted to show was one with deep emotional visuals and the viewer needed time to reflect on their life. I could be being very critical of the final short film result however, I do like how the other two components turn out, especially the postcard. Nevertheless, Through the project, I was able to learn new things I'll apply to future projects. 

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The project has ended!!

 Final reflection  

Finally, after 10 weeks, almost 2 months of work we are done with the project, as I'm typing all teh components are almost finished, except for a few last touches on the videos, and will be officially over with the project. 

 

As I reflect on the production of Reaching the Bar over the past few weeks, I realize many of my choices would have been better if done differently. Honestly, the sports drama I had envisioned in my blog didn't come to fruition. This sports drama wanted to present included deep emotional visuals and the viewer needed time to reflect on its meaning, I wanted more scenes to show the main character's emotional development with gymnastics, however, there were many challenges we weren't able to surpass while filming which led to the final product we have now. I am maybe being too critical of the short film's final result, as it didn't come out bad, and we did try our best with what we had, however, it didn't turn out as I envisioned. This is the reason for my main disappointment. However, I the other components we have created for the project I am greatly pleased with. Especially the photocard and Instagram, as it's our first time doing something like this. 

This whole process definitely was a great learning experience for me as it showed me and taught me various things I didn't know previously about film production. I never realized all teh work that took to produce, promote, and edit a short film, luckily I had my team members to rely on as they were much help with everything.

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Social media update

 Instagram 

I haven't given an update on how our social media is going, and how we are keeping up with them. In a few blogs prior I talked about teh social media apps we wanted to focus on Tik Tok and Instagram, However, we weren't bael to post much in tik tok as much of that content had to be filmed during filming time, and we didn't have time to film tik tok while filming. Mainly because Eugene most of the time was filming herself as she always goes there and Sasha and I can't. So unless we could get 10-15 videos in teh last few days, we discard Tik Tok as our social media, though we really wish we could've used more.  

We put all our attention to our Instagram, which now has a total of 12 posts and a few highlights (stories saved to the profile). Most of our blogs are BTS shots or combinations of videos as we thought it's the best way to bring people in and the easiest posts to make. We also have a few meet-the-actor posts where we present a little information about the actresses, like their favorite color, favorite shows, etc. meet-the-actor Thanks to the gym having teh same color in teh background we were able to have a slight color scheme as well, of various blues and reds in teh background of the videos. Unintentionally every post matches with the prior ones. 

We recently made a story about our postcards and were to find us when the film comes out. We plan on making a few more posts and stories in teh next couple of weeks before teh turning date as well. 

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More editing

 Editing PT2 

after the last class, Eugenia started to use "Clip Champ" to put teh shots together however the cut between video to video looked very choppy and cut weirdly. so when we saw each other again for Wednesday's class, we tried to put everything together through Adobe because the software works on my computer and not through Eugenias. I am good with putting clips together and things, however, editing isn't my favorite thing personally, at most times it gets boring, but I'll say I'm a decent editor, so really my one concern is making it look to simple, but ill try to learn during teh weekend too.  

 

While editing we caught some things we didn't notice before, we were very nitpicking that day. One of them was a costuming problem, as we didn't film everything on teh same day nor controlled teh costumes, the characters are seen changing costumes when it isn't needed (like from scene to scene). We believed it would distract the viewer if the leotards change from scene to scene, so we decided to re-shoot some of the scenes (the ones that were messed up the most) so we wouldn't have this problem. there are some that we could save because they just seem like a different day, which is fine. Additionally, to this, we realized we needed a few more scenes to make teh story flow correctly. We know its a little late to be filming, being a week away from the due date, but better late than never right :)

Later this same day Eugenia was able to film what was needed as all our characters showed up to practice today, luckier they were wearing teh same leotards as the footage we originally have. So she just needed to redo a few shots. 

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Figuring out things

Starting to edit  

In class, we had a productive day as we went through all our footage (101 videos in total) and organized it chronologically based on the film. The process was tedious as we had to watch each one and see if they are usable or not for the short film. Additionally, we had to make sure we weren't missing any more shots or needed more footage to reach teh desired time stamp. There we saw that we indeed needed more footage than expected as many of the clips are short which would probably make a 3 min short film altogether. We wanted to try to reach 4 min so Eugenia had to go back to the gym and try to film more footage. 

after that, we had to figure out how we are going to edit this, as many of you guys might not know, we aren't pros at editing, only really know the basics, so we wanted to play with some software to see what would be the best fit. 

 

First, we tried a free software that comes with all HD computers called "ClimpChamp" It was really easy to understand, however, we weren't sure how to share the project so others could edit it (ik in Adobe you could share it as an Adobe project, but here we could figure it out). I really liked some of its features like being able to see the clips in teh organizing tab, helpful when you have many clips and don't know what is what. However, we wanted to try a bit more advanced skills with colors and saturation which this one didn't have, so this one became a second choice. 

Then we tried Adobe Premier, which I am more familiar with, given I learned the program in 8th-grade Film class. Weirdly teh program only runs on my computer because, on Eugenia's and Sasha's computers, the software keeps on shutting down, but in mine, it works perfectly. However, here we were able to find color edit and saturation edit tools which we could find in teh previous program. This is why this one became a first choice when it came to editing which we are starting soon...

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Lights things

 Saturation and color in films 

Hey, guys so for our film we are planning on editing the saturation of many of the clips given that we weren't able to control much of the lighting during filming. We filmed in a public gymnastic gym which limited the variables we could control for this film. Some of the things, we couldn't control were lighting as the gym is kept in a certain bright light all throughout the day during classes. 

Our solution for this problem is to play with the saturation of the clips during editing this way we can enhance certain feelings we want to provoke from the scenes. Our plan is to decrease the saturation of the clips as we go through the movie. As our character grows up the scenes start to get more muted to reflect the feeling she has as she grows up in the sport. 

I also did some research on the effects of doing this, editing the saturation in films. I looked at Learn About Color: and color theory. In both articles, I focused more on the information about muting colors given that it will do for most of the film. Our plan is to start taking away saturation once she goes from young to middle age, given that in the storyline, this age is when things start getting hard. We would do it gradually as time passes in the short film. Our goal is for when she is in the older stage to be in full black and white. 

The article, it talked about how shifting the saturation of an image changes the emotions that are emphasized. In our case, a lower saturation would convey more somber or constrained emotions. Whereas a higher saturation connotes extreme feelings and passion. Something we were considering was starting the film with higher saturation than the footage normally had. This would help emphasize the young passion the main character has for gymnastics. When we start editing, which would be very soon, we'll see how it looks if we do this because we want to make sure it does looks too obvious when the saturation is changed. Our aim for this is to slightly change the saturation throughout the short film, so much so the audience would realize it until the film turns black and white.  

Another thing we were considering was adding a color filter over the scenes, maybe slightly blue or red, colors that would emphasize the emotions the main character feels. as she, in the end, feels saddened and angry at herself for not being able to do the skills correctly. After I watched the video I linked, it showed how adding a color filter could make the audience focus on certain colors. Doing this could also be a successful way to make the audience the audience feel what the main character feels. 

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