Khan Academy to the rescue!

In class on Tuesday not only did I learn about Celtx but I learned that Khan Academy is another useful tool when it comes to learning about the process of storytelling. As you can probably tell I need as much help as I can get because I am in the second week and have yet to come up with my story. However, that is an issue for another day. Today, I decided to check out one of the videos that my teacher recommended, the video is titled Story Spine and it is one of the several lessons that Khan Academy provides in an educational storytelling series that it had in partnership with Pixar. I was honestly really excited when my teacher recommended this resource because I have always found Khan Academy to be really useful in other subject matters so I was pleasantly surprised that it was a resource available to me for even my more creative classes.

So after watching the video I honestly felt much better about the whole process. For one, I felt reassured that this advice was coming from professionals, especially from Pixar since they are obviously one of the largest animation companies in the world. Just the fact that they were able to reference movies that I grew up with as a kid an explain the whole thought process behind it was really exciting to me. One of the main points that they touched upon in the video was that they often organize their stories by something they refer to as story "beats". They explained that one story "beat" will generally refer to a point in the story where a character makes an important decision or where there is a distinct cause and effect. They then proceeded to break down Nemo and Toy Story into their own story "beats". As I saw them explain the "story spine" and the "structure" of every story I realized how important the planning and structuring of a story really is. They also constantly emphasized how it is important to not get too caught up in the details of a story and first just outline "what" is happening instead of "how". I think this honestly is a really good tip because I know I always get caught up in the details but I should probably take a step back and just outline the story before going more in-depth. I definitely think I will continue to utilize Khan Academy as a resource in helping me develop the story for this short film.

Script Writing!

In class, we had a whole lesson about scriptwriting and my teacher showed us a really useful tool called Celtx! Celtx is a pre-production media software that is utilized by online users to organize and design projects like documentaries, stage plays, and films. As a student, this seemed to be a really useful tool for me since it is easily accessible and cost-free. I realized that as a user there is the ability to upgrade to a premium subscription but the free version provided me with all the tools I needed to create my own script and that was all I needed!

I decided to make an account and test it out and it proved to be really easy to use. To create a project all I had to do was simply click "new project" and it allowed me to title my project and even select what episode I was writing if it was a television show. As I was playing around with it I realized there were some other accessible tools including tools to create a storyboard and even index cards. However, today I was exploring the scriptwriting aspect so I selected Script. The program easily allowed me to title every scene and even provided suggestions to aid me in the process. By hitting the tab key on my keyboard I was easily able to navigate between the scene description the dialogue and the character names. Overall, I think this is an extremely useful tool that I definitely want to utilize in the future for this project. I am also really interested in the fact that it provided me with the ability to create a storyboard as I think this could also be really useful once we decide what idea we want to portray in our short film. 

Schedule!

As we get closer to the second week of starting this project my partner and I have decided that we need a schedule! We first laid out all of the things that we had to do and then looked at the amount of time that we had to finish the project. Honestly, after making the schedule, it made me feel much more confident in the project and much more at peace with the amount of work we still have yet to do. So here's a detailed explanation of the following few weeks!

• Weeks 2/18- 3/1 PLANNING/ COMING UP WITH THE STORY- 

In these two weeks, we will be planning out the story for our film. Due to the fact that this is a very important task as it will set up the basis for our entire project we thought it would be fitting to spread it across two weeks. 

• Week 3/2- 3/8 PERFECTING STORY/ PREPARING FOR FILMING

This week we will take care of all the details of the story and prepare for filming. We will most likely make a storyboard and develop the characters thoroughly. This is also when we will go location scouting and where we will figure out the costume design and props.

• Week 3/9- 3/15 FILMING

During this week we want to start and finish filming. We will probably spread out filming across a couple days depending on the number of filming locations we have to go to. We will also try and rent some professional equipment at the beginning of the week so our final product can be shown in high quality. 

• Week 3/16- 3/22 EDITING/ POST PRODUCTION 

Throughout this week we will edit together all of our footage to come out with our finished product. This is when we will also select any music we wish to include and also record any voiceovers or sound effects that we feel necessary. We will also color correct and apply filters at the end in order to make the final product more cohesive

• Week 3/23- 29 WEBSITE/ POSTCARD ADVERTISEMENT

My partner and I wanted to make sure that we made the website and the postcard advertisement after we had at least a rough edit of our final product so we thought it was fitting to schedule this for the week after editing. During this week it is also spring break so we hope that doesn't interfere with our work but I feel like the website and the postcard advertisement will be much easier to finish at this point if we already have a rough draft. 

• Week 3/30- 4/5 FIX ANY ERRORS/ PERFECT FINAL PRODUCT

At this point, we will probably have shown our rough draft to a couple people so we can go back and fix any mistakes that we had previously. This is also when we can add anything to improve our project and make sure it is perfect before we turn it in. 

• Week 4/6- 4/12 CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION (CCR)

Finally, once we have all of our components ready we can start working on our CCR. This is often a long and tedious process as it is a reflection of our entire project so we wanted to make sure we had at least a week to work on it. After that is done, we're done! :) 

Simple and Happy!

Hello again! Here I am back to the brainstorming process. I have yet to think of anything that I would willingly want to make into a short film, but we still have a little bit of time so there is hope. Also, my partner has the flu and has been unable to come to school this entire week which is very unfortunate as I have been unable to discuss the story of our short film with her. Nonetheless, the show must go on so I shall continue to research! Today I am going to be looking into "feel good" film productions. Just last class my teacher was recommending the television show "Modern Love". My teacher explained that the reason why she enjoyed the show was that it was happy and simple and not a lot of film productions nowadays are able to achieve this purpose.

When your doorman is your main man

So I went home and I watched "Modern Love". "Modern Love" is a series of short episodes that retell real-life stories that were once documented on a column in The New York Times newspaper. After watching the first episode I decided that I totally agreed with my teacher. The world needs more of these heartwarming stories. Sometimes I feel like I am suffocating in the tragedies of the world as I see film production after film production tell me how terrible our world really is. Not to say that it is not important to take a step back and reflect on the mistakes of humanity but sometimes I think it's important to recognize the beauty of the world.

So then I decided to research more productions that gave me that "feel good" vibe. In my quest to find the characteristics of such films I stumbled upon an article by the name of "7 Heartwarming Animated Short Films For A Relaxing Evening". After reading the article and checking out a couple of the productions I learned quite a few things about these types of films. Number one is that they all have happy endings, obviously, not every story has a happy ending, but that is the job of these films to present the audience with a story that does. Also as seen from the title, all of these short films are animated which is not a skill that I have, but I was able to take a lot of other characteristics into account after watching them. I realized that many of them had very limited dialogue as they focused on portraying the story over telling the story. I also realized that these productions placed a heavy focus on music since the dialogue was not a predominant feature. Often times the music would help develop the story and the tone of the production. All of the films also tended to have very few characters. I think this focus on one character instead of multiple allows these stories to be more meaningful as it allows the production to feel more personal and heartfelt. Lastly, these productions really demonstrated the idea of K.I.S.S that I had learned about earlier. Keep It Simple Stupid!

I learned that you don't need a complex story in order to develop an idea and that one does not need to overcomplicate shots or scenes in order to deliver a message. I find these types of films to be really intriguing and I would love to make my short film following the same basis of a simple yet heartfelt story.

Where to find ideas

It is safe to say that I am internally screaming as we start to work on this project. I feel as if everyone already has their idea chosen and ready to go and I barely know where to start! Like any other sane human being in the 20th century I resorted to the internet for help. I asked dear old Google if it could point me in the right direction to the land of ideas because I evidently was very lost. Thankfully I was pointed in the direction of this article by the name of 19 Great Ways to Brainstorm Short Film Ideas. As I am reading it I am finding that I simply do not have the ability to engage in some of the tips that were suggested in the article but I was able to find some useful ones throughout reading it.

The first tip was to work on the story a little bit every day. This is unfortunately not an option because I most likely need to decide on my story either this week or next week if I want to finish on time. So then, I went on to the next tip which was to write things down. I have heard this tip a million times before but I learned something new this time. I learned about something called the Alpha state which refers to those moments where you daydream when you are doing something mechanical or automatic. So now I know to be more attentive to my own thoughts while I am doing the most mundane of tasks like washing the dishes! I mean at this point anything helps. Moving on, the next tip suggested I could write about myself. This honestly is not a bad idea, I know we have all experienced crazy moments in our lives that we retell time and time again. So this time why not recreate one of those moments but only in a more dramatized and high definition way?

I'm not sure whose grandpa this is but I am sure
he's telling a very good joke that could be turned
into the plot of a very successful short film.

Then there was the suggestion of making a story out of an old grandad joke, which unfortunately is of no help to me since all of my grandparents live in Mexico. However, if anyone is willing to let me borrow their grandpa for a day so I can steal their jokes and make them into a movie it would be very much appreciated. Then the article kindly suggested that I could take an iconic story and flip the roles around to make it more interesting. This is definitely an option but I'm not sure if the AICE curriculum allows us to make parodies and turn them in as our projects. Either way, I am not sure if I would want to make a project like this as I don't believe that would be very creative.

Then I learned about Reverse Budgeting which is probably the most interesting of the tips as I

Robert Rodriguez-
"Reverse budgeting" technique

learned that Robert Rodriguez the director of "El Mariachi" utilized this same technique when developing his own story. The essence of it is to think of all of the resources you know you have easy access to or that you can purchase for cheap and then put them all together to make a story. This is honestly perfect considering my partner and I are just students and do not have a five million dollar budget. Then I stepped along the "what if..." technique which also seemed very viable since it is a simple starter to the questions that we make every day. Like what if I already had my idea right now? Maybe I wouldn't be so stressed. Anyways...

Lastly, I learned about the "press random article on Wikipedia" technique which could possibly pop up some useful or inspiring story. And then I learned about "K.I.S.S". Which is probably the most useful tip of all! Keep It Simple Stupid! Here I am overthinking my story for an unnatural amount of time when I could make something wonderful based on something mundane. So with those final words of wisdom, I am going to try and use these suggestions to come up with something AMAZING. So I will keep you guys updated.