The Hope of it All

I am so excited to finally share our movie opening with you all. Hannah, Tori, Melanie, and I worked so hard on this project and we are extremity happy and proud of our achievements. With no further ado, here is The Hope of it All! I hope you enjoy!

 

Creative Critical Reflection

Reflecting on our Finished Opening

 Wow, I cannot believe we are finished! It has been a crazy adventure, but a rewarding one as well. Some things have come easier than others, but I have to say it was all worth it.

This all started with an idea months ago. This was before the project was even assigned. Hannah and I had a crazy idea to make our opening on a teenage love triangle, the highs and lows of young love, and the ultimate betrayal. We wanted to explore the life of this innocent, good girl, Betty, and navigate her feeling after being cheated on. We also wanted to dive into the life of James, a confused boy who hurt the girl he loves the most for a moment of temporary bliss. Finally, the most interesting in my opinion, is August, a teenage girl who pretends be tough and perfect, but deep inside, she cares and wants to experience true love as well. 

Then, once the project was assigned, we joined forces with Melanie and Tori and got to work. We fit hours of ideas into a two minute opening that would explain the direction of the whole story. Characters, like Inez, were cut from the opening, and ideas were bounced back and forth. There was even a point in which Melanie suggested cutting August from the opening. I was heavily against this notion because I thought August was extremely important to the story and a dynamic character in her own right. So, there was a lot of touch and go, but we eventually reached a general screenplay that we could all agree on.

Next, was filming. This was probably the hardest part of this entire adventure. What I mean is that finding a day and time when we were all available to film was extremely difficult, especially due to the pandemic. I have mentioned before that were actually had to push back filming an entire week due to everything being too last minute. While planning the filming date and location was rather difficult, the process of actually being there and shooting everything was probably the best part of this experience. We had such a blast going around my neighborhood and finding good spots to film. It was so funny to watch our friends pretend to be someone else and act. We finished the filming pretty quickly and sent all our material to Melanie.

Melanie presided over the next part of this adventure. It was during this time that we had to brainstorm and decide for sure what music, fonts, cuts, and effects we wanted in our film. Melanie then compiled all our decisions into her editing and combined all the shots to make an amazing opening. I truly was surprised at how good it came out while I was watching it for the first time. She did such an amazing job and I loved it!

This has truly been such a rewarding experience and I am so happy to have done it with such a great group of people. I have learned a lot about filming, editing, and the entire movie industry. It isn't always as easy as it looks and I really respect filmmakers a lot more now! I hope I get the chance to this again one day because it was such a blast! The following is a sneak peak into our opening. It shows James walking in the neighborhood and being approached by August.

What Would Happen Next?

 So, this is actually pretty irrelevant to our actual movie opening, but I felt like doing a fun blog post explaining to you all where how the rest of this movie would play it out if it was a full length film. Yes, my group and I did make scenarios in our head about what would happen next and how the movie would end. I feel like we all have different opinions, so I'll focus on what I wanted to happen. 

So, what I imagine would happen right after the opening is that the scene would travel back in time to the end of there last school year when Betty and James were still happily together. They'd be shown going out of school and saying their sad goodbyes as James left town to summer vacation with his family at their beach home while Betty is stuck at her house. 

I imagine this beach town to be the site where many families who live more inland come to vacation. So, August and her family would be there too. That is where August and James would meet and most of this part of the movie would show their illicit, summer romance. Meanwhile, Betty would be seen now and then doing nothing at home and getting anxious as James' texts would come less often.

Next, at the end of summer, James would end things in August, realizing that it was a huge mistake and that he wants Betty back. Unfortunately, news flies fast in these little towns. Word has reached the school gossip and Betty's best friend, Inez, that James had been cuddling up with August all summer. Betty would soon find out and things would end between them in a horrible breakup. 

They would all be seen returning to school sad and frustrated. August must face the reality that James doesn't want her, and that what they had was no more. James has to accept the fact that if Betty doesn't want him back, then that's how it must be. Finally, Betty must learn to cope with this heartbreak and survive on her own. The movie would return to the scene of the opening but this time the audience would know what has happened. I also imagine a scene where Betty throws a party and James shows up trying to win her back.

At the end of the movie, I think James and Betty find each other again and continue their relationship. As for August, I think she matures and learns to be a nicer person as she starts her adult life in college. 

My Favorite Part

 As we reach the end of this project, I was talking to my group members about what they hated and loved about the experience. I realized that it was actually quite easy to pick out my favorite part of this movie making journey. While everyone went through a different experience and has different beliefs, I truly believe that the the best part of this project was filming the scenes in my neighborhood. 

While it was a bit of a struggle to decide on an appropriate film location and time, the outcome was worth the journey. We had so much fun filming everything! There is something so entertaining about watching you friend act and be someone else. We were all cracking up as Tori had to be dramatic with me and slam the door shut or when Ashley and I had to argue about nonsense. It was so comedic! In such hard times like the ones we live in now, it is such a pleasure to be able to have good moments like those. 

Our little gang of four walked and drove around my neighborhood trying to find the perfect spot for filming. It was actually quite embarrassing at times, but that made it even funnier. At one point, we were filming and August and James scene in front of a group of gardeners! They were probably so confused with what we were doing. However, it gave us quite a laugh. We had to drive to so many different places because the sun and shadows of the trees kept getting in the way of the car scene. So, that actually took us on a fun adventure. 

Don't be fooled. This event wasn't all rainbows and sunshine. It was also a little stressful because we had a time limit and Tori's camera was running out of battery, while also overheating under the hot sun. In fact, we had to film one of the scenes on one of our cell phones. Also, I kept telling Hannah how to properly film the shot I was imagining and we had to do a lot of retakes. I think Hannah was getting sick of it, but nothing gets in the way of a good opening! Anyways, most of the day was very fun and we actually finished filming with plenty of time to spare. 

Color in our Opening

 Color can play a big part in expressing certain moods and emotions in films. In fact, each color is usually associated to a certain feeling or thing in someone's mind. For example, the color red may be associated to love, while the color green to envy. While we don't focus too much on color in our film opening, there are a few instances where one can see color symbolizing something greater. 

First off, the biggest, most obvious use of color to express an emotion is definitely thought the first scene in Betty's room. Like I have stated before, Betty's room is relatively dark, with the blinds closed, but it also has a dark blue tone to it, with touches of purple. This is not coincidental! Blue can mean many different things, depending on the shade of the color. However, a deep, dark blue, like the one seen in our opening, can symbolize seriousness and depression. The color in the room is a reflection of the emotions Betty is currently feeling. She has just gone through a horrible breakup, which involved the person she loved betraying her trust and cheating on her. She feels lost, confused, sad, lonely, insecure, hopeless, depressed, and more. A bright yellow room would not coincide with these emotions, so a dark blue color fits perfectly in sync with Betty's emotions. 

One might also see the clothes that each character wear as a symbol of what they represent. For example, Betty wears a light pink top, a color that can symbolize youthfulness, femininity, and first love. All of these definitely represent Betty and the story, since it follows the tragic end to a wonderful, young, first love. So, I do think it makes sense for Betty to wear this color. Furthermore, James wears a red sweater, which could represent love and danger. I also think this fits James well because while he does represent the love that Betty once had, he also can be the danger that will break her heart. 

Finally, one could see August's wardrobe as symbolism too, but I have to say, it is a little bit of a stretch. So, August wears a white top with a green dragon in the center. White is a color that represents perfection, which could represent August since Betty and many other people view her as being this perfect girl who gets everything she wants. However, white could also represent purity and innocence, which isn't what I want August to represent at all! The green dragon has a whole other significance. The green can represent the envy August may feel towards Betty since James wants to be with her, or it may represent the envy other girls feel towards August. While it may not have to do with color, I should also mention that the dragon represents August in the eye's of the viewer. She is the big, bad dragon of the story that ruined something perfect and good. 

Lighting in our Opening

 We didn't really focus too much on lighting in our project. What I mean by this we didn't necessarily intentionally choose certain lighting to represent something deeper. However, there are different lightings throughout our film opening and some may represent something, if the viewer interprets it that way. Also, we did not edit any of the lighting during post-production. All of the lightening one sees during the opening is the lighting that was naturally present at the time. 

I should start with Betty's room scene. The first minute of the opening is spent in this room that Betty calls her own, and it definitely has a significantly unique lighting from the rest of the opening. The lighting in the room is much darker than outside and it actually has a bluish tone. I don't think this is a coincidence. The darker lighting goes along with the dramatic mood we are trying to set, especially with the dramatic piano music playing in the background. Not to mention, Betty has just gone through a horrible heartbreak. The blinds being closed, preventing any outside light from entering her room, makes sense because she just wants to sit in the dark with her feelings. So, Tori may have chosen this route for the lighting on purpose. I definitely think it works well! A very bright room wouldn't exactly go well with the dramatic piano music and slow pan over burned flowers and letters. 

After this, the lighting gets much brighter as Betty nears the front door and opens it, letting in a flash of bright sunlight, to reveal James standing on the other side. Maybe James is the light at the end of the dark tunnel? The rest of the film opening is pretty bright, due to the outdoor, natural sunlight that was present during our day of filming. We actually really did hope it would be bright! We wanted to make sure the sky was a clear, light blue when we tilted up to it, revealing the title. A dark, stormy sky filled with grey clouds would create a mood we didn't want for this portion of the opening. Also, it is supposed to be morning, since Betty is waking up, so the brightness of a new day would make sense, rather than the lighting of a sunset for example.