Creative Critical Reflection

Final Project

I'm proud to present you my final project:

Where Have all the Hearts Gone?

You can access the video by  clicking here.

I hope you enjoy it!

Chao, Chao!

Planning CCR

Since I came up with my title yesterday and I have the design and everything, now I can move on to the Creative Critical Reflection.

I still don't have a clear idea about how I'm going to present it. I'm thinking about starting with a vlog just to create an introduction about myself and a background information about the film. Then I'd switch to show visuals, maybe an excerpt from the opening and then some images and screencasts of my editing process. I will figure out that later. But right now, these are the main points that I will be touching during my reflection:

How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

• Challenge conventions of romantic movies. 
• Love 
• Necessity of a relationship
• Happy endings
• Contrast between Marcella and her friends and interviews
• Expectations
• Different representation of love
• More realistic
• Inclusion
• Different languages

How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

• Different production to the others, therefore, more appealing
• Distribution
• Movie-theaters
• Social Media (Audience)
• Snapchat
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Spotify
• Valentine's Day (Genre) 

How did your production skills develop throughout the project?

• Interview 
• 2 shots, as equals
• Colors
• Choosing setting
• Colors
• Extreme Close-up
• Feelings/emotions
• Realism

How did you integrate technologies - software, hardware and online - in this project?

• Wondershare
• Vegas
• Movie Maker
• Own background
• Own logo
• Own title

So this will be my guide to writing my script this afternoon. 

I believe that I will have everything by Sunday afternoon.

Chao, Chao!

Where have all the Hearts gone?

Remember that in my last post I had 2 choices for my title? 

1. A true love story
2. Accidentally in love
3. Accidental love (I also had this one but as it's kind of similar to the second one, I didn't point it out).

But I also wrote that I rather have a title that doesn't include the word "love". So I continued looking, asking, researching, praying, begging.

Yesterday, I decided that I wanted something that involves sociology terms since that's Marcella's major and it can work as something symbolic in her career. So I came up with this quote and I thought about "simple, complex", then a friend suggested "simply complex". 

The reason for this is that love is described as something simple in sociology. But, at the same time, it can be described as something complex because it "can represent so many different meanings and understandings: sexual love, intimate love, companionate love, romantic love, parental love, friendship love, inter-species love, love for places, belongings, views." 

It could also work because Marcella sees herself as someone simple, different from other girls that feel the necessity of receiving flowers and chocolates every month; she just dislike that. But because of this, everyone else see her as someone complex and difficult to understand. 

However, I felt that something was missing from that option. So I started to add more expressions, and the results were something like "Extraordinarily Simple, Incredibly Complex" and "Exceptionally Simple, Extraordinarily Complex". And for some unknown reason, I liked them. I like encrypted and long titles. But when I was trying to share these titles with my friends, I could not finish pronouncing them before my friends begin to laugh. And seriously, it was a BIG problem. I tried my best but my non-cute Venezuelan accent didn't help me. So I thought "If I can't pronounce my own title, then how am I going to be able to make it appealing to my audience?"

Anyways, in lunch, before my AICE Media Class, I annotated "Where Have All the Hearts Gone?" (I seriously don't remember where or how I found it, I just know that I had it in my notes). So I shared it with my mom and with one of my closest friends and they liked it. Then a friend told me that "hearts" is a weak word, so I started thinking about the meaning of that title, and I'm sorry, but I need to disagree with her. 

I consider that words can have different meanings to different persons, and it's each individual who decides how much power a word or a sentence can have. For example, when I hear the word Freedom I think about my country, Venezuela, and all the Human Rights violations that the government is committing against it own people. But when an American think about Freedom, he thinks about the natural freedom that his government provides for them, he will not question if he has freedom, he just knows he has.

So, maybe hearts is a weak word for her but for me, it represents and conveys a strong symbolism in my movie. I'll try to explain my point so you can understand me.

People tend to draw doodles in class when they're bored, right? Girls usually draw hearts, stars, and cartoons. Nevertheless, since Marcella is not that kind of romantic girl, she doesn't draw hearts. But, at the climax of the movie. when she meets this guy and they connect and share so many things and... love happens, she will start drawing hearts and more romantic things in her notebooks.

Doodles that Marcella would
usually do.

Doodles that Marcella would do
when she falls in love.

   

Not this cheesy and girly, but it's jut to show you an example.

So she falls in love with him, let's call him Daniel, and she also starts making little designs with his name and hearts.

But remember,  Daniel is going to hurt her and he's going to break her heart, right? So, when this happens, she's going to stop drawing hearts in her notes. But instead, she's going to write encouraging quotes, like this:

Somedays you just have to create
your own sunshine.

Not one of my best but I tried.

So, I decided to use her "doodles" and her "hearts" as something symbolic in the film. They're going to represent the journey of relationships and all of Marcella's transformation. And I think that the way I made the credits in the opening are a way to introduce and support this idea.

Finally, may I present to you my nice and super appealing movie title:

Since I didn't like the fonts that my editor was providing, a friend suggested to use DaFont and see if I like any of the fonts that they have. Then I borrowed her computer so I could use her editor to choose the colors that I'd like to use. The red in the "hearts" highlights its symbolism and reinstates the passion and romance genre of the movie.

So Where Have all the Hearts Gone? 

The truth is that they never left, they're still present in each individual. They are in every person that decides to love himself first, and then the others. Those persons that think that they're valuable and important. Those who are fighting for their dreams, those who are in the pursuit of Freedom, and those who perform an action to improve the quality of the world.

Chao, Chao!

Sources:

"Quotes About Sociology." (291 Quotes). N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2016. <http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/sociology>.

"The Sociology of Love." The Sociology of Love. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2016. <http://www.thesociologicalreview.com/blog/the-sociology-of-love.html>.

"DaFont - Download Fonts." DaFont - Download Fonts. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2016. <http://www.dafont.com/>.

Images:

• "Hand Doodle Business Doodles." Dreamstime. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2016. <http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-hand-doodle-business-doodles-images-image33982694>.
• "Valentine's Day Hearts and Love Sketchy Doodles Vector Set." Valentine's Day Hearts And Love Sketchy Doodles Vector Set · GL Stock Images. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2016. <http://graphicleftovers.com/graphic/valentines-day-hearts-and-love-sketchy-doodles-vector-set/>.

Insert some nice and super appealing title

Yesterday I wrote that the only things remaining on my project were the title and the Critical Reflection. My deadline for the title is tomorrow, so then I can work on the Critical Reflection from Wednesday until Friday. 

Since I was struggling with coming up with the perfect title for my production, I decided to do a little research. 

According to this article called "Top Ten Tips for Titling Your Movie", one must consider these 10 tips when coming up with a good and appealing title:

1.    The shorter the better.

2.    The title should hint at the genre of the film. 

3.   The title is a sales tool designed to get people to read the script, rent the film or ask for more information. It is NOT an artistic statement (think more craft than art).

4.    More often than not, your title will be accompanied by a short pitch or key artwork. 

5.   You will NEVER be 100% happy with the title. It always feels like a bit of a compromise. And why shouldn’t it? You are reducing 100 pages of story to a single word of phrase.

6.   Once you decide on a title, if a better one comes along, use it. 

7.   Check the titles ‘Goolgeability’ with the Google keyword tool. How many people actively search for that word of phrase each month? These metrics are important.

8.   Don’t be clever. Titles are not something to be figured out. As filmmakers, we might like the idea of a title being a mystery or ephemeral, but audiences will just move right on by if they don’t ‘get it’ immediately.

9.   The title should infer the central conflict of the film.

10. Above all, ‘do what it says on the tin’. The title should honestly and succinctly reflect the story.

My film's genre is obviously Romance, so it should be related to love, feelings, and/or emotions.

I started thinking about titles that would involve the word "love" in them. But then a friend said to me: "Your movie is different, right? So why would you want a common title?" and I need to admit that she's right. BUT, I also need to think about my audience, which is Young Adults. Therefore, I need to have in mind tips 3 and 8. I'm trying to sell my movie to people by providing the opening and the title of the film, therefore, I'm trying to do a little of marketing here and to do perform it, I need to understand my audience behavior and preferences. So if we go back to tip 7, I went to Google trends and the word "love" has a high interest in the search.

Related searches

Interest over time

So I'm a little bit stuck with I should or I should not. But in any case, my options at this moment are:

•    A true love story: the movie is all about portraying love as it really is and not as conventional films want the audience to believe, Therefore, it's going to show that some people gets hurt and some people succeed in love. However, every person is a capable human being that doesn't need to spend all his life in the pursuit of love.

•    Accidentally in love: Marcella didn't want to fall in love, but because of coincidences, she meets this boy that is really nice and eventually he starts getting feelings for him. 

Nevertheless, I need to remark that I'm not delighted with these choices... I'd rather find some other title that wouldn't have the word "love" in them. Because that's the idea of this project, to create something unique  and different, and that's what I intended to do with the film. So, why should it be different now with the tile? I must come up with something that leaves my signature on it.

 However, that's as far as my creativity gets at 11 pm. 

I'm going to keep working on it tonight and tomorrow morning. Hopefully, I will have the design by tomorrow afternoon so I can start thinking about my reflection.

*creativity come to me in my sleep*


Chao, Chao!

Sources:

• N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2016. <http://www.chrisjonesblog.com/2011/07/top-ten-tips-for-titling-your-movie.html>.
• "Google Trends - Web Search Interest - Worldwide, 2004 - Present." Google Trends. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2016. <https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=love>.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Even though I finished the filming yesterday, I still needed to do the credits part.

As I wrote in my post with the Storyboard, I wanted to do my credits hand-written with sticky notes, Post-it, and school supplies. I also wanted this scene to serve as a background information about Marcella; that's why I took the time to do these notes about Sociology:

Because of their neatness and order, the annotations reflect that Marcella is an organized and responsible person that loves what she's doing as a major.

I also did this paper to illustrate her name and the university where she studies.

It's awful, I know, but it only appears a millisecond.

This is my workplace.
I had to place some cardboards on the table because of the glass.

I started doing it as a time-lapse, but it was so fast, so I couldn't read my actors' name. I really struggled for 1 hour trying to figure out an app that wouldn't be so fast. I even passed those videos to the computer and tried to decrease the speed, but it was pointless.

So at the end, I filmed a normal video and I just increased its speed from the computer,


When I finished all my trials I ended up with this quantity of wasted paper. I was crying inside me because I've always HATED wasting paper, I usually try my best to recycle every kind of paper, even if it's super tiny or if it's all torn, (really, my mom mocks me sometimes).

However, this time, I wasn't able to do that, you can't really recycle post-it. So yes, I had to throw them away against my will.

BUT  the important thing is that after all my suffering with the speed and the Post-it, I finished editing my video, and I wish you could imagine my joy and satisfaction at this time, 12:20 am. 

I know that I'm going to continue editing in the week, especially because I'm going to show it to my actors to hear their CONSTRUCTIVE opinions. But at least, I have all my videos in a single place and I have a tangent thing about the vision I had 2 weeks ago.

My problem right now is my title. I haven't come up with a good, appealing title. I even did my research, but my creativity has been extinct this weekend. But I'll do another post tomorrow to talk about it.

The most important thing is, now I can move on to my Critical Reflection and I'm confident that I'll have everything ready for next Sunday.

Seriously guys, you can't imagine the level of happiness I have right now.

Chao,Chao!

#FINISHED

Today I finished filming the main scene from the film opening *tears of joy*, which is the scene with Marcella and her best friend.

So... may I present to you, Marcella (Isabella Armas-León):

Marcella, the protagonist

and her best friend, Racquel:

Racquel

We filmed in a little forest that Isa had near her house; this was the location that I wanted since it establishes a character background for Marcella (unfortunately I didn't remember to take a picture of it)

I need to admit that it wasn't as easy as I expected. My main plan was to make a zoom out from Marcella's phone showing that she's watching the interview, but because of the sun and the reflection of the phone on the screen, it was really hard. I also struggled to take the shots since I didn't have a tripod and my hand (without knowing why) was shaking so much.  

But actually, I'm satisfied that I finished filming. Now I can devote to editing in the remainder of the weekend so I can make the Critical Reflection next week.

I'll post any other update.

Chao, Chao!