Individual Rationale for Offline
Cyber bullying leads to despair and alienation from people. This alienation contributes to the idea of suicide. Many criticized my narrative as implausible due to the lack of character background. I agree with them, but I wanted to pose the idea that any type of cyber bullying, even if it happened to someone once, can lead to suicide. I wanted to show that young adults make quick actions and decisions when being bullied on by others. Many of these people don’t come to the fact they need help, but Selena gets that help by her friend who cares about her.
Word Count 100
Written Commentary for Offline
Since my film was made from a group of two, I became the director of my film and the writer; I got the idea for my film from the movie Run Lola Run. This movie has one narrative arch that has three different outcomes. I got my inspiration from this movie. I was inspired to have my character race against time. However coming to this final product, my movie, it was very hard to get there. Before my partner and I revised our treatment together, my original idea was about two girls. One girl is sitting down with her notebook. Her notebook is very valuable to her, but she forgets it when she goes to the park to meet her friend. The two girls have to find this notebook for school starts. This narrative was not strong enough to become a short film.
So my partner and I combined our ideas. I got this original idea from my group member. At first Selena did not have a problem of why people are bullying her? So, I came up with the idea of her accidently leaving on her toilet ring on the back of her pants. However, there were some weaknesses in this narrative structure. First of all, the conflict Selena encounters is too generic. It is not enough to build a great narrative arch. Also, I didn’t do a great job with choosing the right dialogue.
The problem I faced was that my actresses spoke the dialogue that is seen through the cinematography. I also failed to develop the history of Selena’s despair with being bullied. In the movie Selena gets a toilet paper ring stuck on her but. Then all the students in class and in the hall begin to laugh at her. Next, people begin to take pictures of each other and sent them to their friends. Through this whole process I did not show her being bullied through her years of high school. Or I could of let Tiffany say, “Why does this keep on happening to her again?” This could have helped my audience understand how much despair Selena is going through. I regret this because the right dialogue could of made my film better than what it came out as. If I would go back in time, I wish I had fixed these mistakes in order for my movie to come out great.
As a director and writer I was responsible for the Pre-Production work. I made storyboard, I wrote the 2- column script, and I made the Pitch. Also, I had to make my Production schedule according to my actresses’ time schedule. In my journal below I had a difficult time making location diagrams.
This was the hardest thing for me to create because I am not quite experienced with Google drawing pad. Last year, I made location diagrams however I drew them myself. I did not use technology. Also this was the second time I made location diagrams, and it was very hard to know all the basics. I used my teacher’s examples on his website to help me draw the diagrams.
As going through pre- production mode, the script was modified twice due to our ideas being altered. First of all the Selena was going to commit suicide by using a rope. The rope was going to be placed near her bed, and she would have grabbed the rope and killed herself. I thought about this idea as progressing into production, and I had a new idea. I decided to get a mirror.
I went to Target and bought two mirrors. The mirrors were double sided. The whole point of the mirror was that when Selena entered her closet she would see herself. Then she keeps on remembering everyone laughing at her, so she would slam the mirror on the ground. The mirror would collapse into pieces. However, my partner thought that we could hit the mirror with a hammer and it would break. But, it wasn’t easy. That is when my director skills became involved.
I didn’t want to damage any walls, so I decided to let Selena throw the mirror on the floor.
So, Selena threw the mirror on the floor. This plan worked because the mirror crushed into pieces. Despite getting my idea to work, Jennifer was maybe 20 inches from the mirror when it crushed. So, she flinched, and we didn’t get that beautiful shot. I got very mad, but fortunately the mirror was double sided. One side of the mirror broke and the other side did not break. So Selena threw the mirror again on the floor, as I held a pillow in front of my partner’s face.
I was challenged with the mirror scenes because I had to make sure the mirror was placed in the exact spot, since we used the mirror for both days we were shooting this film. Also I had to find a big piece of glass, which is used for Selena weapon to hurt her self with. Since we had to shoot for two days, I made sure Selena was holding the same piece of glass. I directed Selena to act very mad, and to start to cry. I told her to yell, “No” so the audience will feel her emotions. I also had to help her cry, since her character cries a lot. Her character has to be very emotional. So she used an onion to help her cry, but it didn’t work. It just made her eyes red. So, before we started to roll tape, I instructed her to put eye drops in her eyes. I also told her to remember a sad story. For instance, the San Bruno fire last year has affected her house. I told her to remember her reactions from that day when she found out her house have been effected.
At times my actresses would get side tracked and I would have to regroup them, and get them into focus. Also, sometimes my partner would get side tracked with them since they are close friends; I made sure we were on schedule. Every time we shot we were efficient due to my timing. I made sure we finished the entire scene planned for that day. The first two shoots went smoothly, but when we shot at school it got harder.
For example, it was hard to gather students for the classroom scene. I mean we were only able to fill up a quarter of a classroom. That is bad, because we were limited on camera angles. I didn’t want to show an empty classroom, because it would of made my film look very bad. This made it harder for my partner to shoot because of the limited amount of people. Anyways, my partner was able to pull it off. She had good shot in that scene.
At times in the classroom scene, the extras were side tracked, but when I told them t stay quiet and were ready to shoot, they listened to my directions. Also, I had to make sure as Selena was entering the classroom, one extra had to start the rumor. It was hard to direct them, but after a couple of practices they did great.
I had trouble shooting the last scene. We were going to shoot this scene during lunch because it could have literally took 10 minutes to shoot if my actresses were focused. However my actresses were not available. I had to post pone this shoot for the next day.
On November 2nd, I had to shoot this scene all by myself during 7th period. My partner had a golf tournament, and this was the only time my actresses could both be able to attend. However, the worst thing happened. First, I directed my actresses on where to stand and told them their lines. When I pressed record, the fire alarm rang. However this was not a fire drill, it was an actual alarm. So I had to stop shooting until location where I was supposed to shoot clears up. After ten minutes, the area cleared up because students went back to class. Three minutes later, the fire alarm rang again, but students were not dismissed from their classroom. A fire truck got into my shot, so I had to cancel shooting.
This made our editing time harder since we pressed on time.
Fortunately, my actresses were available the next day, however the weather changed. When we shot out other scenes the weather was sunny, but on this day the weather was cloudy. The issue was that we couldn’t reshoot because our actresses were busy with work. I was obligated to use the footage from that day.
As director, I had a hard time getting the right music for my film. I used Logic. Logic is like Garage Band, but it has a variety of loops. Also, you can mix loops together more easily than Garage Band.
This program made our music different than the other groups. Everyone liked our music selection, and due with the time limits, it took us one day to find music and put it into the timeline.
My partner was the editor, and she made a mistake that I noticed before exporting the film. I want to blame myself for not changing her edit. During the bike scene, my partner didn’t perfect the match action cut. At firs she showed it to me, and I told her to change it; but she told me it looks cool that way. So, I listened to her, and we kept it this way. But when the class watched our film they noticed it, and by their comments they did not think it was cool. This taught me to go through with my ideas because if I made my partner change it, we probably could of gotten a higher grade.
Overall, I am proud of my final product, and I thank everyone who helped my group finish the film.
Word Count 1787
