Well, my partner and I have put the finishing touches on our pitch presentation, which we will be presenting to our teacher soon. We have both come a long way in our storytelling capabilities. So before I upload our pitch to this website and then conduct our presentation, a reflection on the preproduction process is in order.
Looking back at it, it truly amazes me how much I have learned from this class. When I compare previous stories I had written or thought out for English classes to the great story I have crafted with my partner, it is like night and day. Before, I had often written very overt stories with no subtlety whatsoever. If there was a theme in my story, I would state it directly for everyone to clearly understand. But if this class has taught me anything, it is that subtlety is what crafts a good narrative, especially in films and television. Media rely on universally known codes and conventions to convey messages. Audiences expect the protagonist to get a happy ending. In the most emotionally powerful scenes, no words are spoken; characters' mannerisms and body language do all the talking. It is with these tools that media creates a strong and complex narrative. I have learned these tools and I have worked with my partner to implement them into the opening scene of our film. For example, instead of directly stating that our protagonist's life is a mess, we show that his room is very messy. Society associates one's room as a reflection of one's mind, so audiences will understand what we are trying to convey. We also messed around with semiotics and the different connotations that certain objects have. For example, our protagonist is shown to be drinking coffee. Coffee is a stimulant that people drink for extra energy, meaning that people who drink coffee may not be getting enough sleep. Thus, a single cup of coffee is used as a sign to tell the audience he is not sleeping well.
Additionally, we did many different stages of the planning/preproduction that I had never even heard of. While I knew that a storyboard was a concept that was used to visualize a scene, the concept of a mood board was a novel one to me. However, I thought that it was such a fun and creative process. By searching for images that emulated the mood and tone of our film, I was able to get a better idea of where we were headed. I no longer saw this project as something to do and then be finished with. I started feeling the emotions that my film would enforce upon audiences, and it made the entire project much more intimate.
On top of all that, I also learned about mise-en-scene, the single most crucial element of any production in media. I know I have frequently discussed mise-en-scene on this blog, and that I surely sound like a broken record at this point, but that is because it is true. After learning of this concept, my partner and I approached this scene with much more scrutiny. At first, I figured that it would be easy to make; we would just come up with the plot, write a short script, and film it. But I was not taking into account the little details of mise-en-scene. After learning about it, we started discussing our plans in more details. We pondered what types of clothes would our protagonist where? What small details should we put in his room? What should we do to silently tell the audience he is experiencing internal conflict? These were questions that were raised from our incorporation of mise-en-scene.
In conclusion, this preproduction phase was quite telling. I learned that coming up with the idea of a film was a lot more work than just writing and then shooting. There are so many intricate details that make the preproduction of a film very intimate. As I worked on this stage, I found myself feeling pride, much more than I thought I would. This project is shaping up to be a lot better than I could have ever imagined, and I cannot wait to finish it.
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