Production 2

As we are concluding our production process we are only left with editing in which we are gonna take the class time available to be able to edit the film and make it a smooth and flowing story. We took the time in class before we went on spring break to be able to plan the days that we were going to record as I had to travel for a soccer tournament and we had concluded that from the 28th to the 31st would be the days that we would all be here to record. During these days we recorded more shots than we needed to be able to have options when it came to the editing phase. I will put more of what we recorded on these days at the end of the post.

In the scenes we recored we used some of the symptoms of PTSD to convey what the veteran is going through without mentioning that he has PTSD. We hope that this film helps bring some attention to the people who suffer from PTSD while entertaining you guys.

Production

I'm happy to announce that my group was finally able to being and nearly finish our production as we have all had this spring break time to be able to record our scenes. Over the past week our group meet up and recorded a majority of our outdoor scenes and we will meet up later today to finish the recording indoors. We made some slight modifications to be able to better tell the story as well as due to a lack of resources. For example we changed up the scene that led to the flashback, we had originally planned to have the veteran hanging out with his family but while we were recording we had a better idea which was to have the veteran be going to a therapist to improve his case of PTSD.We also recorded some of our folly audio this weekend after we were done recording our actual film. I will put a clip of what we recorded this week at the end, please feel free to leave some feedback on ways we can improve these shots.

The scene above is how we plan on transitioning from the therapy session (the indoor part) to the flashback of the veteran back at the war scene (outdoor). The quick movement at the end of the clip is when the transition occurs and leads straight to the veteran in a forrest area.

Editing 2

As I mentioned in a previous post we need to buy some extra items to make this film seem more realistic. Luckily Alejandro found a soldier costume in his house which we will be able to use but is still a couple more items that we would have to buy such as fake blood and potentially a better microphone as I am not sure if they microphone from the camera is the best.

For the editing in our scene we were given a tip to record each scene multiple times so we can choose which shot looks the best and make our editing lives a lot easier. There are many different websites and apps for us to be able to edit but we are all more accustomed to iMovie as it is one of the easiest to understand how to use. I will include a picture of the editing screen and a video explaining how to use iMovie

Peer Review 2

Last Wednesday our teacher gave us another opportunity to do a peer review however we had to be in different groups that we were in last time. This peer review session benefited us a lot as it gave us a better idea of what people thought about our idea as well as of what we had so far. They give us some good comment as well as some constructive criticism.

I explained our project and what we had in mind for this film and after this they liked the idea and said it was something that not many people think about going into, however they did not think we had a theme to our film but i explained that this film is to bring more awareness to veterans in particular who suffer from PTSD after coming back from war. As PTSD is a known issue in our communities however not many people talk about it.

They really liked the idea that it brings more awareness to this topic as it is a serious and relevant topic however they did say that I did not mention enough about what we plan to do after the flashback so this week I decided to go more in depth with what we are more than likely going to do. Also they mentioned that we should starts shooting as soon as possible as it sometimes takes longer than you plan and potentially forget about an important shot and have to go redo the shot.

Shooting

We had originally planned to record this weekend due to one of us not being able to make it we had to postpone it. Luckily we are all going to be here during spring break and will be able to record it during the week. We will begin our shooting process this week and I will put some of the clips in future blog posts for you guys to leave your comments.

We changed the plan a little but nothing that will affect the film drastically. We had originally planned to have the veteran be around his family, however we did not take into account the fact the all of our parents will be at work while we are recording so instead we choose to make it so the veteran is with his brother and his friend who are both younger than him. He doesn't have a wife as he went to war pretty young and due to the PTSD he prefers to be alone.

In this scene we will use a lot of medium shots and shot-reverse-shot to show that both characters are having a conversation which is when the brother is consoling the veteran to try to help him back to feeling somewhat normal.

Ending scene

As my group and I are finishing our preparation and begin shooting soon I wanted to clarify what we plan on doing during the ending scene (right after the flashback). We will have the flashback and after this scene we will have the veteran coming back to reality and he will be in fear and not remember much of what was happening before the PTSD occurred. A majority of the ending scene would show the symptoms of PTSD such as fear, anxiety, and mistrust. We will use a majority of what we learned in our research and in our case studies to try to perfect what it would look like after having a PTSD "attack".

One of the symptoms of PTSD is loneliness

We plan to cut back to where he was before suffering from the "attack" however he will be covered in sweat and yelling. To show the emotion we will us a lot of close ups and low-key lighting, these two will be able to show what not only veterans but people who suffer from PTSD have to go through.

Editing

In the scene our main focus is going to be when someone says "can you hold this" however we don't want to focus on anyone else rather than the main character. When he says can you hold this it will flashback to him during war when someone said the same exact words but he was asking him to hold a gun instead.Throughout this entire scene there will be sounds that someone would normally hear during war, such as gun fire, explosion, and yelling. As we don't want there to be any copyrighted things in our film we will either create our own sounds or we will us royalty free sounds.

We thought about a way that we could transition from the flashback to regular time, one of the ideas was that he could be running to safety and he accidentally trips over something and as soon as he falls it goes back to regular time but instead of being sitting down or standing he would be on the floor gasping for air as if he had just woken up from a nightmare. This is only our initial ideas but we will see how this turns out on Friday when we begin shooting.

Location

To give you guys a better understanding of where we are gonna record we decided to go to one of the locations. I will put some of the pictures of the indoor and outdoor locations below. We will begin the recording indoors which is where the flashback scene will occur and then we will transition to the outdoors after the flashback. We decided on the Isles at Weston clubhouse as our indoor location. This clubhouse fits perfectly because it has all of the things we need and also it has a lot of the things that a regular house would have such as a kitchen, a living room, as well as a game room. It is also really good as both Dio and I live in this neighborhood and can ask Alejandro to meet us there to record.

Kitchen if needed

Lounging area

Game room

We will also need an outdoor location for our war scenes so for this case we chose to to record at Markham Park as it has many of the aspects that would fit a war zone. I will put pictures of some of the locations below. There are many areas around Markham that would fit but these pictures were to get a general idea.

Potential Changes

For the casting in our film we originally planned on having Dio's brother be the main character as he offered to help us and also fits the criteria that we have. Dio's brother offered to help us however he also has a busy work schedule so just in case he is not able to record we had to do some other back up castings. He told us that he would more than likely be able to record with us but we needed another option.We believe we found some other people that fits the criteria that we are looking for.

Alejandro has an older brother as well who offered to help us in case Dio's was not able to; however our only concern is that he may look a little younger than we would like. If we are not able to record with Dio's brother who looks much older and fits the part better we would be able to record with Alejandro's brother and we would have to make some minor changes. For example we would change the war he comes back from. If we use Dio's brother he would be casted as a veteran from the Iraq war but if it is Alejandro's brother we would cast him as a veteran from the ongoing issue in Syria. If this is the case we would make the soldier from Syria come home due to injury.

Production 2

We were struggling to find a day to begin our production due to all of our busy schedules however we have now officially agreed to begin the filming process on March 22, 2019. However we had extra class time to be able to work on our project so we decided to record a little draft scene for the flashback scene so we could get a better picture of how its gonna look. We decided to go with our original idea of using a flashback from the beginning of the opening scene because we feel it gives the audience a better understanding and more background knowledge of what is happening throughout the film itself.

During the weekend Alejandro was able to find a costume of a solider which fits our character perfectly. This costume helped us out a lot as we have a small budget for this film, and it allowed us to invest more money in other areas of our production. For our draft scene I was recording and suggested that instead of focusing on the characters talking that we should just focus on the main character and give him  a majority of the attention. I added our draft scene below for you guys to see and leave some feedback on what you think of our idea, but keep in mind it is only draft and not the final take.

Production

This past weekend we were not able to go record as this was one of the weekend where we had conflicting schedules. I had to travel with my team for a soccer tournament but if all goes well this week we will be able to being our filming process and see how the first cuts come out. As we made some changes to our story board we had to do some new research to better fit our new case. I found some good websites that gave tips on how to create a cliffhanging scene and it also gives a list of some of the best films to create a cliff hanger ( link will be below). One of the films listed is Saving Private Ryan which is another film that we had used in our past research. The film has a very good opening scene as it has a very powerful meaning as well as a good transition to the next scene. A key moment for our group was when we realized that not using a flashback in the opening scene could cause us to have a more powerful scene, also it gave us a chance to plan everything out a lot better.

Sound

For our film idea we are going to need to create sounds some unique sounds but the only way to generate the perfect sound is through a folly stage. My class has already had some previous experience with folly as we had to tell a story without any words and only sounds. To be able to create our other project we had to do some research on folly (I will put some clips and links of good examples below). Our first idea for the folly was to create a whoosh sound for the flashback of the veteran at war. This would then lead us to our next scene which is the war scene where we would have to generate sounds to mimic the sound of gun fire, one of the ways that we had planned to do this was either through poppers or smacking a shoe on the ground.One of the main things to remember for folly is that you need a completely quite room and a good microphone to be able to record the sound.

Foley analysis: https://www.sound-ideas.com/Page/what-is-foley.aspx

Edits 2

In the original story board that we created we were using all the ideas that we had before the peer review, however after the peer review we decided to make some changes and are now going to have to create a brand new one based off our new ideas. Below is our original storyboard but I will post a new and improved version of it in an upcoming post. This storyboard revolved around the idea of using a flashback along with some scenes from war but in our new one it will revolve around a powerful opening and a cliffhanger at the end.

We hope that the newer storyboard will be able to tell the same story as the old one but with a more powerful and significant meaning. This past weekend we had planned to go out and record a bit of the first scene but due to the changes in the storyboard and in other conflicts we were not able to go out to start the production, hopefully by this weekend we have the new storyboard and can go record the first couple of scenes.

Edits

Last class our teacher gave us the time to do some peer review on what we have so far and it worked out really well. I was able to talk to other groups and see what they thought of our project so far and get some feedback on ways that we can improve our project. One of the ideas they gave was to put the flashback of the war towards the end rather than in the beginning like we had originally planned that way we could generate some suspense for the film rather than give a majority of the plot in the beginning. We plan to use this idea to be able to hook the audience into a suspenseful scene causing them to want more.

On this same day my group and I talked about the feedback that we got that day and what we should incorporate into the opening. After these talks we each decided to do some more research on what they told us in class. Dio was told in class that suspense films should have a strong start and a strong ending as we are trying to catch the audiences attention. We then re-talked about how we want this opening scene to go and we decided that it would be a better approach if, instead of using a flashback we would have a strong opening scene and ended it off with a cliffhanger. Since we are making changes to our original plan we will create a new and improved story board.

Planning/Research

Throughout our research on what other great movies use to create a scene that relates to PTSD we have also been doing research on what needs to be in an opening scene to make it better. I found that the first shot in a film may not be the flashiest, but it’s packed of vital information for the audience. The first scene is usually what grabs the audiences attention on whether or not they would like to stay for the rest of the movie. In our group we have talked and thought of what we think would be good ideas for a film opening. Our main focus in the opening scene will be about the past. We will show this through the use of a flashback, the flashback will take place pretty early in the scene so that the audience can have a background knowledge of what is happening throughout the rest of the film. Putting the flashbacks in the beginning will not only give the audience information but will also give us some time to tell the story we want to tell.
Example of a good flashback:

Helped give us ideas: https://screenwritingumagazine.com/2018/02/28/5-hacks-writing-killer-opening-scene/

Forrest Gump:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109830/

Planning

We began to create a storyboard so that we would have a better understanding of how we wanted these scenes recorded. We created this story board as a base of how we plan on doing it all but we are still making corrections and brainstorming better ideas to make the video the best possible. While we were creating the story board we used our research on PTSD to be able to show what happens to the people. We are yet to have an official shooting schedule but we have decided to shoot during the weekends as we are all busy during the week with school work. During this week we will go to Markham Park to make our final decision on where we are going to shoot but we are 90% sure that Markham is the best place. We will then find the best location inside the park as it is a huge park. Also during the week we will go buy some of the items that we are going to need to make the scene more realistic.

Used to create storyboard:https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20355967

Research 3

For this research I decided to find another popular movie that uses a scene where the main character suffers from PTSD. In this was it was in the movie American Sniper directed by Clint Eastwood. In this scene the main character (Chris Kyle) was sitting down staring at a blank screen thinking about the war that he had just returned from, Eastwood decided to add sound effects in the background to help the audience realize that he was thinking about when he was at war. It later transitions to a dog play fighting with a boy in the backyard, this play fighting triggered his PTSD and reminded him of when one of his form troops got attacked at war and he had to go help save him. From these scenes we were able to pick up on some of Eastwood's decisions as to why he did it and give us inspiration on how to do our scene. We want our main character to be a war veteran in his late 20's to early 30's which is why Dio's brother offered to help us create this. We will use some of the techniques used by Eastwood such as the trigger of the dog play fighting, however in our case it would be something that someone says. Dio had a good idea in class that a supporting cast member would say something similar to "Can you hold this" which would trigger the soldiers PTSD of him holding a gun during the war.

American Sniper: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2179136/
In Depth Analysis: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/reel-therapy/201501/american-sniper-0

Research 2

To get a better understanding of how to incorporate a PTSD scene in our film I decided to do some research on other popular movies that created one. One of the most popular movies to use a scene that revolved around PTSD was Ironman 3 directed by Shane Black. In this restaurant scene Mr.Starks PTSD was triggered when he saw the drawing of Iron man and when the kid asked "how did you get out of the worm hole". This scene somewhat related to war as we would like to do but in this case his related to an alien invasion rather than an actual war. This scene gave us a better concept on which techniques work well to show what he is going through. The directors decided to make everyone in the restaurants voice go faint except the little kid's when he asks the question. Also the close ups on his face and the dramatic zoom to him when it hit him. All these techniques helped show to the audience that he was suffering something after the alien invasion.I was able to find a more detailed analysis of how they decided to interpret Mr.Starks case on what happens to him when his PTSD gets triggered.

We thought about using flashbacks as one of our main techniques to show that our main character is suffering from PTSD rather than any other disorder. In Dio's research he found a movie that incorporates flashbacks and relates it to PTSD, in doing his research he found and though of a better location for us to film our scene. At first we had thought about Vista View Park but we thought about it and it didn't have everything that we wanted, we then thought that Markham Park was an even better location as it had a majority of the thing we want.

Detailed analysis: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beyond-heroes-and-villains/201305/clinical-perspective-panic-and-ptsd-in-iron-man-3
Iron Man 3: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1300854/