The Process of Storyboarding

Hello, this is Anjolee! 

Today in class, we are writing our storyboard. Our group is ecstatic to start filming, and this is one of our last hurdles until the next stage! I and my friends might start filming at a park, such as the park near my school, Windmill Park. Windmill Park will provide a realistic setting instead of a green screen. My friend Anacamila Bravo and I would be acting as the main characters, with me acting as Cassandra and Anacamila acting as Kiara. We would be borrowing my friend Valeria Hernandez's hand in order to complete some shots, and my other group member, Juliana Guerrier, would act as the voice of Alice. We would need to consider the schedules of all four group members to produce the shots needed to play the roles of the characters. Juliana would also be designing the costumes and makeup for the actors.

 We would record all our shots on our phone, including the voiceovers and the natural background sounds. The bulk of our film is going to have a melancholy atmosphere, shown with low-key lighting and the tension created by the slow-paced shots, reinforced by the sounds of tears and the portrayal of Cassandra with messy hair, sweatpants, and an oversized jacket. The tension starts to rise as Cassandra has a revelation, shown by her panic and stress throughout the shots. This image embodies the aura of the first few shots.

For our storyboard, we needed to compose drawings of the shot, the shot number, duration, the composition, camera movement and a brief description. The description needs to entail the mood of the shot and what is occurring. We did have some trouble organizing the scenes in Studio Binder, but it was sorted out later in the week. This is one of the fun stages, drawing out our ideas and adding the subtle details to our opening scene.

Script Research

The script describes the movement, actions, expressions, and dialogue of the characters in the film. There is a common conception that the script is just the dialog of the actors, but the script is much more. The script is a vital part of the production process and without it, it's an imperative part of the filmmaking process and includes a detailed convention of the script format. First, the screen heading with the INT or EXT, with the INT meaning interior, such as an indoor kitchen or bedroom, and the EXT meaning exterior, meaning outside in a forest or field, you may write INT/EXT or EXT/INT. is the first item production adds next to the shot number. After that is the description of the settings, like a kitchen, classroom, or party, and if it's like night, day, or noon in the setting. The transition to the next shot is at the bottom right. The action of the shot is in the middle of the transition and the setting. The action describes what is occurring in the shot and the type. For example, "Makayla cuts off the crust of her PB & J." would be the action of the shot. Underneath this is the dialog, which entails what the line the actor is supposed to say. This is the basic format of the shot.

This is the script of the 2018 Slender Man, a thriller movie. The script follows the conventions of the script with everything mentioned above. I annotated the script below, highlighting the transition, which is a fade-in in this case. The setting is the park, underlined in blue, and the time of the day, circled in black. The blue brackets are the action of the script. The characters are also circled in black, with the dialogue circled in red. 

This is the script for the opening scene of Jurassic Park. These are two establishing shots that let the audience know the location of the film. I annotated the script to make it clear of the INT and EXT the setting underlined in blue and the action of the film. This script has an extremely detailed action description and capitalizes the names when introducing the new characters.

This is my script. I produced it following the conventions of the script. This is for the opening scene of my portfolio project. Our group members spent the majority of the week brainstorming and researching for our script for the opening scene. We amassed a total of 26 shots describing the flashback Cassandra has; we had some trouble fitting the script into the short film, but I think this is a perfect opening scene. When I was writing the script, I would imagine how it would play out in my head and trying to express this to my group members was frustrating, but when I wrote it in the script, they would ascertain my ideas and elaborate on them, getting everyone's input and working as a team.

Reflection

In retrospect, the scripts that my group and I wrote were formatted incorrectly. I accidently formatted the individual shots as scenes in Studio Binder. I quickly updated the script and re-attached it to the blog. Overall, the script could have been more detailed, but we will add it to the storyboard, and I gained a newfound importance for script writing. 

StudioBinder, et al. “How to Format a Screenplay.” StudioBinder, 4 Sept. 2021, https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/brilliant-script-screenplay-format/.

Case Study

Today we are going to research the movie Mean Girls, released in 2004, directed by Mark Waters and starring Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer, Amy Poehler, and Tina Fey. Let's start with the screenplay of the Means Girls. Tina Fey wrote the screenplay for Mean Girls based on Rosalind Wiseman's 2002 self-help book "Queen Bees & Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends & Other Realities of Adolescence" with her being inspired to write the characters by her friends and family members. This film was produced by Lorne Michaels Productions, an American multimedia entertainment studio film company that has produced films such as Lassie (1994) and Wayne's World (1992). The intended/target audience for the film is teenage girls, with the primary female cast and the main protagonist of the movie being a woman, and the girly pink aesthetic of the movie. The film's budget cost 17 million, with a box office of 130.1 million USD and a profit of 113 million USD. Mean Girls went under the distribution company that Paramount Pictures was, releasing it in theaters and later having a Broadway show. The marketing of the movie catered to teen girls on online cyberspace and television instead of on newspapers or the radio. The sassiness of the characters stood out when the majority of women were portrayed as soft or delicate. Mean Girls needed Lorne Michaels Productions and Paramount Pictures to work together in order to get them where they are today. 

Witter, Brad. “Tina Fey Used Her Real Life as Inspiration for the Unforgettable Characters in 'Mean Girls'.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 19 May 2020, https://www.biography.com/news/tina-fey-mean-girls-characters#:~:text=When%20Tina%20Fey%20wrote%20the,Boyfriends%20%26%20Other%20Realities%20of%20Adolescence.

Funding, Production and Distribution

Hey, Blog Buddies!

This week in class we are researching the "fun" world of funding, production, distribution, and exhibition. which is a delight for all my classmates, but that begs the question. What is funding? What is production? What is the distribution? What is an exhibition? All of these are critical questions that I will address in my blog post. let us discuss why this is all necessary: funding, production, distribution, and exhibition. These key components all work together as a sequence that starts with funding, production, distribution, and exhibition of the media. First the funding. The funding consists of the film crew garnering money in order to produce the film. Production is used to bring your story together with information such as the casting of actors and, to be more realistic for our opening scene, writing the script. The second stage of producing the film is distribution, releasing and marketing the film to the general population and refining an audience, and the final stage is the exhibition, which entails the screening of the film. 

The Big Six 

Before we start expanding on the topics listed above, we must discuss the six big production companies dominating the film industry: Paramount Pictures, Universal, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros, and Pictures Walt Disney and Columbia Pictures. These production companies make up over 80% of the film industry, dominating the indie production companies (an indie company is an independent company; the more successful indie companies are known as mini majors). With the large streams of money these six companies hold, they have a huge influence on funding, production, distribution, and exhibition of smaller scale films. Many productions rely on funding from one of the big six companies by pitching the story line and earning a partnership. If I had to decide whether I would be with a large studio or an indie production company, I would select one of the big 6 companies for freedom within the budget because I know I and my group could notafford over ten dollars for our film budget, and with this budget, we have the potential to create a phenomenal film.

Funding 

There are many resources film companies could pull from to fund the film: investors, crowdfunding, or partnering with other companies. Studio Binder recommends crowdfunding for small scale films. Crowdfunding is pitching your story to the internet and users could donate to fund the project. Investing is also another viable option for funding. A person or organization donates money to a film that they feel will produce revenue. Some small film companies choose to partner with one of the big six film companies that fund smaller films, but what do funders receive in return? The investors and companies gain some revenue from the film's production. This is a big incentive for investors, with some of the highest rated films garnering over a hundred thousand dollars in revenue. 

Production 

There are five vital stages of production development: pre-production, production, post-production, and distribution. I will only be addressing development, pre-production, production, and post-production because distribution deserves it on segmentation. Development is the writing of the scripts, story boarding, and funding. Next is the pre-production stage. This is the beginning of the production process, arranging the dates for filming, the location of the setting, and the general preparations before the filming. Now this is the fun part. The production at this stage includes the filming of the movie. The final stage is post-production, which is the editing of the clips and adding background music. The big six production companies are Paramount Pictures, Universal, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros, and Pictures. Walt Disney and Columbia Pictures also play a role in the production. So, it is important to get to know the companies. Let us start with Paramount Pictures. Paramount Pictures is known for movies such as Titanic, Transformers, and Shrek. It is worth around three billion USD, with the majority of its movies geared toward young children and teenagers. This is shown with most of their popularity coming from movies such as "Shrek" ($267.67M), "How to Train Your Dragon" ($217.58M) and "Forrest Grump" ($330.25M). Universal is a production company worth six billion and directed toward older teens, as shown by some of their top movies being "Jurassic Park," grossing over $654 million, "Furious 7" ($353.01M) and "The Fate and the Furious" ($226.01M). 20th Century Fox is another production company worth over 71 million and has produced popular movies such as "Avatar" ($237M), "X-Men" ($296.3M) and "Deadpool" ($782M) with the theme of sci-fi movies that pander to older teens. Next is Warner Bros, worth $9.3 billion. They produced movies such as "Suicide Squad" ($55M), "The Batman" ($251M) and "Joker" ($1B) with a clear theme of action and thrillers aimed towards young adults and older teens. Perhaps Warner Bros would be ideal to produce my film, with Warner Bros specializing in thrillers similar to the movie me and my group are trying to create. With Warner Bros. partnering with my film, their audience of young adults and older teens would engage with my film and would enjoy "Gone," a thriller, but if I were to partner with Paramount Pictures, with a younger audience, they would not receive this movie well. I would sell my film as a classic kidnapping with an innovative twist of the best friend, Alice, being the kidnapper with no happy ending. Next, Walt Disney is worth $93 billion and has an audience of primarily children, shown with movies such as "Encanto" ($233.9M) or "Zootopia" ($1B). And last but not least, Columbia Pictures, with movies such as "Ghostbusters" ($295.2), "Venom" ($856.1M), and "Spider-Man 3" ($894.9M), caters to an older teen audience with dark action/thriller themes. All these movie companies are successful in making a huge return, as you can see at the box-office in the films above. For example, the budget for "Shrek" was 60 million USD and made a box-office of $267.67 million, which was a huge success for Paramount Pictures. 

Distribution 

The distribution of movies is making them available to an audience. Companies such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime are distribution companies that could distribute movies to members who pay a subscription. But the production companies, such as the big sic, do their own distribution. I would distribute my film on Netflix. Netflix is a popular subscription streaming service that has over 221.8 million subscribers. According to PGMag, thrillers have some of the most binge-worthy movies, which makes our film able to thrive on Netflix.

Exhibition 

There are many ways to watch films, such as streaming services, DVDs, or theaters. This is an exhibition! Many film companies choose to premiere their films in theaters in order to generate excitement around the film, whereas others choose to release their films on streaming services such as Disney+ so that you can watch the movie in the comfort of your own home, which, due to the recent pandemic, is the only option for releasing movies. If my movie was to be exhibited, I would select an online streaming service to make it more accessible to my audience.

Hustle, Indie Film. “Understanding the 5 Stages of Indie Film Production - Indie Film Hustle.” Indie Film Hustle®, 13 Dec. 2021, https://indiefilmhustle.com/5-stages-indie-film-production/#:~:text=Film%20Production%20is%20created%20in,different%20roles%20suit%20different%20stages.

Katie. “Film Production: The Seven Stages of Film Production.” IFilmThings, 21 Jan. 2021, https://ifilmthings.com/stages-of-film-production/#:~:text=The%20seven%20stages%20of%20film%20production%20are%20script%20development%2C%20budgeting,%2C%20and%20post%2Dproduction%20stages.].

Moscaritolo, Angela. “Netflix 'Binge Scale' Ranks Most Addictive Shows, Genres.” PCMAG, PCMag, 9 June 2016, https://www.pcmag.com/news/netflix-binge-scale-ranks-most-addictive-shows-genres.

Paramount Pictures, https://www.paramount.com/.

“Ratings, Reviews, and Where to Watch the Best Movies & TV Shows.” IMDb, IMDb.com, https://www.imdb.com/.

Shorr, Arnon, et al. “The 5 Stages of Video Production.” StudioBinder, 26 Jan. 2021, https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/how-to-make-a-movie/.