In a world...

Last week, I did a project for my AICE Media class in which we were slipt into random

groups and worked on creating a trailer (among other components) for stories written by the creative writing students at school. Throughout the project, a vast majority of us complained about the minute details and problems that we encountered, but our hard work paid off because it presented an important experience from which I could draw a ton of lessons! What I learned not only from my own project but from watching everyone’s trailers is very valuable and I can't wait to apply it to my portfolio project! Here are some take ways! (CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE THE TRAILER!)

The Importance of Genre Research
Early into the project, my project partner Arianna and I researched our genre; dystopias. Luckily, I had done previous research on the overall genre for the portfolio project, which came in handy. Regardless of my previous research, we both did a case study on a trailer that we thought had similar elements to what we were striving to include in our trailer. I studied the trailer for HBO's 2018 adaptation of Fahrenheit 451. Looking at the Fahrenheit 451 trailer and other dystopian movie trailers helped us identify genre conventions that we could use for our trailer project. The lesson from my research for this project was how researching what's already been done helped me determine what to imitate and what conventions to challenge, something I'll keep in mind when doing research for my portfolio project.  

Location Is Key

The setting of a film helps develop the context of the production and sometimes even progress the storyline, like in "The Maze Runner" were the maze is a storytelling element. The story Arianna and I got was set in the very distant future, so my mind immediately went to movies like Divergent and The Hunger Games where society is modernly futuristic, not Starwars level future. I knew reading the original story that in order to sell the trailer as a dystopian society we couldn’t film in Weston, so I hopped to my computer to find architecture and landscapes that fit what we envisioned as a futuristic society. In my location research, I found a hotel in Hollywood Beach that was shaped like an H and immediately knew we HAD to shoot there because of how different from the local architecture it was. My location scouting research for this project reminded me about the importance of location scouting to increase the realism of the pice. 

Arianna and I -along with 2 volunteer actors- drove for 45 minutes to Hollywood Beach for a full day of shooting. After a long and very tiring day of shooting at the beach, we still went to a second location to continue the shoot. When we arrived at the second location, we realized it wasn't what we wanted, so we went to my house and used my garage to create the mood we wanted. This highlighted the importance of being flexible and being able to adapt a space to serve the purposes we need it to. This was even more clear on our second day of shooting. We shot

some scenes in Weston but at very specific places that were framed properly to never appear as our local town. Sometimes that meant getting permission to shoot at places marked as private property, other times it meant paying close attention to our framing so that we had full control over the mise-en-scene. Either way, this aspect of the production was super important because my portfolio project is heavy on its use of location to progress the story.

Great Actors Can Make or Break a Piece
This lesson was evident when we were watching the projects as a class. Some projects had good actors, which made the delivery of the lines much more impactful for the audience, it was visible in the reaction of the creative writing class as they watched the trailers. For example, Jake's trailer had two great actors, so they truly made the audience believe that they were in love and the reaction was exactly what you want to hear from a teen rom-com, "I lowkey ship them now". Besides remarking good acting, watching it as a class also helped emphasize the importance of having a good dialogue. Jake and I are creating the characters for our portfolio project to be not only seemingly complex but relatable (because they are human after all). After this project, I know were going to have to go out and search for people who will be able to properly play the characters we write. 

The integration of technology 

Lastly, this project reminded me about the benefits of using technology to assist the production project as much as possible. We used a stabilizer to shoot and create smooth and flowing shots and I bought a new Yeti Microphone (just in time for the project!) that provided amazing sound for the voice over I did at the beginning of the trailer. We also used canva.com to create our key art for the project. The technology we used helped make better production and more accurately represent 21st-century film-making. 


This project was really fun and I got to work with some pretty cool people including Arianna who I had never gotten to work with before! I appreciate the lessons I got from it and I can't wait to apply them to my portfolio project! Speaking of the portfolio project, Jake and I plan on beginning planning out a timeline next week and starting the script! YOU CAN WATCH THE TRAILER HERE.