Rook Studios Presents…

I was able to speak with our chosen actor and actress to confirm their involvement, and to schedule filming days. We had chosen Sunday and Monday, Monday being President’s day, and honestly now that I’m thinking about it, our locations may not be open.  I made sure to, very professionally, bring the issue to light and alert my crew of the potential issue. Scheduling is still ongoing at this point. I did speak to them about filming, and for the most part, they’re on board and able to act.  If our locations aren’t open, we’ll need to reschedule quite a bit.  There may be a bright side; we’ll get more time to work on putting together our proposal. I won’t lie, the process of scheduling and getting everyone and everything together is a bit tiring. If I could go back and change one thing, I’d change the amount of time I spent on the storyboard. I’d go back and make sure I would have worked on the proposal more, instead of during class only. Tomorrow, we’ll finalize schedules (...

I am considering cutting the extra actors we had planned to use.  We originally planned for there to be five total actors. Due to mainly time, I may end up with just our two main characters, Evelyn and Adrain.  The extras were set to be either customers, or mainly Evelyn’s fellow bookshop employees. In our script, the two main characters are the only people listed, and the only ones speaking. This is the base of our script. We decided on a few more specific details, which will require changes in the script. The main reason for changes is we now know what book series Adrian is talking about: Heartstopper, a slow-burn, friends to lovers about two highschool boys. It may seem like a minor detail, but the meaning it holds is important. The final script will be done towards the end of the period on Friday.  Locations are another issue in itself. We have two places in mind: A Barnes and Noble, or a public library. We might have a better chance at getting permission to film at t...

The crew intends to film the weekend of February 19th, and 20th. This is a Sunday and Monday.  I have been running through a mental checklist of tasks we need to do, and what I need to do as director. I have been incredibly focused on helping our cinematographer with the storyboard, and I still have a Genre Statement to work on, and a call sheet to create.  So far, I have worked on two out of three paragraphs for our statement. Trying to justify why the crew chose romance was a bit weird. How do you professionally say, ‘I promised my crew we’d produce a romance during our last film when I was director, so now we have to film a romance?’  Drama was added in as a subtext, so the entire film wasn’t exactly ‘romance based.’ We did bring up the idea of a rom-com, however it was scrapped after five minutes of discussion. I wasn’t too strongly attached to the idea of a rom-com, and neither was anyone else, so the decision wasn’t something we regretted. Tomorrow is the Friday tha...

As of the week of February 13th through the 17th, me and the cinematographer came up with ideas for our storyboard, with help from our editor. We had a a very vague idea of what we wanted. We knew we wanted to include the first shot: A high angle tilt for our establishing shot, which then pans down, showing one of our main characters walking into the bookstore, as seen in the image.  This was one of few aspects that remained the same throughout planning. The ‘4’ on the top of the frame shows the amount of seconds we plan to allow for the shot, which in all honesty, might end up getting re-planned. One shot that ended up getting cut from the board was a still, mid-level shot of Adrian (the same character walking into frame, shown in the image in blue) walking into focus. We planned to get a tracking shot, extreme low level, of them walking up to a book table. The next shot would be the table, in focus, and Adrain walking up to the table, getting into focus. This is shown in the imag...

On days two and three, we started storyboarding! The above were ideas were the plan for the first seconds of the production.  We plan to start with a high angle tilt, which shows the bookstore. We specifically had planned to film at a Barnes and Noble, so our high angle shot would show the store name, then pan down to show Adrian walking into the store. After that shot, we would get a low angle shot of Adrian walking towards a book table. After, we will get a shot of the book table, with the background out of focus. Adrian will walk up to the table, coming into focus, and then a close up of them grabbing a book will be shot as well. We then show Evelyn, an over the shoulder shot, looking at Adrian from afar. This is what we had so far. Our plans to film in a Barnes and Noble, the one on University Drive specifically, were obviously an influence. We still have to gain permission to film at this specific store. If we are denied permission, it’s back to the drawing board, literally....

The editor and I ended up creating our main characters on the first day. We also settled on a genre. Last project, I had promised we could produce a romance or rom-com, something of that sort, for our next project. The characters we came up with were Adrian and Evelyn. Adrian is a non-binary lesbian character, while Evelyn is a female lesbian. We didn’t want to write a straight romance, which we established within the first five minutes of class. We wanted people of color in our film as well. Diversity and going against stereotypes were goals we set for ourselves.  We did spend quite some time deciding on who our main people would be. A list of names was created, and multiple browser tabs were open, set on baby naming websites, with ‘unique’ names and their meanings.  One thing I didn’t want was an androgynous name for Adrian. Non-binary characters tend to have gender neutral names, which isn’t anything bad, I just thought Ocean (a name we planned on using) would enforce the s...

(Surprise! It was scheduling, planning, and  story writing) I knew this weird pre-production period would be, well, weird, as it is the decision making stage. Everyone has either too many ideas or none at all. The last pre-production phase, or at least the first week or two, were like this as well. This pre-production phase was different. One of our group members had to leave for a period of time. So, we were down one person.  Along with this, me and the rest of the group had been working on coming up with ideas for a plot, and the characters our story would be about. We’re still working to get our planning done. Scheduling is another part of the plan we have to work on. Filming off-campus has its benefits, and probably twice as many setbacks. Everyone has different times of availability, and our actors will just be recovering from three days worth of performing a musical.  The next few days should be interesting, and we have quite a bit to do before we can earn our green...

The day finally arrived. We were starting our second film project of the school year. This round, however, would be different than last.  Last time, we had to produce an original story related to Chess, and it had to be a full story. The difficult part? We had to produce an original story, that could only be exactly one minute long. Unlike last time, we have a bit more creative freedom. The ‘chess’ concept is no longer a requirement, and we have twice as much time. And instead of producing a full story, we have to think up the beginning of one. Usually, movies start with a sequence that establishes part of the plot of the film. After a few minutes, the title and credits play before diving into the rest of the movie.  Our mission is to produce our own first two minutes of what could be a full production. Our two minutes don’t need all three components of a full story, however. We only need a beginning, unless we plan to start our movie in the middle of events. This is going to ...

Our crew for this project includes: Jackie as our Cinematographer, Kate as our Editor, Nya as our Sound/Tech Designer, and me, Bella, as the Director. This is also their second time producing a film project for Media Studies! They were my crew for the last film project of the class.  I loved, and still love, working with them. They are each incredibly talented individuals, and we all work well together, which is the main reason we remained a group for this project.

:) Hello! My name is Bella! This is my first year taking a Media Studies class, however this isn’t my first time filming. I am now directing the second film project of this school year, along with my crew. I have recently taken interest in Media Studies. I heard about the class last school year, my freshman year, and immediately signed up. I don’t regret it! I love the class and what we learn, whether we are discussing theories or film techniques, or working on film projects, there was never a dull moment. Like I said, this isn’t my first time filming a project for Media Studies. I directed the last film project we did, which was the Chess Film project. This projected required telling a full story in exactly one minute. Overall, it was a fun, but stressful project. I did, however, learn quite a bit from that experience: The importance of proper planning and the value of time management were two key lessons learned, specifically. And now, me and my crew are back and ready to start p...