Crafting a new ending

Today Jake and I decided to change the ending to our script. You see, when we decided to have all the cast on the last scene, we knew scheduling was going to be hell, we were ready for the challenge but no one could have predicted the Corona Virus and how that would affect our scheduling or things like Zack’s (Z) sister giving birth. In an effort to make scheduling easier, Jake and I met with Tina (Our lovely Cambridge Instructor) to talk about reworking the ending. 

We settled on the idea of only having 3 changers be shown back in the real world, unlike the original which had 6 (and they all had lines). After a lot of discussion between Jake and I, we settled on one idea that we believe is actually a much neater ending to the film. So, without further ado, here it is!

The New End

Bryce takes off his VR glasses and throws them on the ground in frustration as he storms out of a room with a futuristic aesthetic. He opens the door and finds himself in a courtyard where he begins to walk past a picnic table where Isabella is sitting. He and Isa exchange an angry look. He walks past the table and out of frame. Walking in the opposite direction with a few other people is Garrett. Isa calls Garrett over and expresses her sympathy for being kicked off the competition so early and unfairly. Garrett reveals that he was aware of the rules and that he did it on purpose. Confused, Isabella asks what could be more important than being Valedictorian, to which Garrett replies “Literally anything”. Shots of Andrew and Miranda in the simulation are shown, juxtaposed with shots of them in a room similar to that Bryce was in. 

Isa and Garrett’s conversation expresses the purpose of the film and the audience has that realization through the eyes of Isa (as the character has that realization, so does the audience). Finally, the announcer VO is heard and the winner is not shown. 

—————————————————————————


I actually like this ending much more! Its a bit more simple but it's so incredibly effective and impactful! We are already behind on the critical path that we established early on, so we need to regroup and film soon (probably tomorrow!) so that we can get back on track!

Would you sign my yearbook?

This is a short post,

Since there have been so many re-castings since the first time I posted the cast list ( I didn't introduce every actor in that post because we didn’t know who would play everyone), I decided to make this pose to present the final cast list of “valedictorian.”

ISA: Daniela Gomez-Dugan

ANDREW: Sebastian Fishmatherin

BRYCE: Jakob Binnings

MIRANDA: Kailey Fretwell

RILEY: Ameerah Adetoro

CHARLIE: Cristian Velasquez

Z: Zachkary Jones

COURTNEY: Taylor Stark

GARRETT: Jake Fretwell

ANNOUNCER: Luis Lageyre

Since we took character pictures for the website, Jake has a brilliant idea that we could use it for the credits as well. And I thought of a fun way of introducing the cast of my blog by making a mock yearbook, which is a very fun way of visualizing who is playing who and as another level of detail to the story when we add it to the website.

Here it is:

Besides helping put a face to the characters, this yearbook also introduces the characters' last name, which is something we have not commented on before. Going into this level of detail would allow us to truly create an immersive experience on our marketing documents in order to execute a more effective marketing and promotion campaign for the short film later on. 

Signing off,

Child Birth, Standardized Testing, and Fake Headshots (Production Day #3 PRTII)

Today was our last filming day, we accomplished so many things that were crucial for our project and JUST KIDDING! Did you believe me? Of course, things didn’t go right today! As a matter of fact, we didn’t get a single second of footage for the film! Let Me explain why…

Jake and I were just going about our day when suddenly BAM! Zack (Z) text’s into our cast group chat saying he can’t record today because his sister was giving birth as we spoke and he was on his way up to Gainesville to be with her. 😳. What to do? NOTHING! There was a baby on the way, we couldn’t do anything more than congratulate Zack and go ask Tina what we could do to shoot around him late that day. So we decided to shoot everyone else’s lines but not Zack’s and to have a double stand-in for him pretending to be asleep. Problem solved right? NAE! All of a sudden Dani (Isabella) calls me and I was busy working on the project so I give it to Jake, turns out she was under a similar situation. No baby involved this time though, she just couldn’t make it. So we had to adjust again. And this was the start to a day off, well for lack of better words, insanity…

Early in the day, I went to the media center to ask for permission to let me record after school. The media center staff said it was totally fine and that I could start whenever I wanted. I was smart enough to check the school’s online activities calendar to see what activities were scheduled for the media center this afternoon, just as I suspected there was a mock test for Computer Science scheduled to test in there until about 4:15. We were going to start filming at 4pm so we figured we could wait 15m. Little did we know there was a booboo on the testing side which would soon rain on our parade. 

To kill the “free time”, I suggested we shot the scene of Bryce taking off his glasses (which is you recall is set in Mrs.Zocco’s room, conveniently located right next to the media center. When we shoaled up, everything was normal and I even began setting up. The out of NOWHERE a lady walks right to the door (If this was a movie she would have kicked it down) and tells us to leave the room because she was supposed to use it. At first I thought we were dealing with a Karen, but it turns out that the State of Florida does End of Course Exams (EOC)  makeups thought the week and it just happened to be that we were in the wrong classroom and the wrong time. As much as I love reading at 7th-grade level, and pretending to know Algebra, we did not stay for the EOCs. 

With both sets unavailable, we had little option but to sit and wait. What we didn’t know is that our testing coordinator had failed to start the exam at the scheduled time which meant that the entire exam duration was pushed back all the way to 5:50. Of course, we didn’t learn about this until we had been waiting for a while because how could we? They didn’t say anything to anyone or made any update to the schedule, they just extended it right into the 6 clock cheer meeting also taking place there. 

We were stuck. Jake and I just sat on the floor and stared at each other in disbelief that another filming day had been spoiled. As easy as it is to wallow in self-pity, we knew we had to make the best the situation. We decided to switch gears and bank on content for our website and key art instead. After all, our website concept is especially challenging because we have to create extra media as if this school really existed to properly execute the marketing strategy (made famous by the movie Monsters University). 

So we took everyone and started to take pictures of the cast as their characters. We took videos for the website, yearbook headshots, and pictures of them participating in Stok High’s social life. The day suddenly didn’t seem like a complete waste of time; plus, we were waiting for the EOC room to be empty so we could record in there. At last, that did not happen. The EOC finished and everyone left and we didn’t even have the chance to go in and film. Security wouldn’t open the classroom for us even when we had the approval of the teacher; c'est la vie. 

Here are a quick video and some photos from the photoshoot we took today! 

Uploading Everything

When I got home I began the uploading process. For editing, we’re using WeVideo, which is an online editing software that allows Jake and I access to the video through the cloud and offers the basic necessities for editing. I started uploading the clips and boy oh boy did they take long to make their way into the cyberspace! Thankfully, I’d been keeping the clips and photos organized on my computer since the very beginning which made it really easy to source through them. 

Once everything was uploaded I started to look over some clips, picking some at random like a quality control manager in an assembly line. I’d done this a few times when I was organizing the videos on my computer, this gave me a better idea of what we were working with. For the pictures, we took them on Jake’s SD card so we needed to find a way to always be able to share stuff with each other without physically being next to one another. Usually, we would use Google Drive where we have a shared file, but Jake’s space was running out and it was a lot of content to transfer. Instead, we used the business one drive accounts that our school’s provide us with and transferred the content keeping the quality pristine!

This was a crazy day. It was really an emotional roller coaster, between thinking we could film and then getting shot down to figuring out what to do with the cast who was waiting on us to tell them what the plan was, it was packed. We had to make some quick decisions which I personally think worked out to our favor. Now Jake is trying to find a day that works for the whole cast again, and in the meantime, I will hop back onto my computer and continue to build our website! 

Scavenging Through Our Closets (ft. Academy Award Winner Ruth E. Carter)

Let's talk about all things costumes!

Back in 2018, I had the pleasure of meeting now Academy Award Winner Ruth E. Carter at a conference. She shared some advice on how costumes can bring a character or a specific setting to life and how they could be used to progress a story. It was wonderful to hear her speak about the hours of labor-intensive research that she did to ensure that the costumes for the blockbuster film “Black Panther” were original and authentic yet “distinctively true to African culture”. As we approached costuming I had the same enthusiasm for costume design, ready to dive deep into the intricacies of creating an award-winning costume that can really bring an actor’s performance to life. Then I had to throw all of that out of the window and look at people’s closets so see what they could pull together to wear for the first day of filming. I had to remember that sometimes you can’t customize every minute detail and that doesn’t mean that it won’t work out in your favor.

We stared the costuming process around the same time we began the character development process. As you may remember, we made a character deck where we created a mood-board-style depiction of the characters and their costumes. For us, the costumes were key to make sure the audience could make a clear distinction between the characters and their marked personalities. This made the process of costuming infinitely easier and kept a level of intricacy higher than just asking our actors to show up with whatever. But like I mentioned, we didn’t have the time or resources to craft outfits from raw material or to design them to will, but we could match clothing our actors and ourselves already owned and use them to our advantage. We asked the cast to review their character slides and to piece together the closest thing they could to what we created with the clothes in their closet. Jake and I reviewed their photos and asked them to make changes, sometimes matching some pieces with clothing items we owned.

Dani (Isabella) had exactly what she needed for the role, her costume couldn’t be more perfect if Jake and I had personally gone shopping for it. She had exactly what we depicted in the mood board plus her shirt was dark purple, Stok High’s color. We also got lucky with Jakoob (Bryce) and Taylor’s (Courtney) costume; they had exactly what we were looking for. After matching the right colors and shoe combinations, their costumes were ready to go pretty quickly.


Jakoob is wearing an outfit that alludes to his character's raw material inspiration, Payton Hobart from Netflix’s “The Politician”. Taylor is wearing a modernized version of outfits traditionally used by characters like Sharpay Evans (from High School Musical) and Regina George (Mean Girls); her outfit was also inspired by that of real people that Jake and I attend school with.

Jake’s (Garrett) costume was also really easy to piece together. In Garrett’s debut on screen, he was wearing a yellow turtle neck and light teal blue pants. We figured that he would likely not be wearing the same outfit he did for a music video to school, so we decided to change it up a bit while keeping it true to the character. In this version of Garrett, he has grown out a bit of a beard (mostly because Jake had a show going on at the same time as we were shooting) and he is wearing a yellow hoodie with teal light blue shorts; keeping that iconic image.

Zack’s (Z) character was also easy to costume for since Jake had previously arranged for the costume a long time ago (even before Zack agreed to play Z and when it was originally Jack). Z’s costume is inspired by real people who have similar characteristics as him that Jake and I go to school with. His outfit is very characteristic of a particular group which is perfectly conveyed by his costume.

Andrews's costume was also easy, it was just a hoodie, some shorts we borrowed from Jake and light blue shoes which were also Jake’s. Very much like his description said.

Christian’s (Charlie) costume was also very convenient since he wears it almost every single day. You see, we didn’t need to search too far or wide for our Charlie; Christian is literally the character. No, we didn’t write it with him in mind, but the more you visualize the character the lines between fiction and Christian become unclear.

Kailey’s (Miranda) costume was mostly handled by Jake. We had a general idea of what we wanted Miles (the original character when he was to be played by a guy) to dress like, and I think we did a great job with Kailey’s costume choice. This was a quick decision because Kailey didn’t know she was playing Miranda until the night before so we definitely rushed into her costume, but for what it's worth I think it's a great outfit for the character.

And last but definitely not least, Ameerah (Riley). Ameerah’s costume was the trickiest one of all because we definitely did not end up with what we had originally envisioned for the character; mostly because apparently no on tin this planet owns an orange item of clothing. We searched for days for an orange hoodie, then we gave up and searched for an orange shirt, and finally, we conformed with a shirt that had orange in it. After we were done with picking her costume and filming her scene, I went out and bought an orange shirt, just because I felt so dumbfounded at the fact I didn’t already own something orange. Anyways, Ameerah may have the tiniest costume even for an audience member to realize what her character was, but thanks to her great acting I’m sure that won’t be a problem.

Well, that concludes my costuming post! I guess a voice in the sky doesn’t need a costume so I’m not getting fitted for one! After the incident we have another filming ahead of us, I’m excited about it! In the words of Ruth E. Carter, “This whole process is very rewarding and I wouldn’t trade it for anything”.

Daylight Saving Time (DST): the practice of setting the clocks forward one hour from standard time during the summer months, and back again in the fall, in order to make better use of natural daylight.

POV - Imagine this :

03/08/2020 [3:00am]

You have been working all night, you’re so concentrated on what you’re doing you’ve lost track of time. As you warp up work you see the time on your phone...

“Wow, it’s 3 am already? I was working for that long? Damn, it’s pretty late and I should probably head to sleep so that I’m rested for tomorrow’s filming day.”

03/08/2020 [3:15am] 

You get in bed and set 4 alarms for 6 am. Your call time that very same morning is 7:30am, you must be at your school which is 15m away. 

-BLACKOUT-

03/08/2020 [8:15am]

Knock! knock! “Luis”

-AWAKE- 

You’re confused. You know exactly who that voice is, that’s your best friend’s voice. But he’s not in your room, is he? No, you don’t recall that. So how is it possi….

“Luis!”

There it is again! It’s coming from your window. 
That's exactly what happened today, a combination of events that happen even before I open my eyes led to Jake knocking outside my window on a Sunday morning the day we were supposed to film the last scene. 

--------------------------------------

You see, I didn't go to sleep at 3 AM, I went to sleep at 2 AM, which I thought was 3 AM because my phone was in daylight savings time. So not only did I mess up putting my alarm, but I still slept through them, possibly because my body thought it actually worked till 3 AM. Earlier that morning, our group chat has been blowing up as our actors struggled to determine whether we were going to film because neither of us had responded. There was quite a divided on whether they should go through with showing up or stay in, finally, Dani (Isabella) said no one should go anywhere unless they heard from either of us. That was the right move, as no text from either of us would come in for the next hour.

Jake is the only person I know that still uses a digital alarm clock, I trusted and noble way of setting up an alarm to wake up; trusted if you remember to change to the proper time zone. Unfortunately, Jake had forgotten to do that, which meant his alarm was one hour late; thankfully, he said his alarm two hours before he was supposed to wake up. So he answered the group chat, cancel the filming session, picked up (no, I don't know why he picked him up if the session was canceled; It wasn’t the most important thing going through my mind then, but in retrospect, it's a good question.), and headed to my house. 

Jake has been to my house so many times that it was very easy for him to find the weather like that to my room. I'm a pretty heavy sleeper, but I'm also extremely attentive in my sleep, the moment Jake said my name my eyes went wide awake. I walked over to my window to find Jake knocking and saying hi, I took one look at him and close my blinds back up. Jakoob then said at knocking, and I realized that he was here he meant I was late. 

After they explain the whole situation to me in my living room with my family so asleep, we decided to go out for breakfast! I feel pretty bad about messing up the day, so I decided to treat Jake and Jakoob to our breakfast. And that's the story of how daylight savings got the best of us, we had to cancel what we thought would be our last day of filming, but we got a pretty nice breakfast out of it! This is one pretty funny morning, definitely a story for the history books!

Signing off, 

"Donut make a pun of today's blog tittle" 🍩(Production Day #2)

Today I got up bright and early to go pick up Jakoob (Bryce) and we made our way to Jake’s house to shoot the first scene which takes place in a house. When we got to Jake’s place most of the cast had arrived and Jake was teaching them the blocking. I began to set up the equipment and so the day started…

The House Scene

Everything was going great and we were ready to start filming expect for the fact that Jack -who we had casted to play Z- was nowhere to be seen. Apparently, Jack couldn’t make it that early, but as they say in theater, the show must go on! So Jake picked up his phone and called Zack, a talented singer/actor that’s been in lots of local theater productions from Inside Out Theater (Which Jake is president of). Zack agreed to take the role, got in his car and started a 30m drive to Jake’s house to help us. 

While we waited for Zack to arrive finished blocking all the scenes and started to film, beginning with the sequence of Garrett begin eliminated. Jake’s bathroom has a large mirror, a glass wall to the shower, and a mirror on one side, so many reflective surfaces made it tricky to film; we had to get creative. We couldn’t just rip the mirror out of the wall (believe me, I was tempted), so I had to try a lot of different angles and positions to make sure Jakoob (who was doing audio) and myself weren’t seen on the glass. 

Once Zack (Z) arrived, we start duo film the ending scene in the house because Taylor (Courtney) had to leave for a Legally Blonde rehearsal. Taylor and Zack made for an amazing duo, not only were they totally believable as their characters but they had great chemistry on screen! The first time we had most of the cast in one single shot, we had an unexpected surprise. As we’re recording, a dark figure emerges from the slightly overexposed door; to everyone’s delightful surprise it was Jake’s dad with donuts! I would love to say that we kept working with laser focus, but I would be lying. We shot the scene and then went into an impromptu donut break! What type of donut did I have? Well, great question! I had a DELICIOUS donut glazed with white frosting and green stripes! 

After indulging in my green zebra donut, came the big moment to shoot the elimination of two characters at once (Courtney and Riley). Thanks to our day filming at the beach, Jake and I already knew how we wanted to compose the shots of people getting eliminated; now we had to replicate it. To get the timing just right, Taylor had to take off her heels and dive to the floor out of the frame within a second so get the effect that she disappeared in one continuous shot. It looked awesome!! When we finished, Taylor (Courtney) left and Ameerah (Riley) sated to help us out for the rest of the day. And just like that, after filming some more, we were done with the first scene! 

The Park Scene

We packed up our equipment and made out way to the park nearby where we would shoot the second scene; actually, “we” is too many people, I packed the equipment and carried it (though Jake did help me on the way back 😁).  

When we got to the park, the sugar of the donuts kicked in! That same “crackhead” energy I described yesterday (which included the random noises, running, and dancing) came back. Thankfully, by the time Jake and finished setting up the equipment and the finish line for the competition, the cast had settled down. 

We filmed most scenes and took some character pictures and media for the website afterward, leaving the shot of the race starting for the end. I really wanted to get a drone shot of the competition, but Jake and I didn’t think ahead enough like to plan for someone to bring a drone to film with. Instead, I tried to put the camera in a very high tripod, give it to Jakoob, put him on my shoulders and walk. Needless to say, this was a terrible idea. Jakoob almost fell, the camera almost smacked me on the face, and the footage was terrible. I gave up on the drone shot idea and just went for some traditional pans, tilts, and handheld tracking. I’m thinking that this scene will be very VERY faced-paced, with editing quickly showing the passage of the competition along with some adventurous running music. 

The last shot of the day was the race starting. I wanted it to be very spontaneous and for the characters to even look startled at the fact that the race was starting so soon. So I pressed record and didn't tell anyone, not even Jake was ready. Once I saw that Jake had the audio hooked up, I yelled ”LOOK UP” and then “go! Go! GO!” And the cast began to race. It came out PERFECT! We packed up and left the park. Of course, later tonight I notice that for a fraction of a second, Jake’s boom mic is in the upright right corner of the frame, but we’ll figure how to fix that later. 

Letting Loose

What is a good filming day without a fun and relaxing hang out afterward? You know, most people would be sick and tired of being with each other if you hang out as much as Jake and I do, but that’s not the case! After we were done, we all headed back to Jake’s house were we contemplated were to take the cast for lunch. Our friend Jhonathan, who is also an AICE Media student, is a waiter at a local restaurant, so I called him to check if he was working:

“Hey Luis”
“Hey, are you at work?”
“Ummm yeah I’m at work right now”
“Perfect” 
Then I hung up. 

We all got in two cars and headed over to the restaurant were Jhonathan (knowing me well already hahaha) had already reserved a booth for all of us. And so we ate and laughed and had a good time after a great day of filming! 

Today was amazing, it was super cool to see everything come to life right before my eyes; the story, the characters, the setting, the lines, it was all there! We got permission to film really early at school so tomorrow is our last day of filming! I can’t wait to finish and start to piece together this awesome film!

Signing off!

Diving in! (Production Day #1)

You know what they say! Everything is better at the beach!

Today was our first day of filming! We filmed scene 3 today at the beach with Dani, Jakoob, Sebastian, and Kaylee. We decided to start at the climax of the short film and then progressively work backward and then, for scheduling purposes, visit the final scene on the last day (Sunday). Let's DIVE in! Hehe, get it? Because Bryce is pushed into the water in the story... puns, so fun. 

Cast Readthrough Session:

During school today, a lot of the cast had the same lunch so Jake and I decided to have a cast readthrough session of the final script before starting to film later that day. This way, the cast could ask us about the context of their lines, their emotions, their characters, and answering questions about the story. Since there were a few key roles missing Jake and I just filled in for them at the readthrough. The cast got a copy of the final script and the opportunity to experience actual VR. We figured that a lot of the cast had never actually experienced Virtual Reality before, so we asked to borrow two headsets from Tina (our awesome instructor!) to help them experience it. The theory was that not only was it a cool treat but also would help them infuse their performance with a sense of realism. Jake and I love new adventures and, well, we weren't not going to try it ourselves... 

The afternoon before the shoot:
In class, Jake and I blocked (choreographed) the entire scene on the spot. We took my pencil case, some markers, and pens, and got to work. Anyone not involved in our creative process must have been so confused because we looked like we were playing with toys. While blocking, we thought about character movement, reactions, camera framing, camera movement, and over-all composition. 

I had my free period before the end of school so I had to drive around the city to pick things up things from both of our houses and get our equipment ready for filming, which we intended to start at 4pm. Like I mentioned in my last blog post, we decided to film scene 3 at John Lloyd State Park which has public access to the beach. Being a Friday at 4pm, we were hoping little to no crowds at the beach. Jakoob (Bryce), Sebastian (Andrew), and I were a bit late to the park because of a small complication on the road. Once we arrived, we jumped right in!

Filming:

The “crackhead energy” was felt throughout the cast during filming! From the moment we all got to the beach, we began to hype each other up and have a good time, which created a fun and dynamic atmosphere for filming. During the summer, Jake and I both took on a paid internship as media interns at a photography organizing startup called RKVST; one of the things we learned from our time at RKVST was the importance of good audio. We watched

our fellow interns who had to rework bad audio suffer and I think that was a lesson to always have 2 different devices recording live audio. The camera we borrowed came with a small external mic, but we need something more receptive. However, that was the only thing we couldn’t book from BECON TV, a boom mic. That didn’t stop us though, not one bit. I figured out a way to power Jake’s desk mic with my phone and he had the brilliant idea to tape it to a tripod, and tada! We had a bootlegged version of a boom mic! ratatata! [popular reference among Gen Z]). Jake took on our sound challenge and I grabbed the camera to do the cinematography. 

The first decision we had to make was which way we wanted to record the fluidity of the lines (whether we wanted the entire scene to play out as we record that one angle or could we go line-by-line). Since there’s a great possibility that we have to cut lines for time purposes in the editing process, we comprised to do both, taking various angles of each line and or complete parts of the scene. Even with a finished script, we were marking up the script and making small changes like changing “y’all” to “you all” the morning of the shoot. Jake and I still expect to make changes as we go through the production process, after all, there are things we can’t account for yet.

Our very first shot of the day was going great for about 2 seconds, and then Jakoob (Bryce) just burst into uncontrollable laughter. And that was our biggest problem of the night; breaking character. We thought we could just skip the award laughing by working with stage actors, but noooo! That’s not what happened! Even Dani (Isa) randomly laughed, it turns out that even professionals break character once in a while too. To better exemplify what I mean, peaks enjoy this compilation I put together of the cast and crew bursting into random laughter! That wasn’t the only problem we ran into though, there was also sand… and lots of it. Sand on our bags, sand on people’s pants, sand in my pants, sand in our hair, sand everywhere…So FUN! We had to be extra careful with sand getting on the equipment and onto the cast for continuity purposes. 

One of the other problems we had early on was the tablet glare. Jake and I didn’t remember that the tablet’s screen gives off glare like a mirror, meaning it was hard to shoot. Thankfully, in the right angle with an increased exposure fixed the glare by matching it; thus canceling its reflectiveness. Also, Jake got some cuts on both legs while filming. At this point, I’m really just hoping that doesn’t leave a scar. Eek! 😬
Being it our first filming day, we had to shoot someone disappearing for the first time and… we weren’t quite sure how we were gonna make that happen yet. We had looked into a few ideas which included creating some effects on Premiere Pro by using YouTube videos. However, as I was playing around with the way I filmed a scene, the answer struck me like a listing bolt! Every time someone is eliminated, it will be paired with a sound to create a motif. For the visuals, by having the camera move behind someone for a few seconds, it gives the actors enough time to sprint out of frame. To better visualize it, here’s the shot of Isabella’s disappearance:

Near the end of filming as we were approaching the big scene when Bryce is pushed into the water, Jake noticed that the external mic attached to the camera wasn’t on for THE ENTIRE FILMING UP TO THAT POINT. I wanted the ocean to sweep me up and swallow me whole. Thankfully, Jake had been recording everything along with the scenes as we recorded them, so we have audio! On the other side, the audio isn’t synched to the video so we’ll have to do that manually which is extra work; we have to be painstakingly careful to synch it right. 

Before filming the water scene, we recorded multiple scenes of him getting pushed out of the frame as he had failed in. When the time came we only had one shot to get it right. After lots of coordinating and booking we were ready to film the scene one time and one time only. Jake was on the sound boom with me and Dani (Isa) was standing nearby with towels to help him warm up after he went for his little swim because it was progressively getting colder. The shot came out great and it was all worth it. Jakoob’s clothes were drenched in seawater and sand so I took them home to wash for tomorrow's shoot. 

The Photoshoot:

We ended the day off with a photoshoot! Everyone in the cast that was with us on that day got pictures taken of them at the beach with the VR goggles on. We plan on using these pictures for the website, key art, postcard, etc. We also plan on taking these types of pictures on every day of the shoot in order to bank on content for our other components of the portfolio project. 

Today was an awesome day! We had so much fun filming that after we were done shooting we all went for ice cream! I will be cleaning and reorganizing all the equipment tonight so that it's ready for tomorrow’s filming session! Surf on!

Finding Stok High (Location Scouting)

Well, this is it, filming officially starts tomorrow! Today, Jake and I decided to finally officially go location scouting! We’ve had an idea of where we wanted to shoot since the beginning of the project, but today we packed our bags and went to check these places out and get a more detailed idea of where we would be setting up/filming.

The search started at school where we had to find the place to shoot the final scene and the VR room (which is just a couple of shots). My first idea for the final scene was recording it in “The Wave”, our school’s media center which has a very modern aesthetic. I asked permission from the staff at the wave and started to move furniture around to help compose a set that Jake and I would have full control over. I really like the way it turned out, it was very close to what I imagined when we wrote the script!

The second place I went location scouting for was the VR room, which is briefly mentioned in the script. Though the VR room only appears in a shot or two, it is important that it looks and feels like what it's supposed to. I was having a tough time finding a room in my head that really looked like what we were going for. I mentioned the project to a security guard from school; she became really interested in helping out and helping me find this VR room location. We ended up at Mr.Zocco’s room, a computer science teacher whose room is decorated with blue LED lights and a very modern-tech aesthetic. I was particularly interested in using the front of the room because I thought it was perfect for the few close up shots we would need from that room. Everything from the lighting to the furniture fit the aesthetic we were trying to convey in that specific shot. After explaining the project and its purpose, Mrs. Zooco agreed to lend us the room for filming any day we needed it! 

Two of the last three locations we had already figured out. We would shoot the first scene in Jake’s house and the 2nd challenge at a local park. However, the second to last scene on the beach is the location we were missing. So at the end of school, Jake and I went down to the place our Senior Class held their Senior Skip Day Party: John Lloyd State Park. The park is a beautiful state facility with private access to Hollywood beach and things like private bathrooms and camping sites. The entry fee is $6 (which we were more than glad to play to utilize such a nice public resource). We found the perfect setting for our beach scene. Here’s an episode of my online vlog series for this blog titled “Finding Stok High” about our location scouting. 

"Did you hear me...VALEDICTORIAN?" (Script Writing #2)

Jake and I hopped on another FaceTime call yesterday night and finished the first draft of the script, ahead of schedule! This time around, we were much more efficient with the way we shared the writing responsibilities; it seemed like we mentally knew when the other would take over. Not only did this allow us to finish writing it quicker, but also multitask, edit, or think about ways to improve our storytelling by revising the scenes we wrote on Monday. The scenes we wrote today discuss the main theme of our story and are meant to be thought-provoking for the audience. 

Once we were done with the script, we sent it out to the cast so that they had a chance to read over some scenes and get comfortable with their characters and their lines. Aside from our cast, which was more than glad to give us some feedback on the script, we also went to Tina for some feedback, specifically about timing. You see, when we timed out the script at the end of our call, our script was 9 minutes long; far over the 5-minute mark (which we were hoping to push just slightly). That’s why we knew we needed Tina’s input, to see what we could cut and double down on. 


After meeting with Tina and getting her opinion and feedback I sat in the auditorium at school editing the script with new revisions as Jake rehearsed for his show, “Rock Of Ages”, next week. Once I was done with revisions, I sent an updated version into the group chat and to copy the script to google drive. Finally, after two long writing sessions, we were done (for good this time). I’m so happy to present our final script. The script looks lengthy but it’s mostly due to the multiple instructions on framing, editing, and acting that the stage directions include. Getting the feedback really helped us rework the dialogue to better fit the purpose of the story and more effectively help to establish character, tone, and message. 

However, we still expect to change things on the spot during filming, that’s just a given because we don’t know what will happen and how we will need to adjust. This week is pretty busy and next week is even busier but this is coming together really well! I’m excited to go location scouting safari-style! Except without much scouting, and little safari… there are no lions or giraffes AND my safari clothes won’t be washed until Friday, so more like local-suburban-teen-adventure style! 

Feeling like a professional ;)

As I mentioned in my casting blogpost, Jake took on the task of managing the cast and their schedule; I managed our equipment. Though we could technically shoot with Jake’s vlogging camera or even with our phones and achieve the same quality of technique, we wanted to deliver the best possible quality of the overall piece and to do that we need to be able to manipulate as much of the equipment as possible. Since we don’t have thousands of dollars worth of media equipment laying around our houses, we decided to go borrow it from a student film program at BECON TV. 


BECON TV is the local TV station owned and operated by Broward County Public Schools down at Nova University. The station creates and broadcasts various original shows and short films created in-house and features a lot of student films from around South Florida in a daily show called “Short Cuts”.  In order to facilitate content production for the show, BECON lets high school students check out professional equipment; all we have to do is ask and get some training. 

We borrowed a few pieces of equipment from BECON for our filming weekend, and surprisingly we owned a lot of the equipment we used ourselves. We borrowed a DSL camera ( Sony a7 III), an external mic, and a hand-held automatic stabilizer. I had borrowed a lot of the equipment in the past, so thankfully I’m used to how they work but I asked Jim from BECON TV to give me a refreshment crash course.

We have the equipment until this upcoming Sunday, which is hopefully the last day we will need to shoot. It may be hard to obtain the same equipment for a while past that for reshoots (which hopefully don’t have to happen). Every night before filming I will check, clean, and reorganize our equipment to make sure it is as efficient as possible the next day. Jake and I are also using a lot of our personal mics, tripods, lights, etc. I’m excited to start filming on Friday but until then we have a lot to get done! We are planning on finishing the script on Wednesday night and location scout on Thursday (even though we’ve had a general idea of where to shoot since we made the settings). This is going to be an exciting week!

"The yellow guy got POOFED!" (Script Writing #1)

A while back I mentioned that in order to facilitate planning for this project Jake and I were using our shared calendar to schedule meetings and in-person work sessions. Tonight we started to write our script. Since we couldn’t be together to write it, we decided to utilize the technology and software available to us online to ensure the most efficient scriptwriting session possible. We hoped on a FaceTime call and opened celtx.com, a screenplay writing website that helps us format our text to read like a proper screenplay and helped us both work on it simultaneously. 

We have been building these characters and their personalities for a long time now, which made writing for them easier. Some characters we did fully individually (like Courtney and Z), others we did together (Like Miranda, because she’s based on us two). Since it's hard for both of us to work on the same part of the script at the same time (because we have to move fast), we would alternate depending on who was “in the zone”. Like yin and yang, we were in a sort of “mental synch” when writing, usually having one edit while the other one writes. 

The most crucial thing for us was to develop a different voice for each character. Even though some characters only have a few lines in the film, those lines have to inform the

audience of a lot. Thankfully, by writing separate characters, we prevented us from creating a similar tone for all of them; nonetheless, just to make sure I review the texts thinking of them critically as a transcript, not a script. You see, scripts are controlled conversations, meaning the conversations can be perfect; but in real life, we fault language rules and maxims all the time in casual conversation. So keeping some language theory on the back of my head I looked over the script to make sure the characters had idiosyncrasies and nuances that were unique to them. Surprisingly, Jake and I had done a great job of putting them in beforehand, meaning we did a great job writing for the character. 

For example, when Riley talks, she uses a lot of Textspeak like “Omg”. She is the only character that does this, which helps us set her apart from the rest of the other characters. To make sure that the lines and the stage directions were fluid, Jake and I read through them again and again. Since we had so many characters to read for, we decided that every time we read we would just alternate who played the male characters and the female character (for the purposes of reading, Charlie was read with the males). 

We decided to stop writing it for the day as we got to the scene 3; instead, we decided to work out our calendar. We opened our shared Google calendar, I pulled out the critical path, and we got to work. We cross-examined our personal calendar of events to find the best times to fully dedicate it to working on the production. We decided on filming days for this weekend, thus keeping in line with our plan. Jake is handling our casting so he took care of our scheduling as well. We determined the best times on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to film. As we did that Jake got a text from our female lead Natalie who was playing Miranda. She couldn't name it at all due to DECA states (state competition). This photo was our genuine reaction to hearing the news. Well, I guess we are back to square one for finding an actress or actor for that role. 

Overall, today was really good! We got a lot of the script done which is great! We are a little more than halfway to finishing the first draft, which means we’re right on time according to our critical path! As you can see in the picture, however, it was pretty late by the time we hung up and -needless to repeat- Jake is not a night owl. Tomorrow is the second day of writing, the goal is to finish tomorrow and then get it revised on Wednesday. Finger’s crossed and here’s to a good first day!

NEEEXT! Don’t call us, we’ll call you

Recently, Jake and I began the casting process as we set out to find our stars! As you may recall, one of the lessons I learned from the trailer project was to cast good actors because they help bring characters alive with a better sense of realism than most people. We had a goal: to cast actors instead of just regular students. Because “they are a different people, a multi-talented people, a people that need people, and who are in many ways the luckiest people in the world” [Spamalot].  Luckily, being theater kids, Jake and I have lots of actor friends! So we went to the place where you can find theater kids, a faraway land where few dare to venture into. A kingdom of endless rehearsals in a semi-lit freezing high school auditorium ruled by one they call Cynthia (our American Musical Theater Director). And true as dogs bark they there were the theater kids, in all their broadway belting glory. Jake and I hopped on a FaceTime call late a night and began mental auditions were we contemplated who would be best for what role. 

What we focused on:

The first question we asked ourselves is “Do they feel like the part?”. We need the audience to believe that these aren’t just high school actors, we need to sell them as actual students with the characters’ distinct personalities who attend this fictional high school we've created. To do that, the first thing we thought of was if we could imagine them as the characters in real life. This time that thought was purely based on physical attributes including looks, tone of voice, and paralinguistic features. We are trying to convey accuracy, but we also have a short span of time to introduce these characters, meaning we need to critically think about them being recognizable on-screen; for example, can you always tell where Charlie is on screen? What about Miranda? Would you get them confused if they looked too similar or had a similar profile? If you only heard someone speak out of frame, could you tell who it was? 

Some people we cast into roles early on when we developed the characters, we knew what they’d look like or based them off the looks of real people. Most notably, we based Isabella off of our friend Dani, so we knew we wanted her to play the role right off the bat. 

After we had discussed a few candidates, Jake made a list of at least 3 people to contact per role. Jake’s theater background really helped us approach casting more strategically and be more efficient at finding the right type of people to cast. After we had our list, it was time to make a couple of calls. I have to give Jake the credit for this part, he coordinated all of the casting processes while I coordinated the shooting equipment (that’s a post for another time) and his choices left nothing to be desired; they were great! 

A day or two into casting we had a majority of the characters already cast and we were ready to make a shooting schedule. However, some people unexpectedly pulled out, others were too busy on the days we were planning on shooting, which meant revisiting the casting drawing board. We’ve kept most of the original cast members as of right now, but we are struggling to find our two leads. We’ll continue to work towards casting the remaining roles and start writing the script tomorrow. For now, here’s the cast list so far! 

Dani Dugan (Isabella) 
Dani is a senior at CBHS and an AMT vet, she’s been in American Musical Theater all of her academic life and loves acting. She’s a professional voice doubling actress and has started on shows in Telemundo and Univision. 

Jakob Binnings (Bryce)
New to South Florida, Jakob is a Junior at CHBS and a supporting male lead in Lighting Drama’s AMT 2 production of Monty Python’s Spamalot. He’s been in productions such as Legally Blonde and has done show choir for the past 3 years. 

Ameerah Adetoro (Riley)
Ameerah is a senior at CBHS and is staring as an understudy lead in Lighting Drama’s AMT 3 production of Rock Of Ages. Ameerah has been in productions such as Mamma Mia! and is heavily involved in SGA. 

Taylor Stark (Courtney) 
Taylor is a senior at CBHS and is currently in Lighting Drama’s AMT 3 production of Rock of Ages. Taylor has been the female lead in musicals such as Newsies and Legally Blonde. 

Jack Sussman (Z)
Jack is a freshman at CBHS and a rising star in the AMT sphere at the bay. He started as Gaston in Lighting Drama’s AMT 1 production of Beauty And The Beast and he participated in theater in middle school. 

Jake Fretwell [yeah, Jake as in my partner Jake] (Garret) 
Jake is a senior at CBHS an AMT vet, he’s been in American Musical Theater all of his academic life and loves performing. He’s been the male lead for a multiple of his MAT shows including the Lion King and Mamma Mia!. He’s also been in musicals like Newsies. There’s is no one that could play Garret like Jake; he IS Garret. We created Garret together for another school project about a year ago and Jake played him. Having the character in this project is awesome and means a lot as it symbolizes our growth as filmmakers and as best friends.