The "long-awaited" script

     I finally managed to finish my script!  There's some things about it that may still need Tweaking but for the most part it's pretty set.  I feel like my biggest struggle with this was definitely writing the dialogue and trying to make sure it fit the characters and also explained what was going on in the story clearly since this idea is kind of a lot.  I hope to get some of my friends to peer review my script and hopefully give some suggestions on how to make it better.  I just want to make sure that someone who is not me can understand what's going on in the script.  I wanted to make the characters have more weird and goofy to show that this is supposed to be fun and enjoyable, but also deals with very heavy and dark subject matter.  Many people use humor as a coping mechanism so I wanted to reflect that trait of Vincente's within the script.  I'm also just not the best at writing dialogue, so I'm also kind of making fun of that fact within the script so the dialogue is purposefully kind of stupid and whimsical.

(I'm not sure why the text is so blurry but you will have to cope with these pictures until I figure out how to make them ... not blurry)

Costuming for Amon (Red Galore)

     Since I want Amon to be the materialization of Vincente's subconscious, and Vincente is struggling with self-identity and knowing who he truly is, I want Amon's style to kind of contrast his.  This represents how far gone Vincente is and how disconnected he is from who he really is.

    So because Vincente dresses in mainly neutrals such as black and has an angsty and edgy aesthetic to him, I want Amon's look to be kind of the opposite of this.  I plan on dressing the character in much more vibrant colors to execute this.  My only question is, which color?  Because Amon is probably going to stand out so much due to the vibrance of their clothes, I want to make sure that I choose the perfect color palette for them to wear.  

    At first I thought I would stray away from red since I wanted Amon to really contrast Vincente and I thought the red and his style would represent too many of the same things.  But after refreshing my memory and reading up on some of the things that red represents, I think it's a possible contender.  See, I want Amon not only to represent Vincente's subconscious, but also who he really is.  And at heart he might be a driven and ambitious person (all things that red represents), that just got a little lost along the way, which is the whole point.  As for the aesthetic issue, I think I trust my styling abilities enough to figure out the perfect amount of red to put in Amon's outfit along with the perfect shades of red to include.  This way there will be enough contrast between the two characters without it being too overbearing.

    I think my final decision will be red, it just kind of spoke to me for some reason.  I think it'll work out better than having too pastel or light of a color because I think I still should aim to keep some semblance of Vincente's identity in Amon since at the end of the film he probably ends up finding it.  It's a way for Vincente's true self to pop out and say, "hey, I'm not really dead."

Source: https://tradeshowbestpractices.com/2017/08/03/color-psychology-meaning-colors-traits/

Costuming for Vincente

     Now that I've figured out who my characters actually are, I think now would be the best time to decide what I want to do in terms of mise-en-scene elements such as costuming.  Costuming is going to be a very important for my film opening because of just how much you can tell about a character just from the way they present themselves alone.  I'm excited to get creative with the characters' looks and hopefully come up with something super cool that reflects the character's personality using clothes that I (or my friends) already have.

    So first I want to style Vincente's outfit.  Not only because he's the "main" character, but because I already have such a vivid image in my head of what he looks like.  I want him to be very obviously "grungy" and edgy because it would definitely match his personality.  He's a pretty careless, hedonistic, and troubled young man, and unfortunately, this style is usually used as a sort of stereotype to reflect people of that nature.  But on the bright side this should be easy to style since I basically already dress exactly how I imagine him to.  I also want to add details such as jewelry or body modifications like piercings for the same reason.  And since I want it to be known that this character is LGBTQ without making it his whole personality, I can represent this by styling him with accessories and clothes that are very common amongst gay youths in the 80s/90s (my film opening purposefully has this ambiguous time period as it matches its themes of uncertainty/ambiguity).  

    To start off, I was thinking about having Vincente wear a looser fitting crop-top.  During my film's time period, crop-tops for men were all the rage, specifically for straight men (you might be thinking: "wait Vincente isn't straight?  That is true, stay with me for a second).  The crop-top first emerged as the straight man's attempt to flex their athleticism and physique.  This was the case for a while, until popular artists such as Prince and popular brands such as Calvin Klein began to rock the garment in a more suggestive, effeminate and even sometimes homoerotic manner.  Fragile masculinity did a number on straight men when crop-tops began this re-branding process, and did almost a complete 180 on their view of it.  As Tom George of i-D put it, "The men’s crop top, now less about athleticism and more about fashion, sex and androgyny, started to embody all the things masculinity wanted to distance itself from: camp, queerness and effeminacy."  But straight men turning on crop-tops obviously couldn't have happened overnight.  The fact that there was a switch-up on the crop-top's reputation could imply that there was a period of time where there was almost a grey area or overlap of opinions on it.  Some men starting to turn on it, some men starting to adopt it, and some men who simply were not in the loop with trends and didn't know this controversy was happening until later, allowing them to continue rocking the shirt in blissful ignorance.

    I want Vincente to use this grey area as a kind of advantage to represent who his character is.  He is in fact part of the LGBTQ community although it's never fully disclosed how he specifically identifies.  It is also implied in the opening that he is a sex worker, but doesn't cater towards any one gender in this setting.  So the crop-top can be used not only to reflect Vincente's queer identity, but also a small attempt at fitting in with masculine and heteronormative trends.  Not only to hide his true identity when needed, but also to appeal to female "customers" that are attracted to the "masculine" trend.

    I will be using this black T-shirt that I cut the sleeves off of to dress Vincente.  It is a regular size shirt so I would have to cut it to the length I want later on when my actor Joey is wearing it so I can get the proportions correct.  When I crop the shirt I am going to leave the hem raw to emphasize that edgy and disheveled nature of Vincente's personality.  I, of course, had to choose a shirt that was the color black to highlight the same points previously mentioned.

    As for the bottom half, I will be dressing Vincente with raw-hem denim knee-length shorts.  The use of denim reflects the grunge style that he is going for, as the subculture considered worn-out denim an outfit staple.  I chose to go for a shorter length as opposed to a normal, longer length to reflect his involvement in sex work to show more skin, and his queerness as straight men stereotypically don't show as much skin out of fear of being perceived as effeminate (not that wearing shorts is effeminate, but showing a lot of skin in this context might be perceived
 as such).

    I also plan to have him wear black combat boots.  And if that doesn't work out, beat up skater shoes will work (because unfortunately me and Joey probably do not share the same shoe size so I can't let him wear my boots).  For accessories, I wanted to see if I could get a fake ear piercing or perhaps some other facial piercing to, once again, represent his angst.  Along with this, he will wearing bracelets like a leather cuff.  I also hope to fashion him with a certain type of necklace that was popular with the LGBTQ community during this time period.  What is referred to as a "cock ring necklace" was a queer fashion statement for gays to recognize each other in public without straight people realizing.  Earrings and pierced ears also acted as a way for gays to recognize each other, although that method quickly became more mainstream.  So fashioning my character with this accessory is just another way of subtly representing his sexuality.

Sources: i-D (in text)

timalderman

Group Meeting?

     Hi blog, the other day in class we met up in random groups with about 5 classmates and we each took turns discussing our project and the progress we've made so far.  At first I was kind of skeptical of this meeting because I thought it wouldn't be that beneficial.  I also thought that people wouldn't really like or understand my idea, so I wasn't very excited going into it.  But then me and my group got to talking and it actually went pretty well!  It was very easy to present my ideas to them and we were all very open to provide feedback for each other and supporting each other's ideas.

    We started out by just kind of talking about where each of us are in our project, and it made me realize how everyone's creative process is so different, and I shouldn't compare my progress to other's just because I work at a different pace.  Some people had already written a whole script but hadn't done much other planning, some people did much more pre-production besides writing, and some people were even already starting to film soon.  It felt good to know that I'm not actually that behind, I just kind of work at a different pace.  As long as I follow the schedule I created for myself, I'll be okay.

    It was enjoyable to hear everyone's ideas for their project.  All of them were so different and reflected who each of these people were in their own "quirky" way.  When someone would present their ideas, they were always open to critique and potential suggestions that they genuinely took note of.  When I explained my idea, I asked the group what they thought I could do to make it more clear to the audience that the character Ammon isn't really real.  They suggested that I do it in more subtle ways like having the character pop up in scenes randomly with no explanation, as to provoke the audience into thinking that something is strange, but they can't figure out just quite what it is.  I really liked this idea and found it very helpful.

    Overall I thought the group meeting was very beneficial and I'm glad I got this opportunity to share ideas with others and potentially help them.

Target Audience

     I think that before I begin writing my script, I'm going to establish what exactly my target audience is.  My Own Private Idaho is the film that is acting as my main source of inspiration for my project.  Seeing as how the film has similar subject matter to my opening, I would expect it to have a very similar target audience as well.  

    This film was released in 1991 and was considered a "landmark film" in queer cinema, especially for its time.  Touching on "taboo" subject matter like it was a completely normal thing caused this film to connect with many LGBTQ audience members.  The film is considered a cult classic due to its initial criticisms and then eventual appreciation by both critics and audiences.  This means that the audience members who truly liked this film to begin with had to be open-minded and really took a chance on its almost experimental and avant-garde style.  

This film (at the time of its release) was made for a more niche audience, which I'm sure the director was aware of beforehand.  Therefore, this is also something I should be aware of.

    My target audience, in terms of age, would definitely be young adults (17-25) due to the more heavy subject matter and relatability to characters their age.

Acting

  I mentioned in my "Characters" post that I wanted my good friends Joey and Virginia to act in my film opening.  And now that they've confirmed that they can in fact help me out, I need to see exactly what days they would be able to film in order to get a more detailed vision of what days I would be able to film.  

    Joey has confirmed that he is free during the entirety of the time frame I have allotted for filming, which is great.  Virginia has also confirmed this, but she might be a bit more difficult to work around due to the fact that she also has her Media Studies A Level portfolio project to work on.  

    I'm glad that Joey especially is available to film because I was completely envisioning Vincente with him in mind.  In terms of both looks and the writing of his character.  I'm aware of Joey's acting skills, so I was also aware to keep that in mind.  Although I want my piece to be more dialogue driven and that requires more acting skills, I know that I can write the script so that Joey is able to execute it to the best of his ability.  

    I plan to work around this acting issue by having Virginia have the bulk of the lines and acting.  This will work out because she will be representing more of his subconscious which is more outspoken with thoughts, and contrasts his more reserved demeanor.  

    In order to sell my film opening to the audience, I need the acting to fit with the writing.

Location ?

    I've began to think about location scouting.  I know that I would like to have an environment that reflects that kind of disheveled living condition that people with mental health issues live with.  I want to make sure that the audience really understands the type of person this is, even just from looking at the environment they surround themselves in.  

   

Recently I re-watched the film Nowhere (1997) and it gave me inspiration for the type of setting I would want, at least for the room.  The film was directed by Gregg Araki, and my favorite thing about his films has to be his outrageous mise-en-scene elements.  I feel like something as formalistic as this is really what I'm envisioning, as I want my visuals to kind of contrast the melancholic and slower paced plot-line and writing.  

    I think that since I have given myself so much time to film, I will also have a lot of time to pay a lot of attention to detail.  I can think of and get all of the props I will need, create the perfect setting that matches my vision.  I love how just from the screengrab, one can tell just how "edgy" and distraught this character is.  usually I am not given this much time to work on films, or in this case a film opening) so I'm very excited to make the most of the time I have and make something very intricate that I'm proud of.

   

    Another location I've been thinking of working towards filming in is some sort of abandoned garage/shed.  I am imaging this as being a sort of hangout spot for my main character, and potentially the setting in which he first interacts with Amon.  

 

  I feel like having this as another primary location would be very consistent with the "vibe" of the rest of the opening.  With Vincente's (yes, I chose the name Vincente) room reflecting his edgy, almost hedonistic personality, and the garage/shed reflecting a dirty and run-down place he likes to spend some of his free time in, I think it gets the message across that this is a grimy and dark film.  But with the formalistic elements, it also lets the viewer know that this is going to be a whimsical and entertaining story, no matter how dark it is.

Sources: Nowhere (1997) Room

Abandoned Garage/Shed

bandoned Garage/Shed 2