Group Meetings

Hello all.  Today in class we divided into groups of 6 to discuss our projects in detail with our classmates.  I sat with some of my friends and some other really cool people, and I got to hear about everyone's projects, which I'm really excited about! 

Talking about our idea with my group proved to be really beneficial.  I explained our story as a dark comedy and deep character introspection, and then proceeded to explain the plot.  Everyone seemed to really like the idea, and I heard some solid feedback from my group. 

Most concerns were regarding how we would incorporate the idea of things getting too out of control, and the divide between half of his "followers" being disgusted with him, and half of them egging him on.  I mentioned how heavy the role of social media will be, and my group gave me some good ideas on how we could achieve this.  Some mentioned that he should scramble for his phone when he gets a notification, or  sit in the dark of his room with only his computer screen illuminating him.

Honestly, I really enjoyed this activity.  Being able to express my ideas and concerns out loud really gave me a stronger sense of direction, and I appreciated how interested everyone was.  We've fallen a bit behind schedule as we have yet to write the script, but I think that we can come up with something that we'd all be proud of having made.

Exploring Dark Comedy

Okay, so I realize that I've been continuously calling our film a dark comedy, but I still have yet to explain what the conventions of this genre are.  Dark comedy, also known as black comedy, is characterized by poking fun at stereotypically "taboo" subjects.  Films that fall under this genre tend to make light of dramatic events, or find humor in the absurdity of their morbidity.

In film, dark comedy movies typically tend to revolve around violence, sexuality, or discrimination.  Jokes that would otherwise be considered offensive tend to perform well in these movies, which leads to a plethora of criticisms.  For example, comedians often express their true opinions under this category, and hide their bigoted beliefs behind the veil of humor.  This is not what we are aiming to accomplish at all.  Instead, a good dark comedy will be able to make fun of serious topics while at the same time acknowledging that these are, in fact, serious topics.

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

In recent years, one of the best examples I have seen of dark comedy has been Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit (2019).  The film revolves around a young German boy at the peak of World War II who has just discovered that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in the attic, but is divided by his strong nationalist beliefs and pro-Nazi ideology.  The boy, who has only a semblance of an idea about what the war is about, is accompanied only by his imaginary friend, who is none other than Hitler himself.  When described in this manner, the film seems like a piece of neo-Nazi propaganda bullshit, but the film is really much more complex than that.  In actuality, the movie proceeds to show how the boy's warped perception of the authority figures came to be and how he quickly discovers the true horrors of war, and the film is ultimately a very touching and heartfelt commentary on kindness and love.

This is something we wish to accomplish in our own production, as the short film's subject matter is unarguably dark and morbid.  We're all well aware of the consequences of making a film that surrounds bestiality, and it's something that we all have the emotional intelligence and rationale to understand.  The absolute last thing we want to do is offend anybody.  However, our story begs for shock value.  In order to make a commentary on the dangers of misogyny and incel culture, it is imperative that we demonstrate just how these minds work.  This is always going to be uncomfortable and push boundaries, regardless of genre.  Yet, by taking on such a dark subject matter, we need to keep the tone light and comedic.  If not, we'd be creating an extremely heavy and disturbing film that will make audiences uneasy.  The key is in finding the perfect balance.

Postcard Research

This project consists of several elements.  Apart from making a short film, our team is also responsible for making a social media account to advertise the film, as well as a promotional postcard similar to those passed out at film festivals.  As the resident art kid, we've decided that I'll take on the task of making the postcard, as Clara will work on the social media page (she has experience running CBTV's own Instagram), and Virginia will be writing the bulk of the script.  Of course, it goes without saying that this is a collaborative effort, and we're all just playing to our strengths here.

The postcard seems trivial at first glance, but it really is an important aspect of marketing.  Although the majority of our audience will learn about our film through the social media page (after all, this is a student-made production whose TA are fellow students), the postcard serves a more specific purpose.  Postcards are traditionally handed out at film festivals where the production is being shown, and this creates a sense of intrigue and curiosity for viewers.  Thus, the postcard really needs to stand out to audiences.

Through my research, I discovered that there are several components that all promotional postcards have in common.  Of course, they need to include the movie name and the director's name, but they also mention the film's nominations and awards, screening times, social media accounts, and the creator's contact information.  And, of course, the primary key art that will help "sell" the film.

As it's still the very early days of production, I can't say much about what the movie's title will be, nor about other key elements.  Still, I have a semblance of an idea of what I want the key art to be.  While looking at examples online, I noticed that most of them follow a horizontal layout, and use images as their key art (most of which appear to be screen grabs from the film itself).

My hope is to create something with an illustrated image that will stick out from the others compositionally. While many postcards I saw online have beautiful images, they are overcrowded with text.  For ours, I want to accomplish an effective layout that moves the viewer's eyes seamlessly through the whole postcard, while also building intrigue and silently telling a story.

I'm a fan of the use of chiaroscuro in the "Us. Them. Me." postcard, since I wanted to do something similar using dramatic lighting.  Our protagonist, Diego, is a chronically online incel who spends the duration of the film on his computer.  To reflect this, I wanted to illustrate the light from the computer screen reflecting off his face as the main source of lighting.  And, since our film is a dark comedy, his glasses would be reflecting a picture of a monkey.

It could be difficult to accomplish this illustration due to the composition and lighting, but I'm confident in my abilities as long as I have a reference picture.  Regardless, I'm in the process of drafting a backup plan, as there are several things that could fall through with this idea.

House Hunters IRL

It appears that I might have found a room that my team can transform into Diego's.  Yipee!  While drafting my last blog post, a nudging thought in the back of my head kept asking to be heard.  Finally, I caved and began to weigh the pros and cons of this potential solution.  After all, would it be so problematic if we film in my brother's room?

Being a 15-year-old boy, his room already fits the mental image I had of Diego's living area.  He has the cheap Dollar General posters, random framed images and clutters of messy wall decor, a collection of Funko Pops and Arizona Tea cans (?????), his bed is never made, and, most important of all, an RGB gaming computer setup.  Honestly, this feels like it's as good as it's gonna get.

Still, I felt a little out of place when I asked him if we could take over his room and use it to film.  Even though he spends most of his free time outside, I had my reservations, since I didn't want to invade his privacy and make him feel obligated to do this big favor for me.  So, I came to him with a proposal: I explained to him the project I was working on, described the changes we might make to his decor and the proposed filming schedule, and promised him that we wouldn't change anything he wasn't okay with.  After all that, his answer was a simple "That's chill, as long as you make my bed."

A picture taken with the 0.5x camera

I'm excited to get started on decoration.  Still, as good as this development is, I have some worries about this room.  First of all, it's really a lot smaller than it looks in the picture.  There's very little room to maneuver oneself in there, and it could get complicated when we have to fit a group of three, a tripod with the camera, and an actor crammed in there.  Sure, we don't all have to be in there, but we need to account for enough space for the actor, the cinematographer, the acting director, and the person holding the boom.

Another thing that worries me is the giant window directly in front of the desk.  As this piece focuses heavily on the use of the internet, the computer is going to be one of the most prominent aspects of the room.  The light being cast from the window could lead to over-exposure, and it could cause other issues as the lighting changes when the sun begins to go down.  Additionally, the view itself is unappealing.  If too much of the neighboring house is visible, then it would ruin the illusion of Diego living in a college dorm.  Sure, we could just pull down the blinds and hope for the best, but that could also leave us with a room that is too dark, and we'd need some natural lighting to help establish setting.  Although we'll be using light kits, natural lighting will help tie it all together.

 Ultimately, I feel confident about using this room.  Sure, there are some potential roadblocks, but I think that we could very plausibly work around them.  The next step is acquiring all the props, which I'll write a blog post about when the filming dates come nearer.

Location Scouting

Location scouting is always complicated when living in the suburbs.  Down here in middle-of-nowhere South Florida, there's truly a very limited number of places we can film at.  Like come on, it's no secret that Markham Park is the designated go-to when filming anything that can plausibly take place outside (no matter the intended environment).  Yet, finding indoor locations to film at is near impossible.  Chain companies are strict about their no-filming policies (we all remember when Starbucks turned me down last year), and local storeowners (which there are very few of) are weary about letting some kids into their store with a camera.

To make things a little bit easier for us, the majority of the film will take place in Diego's room.  Although we can now save ourselves the embarrassment of having to email another coffee store's management team, this also leads to an array of new problems.  Mainly, we need to find a suitable bedroom.  In our production, Diego is a college student living on-campus.  Although this isn't a major aspect of the film, his room should still reflect where he is, and most importantly, who he is.

People always say that stepping into someone's room feels like taking a walk inside their head.  This is exactly what I want to accomplish when designing the set.  The way I see it, Diego's room is small and cheap.  He has beat-up furniture and a shabby-looking bed.  His walls are decorated with University merch and sports memorabilia, posters of old bands, an American flag, and mismatched photos and posters he probably got at either a charity shop or a Dollar General.  His room isn't complete without an unmade bed, clothes strewn across the floor, old water bottles and unfinished food laying around, and, the piece-de-resistance, a completely modern, flashy, and expensive-looking gaming setup.

Finding a bedroom we can manipulate to look like this is tricky.  First of all, we need to find something that looks somewhat similar, so that we aren't starting an entire interior decoration project from scratch.  Once we find something usable, it is absolutely imperative that we get explicit permission from the dude that lives there.  We need permission to not only film in the bedroom, but also to move around the decor and set up some of our own posters and other props.  Apart from this already-intrusive favor that we are asking, we'd need to take up the room for a few days, and for hours at a time, so we'd need to work around the owner's schedule.  So yeah, it gets to be a little much.

By this point, I'm sure that you're all thinking what I'm thinking: why not use one of our own bedrooms?  After all, we are the ones taking on this project.  The most logical solution to the location-scouting dilemma is that we film in our bedrooms, as we are solely responsible for bringing this burden upon us.  And to that I say: our team is made up of three teenage girls.  I'm not sure that the giant Lady Bird poster overlooking my desk and the Home Goods wall tapestry over my bed will send out the right message.  Sure, I could make changes to my bedroom so that it fits our idea better, but having to change out 99% of my room decor seems like an unreasonably time-consuming and expensive task.

Instead, our best bet is to find a willing volunteer whose room we could take over, and try to wrap up filming as soon as possible.  Being in someone else's room will also motivate us to finish production quicker, which will help focus more of our efforts on editing, creating the social media account, and making the promotional postcard.

Establishing Our Protagonist

There comes a time in every man's life when he must play God.  The creation of a new character, born from the chaotic flames of three teenage girls' imaginations, parallels the birth of Adam in my opinion.  However, rather than being born from soil (or from clay, depending on which mythology you ask), our "first man" was born from Virginia and I's frankly perverse desire for scandal.

Our protagonist, whom we've established is an incel who can't keep a romantic relationship with a woman, will also be a college student who lives out most of his days in his room.  He's a 2nd generation Puerto Rican, but ignores his Hispanic background.  Instead, he might even be a little hateful towards this part of his culture.  We're thinking about naming him Diego.

Diego is conventionally attractive, but doesn't care for his looks.  This leads him to be unhygienic and unkempt, an important aspect of his personality that I wish to explore more during costuming.  I want to give him greasy and unstyled hair, old clothes that are too small, sweatpants with stains on them, etc.  We want to emphasize the fact that he blames his failed love life on the fact that he's unattractive, but frankly is good-looking, just doesn't take care of himself.  In reality, the reason for his romantic failings is that he is unable to understand women.

Growing up, he never had a strong parental influence, and never had any female friends, cousins, or siblings.  He doesn't hate women, but is so far removed from them that he sees them as objects and is unable to relate or sympathize with them.  He also never had a strong male presence in his life, which has caused him to not only be insecure in his masculinity, but also insecure in general.  He has a lot of misguided sexual energy, which, if you remember, will be pretty important to the plot.  However, we all agree that we don't want this to be the main idea of our film.  Yes, he will say that he wants to f*** a monkey, but that's also secondary to the real plot, which is his eventual self-realization.

Lets talk about how horrible the internet is

Twitter is a hellscape.  That much is an undeniable fact.  As someone who has been active on that app since 2018, I can attest to the fact that it has no shortage of insane takes, crazy opinions, and straight-up death threats.  Though these characteristics are quite common, Twitter was created with the intention of it to be a safe space for internet communities to socialize on a single platform online.  The app's algorithm very much promotes niche subgroups, so that an individual with a specific interest (say, a video game player) receives tweets for which they are the target audience (such as video game hacks, news, memes, etc.)  

Gimmick Accounts

However, there also exists bigger and more influential accounts, whose tweets get pushed out more often, and to more people.  Gimmick accounts are a perfect example of this.  Gimmick accounts create very specific content, usually serving as archives for funny internet moments pertaining to a specific niche.  These often follow the format of "[Instert group of people] Posting Their L's" or "Posting Their W's."  These initials refer to wins and losses.

The emergence of novelty accounts like "shirts that go hard," "Dudes Posting Their W's," and "No Context Brits" are only a handful of examples that have amassed millions of followers in their very short period of existence.  In fact, accounts like these have become so commonplace, gimmick accounts have even been made to archive content created by other gimmick accounts.  For example, "Gimmick Accounts Breaking Character," "People Whining About Gimmick Accounts," and "Gimmick Accounts being annoying/posting L's" have all skyrocketed to fame, with each account garnering tens of thousands of followers.

Although these accounts seem innocent at first glance, one must remember that this is all going down on Twitter, which, as was previously established, is a hellscape.  Accounts promoting misogyny and sexism soon became prevalent (ie. "Women Posting Their L's Online"), and other accounts soon began to join the bandwagon of hate and purposeful bullying.  This leads us to the emergence of "ValidLs."

ValidLs is a gimmick account that was created with the sole intent to bully and berate the LGBT community.  Deriving its name from the queer community's "you are valid" motto, the account is an obvious and grotesque form of spreading hate.  This account became suddenly propelled to fame due to certain comments it made about the transgender community (which I will soon get to), and this is how I came to be aware of the account's existence. Honestly, it feels like this case study fell out of the sky and right into my lap.  I became aware of this account just as we were drafting our storyline, and I noticed how many parallels can be drawn to our protagonists' own social media account.  I'd like to make it clear that I am in no way, shape, or form endorsing ValidLs, but instead, I am simply analyzing the account's tweets to demonstrate how a need for shock value can lead one to the most disgusting, and depraved places.

On February 11th, 2023, a 16-year-old trans girl named Brianna Ghey was brutally murdered by two teenage classmates.  Brianna's tragic death has been classified by police as a hate crime, and the heartbreaking event has led to vigils celebrating her life and protests advocating for trans rights all over the world.

While the world saw this as a horrible tragedy that only furthers the problem of violence against trans individuals, ValidLs saw this as an opportunity to continue to taunt and ridicule a mourning community.  In the following days, ValidLs posted comments making fun of Brianna, posting celebratory sentiments regarding her death, retweeting her old tweets expressing suicidal ideology, and even posting a photograph of her gravestone.  This behaviour is, inarguably, horrific.  Regardless of one's personal ideologies surrounding trans people, the fact that this individual is so openly and shamelessly able to celebrate the murder of an innocent 16-year-old is beyond disgusting.

However, ValidLs isn't alone in this.  Aside from the thousands of people desperately attempting to get him banned off the platform, there are also hundreds of supporters.  People with similar ideologies comment their thoughts online, creating a community with a strong "us vs. them" mentality.  These people push the individual running the account to go to farther extremes, to the point that the account posted a photo of Brianna's headstone as an example of a "trans person taking an L."  

This complete loss of morality is something that I want to create with our protagonists' social media account, although to a lesser extent.  The entire film surrounds the effects of shock value and depravity in online spheres, and I feel like this account is a perfect example of someone so far gone, that they become a real-life villain.

Another example of this phenomenon is the story of Chris Chan, a 40-year-old autistic and mentally ill individual who was pushed to horrific extents due to the bullying he received online.  People online would comment on his behaviours in a way which would only encourage Chris, and ultimately ended with him sexually assaulting his mother and landing himself in prison.  Like I said, the internet is a horrible place.  Can't wait to see where it gets us in this production.

And so it begins...

Hello again!  Although we are still in the very early days of pre-production, our team has definitely made some headway.  Virginia and I have decided to add a third member to our group: Clara, whom I'm really excited to work with.  I've worked with Clara in the past, and I love the dynamic that we take on when we collaborate on an idea.  She and Virginia have also worked together multiple times in the past (as they are both in CBTV), and the three of us create a pretty strong team.  Although adding an extra member to our group is a risky decision (since the flow of three different ideas could potentially lead to roadblocks) I believe that the three of us have a very unified idea of the direction that we want this film to take, and more heads will be better considering the amount of work that we plan to take on.

The film we intend to make is a character study of a man whose need for online notoriety and "edginess" causes him to push himself to disgusting extents, to the point where even he acknowledges that he is too far gone.  Virginia and I are both fascinated by the phenomenon of "incel culture," and we want to center our story around a man who is deeply linked to this community, while also displaying the toxicity of these online groups.  However, our team understands the cheesiness associated with high school students who want to make a short film on the effects of social media.  Rather than focus on the dangers of the internet, we instead want to focus on the danger of this mentality, with social media being nothing more than a tool for our protagonist to become a horrible person.

So, what does our protagonist even say that's so controversial and scandalous that it initiates this whole chain of reaction?  Something so vulgar and cruel that it becomes an overnight sensation, so shocking and incredulous that he even gains supporters, and so shameless that he realizes how disgusting he has become? 

Well, he wants to f*** a monkey.

Yeah.  This bold claim will skyrocket him into internet infamy, a position both admirable but simultaneously deeply deplorable.  The film will follow his life, which mostly withers away as he stays in his room, and how it gets flipped upside down by the alarming amount of attention that he receives online.  Sure this is a little unrealistic, but after all, we do want to make a dark comedy.  Although our script has yet to be written, we have a solid idea of the progression of events.  Our protagonist will have recently been broken up with by his girlfriend, and this unnamed character will be significant to his self-understanding and final grand realization that he is a shitty person.

Mise-en-scene will also be extremely important for this production.  The bedroom, in which most of the film will take place, has to be perfectly representative of our character.  Similarly, the wardrobe needs to be able to display where his values lay.  This is an aspect of pre-production that I'm eager to take charge of, and will definitely be documenting progress in future blog posts.

As of now, we need to finish fleshing out this character and begin working on the script.  I'm super excited, and I can't wait to begin production.  However, there's still more research that needs to be done.  Keep an eye out, dear reader, as I'll be uploading more posts as the week progresses.

Incel Culture 101

Hi there!  Have you -- yes, you, dear reader -- ever heard of an incel?  I'm sure you have.  A person who is "involuntarily celibate," better known as an incel, is an individual who, as the name suggests, simply gets no play.  Although there are varying claims on the origin of the label, the definition and its implications remain quite unanimous wherever you look.

The incel mentality is a relatively straightforward one, and the simplicity in its string of thought only makes it even more terrifying.  This deeply misogynistic subculture is made up of men who blame women for their sexual failings, believing that their unattractive looks have doomed them to a life devoid of love and intimacy.  Rather than take the time to self-reflect on the real cause of their inability to attract potential mates, incels tend to live a life of isolation which only fuels the frustration they feel towards the men who are more successful than them, and even more so towards the women that they are with.  This frustration often manifests itself in the form of misogyny and sexism (mainly on social media platforms), but in many cases has even led to real-world aggression and violence.  Some have even attributed the term "incel" to Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old gunman who murdered 6 university students as an act of "revenge" for his inability to lose his virginity.  However, I don't believe that this mindset is an intrinsically violent one, only that it may lead to assault if several factors align.  I choose to instead view inceldom as a spectrum, visualizing a chart where the y-axis represents an individual's inability to maintain a relationship, and the x-axis represents the blame they put on women.  If this were the case, our protagonist would fall somewhere around here:

Our protagonist is not necessarily a violent man, but rather, a deeply insecure one.  He chooses to project these insecurities onto women, blaming them for his ineptitude when it comes to romantic relationships.  His friend group is made up of like-minded individuals whose toxicity feeds off of each other, ultimately brewing a storm so powerful that it completely spirals out of control.  Our short film is definitely characterized as a character study, and Virginia and I's fascination with incel culture has led us to create the outline for a story centering on chaos, introspection, and shock value all taking place in the digital realm.  However, I don't wanna reveal too much about the plot just yet.  Until next time, my loyal followers.

Proposed Timeline

Hello all.  As we begin to delve into this new project, it is imperative to create an outline for the 10 weeks of class that we will dedicate to our short film.  Using the outline provided to us by our teacher, I created a reference sheet for what will have to be done each week in accordance to the progression of the project.  

Week One

• Choose project genre
• Begin developing idea and plot
• Research genre and story ideas

Week Two

• Continue to research and develop the story
• Begin writing script
• Post to blog about planning (outlines, storyboards, moodboards, schedules, etc.)
• 4 blog postings

Week Three

• Finalize script
• Create a shot list/storyboard
• Create a filming schedule
• Create a social media account
• Continue to research and plan (digital and print components)
• 4 blog postings reflecting research and planning

Week Four

• Begin video production
• Document the production process (for the blog and social media page)
• Curate a posting schedule for the social media
• 4 postings to the blog - reflecting on research and planning, production process, filming, major changes to production and why

Week Five

• Continue production
• Begin planning ideas for the postcard
• Begin posting to social media
• 4 postings to blog reflecting production process, etc.

Week Six

• Continue production
• Continue planning of postcard
• Post to social media
• 4 blog postings reflecting on the entire process

Week Seven (Spring Break)

• Begin editing
• Work on print/digital components
• Post to social media
• 3 blog postings

Week Eight

• Begin research for the Critical Reflection
• Finish finalizing video
• Work on print/digital
• Post to social media
• 3 postings reflecting production process

Week Nine

• Finalize editing the video
• Finalize print component
• Post to social media
• Create Critical Reflection
• 3 blog postings

Week Ten

• Finalize Creative Reflection
• Upload all components to blog

The schedule is pretty similar to that we were given, but some changes were made to ensure that we would finish the script pretty early into production, which would allow us more time to film.  This time will be used very carefully and wisely, as we want to aim for a longer runtime.  However, we also need to allow ourselves enough time to edit, and I fear that we might have to cut it a bit short.  These changes to the schedule also give us much less time to work on our Critical Reflections, which I worry about.  Ultimately, this schedule is subject to change and is still very early on in terms of production, and we will likely make several changes as we work.

New Project Announcement!

 Hello all!  It seems as though these blog postings have become somewhat infrequent.  Fret not, however, as the looming threat of a new project is now among us.  This means that y'all will be seeing me much more frequently than you (or even I, for that matter) would prefer.  Regardless, this is a project that I've been much looking forward to, and I feel truly excited to restart the blogging process (no matter how tedious the work).

Being now a Media Studies A-Level student, our class is reaching the point in the school year where we begin our portfolio project, much like the one I completed last year.  However, this year the options are far broader.  We have the choice to create either a music video, documentary, movie trailer, or short film (along with other accompanying distribution factors, of course).

I'm really looking forward to being able to put my 100% into this creative endeavor and create something that I am proud of, as I truly appreciated the outlet I was given with this project last year.  To no one's surprise, Virginia and I have decided to work together to create a short film, which we have already begun drafting.  We've decided to keep things somewhat under wraps for now until we gain more direction, but rest easy loyal followers, as I will be eagerly updating y'all on the entire creation process.

I can't wait to finally begin working and to show y'all what we have in store.  Keep an eye out!