Actor Introduction

 

Along with my music and sound ideas, I’ve also talked quite extensively about my characters and character representation. I just wanted to touch up on this subject again just to introduce my actors and how I am going to change part of my ideas.

Andi: Sophia Scribani

She will be playing the quiet and shy Andi who is extremely talented and despite her profound deafness can excellently play the piano. Though Sophia does not have an entire knowledge of playing classical music and the piano, a utilization of different camera shots and angles will come into play to make it look like she is playing the piece perfectly. For the costume choice, I wanted to stick to something similar to my original board of ideas and aesthetic I mentioned in the beginning of my process.

Vera: Kailey Fretwell

Kailey will be playing Vera, the love interest and soon-to-be friend of Andi. As suggested by the plot and the shots in my storyboard, Vera is very curious about the world. She sees brightness and joy in a lot of things and will be stunned by Andi and her playing. Though not immediately falling in love with Andi, she is extremely intrigued by her and finding out that she is Deaf makes her want to keep following her life. Vera may be dressed more casually than suggested by her board, though still keeping the colorful and odd look that makes her unique.

Though I originally made Andi the main character, I think the story may eventually follow both characters and their thoughts and feelings for eachother to show the growth of their emotions that bring them from strangers, to friends, to lovers. I imagine later in the story both characters will learn to love each other’s interests and figure out what makes the other person so special.

More sounds

 

After weeks of wondering and questioning about all of my ideas and choices for this project, one of the most difficult ones has been for this piano song. This will play the part of the music in my film opening and I wanted to choose something that a typical piano player of that age may be playing; however, take into account the difficulty and my actors ability to play the song. I want to go for a more classical sound, but, I may scrap that idea completely if I find a song I connect with and enjoy listening to. With the few apps I mentioned, as well as the internet I will be searching for the perfect song.

And with that last note, I found the one that felt the best with what I wanted to convey. I searched for hours on Chosic with no clue where I would end up. For a while I considered Beethoven songs as a foreshadowing or suggestion that shows that Andi is also a Deaf pianist, but I could not find any of his songs that really stuck out to me. After a long time of searching I had kind of given up and picked one at random but it still did not seem to fit the more I kept listening to it. I wanted to continue looking just to see if I would discover something better. Finally I decided on the song Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 2 No. 1 – I. Allegro. 

This song has a decent level of difficulty and won’t be extremely hard to mask the fact that my actress may not be able to play this piece. It also has a fast enough tempo to grab the attention of people in another room, which would be Vera. Overall, it is very intriguing and is a good fit for the plot of my film opening. I am already planning how it will perfectly fit in with the tone I intend to create with each shot.

This was so exciting to see as I am finishing up with everything before filming and I am extremely eager to start.

More and More Apps

 

    Because of the mishap with everything involving filming and scheduling, I will not be able to provide any clips or pieces from my opening. Eventually I will be able to show everyone the great progress that I have made, but for now I am feeling a bit stuck on what else to talk about. 

As I have mentioned about one million times before, sound techniques are very important within the creation of my film. I’ve decided to utilize a few more apps to help me out in my process to get the desired product. 

A while ago, while working on a soundscape project for this class we were asked to find/create sound effects to tell a story. Essentially I will be using the same apps to help me put together all of my music and foley sounds. It is called Video Copy, and it allows me to take clips or links from previously made videos and clip the section I would like to utilize. It also gives access to use videos from my camera roll; this way I can save recordings and edit them on this app. One of the images shows a few clips from my soundscape project that I did.

Overall, using this app will be very helpful in creating different sections of my music and being able to layer some of my sounds together before adding it to my video. I am really excited for more progress on my music and video.

New Discovery!

 

I am currently working on how to pull some last final thoughts together before I can really film, but today I have a very brief post for everyone today. I already mentioned I would be looking for music more in depth and of course a life saver heard my calls and answered. A friend of mine had been using a website to find copy-right free music online with the ability to search specific types of music to use without having to worry about emailing anyone and making the whole production process much easier. I was introduced to this website this week, and I am still discovering what I can do, but I am extremely thankful that I was notified of this as soon as I needed it.

The app/website is called chosic.com and gives access to many genres of music and the ability to discover new sounds.

There are also tools that can be utilized as shown below in the website. 

Though, right now I am only mentioning it, I plan to take the time and really dive into this website and use it to its full extent to help me with my film opening.

Bad yet Okay news

 

Well, I knew this time would come and being unable to avoid it was inevitable, but my planning skills suck! Maybe that is very harsh on my behalf, but I am just upset on how my entire film schedule and planning has turned into a failure. I initially planned to film yesterday afterschool, with enough time to use the auditorium and get all of my filming done, giving me the entire break to finish editing and putting my video together. Unfortunately, relying on other people is very tough and I am unable to schedule time with my actors at the moment. Though, I mentioned a plan B, I really did not want to resort to that because now I lack time to put in a lot of effort editing and putting together my video. I will now have to film after Spring Break and this may put a toll on my project. Even though this is very bad news, I decided to find some positives in this experience. Since my time is now cut by about two weeks, I can take this time to really picture the film in my head and plan out more ideas for lighting and sound. During this time I may also take more time to look into music that I want for my piano, and possibly for the background. Even though this is going to cause me a lot of stress, I will try to look at what I can do instead of wasting time dwelling on my film not going exactly to plan.

Just Some More Advice

 

Hello! Hello! I am back again with only a little bit to say, but I just wanted to update everyone on some of my progress and talk about my experience today. Just earlier we had another group discussion to talk about what we are doing for our film openings and to get more ideas for our projects. This time I was in a group with people who were a bit more hesitant to give out constructive criticism and advice, so I just attempted to listen to everyone else’s plans and ideas. At this point I guess it was nice to feel validated on my progress and my story ideas; however, I still feel like some suggestions would’ve been nice to hear. Overall, the main change for my project is more of just a realization for myself. I had mentioned a while ago when doing my genre posting that I would want to incorporate ideas that would fit the genres of “coming-of-age,” “romance,” and “drama” or sentimental; but, now I see how “coming-of-age” won’t necessarily fit in with the main point I am trying to get across in my movie and I should omit any remnants of this genre from my piece as it may be distracting from what I want. I am soon to film and I am just overall very eager to see my final product.

Film Schedule

 

It’s been a long and difficult process with this project and I think one of the hardest parts is coming up to its ideas and time constraints. So, I wanted to take this post to talk about my scheduling plan and what I’m going to do to get my film started. 

First of all, I plan to set my filming location at school, which may be a bit difficult, but it may help me since I will be there after school. Because I will be helping the drama class with their show during this time, I will be able to stay after rehearsal, as well as utilize the school auditorium to get the effect I want for my film. Tomorrow I will be able to discuss with the drama teacher and see what times the school will be open till to give me full access to the stage, where I will be filming half of my opening. 

I want to take Wednesday to film, but if more time is needed, I will attempt for after Spring Break. 

If I manage to film everything I need to this week, I will give myself the weekend up till the end of Spring Break to fully edit and construct my project, including contacting a couple friends for advice and feedback on my project. During the editing process I will make sure to include all the necessary components including captions and names of people who helped in the film.

Until my work is complete, I really want to take as much time as possible to make my project as close to my ideas as possible and just create an overall great film opening.

Storyboard

Here is the storyboard I created to guide me through my filming process.

 

Your Lie In April

 

Hello! Today is a new day and another post for my progress on this film opening. The last thing I mentioned here was my plan for my opening and how I expected it to turn out, but I realized that my ideas had changed a lot since first beginning this project. At first I wanted this story to go more in a school-type direction, however, brainstorming ideas felt extremely difficult and I was not sure how it would turn out; but after a lot of time of thinking and exploring different shows I recalled one of my favorites, “Your Lie In April”. This show is another anime that covers the romance and sentiment of young teens through the idea of music. When I had watched it a few months ago, it had really caught my eye and yelled at it to start tearing up at every moment possible. Without even realizing it, somehow the repetition of the theme song in my mind had brought the show into influencing my ideas and I really wanted to talk about it.

Your Lie In April (2016) tells the heartbreaking story of a 14 year old boy, Kousei Arima, who is a piano prodigy, but stops playing once his mother dies. In the story he meets a violinist of the same age, Kaori Miyazono, who influenced him to get back to piano playing after two years. In the story, Kousei feels frightened by playing due to trauma from his mother dying, which causes him to become so focussed that he no longer hears the sounds of his own playing. Upon meeting Kaori, he eventually learns to play based on emotion, rather than what is on the score.

Though she isn’t the main love interest, In the opening of the first episode we see moments of Kousei’s best friend, Tsubaki, in the audience watching him play piano. The story opens with them as young children, of course when Arima still played piano, and him playing a song at some competition. In the audience we see close-ups of little Tsubaki and her reactions of shock and happiness and she is fixated on his music. 

In my film, I want to make the interaction between Vera and Andi more casual, rather than a competition, since that would require there to be more people. I think I am also going to incorporate close-ups of Andi playing piano and Vera watching from afar, before their whole meeting and interaction of Vera discovering that Andi is deaf.

Opening Plan

 

Though my plot is nowhere near finalized I wanted to run through my main ideas and what I want my opening to feel like.

First, the story opens with piano music playing lightly; each of the keys tapping could be heard. There is going to be a bright light lit onto a stage and the main character, Andi, sitting in front of a piano, everyone is clapping. She hears silence, only faint sounds and distortedness of the audience cheering. Next will be a closeup onto the love interest, Vera, now emotional sitting in the audience after watching Andi play. The film will cut to Andi leaving the venue alone. Birds will be chirping in the background and the sound of her feet scraping against the floor. Vera runs after her and bumps into her by accident making her drop all of her sheet music on the floor. She tries to apologize, but of course, Andi is deaf and does not understand. She quickly signs to her and runs off with scrambled papers. Vera looks off confused and surprised, and looks down to see a forgotten paper with information about a Deaf school. To be continued...

Although Andi is the main character, some parts of the story will follow Vera and her attempt to communicate with Andi by learning ASL and becoming very close with her and her music.

I Sense there is more than just hearing.

    

Although this is painfully obvious, deaf people cannot hear. Yes, we all knew that, but I just wanted to state that to bring up something that may have been overlooked: all of the other senses. People who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing rely a lot on sight and feeling and I just wanted to have a quick post on why this is important and how I will show this in my opening. 

Well first let's talk about sight. 

This is one of the main tools that Deaf people use in order to do almost everything that everyone else does. Sign Language is a very visual language, and just being attentive to surroundings, the eyes are extremely important. I must take into account some of my lighting choices within my film and what may be the easiest to use when accommodating Deaf individuals. 

First off, many deaf people have light switches that flicker throughout the house to notify them when someone is ringing the doorbell. The flickering of lights is also a way to grab someone’s attention, since they wouldn’t be able to hear you. This may also be used in fire alarms at school or even a wake-up alarm that flashes. Second, I will utilize as much natural daylight as possible if my characters need to be signing to allow for proper visual of them communicating. Other than that, I may use bright flashlights or a light kit, if needed to have different colors or add a different effect if I need to film anything in a dark area.

Another important accommodation that I will include in my editing process is closed captions. While subtitles may give a translation or text-to-speech version of what is being said, captions include other sounds such as a radio going off, clicking of a pen, opening of a door, etc. Just the many things that deaf people who may be viewing the film, would like to see to understand what may be happening.

Another important sense is feeling.

    Although not spoken about a lot, Deaf people will still rely on vibrations. Despite not being able to actually listen to music, Deaf individuals can still enjoy it just by feeling it. Many of them will blast their music and speakers just to be able to feel the vibrations and beat of the music. Just like in The Sound Of Metal, people may place their hands on an instrument and feel the clicking of piano keys or the beat of the drum. Additionally, feeling vibrations is also used within speech or oral training for deaf children; they would feel the vocal cords of the person speaking and try to match the vibrations of their own. I plan on having my main character act just as every other deaf person and allow her to feel the beat of her favorite music just to get her day going.

The Sound Of Metal

 

    Last week, I was recommended a movie to refer to for my project and I finally had the opportunity to watch it, so I thought it’d be nice to write a short review and how I can relate it to my opening.

    The movie, The Sound Of Metal (2019), is about a man who is a drummer for a heavy metal band and how his increasing hearing loss is becoming detrimental to his work. 

    The opening starts off with- what seems to be- the main character at his drum set in a close-up shot. In the background we hear distorted feedback, singing, and just overwhelming and overbearing sounds. Along with this we have the strobing effect of red and white lights on the character. 

    Still in the beginning of the movie, the main character starts to hear ringing and muffled noises and he seems quiet and confused as to what is happening. Eventually it keeps getting worse and worse to the point that he can hear very little and goes to see an audiologist. He is given the option of a Cochlear Implant. A cochlear implant (C.I.) is a machine that is implanted on the cochlea, an inside part of the ear, through an invasive and costly surgery, that allows someone who is deaf or hard of hearing to hear. There is a separate piece that attaches like a magnet to the part of the head that the implant is. This controls the ability to hear. It is said that C.I. do not work for everyone, especially adults it may be more difficult. Although most of this process was not explained in the film, we can see Ruben’s quick response to get the surgery, which makes sense since he’s lived all his life so far as a hearing person.

    In some later scenes Ruben is introduced to people who are deaf and living in a Deaf community. After a lot of reluctance to cooperate with these people his girlfriend/bandmate forces him to stay for his own good. Although very ignorant, he eventually picks up ASL and learns to communicate with the rest of the people staying in the same house as well as learning with students. Despite learning to be happy, he is faced with thinking about his future, which causes him to sell all of his valuable belongings and get the surgery without thinking about any repercussions. He is kicked out of the home and forced to start again. As expected, the cochlear implant does not work for him and he is left disappointed and alone in his decision.

    At the very end of the film, he realizes that he would've been better off if he had taken the time to clear his mind while it was silent, then rush into stupid selfish decisions.

  

 This film will help me reflect onto my own characters and plot of my opening and gave me many more ideas to include in the process. Overall, it gave me a different outlook than I had before on how I can develop my main character and their journey, even though she is already deaf and not becoming deaf.