Slight Change in Character

 After some long and deep consideration, I have decided that changing the aesthetic concept of Joan's character would fit more. You see, my target audience with this opening are teenagers of my age who are just as obsessed with popular internet culture as I am. However, having my character be designed around the grunge aesthetic, as much as I love it, is rather alienating. Grunge just simply as popular as it was back in the 90s, but you know what is? Korean pop music. 

I've decided to incorporate  my love for Korean pop music by changing  the original grunge music jam out scene I had planned. Instead of Joan dancing around to grunge music, I will have her attempting to dance to "TT" by TWICE. Mind you, I will not actually be playing the audio, as the process of gaining permission to use the song within my opening is too complicated.

TWICE in the music video for their  2016 song "TT"

I will instead have Joan dancing to the song and humming the lyrics. She will be watching a dance practise video as well; I am still conflicted on to either have the dancing along with a video implied, or reach out to a content creator to gain permission to use their video instead of an official dance practise. Alas, I will keep you posted on this process.

Due to the change from the grunge aesthetic to a more relatable one, I have changed the planned wardrobe for my character. She will be wearing a more relaxed, loungewear type of outfit--complete with house shoes!

Joan's character design; pale grey hoodie, "Akira" (dir. Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988) branded shorts, and house shoes

Something else added to the character design is a Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh necklace my mother bought me a few months ago. It's something I love greatly, and feel I have a great personal attachment to. I feel as if adding it to the design of Joan's character makes her all the more personal. 

Scheduling

 The time has come, dear blog reader. The day has dawned upon which filming must begin! Well, not literally, mind you. This upcoming week marks the beginning of me filming this dear project. I anticipate beginning on Friday; I would begin Thursday, as that's when Spring Break begins, alas my family is having an outing to watch the highly anticipated "Cocaine Bear" (dir. Elizabeth Banks, 2023). 

Cocaine Bear, the perfect family film

So alas, this upcoming Friday—March 17, 2023—will mark the beginning of my filming process. To expand upon this, I plan on at least getting a head start on editing over the week as well. My family has no plans and since my brother will be visiting our father for the latter half of the break and my mother out of town with her boyfriend, I will be home alone. Still, I wish to at least get a decent ways through editing by March 24, 2023—which is when CAPCOM releases their remake of Resident Evil 4, one of my most anticipated games of the year.

This game is why I wish to at least be relatively finished with my film opening before it's release because I know myself well enough to say that I will be ignoring the project for at least a few days. Of course, once I snap out of my neglectful haze, I will begin work on my CCR, and if it isn't finished already, finish my film opening. All of that is matter of editing, something I actually enjoy very much. Here is a detailed schedule I have put together to keep myself on track:

My schedule I will be strictly sticking by

Contemplating The Eventual CCR

 I would like to create a post speaking of my ideas for this CCR. I will be honest when I say that I am rather worried about this. I consider my creative skills to fall more easily amongst writing compared to  visual media. Writing is definitely something I've spent longer honing my skill in, possessing hundreds of hours on the Google Docs app on my phone. Recording visual media is just something I can't practise too often, since my brother is virtually always home and practically lives in the living room, the only place in my house I like to record in.

Basically, I am scared for the CCR, but I will do my best to approach them with a positive and creative mindset.  The first of these is a direct parody of one of my favourite YouTubers; TheVolgun. However, before  I show you examples of what I want to draw from his content, I have to brief you on what his content surrounds.

The SCP Foundation is a fictional multi-national program that aims to protect the general public from anomalies that range from mildly threatening our basic way of life to destroying the world. In actuality, the Foundation is a multi-cultural internet horror project that started on 4Chan back in 2008 with the post detailing a creature labelled as SCP-173 "The Sculpture", which is still one of the most iconic creations to come from the project. Some other notable creations include SCP-049 "Plague Doctor", SCP-096 "The Shy Guy", and SCP-999 "The Tickle Monster". 

Original photo of SCP-173, as the design has changed in recent years

TheVolgun is a prominent YouTube channel within the SCP community. His content revolves around reading out SCP files under the alias "Dr. Millar". His style is very distinct and high quality compared to those who have similar content, making him stand out. He's personally one of my favourite creators within the SCP sphere, and I'd love to try and replicate his style of content for my CCR. 

Screenshot from TheVolgun's latest video  as of March 5, 2023

For the other media style I'd like to replicate, I aim to make a parody of Late Night talk hosts. This form of media is one that is deeply engrained in my childhood; I remember my mother showing me the latest viral clips from Jimmy Fallon, and carpool karaokes of James Cordon and popular artists before he become widely hated. Because of my experience with Late Night shows, I believe I have all of the knowledge needed to create the perfect parody.

Except, I'd like to add a little twist. You see, there is an already-existing perfect parody; The Eric Andre Show. The show aired on Adult Swim, and has a total of five seasons that can now be viewed on Hulu. Of course, the show is intensely vulgar, and that is an aspect I don't plan to replicate in the slightest. However, the inherent awkwardness and plainly weird jokes are something that I cherish outside of grotesque humour. That is what I wish to replicate more than anything. 

Eric Andre and Hannibal Buress interviewing a grizzly bear

These are my goals with my CCR, as well as the existing properties I wish to parody. 

Half-Baked Convergence

 Let me get this out of the way before I officially start this post; I meant to take notes during this exercise of group criticism, but ended up forgetting that fact halfway through. Due to this, there will be no accompanying media for this post, as I have nought a suitable picture and/or link to fill in extra space. It was a mistake on my end, and one I hope not to repeat for the rest of this blog. 

Now, on February 27, 2023, my media studies class separated into five groups  in order to peer-review the current outlines we have for our project. Initially, this process was rather awkward given that I am not the most skilled when it comes to social interactions (why do you think this project is a one-man effort?). This awkwardness was shared  amongst not only me, but all five of my assigned group. In complete and utter honesty, I don't think we really moved past it. 

I believe by now you have realised that I am rather frustrated with this peer-review exercise.  There wasn't any real critiquing going on, we were all either joking about how stressful writing blogs are when you have no prior experience or saying that we liked each others' ideas. Personally, I wouldn't commemorate it as helpful. The stories the other kids in my group had were good, and I think it's great so many of us decided to stick close to source material we knew. However, details pertaining to the story weren't exactly given; it was just a rundown of what our blogs looked like and what posts we had.

I am fully part of that problem as well. I barely did anything to offer advice beyond saying that the two kids who have so far neglected their blogs should probably get a move on and actually start posting. 

As of now, I am seeking out advice from other sources i.e. friends with creative minds such as my own. I don't want to be told that everything I'm doing is good because I know there will always be an aspect of this project I can improve. I want criticism, I want to be told that what I have could be made better compared to the "I really like your idea!" I heard from everyone in my peer-review group. 

That's all I really have to say about this  experience.  I wish I got more out of it.

Frantic new genre notes

 So, as evident with the change of my opening’s plot, I am having to switch my genre as well. Found footage simply does not work with the new story I have planned. Because of this, I have decided to switch to the dramedy (drama-comedy) genre, a personal favourite of mine. I have seen countless dramedy films before, my favourite of which being “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (dir. Wes Anderson, 2014) and “Jojo Rabbit” (dir. Taika Waititi, 2019). 

For the sake of this genre exploration, however, I decided to watch a film I hadn’t seen before: “Little Miss Sunshine” (dir. Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, 2006). I had heard of it once before because of TikTok. You see, when the recent “The Batman” (dir. Matt Reeves, 2022) came out, Paul Dano found a major boost in his career on the platform. Young teenage girls who watched the film were…attracted his character’s charm (I will admit, I do not see it) and established what became known as “The Dano Nation”. They would watch all of his movies and obsess over every little thing about Paul Dano. Did you know he was in a band? I certainly didn’t before the Dano Nation’s founding. 

It was because of this small TikTok community that I learned about “Little Miss Sunshine”. The film revolves around a girl who wants to participate in a beauty pageant, and rallies her dysfunctional family together in order to drive to and participate in one. The film is absolutely amazing, one of the best I’ve seen in recent memory. Here are my notes on it’s first opening minutes. 

My notes on the opening to “Little Miss Sunshine” where I constantly misspelled pageant

As with “Little Miss Sunshine”, I wish to have my opening be character driven. In a hypothetical scenario, the rest of the film would mainly revolve around Joan and the effects quarantine has had on her life. These opening minutes are essential to understanding her character, as well as her struggle. Because of this, I will be drawing a lot on “Little Miss Sunshine” when it comes to both cinematography notes and character introduction.

Storyboards

 Here are my storyboards! The order of the montage scenes can mostly be rearranged, and I will most likely add more to fill for time. I didn’t draw every single one because I didn’t have enough paper to do so. Hope you enjoy my minuscule drawings!

A small collection of my storyboards

Titles and Characters

 Naming is a big task. I should know, I have had the pleasure of naming a lot of different things in my life, ranging from simple objects to characters I hold near and dear to my heart. In fact, when I was younger, I used to claim it was my favourite pastime. I would cycle through characters faster than ever, all for the sole purpose of creating something new and being able to name it. 

An old tactic of mine was to hyperfixate on a name, in which a random name would pop into my head one day and I’d repeat it for months upon months. This mostly generated some great results, such as Willow, Scarlett, and Minerva. It also held some…questionable results, with names like Molly and Milennius (don’t ask how that happened, I don’t know). Recently, however, I have been blessed with a name for the first time what feels like years: Joan. 

Therefore, my main character’s name will be Joan, but I believe I already told you that. Joan will be played by me, and wear more grunge-style clothing, as well as multiple jewellery accessories. She is an artistic kid, who prefers to spend her time writing or drawing. When she isn’t exercising her artistic endeavours, she’s actively consuming artistic media by watching films/tv shows, playing video games, or reading books. She is very expressive, but has lately pulled back in that side of her due to

constantly being down because of her destructive procrastination habits. 

A quick sketch I made of Joan

On the other hand, we have the name of my opening. I decided to dig more into my experiences with intense procrastination, and draw upon what stimulated the worse of my destructive habits. COVID was catastrophic for everyone, but when it came to my personal experience with the virus and quarantine, it practically destroyed my study habits. I’ve been able to rekindle some of them now, but most remain lost in the depths of COVID’s senseless nihilism. 

Since I’m mainly drawing upon post-quarantine experiences for this opening, I’ve decided to name it “Two Years After”. The title details how this takes place in 2022, two years after the initial start of quarantine. 

There is one or two more planned characters that will be appearing vocally (not physically) in my opening, but I’m leaving their creation to the people who play them. One of my friend’s strives in character creation, having helped me with detailing characters for a personal film project once before, so I believe they’d want to be able to come up with their own character. The other person, on the other hand, is just a mom character played by my mom. Nothing really special about that.