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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Group meeting Pt2

 Group Meeting 

Today in class we had a short meeting where we could discuss where we are in our project, how it's going, and what we plan to do next. In my group, there was Alex, Martina, logan, and me. We were all able to talk about our projects and receive feedback on where we are doing right now. We looked through all of each other's blogs and looked through the details of the projects, which were all very interesting.  

When it was my turn I started talking about how we have filmed, and done the print component. I talked about the difficulties of both, like for the print component how we had a few different ideas so we ended up creating two very different ones. We still aren't sure which to pick, or just keep them both. The group meeting also helps me with some audio problems, given that we weren't able to acquire a microphone for the filming time. Which makes much of the dialogue hard to understand or interrupted by background noises. 

For my issues, they recommended I use the editing tool that Adobe Premier has given that they have a few tools that are able t remove background noises and make the sound cohesive. I will 100% use this recommendation given that I'm not even sure how to fully fix the audio. Though I did learn how to a few months ago, I am not sure how to make it sound right for the short film, given that the last time I tried the audio sounded borderline robotic.  

I'm really excited cause soon we are going to start editing, most likely this week or the beginning of next. I want to see how everything we have filmed comes together and forms the short film. 

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Our Postcard

 Postcard ideas

My group and I started doing a few postcards for the print component. We were all excited to make them given that we enjoy making things like this and already had ideas for them. We made two postcards in total, eugenia and Sasha both started different ones and I added the information. They both turned out really good which makes it hard to pick which one to use. 

Postcard 1-

(back)

This one was the postcard that Sasha did, I added and organized all the information in the back. For this one we decided to keep the front with the least information possible, simultaneously giving the reader the information needed to find the film. The front picture was chosen to outline the title (reaching the bar) which in the image the girl is literally doing what it says. This postcard has a constant color scheme of black and red so it emphasized the darker side of the film. This plus the image used in the back makes the postcard focused more on the depressive side of the film.  In the back, we included credits of the movies as well as contact information and a small sentence that summarizes the short film. 

Postcard 2- 

(back)

 

This one is the one eugenia designed, and I added the information in the back and front. For this one, we decided to have a brighter look at the movie. we decided to stick with a blue, white, red, and black color scheme as it's the colors most prominent in the gym. In the front we included a similar image as the first one, holding the bar, but double, making the front more interesting for viewer. In the front we also decided to include the film festival used, the date of released and nomination of awards we are aiming for (still not sure if we are keeping it though). In the back there's a lot more information like the credits, and contact information as well as the tittle again (in the same font as the front so its cohesive) and the small summarized sentence. For the images in the back I decided to combine two of the girls' putting on her gloves, blurring them out to have more similarities from the front and back (two images). I also added a small outline of a gymnast to tell the audience its a short film about gymnastics. 

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Day 3 of filming

  More filming

Eugenia was also able to film more another day during her time in practice, again as before we weren't able to be there because of spring break trips. This day she was able to get more B-side shots that emphasized the skill difference between the main character and her friends, and some dialogue between the middle actors and our older actor. 

While eugenia was filming she did come into some trouble. So first the microphone problem which made it hard to capture a clear recoding of audio in a busy, gym. On top of that, there was music playing in the gym, which made it 10X harder to record. However she was able to get a few dialogues, that was short sentences. 

For our next group meeting, we are going to tackle editing and postcard discussions as we need to get on top of these two things to have a great project. 

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Day 2 filming

More filming

Heyy guys, So eugenia was able to film some of the scenes with our littles. Sasha and I weren't able to be there because it was during spring break and practice during competition prep, which last time we went during one of us the environment was the best. However, we were able to communicate to make sure the shots came out all right. We also made sure to get the parent consent for their children o be filmed given that they are 10 years old. 

Here is what she was able to film which was a small dialogue part and some videos showing their individual skills according to the character. This part of the film is trying to show the difference between the main character and her fellow classmates in gymnastics and how she is better than most at her level at a young age. 

We thought that having the smaller version be naturally good in the begging skills would help us into the transition character of the older version of the main character feeling bad about her technique later on. 

Yes, we do realize that some of the audio in the videos is hard to hear because eugenia didn't have a mic in hand and our sector didn't want to speak louder. We will try to fix it during editing if not we still have time to reshoot if needed given it's a small scene and not most of the film. 

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Social Media

I wanted to share with you guys how our social media account has been looking. As for right now, we have been focused more on Instagram and this upcoming week would be Tik Tok, given that for Tik Tok we wanted to use trends and challenges that are currently in the app and for that we need to meet with the cast. For Instagram, we decided to post more skill-related content, that was previously filmed for the short film. 

In the video above you can see how the pictures are all organized in the account, our bio (that includes a small summary of the movie), and the profile pic is our movie logo. most of our posts consist of small teasers edited to post on Instagram. Also, short videos of the actors showing their gymnastic skills. 

In all our videos we include captions that interact with the audience, ask them questions about the post, and inform them about what they are seeing. Additionally, every post includes hashtags related to the post like #gymnastics, #shortfilm, etc., which help boost our content to different people that are interested in this type of thing.  
 

We also like to post a few stories that ask the audience about various things, and also tell them about upcoming events. For example, our most recent was a poll about keeping a straight face while acting and viewers were able to select yes (if they are able to keep a straight face) or no. We really want to focus on interacting with our audience as it helps gain more attention if we seem more reachable. 

For the future, we definitely want to post more BTS, cast content, and countdowns for upcoming things, which will all help inform the audience and boost our page to more people. 

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A look into our thought process

Raw footage

I did want to show some of our thought processes for what are we filming and why are we filming it this way, given that some of our scenes are inspired by other scenes from gymnastics movies. For this specific example, we wanted to somewhat recreate the scene from the movie "Stick It", where there's a scene the main character is falling over and over from the beam. We all thought it look really cool and it was a nice way to represent the frustration and dedication the main character in our short film has for the sport. 

For reference, this is the footage we got, and it's the main character falling over and over from the beam. This is the rough footage of it but after editing it would much look cleaner. With this we wanted to create the frustration that the main character feels because she isn't able to get the skill right even after trying over and over again. 

Here is the clip we took inspiration from, as it does a great job of showing the frustration the main character feels when she can't get the skill right. How she keeps on failing it over and over again.  We feel like doing this is a great way to emphasize the feelings of frustration and anger our main character is feeling. 

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Vibes for each character

 Mood boards  

The best way to know the vibe/ aesthetic of the character is to make a mood board.  For this because we don't have lots of characters I focused more on the mood for each age frame that will show in the short film. So I made a mood board in Pinterest for when the character is young (6-8) middle age (9-15) and then when she is older (16-18). 

The short film would be divided into three different age sections that go with the age frames. Each sections would be slightly different from the rest, though they would all follow the same main character, through her life in gymnastics. 

  

Board 1

https://pin.it/qgZKG7f

In the starts if the film, so when the main character is young we wanted to show a more innocent/happy look of gymnastics. We want to emphasize how happy she is with gymnastics, given that the tricks come naturally good for our main character. Additionally, we want to show how she is the best in her level, compared to the others. This way when she grows up, it’s more frustrating when she cant get the tricks right. 

 Board 2

https://pin.it/Fy9gEoc

 

In this part of the film, when the main character is in the middle levels of gymnastics, our aim is to show a change in attitude towards the sport. Here, we want to emphasize the decrease in enjoyment in the sport the main character has while the pressure just increases. We also wanted to show frustration and competition starting to become more often as she grows up.  

Board 3

https://pin.it/6hWyMtf

For the final part of the film, we wanted to show the harder/truthful parts of gymnastics and how it affects the main characters' opinions of the sport. Now that she is at a higher level, there is a lot more pressure to be perfect and be the best. Furthermore, we wanted to emphasize this feeling through the saturation in the film, which is reflected in the mood board. 

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Introducing the actresses

Meet the Cats

The cast for our short film is made up of different people in Eugenia's gym. For our main girl, we have three people, one girl from the lower levels (younger version) middle levels (the middle version), and someone from the higher levels (older version). We also have a few extras like the main characters' friends and coaches. For each friend, we also have a little middle and older version, 

For this short film given that we will be filming younger kids, and during gym hours Eugenia did inform the people who work in the gym, teammates, coaches, and other trainees, and personally talked with the parents of the younger kids to get their consent to film their children. For the parents, she printed a poster with information about our film and when we will be filming. This way we make sure to get the parent's permission for filming their kids.  

One thing we still aren't sure about is the names of the characters. We aren't sure if we should keep the actors' names, and just used theirs for their characters, or come up with a name for each of the characters. It all depends on the actor's choice if they want their name connected with this piece/be used for the short film. If we do decide to make up names for the characters I do want to try to come up with names with hidden meanings that are related to our piece. I feel like doing this would make the piece a bit more meaningful. 

Here the followings are our actors and the role they are playing... 

She is one of our littles that would be playing the younger version of a character. Specifically, she is playing the younger version of our main character. Hence, she would be the main character at the beginning of the piece. For this, we wanted to show a happy, carefree part of gymnastics and the best and easiest way to do so is to include kids, given that they are yet to experience the hardships of the sport.   

Our second little one would be played by her, who would be playing the little version of the best friend. She would be the reason the main character believes she is betters than everyone given that she would boost her confidence, by being not good enough. We wanted to make sure to include a best-friend relationship to show friendships in gymnastics and how it could help or worsen one self esteem. 

 

she is one of our middle actresses, for the friend character. She would be there to start supporting the main character through her struggles. But also would outshine the main character with her talent, as during this time the friends are starting to become better than the main character, which creates pressure on her. 

 

She is another one of our middle actors, she will be playing the middle version of the main character. she will be shown in the middle, so when the sports start to get harder, pressure and expectations increase. With her is where we'll see the start of the dislike of the sport. 

 

She is one of our side characters who would play the main characters' friends. There would be fewer scenes with her given she is a side character but we still decided to include her given that she would have an important role. She would be helping the main character through her struggles and at the same time one of the people the main character would compare herself to. 

She is playing our main character as her older self (present). She would be the main character shown at the end of the film. She would be the one that shows all the hardships of gymnastics and the results of the pressure and expectations everyone around her has because of her sport.  

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Filming Filming Filming

 Behind The Scenes  

Hey guys, so we started filming Monday, 3/13, during one of Eugenia's practices. During this time we were able to get most of the ending shots, given that our actor wasn't too occupied. Additionally, we were able to get some pictures, and videos for social media and a b-roll if needed for the short film. The b-roll we filmed was mainly for the little one given that she was practicing with the equipment that we wanted to include.  

We went to film during one of Eugenia's practices, however, the gym was full of other levels practicing which made it difficult to capture audio and also a solo scene, so we decided to film the scenes that didn't need audio were filmed outside the gym area like in the lockers or rest room. For our next filming day, we definitely would need a mic so we can comfortably get the audio needed without having interruptions or unwanted voices in the recording.  

We also had a small problem with the environment in the gym given that everyone was training for a state competition. This made the coaches were pushing the students into being flawless for competition. This made it a bit awkward to film given that the coaches were in the middle of instructing while we were trying to film. On the other hand, being exposed to this gave us an idea of how to convey the "stress-inducing coach" character that we wanted to add. It gave us a real-life example of comments and expressions coaches do that might put pressure on their students. We will definitely try to incorporate some of them into our short film so it feels more real. 

Here in the following are some pictures we took while filming some of the scenes-  

 

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Postcards

 Print component  

Another of the main components of the project is the print components. For the short film, this is a postcard that would be given out during Film Festival. For this component, my group and I did some research and looked at student samples and short film samples  These postcards should include the name of the production, director, time and date of shows, and contact/ social media information. We are still not sure how we will make the postcards but we do have ideas of what we don't want in them.  

 

This is one of the Postcards that I found online for a short film shown in festivals. For this card I was only able to find the front of the postcard, usually, postcards have a front and back (which will make sure to make). This is clearly for a film called "Animals" as it's the biggest word on the card. Under the name, it's the date, time, and location of where it's going to be shown. The card also has all the production credits in the upper part of the card in small letters and in the bottom social media accounts of the production, also in small font. It also includes a snapshot from the film that helps sets the mood for the overall production. From these postcards, the thing that really stuck out to me is the color scheme. How the letters, photos, and background color all go together. It helps to make the card easy to look at as well as captivating as the colors go really well together. We definitely want to include a prominent color scheme in our card, to reflect our color scheme in our movie.   

For color schemes, I had an idea to make the front with lots of colors and the back in black and white. As in our production, we are going to be playing with the saturation of the shots. Lowering it when there's a sad part, and bringing it up in the shots when there is a happy scene. By including this in the postcard I feel like it makes it very unique as well as captivating to the viewer. 

This sample is also from another production show in film festivals called "Empty Box of Wine". This one is more like what we are supposed to produce by having the front and back of the card. The Front of the card has minimal text as the focus of it is mainly on the image. Also in the front is the production title, catchphrase, and director's name, however, the most eye-catching is the picture with the bright colors and unique character, because the words are in a smaller font. This helps to captivate the audience through a visual point. On the back of the card is where most of the information like the movie description, Showtimes, and contact info. I think this is a good way to organize the postcard so that the viewer is caught through the visual factors and the aesthetic of the movie. However, this might be overwhelming to the viewer depending on how much information there is and only having all of it in the back. It might seem like a lot of organized wrongs, which will have to be careful with. 

This example is from a student-produced film called "Elle qui Please". In my opinion, this one is the best visually as it has a consistent color palette with the purple, pinks, whites, and greys that are prominent in the front and back of the card. This is something that I definitely want to include in our postcard having a pattern with color in the cards. I feel like it's an easy way to make the cards consistent and easy for the eye. The front of the card only includes the title director and a snapshot from the short film. The front part is very simple, but pretty at the same time. As well the font and color palette helps inform the audience about the aesthetic of the film. On the back, the card includes a short description of the film, title, production credits, and contact information. Something really clever that the creator include was a QR code for the Youtube and Instagram accounts of the production. I feel like this is an easier way for people to find the social media accounts of the movies, and will definitely consider including something similar.  

 

This is another student-produced film "How fast". The most prominent thing in the cards is clearly the color red. It has a very prominent red presence which is most likely reflected in the film.  On the front of the card are the title, catchphrase, location, and time for viewing. The title isn't written on the card, instead is in the picture, which is a clever way to include it however it is easy to miss and many people could be confused about what the title is. On the back of the card, there's a quote and contact information for the movie and where to find it. This whole postcard is missing production credits, which is a detail that all postcards include. My group really enjoys the prominent color and how its consistent and would most likely include something similar in ours 

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Shots Shots Shots

 Shot lists

Just like the script we also created a shot list of types of shots and angles we want to include throughout the short film. This list doesn't have a list of all the shots we are going to include, but the most important ones for the film. The order of the shot list matched the script, so we'll easily know what we have to shoot. 

SHOT LIST: 

• Over-the-shoulder shot from the little kid looking at their coach explaining the skill. 

• Mid/long shot of the little kid doing the skill perfectly. 

• Mid/long shot of the rest of the girls doing the same skill just not as good. 

• Same sequence of shots but in another event. 

• Close-ups of the main girl's face shows the excitement of being in the gym. 

• Close-up of the girl rolling their eyes at the girl. 

• Mid shot of them rolling their eyes and showing them getting annoyed at the girl's “perfection”

• (More shots of her as her younger self enjoying gymnastics)

• transition from young to old: showing them doing a skill when they’re younger and zooming into their hands or feet and then when we zoom out they’re older. 

• (Shots of everything getting harder, her friends kinda doing better than her) 

• Over-the-shoulder shot of her looking at a video of a professional gymnast doing what she does. 

• Over-the-shoulder shot of her analyzing the videos of her doing gymnastics. 

• Two-shot of the coach and the girl having a talk. 

• Series of different shots of her practicing on her own to be better and improving on her own. 

• Over-the-shoulder shot of her looking at her phone 

• (Still enjoying gymnastics but kinda falling more and not doing it correctly) 

• Transition from middle to older, showing her falling. 

• Close-ups of her falling (like stick it) 

• Long shot of someone coming in and finding her after practice 

• Two shots of them two having a conversation

• Different sequence of shots showing her crying and talking to herself wondering why she is not good enough. 

• Mid a shot of her having a breakdown with her mom or parents that she can’t do it anymore, yet, her mom forces her. 

• MAYBE: A shot of her and her mom in the car, telling her that she has to keep going and stuff. 

• MAYBE (for the very end, do a close-up with a zoom-in and then put a bunch of flashbacks of when everything was simple and easy and t just ends)

 

 

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What is going to be said

 Script 

We finally got a draft of the script for the short film. The script is shorter than needed cause we are going to incorporate some improve acting in our film given that most of our actors are beginner actors. We felt it would be more natural to allow them to improve than learn lines for the whole short film.  Our script still reflects important scenes we want to include in our short film, but they aren't enough to fulfill the 5 min. 

SCRIPT:

Coach: Now that you're on the beam I want you to do a backward kick, I want the dismount to be clean girls, toes pointed arms straight  

Girls stand in line and perform the stunt (the main girl does it perfectly everyone else has flaws) 

Other classmates look annoyed at the girl

Coach: Well done ______, guys look at how she kept her toes pointed and core tight, that's how everyone should be doing the kick. Now I need everyone to practice this skill for the next 10 min

Girls go into their own groups, the main girl goes with her two friends

Friend 1: Hey that was super good, how did you get the kick down so quick 

Friend 2: yeah Please show me how, I can’t keep my arms straight while I'm in the air 

Main Girl: I don't know I guess I'm just naturally good at gymnastics  

Main Girl: Gymnastics is so fun and easy, I love it 

The girl says easy, very excited about being there and being good 

~Transition~ 

Coach: Girls I need you guys to be looking better, this is not good enough for competition,  

The coach privately talks to the girl during practice 

Coach: I'll suggest you stay after practice, and practice your technique, for competitions because right now you're not good enough 

Main girl: Okay I get it 

Looking at a professional gymnastic  

Main Girl: Why can't I do that 

Main Girl: Why am I not good enough 

Looking back at herself in videos 

Main Girl: This is not good enough, I hate it  

In the car  

Main Girl: I can’t keep coming to gymnastics anymore 

Mother: You have to keep going, look how far you have gotten 

Main girl: But it's gotten harder, I can't get the routines right 

Mother: You just need to practice more, you can’t quit over that, it's a dumb reason 

Main girl: It's not only that- 

Mother: Stop, you aren't leaving gymnastics, I've paid too much for you not to continue, come on you're going to be late. 

~Transitions~

The main girl tries techniques over and over again, and after so much, she stops and becomes sad about her failures 

Coach: Hey, what are you still doing here, we ended practice two hours ago… do you need a ride home

Main girl: No I am fine thanks, I've been trying to get the new technique down, but I haven't been able to 

Coach: I understand, your legs were not straight enough during practice. I expect you to be better at this, you were the best when you started, what happened 

Main Girl: I promise, ill be perfect for the competition. 

Coach: You better if not you're out of the team.  

Main girl: I can't do this anymore

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