Production

     For this post, I wanted to talk about an important prop in our film. Our film includes many many different props due to it portraying a woman setting up dinner. She is moving around plates, silverware, cups, food, etc. However, this prop is a photo of Tinder messages to portray how Elena has had many people come over and the last thing they had said was that they were at her house. It shows how arriving at her house is their last event so when there's an unread message from Jackson saying her arrived audiences anticipate that he will be in a deadly situation. 

    For this prop, I initially thought we were just going to do this in messages by texting one of our phones from other numbers, but my group was actually thinking of having Tinder messages to emphasize that these are dates. So, we were going to just be making a Tinder account and screenshotting the messages from that. However, we realized that 

1. We would need the messages to have spaced out dates.

2. We would need people to send us messages saying something about arriving at Elenas house.

3. We would need peoples consent for this

In general, I though making a twitter account was just too much and that we should just make them image ourselves.  So, on Canva Juan made an image that resembled the Tinder messages with accurate dates and messages.

    The last step to completing the prop to use in the video was to find images for the dates profile. Each man needed a profile, but this was difficult because we need copyright free images. Most of these stock images appeared unrealistic/unnatural so it was a challenge to find good options. We ultimately did complete our prop which will be shown on a phone screen in the film. This is what it looks like: (We also added some details like Jackson being a lot nicer and more professional than the other man who are a bit more disrespectful, this foreshadows to the ending I talked about in character development.) (It looks very low quality in the post for some reason and I am not sure why)

Storyboard

     This week I am writing a planning post about our storyboard for the project. I previously posted our script but this should help better visually represent how our scenes will look. I think it will definitely make shooting easier since it will actually show what is being captured. Here are 3 pictures in order of our storyboard:

    This storyboard basically sums up what will be in the film except for all details, effects, and sound. We have also since revised scenes like the beginning of setting the table are not all high angles, some will be close-ups and some long shots so that is not yet decided. The title card will instead be displayed when the woman is looking at her phone, the doorbell will ring on a black screen and a scene will be added afterward of Elena walking towards the front door. We believe this will help the opening feel complete yet make sure people know that it's just an opening and there's more to the film. The storyboard also doesn't show where the opening credits will be because we need to figure out how to make the idea, we want for the credits possible within shots. The idea for our opening credits is that they will be reveled under objects or when objects move across the screen with masking editing tools. Ultimately, I think the storyboard is very solid and is very helpful in expressing our idea and will be perfect with our revisions. This is the link to my post with the script if you would like to check that out for a better understanding - Script.

Character Development

    Our main character is Elena, well who is Elena. hat is her personality and how does it change throughout the film?

    She starts out as a picky woman who is looking for the perfect man. She is distrustful, hopeless and lonely. She invites many men to her house, but they are never perfect, so she obviously has to kill them. Date after date they are all just not up to her standards until one date changes that. Jackson is the man who is arriving to her house for dinner that day and he is unlike the rest.

   

    I am not exactly sure how everything will go down yet, I need to continue working on the story with my team, but I think that Jackson will be well dressed, respectful, kind etc. But somehow (I am also not sure how) it will be revealed that Jackson is also a murderer while she is attempting to kill him for doing something that displeased her. In the end, she falls in love him because he is overall perfect and also a serial killer which she likes. She is now loyal to him, loving, and romantic. She and him will be killers together and happily ever after for them which is horrifying for the audience. 

    I still have a lot of gaps to fill to make the story more structurally sound and interesting, I only really have the main ideas I just need to work on details. It may sound a little wonky, but we will be working on fixing it up soon. 

Audio

     For our project we have been looking for 2 different categories of audio, a main song that is played throughout the opening and sound effects. 

    For the main song we have been looking for copyright free songs across YouTube and many different sound platforms however we haven't found a song that we felt was appropriate for the film. We have been continuing to look in our free time, but the kind of song were looking for is very unique and specific (a romantic yet eerie in context, song with lyrics that fit the opening) making this a very difficult and time consuming process. We have also reached out to use a copyrighted song "It had to be you" by Frank Sinatra which perfectly fits our film opening, but since we aren't sure if we will be able to use it, we will continue looking for other options. 

    For sound effect we will be using free websites like Pixabay, Epidemic Sound, and BenSound. We are also going to be creating some foley for more specific sounds or ones that we can't find on the sound websites. We are going to try and find/make these sounds next week so we can have all our audio readily available for editing. 

    So far, I believe we have the audio portion of the project is really well planned. I think we can gather all the audio aspects very soon and hopefully we are able to use the Frank Sinatra song because I think it would be amazing for our opening.

Lighting

    In this post I am discussing the mise-en-scene element, lighting! We have a certain vibe we want to capture an to o so we need to have a consistent mise-en-scene, an a huge factor for that is lighting. So for our film opening we would like to use low key light that a little warmer so it feels more homely like a household dinner would be and we want to use colored lighting (more specifically red).

    Throughout most of the film, we will just have the warmer-toned low-key lighting and during the gruesome flashback scene, we will have red lighting to emphasize the horror and intensity of the situation. Even though afterwards the lighting will return to normal it will leave audiences shocked and anxious about the potential upcoming situation and what this whole dinner was all about. 

This is a picture of how our red lighting scene looks:

Props

 This post is about the mise-en-scene element of props! For this film we want to pick props that seem to be regular for a household dinner however we want the elements to be consistent with our red, black, and silver color palate and to have a darker look. For filming we created a list of all the props we could think of except for costumes which we will think of separately. 

List:

-Record player

-Vinyl

-Tablecloth

-Napkins (2)

-Fork+knife (2)

-Plates (2)

- Flowers in a vase

-Candles (3)

-Glass cup (2)

-Wine bottle

-Wine opener

-Rotisserie chicken

-Spices for chicken

- Platter for chicken

-Cucumber

-Salad

-Cutting board

-Bowl

-Cutting knife

-Fake blood

-Cleaning gloves

-Paper towels

Here I have pictures of some props we already decided on:

These props have a consistent vibe that will be good for the mise-en-scene of the project like having a dark mysterious colored record player and a bright red record which foreshadows the future gruesome scenes. The rest of the props set an ordinary vibe like we want the film to appear as before the truth is revealed. Aswell as this list we also need accessories for our costumes which I will talk about in another post. We also need filming supplies like cameras and lighting. 

Media Theory

     There are many kinds of media theory however which theory should I include in my project? I have really taken an interest in the Narrative Code - Proairetic/Action Code. I believe there are many ways this can be included in our film after re-reading our script and it seems very fitting for the mysterious vibe.

    This code is when the plot point leads to other actions that make viewers wonder what will happen next. I think this will be used in my project through plot points like: seeing flashbacks to the crime and getting a notification that someone has arrived. It makes the audience wonder what will occur tonight and who the man arriving is/what will happen to him. 

I also think that Gender Performativity Theory is included to the extent that it means gender roles are not natural but societal constructs, it is a performance of gender from an understanding of gender due to repeated gender roles. This is used in the opening by having a female serial killer which is not typically expected of the gender and having her do tasks that seem typical of the gender such as cooking/setting the table. She shouldn't be expected to be so sinister especially since she is following these norms. 

    I think either of these theories could be used/emphasized within the project however I believe that I am pushing the gender performativity and would like to focus more on integrating the Action Code media theory.