Assessing Wardrobe

 Martina sent me a few pictures of what she had in her closet, so I'm going to go through and assess (with the limited view that I have into her closet) what we could possibly use.

So, here we have a variety of sweatshirts. While I personally like them, I'm not convinced that they would fit into the aesthetic I have planned for Martina's character (name to be decided at a later date!). The graphics they have on them are sport/travel-related, and while that could work, I don't think they'd be kitschy enough to seem like it fits into a thrift-based aesthetic.

Something that I would consider using would be like this sweater above. While still a sweatshirt, it has those kitschy elements that would make it look more grunge than other aesthetics. It also has the feature of the red layer underneath, which fits into the layering aesthetic I would like to incorporate.

Martina also has a collection of graphic tees. The one on the left fits perfectly into the type of "loud" t-shirts I was referring to in my previous blog post. The one on the right, while still a graphic tee, doesn't quite fit into the aesthetic I have envisioned. Disney, with the exception of Nightmare Before Christmas, feels like it clashes with the rebellious character we're trying to convey through her character.

This section of Martina's closet seems to fit another aesthetic. However, I don't mind reaching into it for a plain black shirt we can use to layer. I don't have much to add here.

These shirts feel perfect! I'm pretty sure the top of the stack on the right is a shirt with dolphins on it, which not only do I personally love, would fit in with the thrift-based aesthetic I'm trying to build with Martina's character. It looks slightly outdated in the sense that it's a very 2000s shirt, so you would hardly see a more mainstream trendy teen wearing it. I'll have to explore this section more in person.

Again, not much to add. The shoes are all on-trend and all trendy amongst more alternative style teens. Martina also has a studded belt, as you can see at the very top in the photo. This is also a super popular trend from the early 2000s that has made a comeback amongst trendy alternative teens. I'll see if I can incorporate it as necessary.

Martina also owns these pairs of jeans. Not much to add other than they're exactly what I wanted as I outlined in my last post. 

Now... this? This is precisely what I had in mind. It's so perfect!

It warrants a celebratory GIF.

via GIPHY

Anyways, this fits into the aesthetic I'm trying to craft perfectly. If the bottom right shirt with the skull doesn't make it into the final cut of my trailers, please check in on me, because it means that I am not ok.

And to finish off, this is what Martina has on her hangers. She has a flannel and a few more pants. Nothing I necessarily feel the need to comment, but I really do think that this will fit into the aesthetic I am building surrounding her character.

Why Martina? And a Look into What Grunge Even Is

 So, this is Martina!

As you can tell, Martina already has a personal brand that fits in with the character type I want to do. She has the grunge/thrift teen aesthetic I want to create with my character. This means that I don't have to spend any money buying clothes or track someone down that's Martina's size.

But what does a grunge aesthetic even consist of?

From the Wikipedia page (yes, I use Wikipedia!):

Grunge fashion is the clothing, accessories and hairstyles of the grunge music genre and subculture which emerged in mid-1980s Seattle, and had reached wide popularity by the early 2000s. Grunge fashion is characterized by durable and timeless thrift-store clothing, often worn in a loose, androgynous manner to de-emphasize the silhouette. The style was popularized by music bands Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam.

So, as part of my research, I looked up "grunge" on Pinterest and saved a few pins that I wanted to take inspiration from. (Check out what I found here) Some of what I saved is very much not grunge, but it reflects how that general type of alternative subculture of teens is dressing these days. Sticking to what would be considered strictly grunge would most likely result in an outdated wardrobe, which while not necessarily an issue, doesn't feel too realistic of what a suburban teen would wear.

The main reason I wanted to go with more of an internet girl influence is that it would be realistic for the modern teen; this movie isn't going to be set in the past. It's pretty well known that TikTok is setting trends, especially among teens. 

Elements I would like to include are:

• Band tee shirts
• Graphic tees with generally "aggressive" prints
• Aggressive meaning loud, with lots of primary colors, and intense imagery (such as skulls)
• Ripped, baggy jeans
• Flannel
• Loose layers and clothing in general
• The androgynous style and lack of a silhouette is an important part of grunge fashion, and it definitely has carried on to the modern day. It would be a mistake not to include this aspect.

While I don't necessarily think I have to include all of these aspects, I think it would be interesting to have and it's definitely the vision I have for the costuming.

So, I'm using Martina because she already has these things in her closet and her dyed hair adds another element without me having to explain to an angry parent why their kid came home with different-colored hair.

Telling Martina The New Plan

So, I honestly still wanted to make my chick flick because I did the research and thought it would be cute </3

But Martina and I both don't like kissing randoms, so I decided to go with the more grungey coming of age film. I think this is a lot easier for me to accomplish with the restraints I have. While I could possibly ask my friend Soha to be the star, her relationship is kind of rocky right now and it requires me completely finishing ALL filming in 4 days. I don't think that's a limitation I would like to place on myself, so this seems like the right way forward!

So, when I originally told Martina about the plan, I was very much thinking about Beautiful Boy, hence the idea for the grunge movie involving drug use. However, this isn't really the path I want to go with anymore, so disregard the comment!

Anyways, Martina is on board! A post about why I chose her will be going up soon.

AHHHHHHHHH!

Turns out that David's girlfriend doesn't want to do the trailers. This throws an absolute wrench in my plans. Time to completely change what I had planned!

I had a bit of a backup plan, which I discussed with the class yesterday. While Martina has no one to kiss, she does have a cool closet that's pretty grungy and gives me teenage runaway vibes. My idea is to take her up and down State Road 84 and film a teenage runaway film. 

The basic premise is a teenager who gets tired of her suburban life and chooses to run away towards the city as a result. However, she realizes that she made a mistake and is now somewhere where she can't get back and isn't safe.

While the movie is probably not related in the slightest, I got the idea from Beautiful Boy because I think I'd like to have similar vibes to the "my son is a drug addict" drama.

Here is the trailer for Beautiful Boy. I want to make something that feels a bit gritty and realistic, which is the main reason my mind wandered to Beautiful Boy.

I feel like the trailer is a good example of how to demonstrate an interpersonal drama in a compelling way and I like the way it's set up with the arguments and the shots of each of them going through their own problems. While I was initially very opposed to having a voiceover, I don't think that it's that bad of an idea after watching this trailer.

I also checked out the trailer for Marriage Story since it came up on my YouTube recommended after the Beautiful Boy trailer. It's another realistic, popular, drama that involves interpersonal relationships, so it's worth looking into.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDFdroN7d0w&list=TLPQMTEwMzIwMjEhEydLwcfMOw&index=2

So, this was a really interesting take on a trailer. It's just a scene from the movie, and it's arguably the climax. And they just... made it the trailer. I'm not sure I want to take this route to be honest, as I don't know if it would be the best method of showing technique. However, since we're doing a pair of trailers and not just one, I think it could be an interesting way to produce just one of them, by having the scene between the daughter and the mother arguing. I think I'd have to recruit my mom into being my actress, so we'll see.

I also found the trailer for an indie drama about adolescence, which is something definitely worth looking into. While it definitely wasn't a box office hit, I am making an indie drama about adolescence so it's a pretty good example to look at. It deals with a teen boy, not a teen girl, but I could get some ideas for color grading and trailer structure out of it.

I think it's pretty interesting. I like how dark the movie is, not in a tone sense, but in the literal color grading and lighting sense.

Kissing During a Pandemic

So all of my friends that were in relationships broke up. That kinda throws a wrench in my plans because I need people to kiss in my trailers. So, I turned to Twitter to see if any of my 57 followers could help me out.

Unfortunately, my little brother's friends are lonely too.

I broke up with my ex-boyfriend like two months ago and I think it'd be messier than it's worth trying to involve him in helping me out. Plus, I simply do not want to, which I think is a good enough excuse to not do anything.

I could give up and turn my trailers into a film about a cute kitty romance involving my cat, Pikachu, but he's mean and doesn't like other cats and I'm not very well trained in the art of animal training. It's unfortunate, I think Pikachu makes quite the handsome leading man.

So, I got to texting people individually if they could help me out by acting in my trailers. I sent the following text:

"1. is there someone who is willing to kiss you on the mouth?

2. if so, could you act in a trailer for me?"

I got the following responses...

Matheus:

Camille:

But then I realized my friend David is literally in a relationship and his girlfriend is very nice. After asking if they would act in my trailer, David told me that he'd ask but it'd probably be a yes! I'm very excited and by knowing their vibes, I know I can more properly develop a story. I think that writing the role specifically for someone is much easier than writing the role and trying to find two people that fit into that role.

Funky Costumes?

 So I was scrolling Twitter (as one does) and I came across this tweet that really piqued my interest. Here it is below:

my alien children pic.twitter.com/lvfR2R7f4x

— status: missing daft punk (@lissieeee) February 28, 2021

I really like this as a look. The monochromatic for each character is definitely something I could incorporate, especially if I decide to go for a more whimsical childhood-based storyline like some of the color palettes inspired me to.

I'm also tempted to use a funky hat. I feel like I could have a lot of fun by incorporating a frog hat. I don't know how serious I am about this idea, but I definitely think it could be fun, funky, and fresh.

On a more serious note, I think I'm liking the following color palette for costuming. We'll see how it goes once I figure out who I can get to act in my trailers.

Word Clouds: Part 2

Here are the remainder of the world clouds! I have a post about costuming coming up soon, and I'm excited for you all to see it :)

Word Clouds: Part 1

These are the word clouds! They're in the same order as the palettes, so you can correlate them. The first word cloud correlates with the first color palette. Sorry for not having them side by side, the coding is a little too complicated for me to manage.

Group Meetings

We had a group meeting in class today. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, Chelsea and I weren't able to present our own project ideas. However, we'll be meeting with Briana and Dominic on Monday in order for them to also have some discussions, so be on the lookout for another update coming next week.

However, I was able to provide my input on a lot of my classmates' projects, and I feel like along the way, it gave me a few neat ideas.

Looking to Colors for Inspiration

Sometimes you can really get a vibe from a color palette, so I decided to put a bunch of palettes together to see if any really inspired me. Below, I've attached 10 color palettes, a blog post explaining what types of vibes they inspire will be coming very very soon.

Brainstorming An Idea

So, in order to begin my quest for an idea of what to do, I decided to visit an old friend of mine: random online story generators. I might have done this last year, to be honest, but I don't recall at this moment. In order to do this, I decided to hit up FilmSourcing.

Here are the ones I considered highlights!

A conservative horse whisperer leaves her fiancée at the altar and runs off to Florida where she is transformed by colourful characters firing snappy one-liners. With little else to do, she becomes obsessed with a heart broken teacher and they fall in love. There is just one obstacle – his last name is Penis.

A gorgeous actress buys a last minute ticket to Florida where her life is suddenly full of the wisdom of the elderly. With little else to do, she becomes obsessed with an unconventional writer and they connect. But one thing stands in the way – he has a dark secret.

An adrift lawyer is forced to return to her family home in the Greek Islands where her life is suddenly full of overwhelming solitude. One day she is rescued by a charming doctor and they fall in love. There is just one obstacle – she's actually a princess and arranged to marry some royal douche.  

 

Going Over Past Triumphs and Mistakes

So, I've decided to go with the chick flick... luckily for me, the trailer project we did a few weeks ago was a chick flick romance. The first step to figuring out what kind of chick flick trailers I want to do in the future involves me looking at the one I made in the past and figuring out what I feel I did right and what I did wrong.

Full disclosure, I edited the audio after turning it in for the purposes of uploading it to this blog. The audio I got rid of was the dialogue between the two main characters. This is for a few reasons:

1. The voice actors were me and my brother. I simply could not get over the ick-factor that came with watching the romantic dialogue between us, time and time again, while analyzing what I did in this trailer.
2. I still have no idea what I'm doing with my microphone, so a lot of the audio was poorly recorded and as a result, had a lot of inconsistencies when I tried to edit out background noise and modify our voices to sound different.
3. I know for a fact that the dialogue audio is what I hate most about the project. I don't feel like I would be able to properly focus on the other elements I did if the dialogue audio was there, hindering my own criticism of my work.

Without any more fuss, the full-length trailer I made: 

So, let's go over what I liked.

• I really like the song choice. I think it fits the woodsy, romantic, artsy vibe I was aiming for, and I think my project partner and I made the right choice regarding it.
• The color grading in some clips is really bright, warm, and summery. I quite like it and I'm proud of myself in retrospect while watching it.
• Briana shot the footage, and I really like how much movement she was able to incorporate. I often fall into the trap of not moving the camera when filming, but the movement gives the footage a lot more life.
• The transition into the title card! It's not realistic because the flash doesn't come out of the camera, but do I care? No. Does the audience care? No. It looks super cool.

What I didn't like as much...

• I'm ashamed to admit it! I'm having second thoughts about my font choice for the title cards. I think the sans serif font is too devoid of character and personality in retrospect. While I still like it, I don't know if it was the right fit for the trailer.
• Some of the clips needed more stabilization, I should've run it through After Effects another time.
• The production company logo is super simple and doesn't feel as intentional as I would like.
• Shots are super repetitive. I definitely need to set up multiple shooting locations when I put together this trailer, it feels like it happens all in one day because it literally does. It's lacking full-length film vibes.
• The footage gets very warped at multiple points. Tripod for filming is a MUST!
• THE title card is very plain. Definitely need to add to it in the future.

What Do Trailers Even Look Like?

So, to start off, I'm looking at what genre I'm interested in doing and which I can feasibly do with my $11.30/hr budget in South Florida. I decided to look at a few different types of trailers and see what would best fit into my capabilities.

Starting off with... action.

I decided to look at the trailers for The Bourne Identity, Baby Driver, and Snowpiercer, which I have included in this post right below! I didn't seek out a particular trailer, I went with the first one that came up when I searched it, so long as it was a full-length trailer. 

Bourne Identity is a super important film in the action genre, marking a shift from James Bond to a more gritty, realistic version of the genre. It was literally a gamechanger in the genre. So it only felt fair to look at this trailer as an example of what action trailers look like. It's very stunt-heavy and involves a good amount of weapons and props I don't really have access to. It's interesting, but I don't think I quite have the resources to pull off something similar.

The same goes with Baby Driver. I do know a professional stunt driver who's a customer at my job. He's fond of me and I think I could get him to help me out. My issue is that it's kind of illegal to do stunt driving without some type of permit, I assume. I'm not really sure if that's the path I want to take with this portfolio project. While it would be interesting, this is time-sensitive and it would involve calling in a LOT of favors.

Snowpiercer is interesting in the sense that it doesn't involve as many stunts or weapons, it's mostly concentrated at the end of the trailer. It involves very heavy set dressing and intentional mise-en-scene elements, which I could do, but I don't want to drain my bank account, especially when I have a lot of expenses coming up soon (thanks college!) Also, I'm not sure doing an action trailer would be very school-appropriate, as they tend to be PG-13 or R-rated. As a result... let's move on.

To the chick flick!

Yeah, there's some discourse surrounding the term, but we're going to ignore that for the purposes of this blogpost. I won't be addressing romance movies on their own because I'll be categorizing them under the chick flick genre for my research purposes. Chick flick is basically a film that is marketed primarily towards women.

I made sure that all of these are more modern as the chick flick is more sensitive to the passage of time compared to action movies. I looked at Me Before You, To All The Boys I've Loved Before, Girls Trip, Crazy Rich Asians, and Someone Great.

Me Before You doesn't involve many complicated sets, mostly scenes between the two main characters bantering and a very (in my opinion) cute customing of the main female lead. It doesn't involve many extra characters, there are no complicated sets (I can simply not include a fancy gala scene for obvious reasons), and it employs some techniques I used while doing my last set of trailers. Chick Flicks are off to a strong start, I'm feeling pretty inspired.

A lot of my previous thoughts reoccurred while watching To All The Boys I've Loved Before. Though, I can't really film in a school this year... it'll also make it painfully obvious how empty the background is. However, no one said I had to do a school-based story (so I very obviously won't!) However, I love how the trailer was color graded and the attention to aesthetics in this trailer, I definitely want to be incorporating it into what I end up doing. Incorporating the traditional romance clips with a few humorous ones definitely categorizes it as a teen romantic comedy, which, I'm definitely interested in doing.

It's quite obvious that this trailer, in contrast to the other two, is being marketed to a much older audience of women. Super interesting how they fall under the same genre. While this brought a lot to the table for me to consider (especially the aspect of maybe not even including a romance and instead focusing on female friendship,) I'm not sure I'll be doing something very similar.

This brought up an interesting thought that I stupidly didn't have before: I could do some visually interesting split-screen moments because it's not actually a movie... Wow. I think it works well and I'll give it a try. The subject matter is obviously not one I can take inspiration from but some of the editing techniques create a lot of that visual interest, I'll be making a blog post in the future to show off me trying them out.

This trailer really impressed the importance of an almost "theme song" for the marketing campaign. Lizzo's song "Truth Hurts" does a lot of work in setting a tone and the general vibes for the film. A lot of the other trailers did it as well, but I feel like it's most prominent here. One thing this does prompt me to think about is, is there such a thing as going to current? A lot of what's in the trailer will be super out of date in a matter of 3 years. It's only 2 years old and feels a bit dated already. While there's nothing wrong with being unapologetically a product of your time, is that the path I want to lead myself down?

And with that... I moved onto comedy!

I only went over Once Upon a Time in Hollywood for reasons I'll dicuss below

No diss on Tarantino, but I realized pretty immediately that I wanted to go with something in the Chick Flick genre pretty immediately. Not that those movies don't fall under comedy (though, I watched Someone Great, and calling it a comedy is a bit of a stretch...) but I want to create something targeted towards women. That's just what seems more fun to me. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood obviously has a lot of technique that's interesting, but I've realized it's not what I want.