Shifting the Story

So now we are at a crossroads. I feel like my idea needs to shift to engulf a stronger perspective of emotion. The current storyline with the big reveal being towards a friend seems cliche and overused. I need something that really yells "DIFFERENT" I want to inspire my audience in a whole different level, the question is how. With all these news of the virus spreading and starting to become worried I won't be able to execute this the right way. At the same time, Funeral is tomorrow for Diego, let's just say my emotions at this moment are all over the place and I'm trying to understand where I stand. I haven't had much energy to go to school and my moods are not doing to well. Just trying really hard to understand life at this point and I need to do everything in my power to block these feelings from flowing into my work. I seem to change my work as my mood changes, I want to stray away from a dark piece and continue my work in a bright and happy piece. I really am trying to continue to push happiness and not sadness.


XOXO Media Nerd

On a Personal Note

Today I write to you on a very personal level. As you have probably figure out by now this story sticks very close to me because it's highly influenced by my own story as I came out to my friends and family. I want to discuss some emotions that I'm struggling to deal with and maybe putting them on my blog will allow you all to understand some aspects of my creativity. I came out in 2017, when I first started my current job, and I met some great people. People who were there to support each other and love each other, instead of finding yet another job, I found a family, people who understood each other and truly wanted to see each other succeed. There was one specific person who really made an impact on me and helped me to believe in myself. His name was Diego Ortiz. We had what you could call a complicated friendship, he had a certain level of toxic masculinity to him that bothered me, at the same time he showed a high level of care for each and everyone of my problems and conversations. He was truly interested in my success and happiness. When I told him I was gay, he had a difficult time understanding it but in the end he helped me become more comfortable in who I was. Alongside my coming out came many troubles at home, and Diego seemed to be the only one who would notice when I got to work upset, he would drag me outside and make me talk to him. He was truly invested in making my days better and worked with me to make my self esteem higher. He tried so hard to understand the things that I was going through and would remind me constantly of the fact that I was like his little brother, and all he wanted to see was me being successful and happy. I never really realized how much his words meant to me, it's hard to analyze the impact that someone has on your life. On Sunday 03.08 I lost Diego to a car accident. At 21 years old a perfectly kind should was gone. Someone who inspired me to be myself and love myself and not allow anyone to tell me otherwise. This film, and the remainder of the work I do to express sexuality for its beauty will be dedicated to him, for being an ally to the community and putting religious bias aside, for simply being one of the best humans to impact my life.

Excuse my rant, this one was highly personal. For Diego.

XOXO Media Nerd

Script Finalized, Kinda, maybe, sort of. Yeah.

Yeah no, script is not finalized but the shot list is. I know how I am going to shoot it where I am going to shoot it and mainly who will help me. Today has been a very difficult creative day, I will not lie to you guys, I lost someone very close to me this morning and I haven't been able to really think at all today. Not much progress to report on. Next week I'll have a more clear mind and I'm going to have a script up. Sorry to disappoint. I don't have much for you all today.

I'm leaving it at this, I know I've been pretty good with my blogs and telling you all where I find myself in my production process. But today I don't really feel it. Life is difficult and things happen, and lately as odd as it seems this blog has been sort of an outlet for me, to talk about something I'm so passionate about really helps to process my ideas. I'm really sorry to do this. I'll have content soon.

XOXO Media Nerd.

#scriptdepression

I met with Tina today, and develop a full idea for my film. I've been working on a storyboard which I will attach below(if the file would upload, blogger isn't being cooperative with me today). So I know I want the film to start with a scene in the shower, the scene will be poorly lit only so that you can see the outline of the main character, for artistic purposes, I have chosen not to name my character, I want him to remain nameless, not to be a person but a community. I have also made the choice to not use the word "gay" or homosexual. I have always perceived labeling sexuality as such an absurd thing to do, it's a different lifestyle, but I feel it so in-tasteful to name it. Being a part of the community myself I always found it very difficult to label myself, feeling a loss of meaning in my own personal name, and being just identified as "gay". I want it to feel as seamless as possible, just a normal concept of life, nothing out of the ordinary. The audience will get to a direct insight into my characters train of thought, him talking about his feelings and fears in the shower through voice over. The scene will be short and simple and quickly cut to a scene at a party of my character and his friends having a good time. My actor needs to be good enough so that they may portray the emotion that they do not belong in the scene, there will be pointless conversations between the friends, I'm thinking of it being about about school and romance, who's with who and grades and stuff. Those scenes will be paralleled with scenes in a psychiatrist office (still working out the details of who will play the psychiatrist and where I will shoot it) as the scenes cut back and forth the character will find himself at different parts of the party ( thinking of doing a moving shot where he is just walking through a frozen room, in which I will include the second voice over train of though moment). As the audience get's insight into the character through the conversations in therapy, the film will eventually lead up to the culmination of him coming out to his closets friends. Having 5 minutes and showing so many different ideas, I need to be careful to evade a montage of shots, I need to keep my storyline clean and precise and I really feel positive and passionate about this idea. I will keep ya'll updated. I think I got this.

XOXO Media Nerd.

"Did a Full 180"

So. In the process of trying to find my second actor I realized I wanted to completely switch the idea to something new. I'm moving my film to represent something that I more closely relate to.  I want to change it to a completely new coming out story, something that focuses on the feelings of the person and not on the social outcome. I want to focus on the difficulties that an individual goes through when they are dealing with such an issue. Shifting more towards the perspective of mental health rather than the beauty of the LGBTQ community. I would like to use the influence from my own personal experience to filter into this film. I feel like the process for me was really difficult, and one of the things I used to resort to was dark showers. It's where I would go to think and process my feelings. I found myself having many introverted conversations with myself about the issues that was going through and trying to process my feelings and work out my sexuality. I've decided to incorporate that as part of the story, to be able to use a voice over and introduce a personal connection to the audience. I decided to use social interactions to also move the story, focusing on the characters personal relations and engulfing the audience in the personal interactions to move along the concept of difficulty within the subject. Lately I've been in sort of a creative funk, so I want to show some sort of my feelings throughout my film. I feel like the mood that I have been in lately will be shown with the dark theme of my film. I feel that this is the most appropriate theme for me, and my art and films have always been heavily influence by deeper meanings. I'm starting to feel way more comfortable with my idea. I spoke to my guide, and I was able to develop a full story line. Now I need to finish my script.

Let's see what happens.

XOXO Media Nerd

The Final Path

I want to focus on the normality of any relationship. Therefore I have drawn the conclusion that I will portray some sort of conflict and show it from both parties personal thoughts. It allows me to use shots to portray different emotions and use each narrators thoughts to build my story. Some updates from this week, I have one actor down and I need to find my second actor. His name is Tomas, and after telling him the plot of my story he said he'd be more than willing to sign up. The difficulty I have finding actors I feel is quite different to any other project. Being a member of the community I have a lot of friend willing to help me, but I've narrowed my precise subject a lot. Due to the film being in Spanish, I would prefer to have actors that have latino decent, and finding individuals willing to partake in a gay film isn't exactly a walk in the park, to an extent this signifies the importance of my piece, many people are okay with the community and can support it, but there is this certain taboo about being looked upon as part of the community. The last thing I want to do is make anyone feel uncomfortable, but at the same time I would like to explore this taboo within my process, trying to break this shyness of the unknown. Many people play multiple different roles, and many straight actors have played gay characters, but I wonder how many are not willing to do it.

Anyway I'm rambling as per usual. I'm excited, I'm ready. I invested some money into polarizing lenses for my camera to minimize the glare in certain shots, which led to me being inspired to choose some odd places to shoot from. I also have my tripod and I'm waiting on the delivery of a stabilizer. For the first time since I started this project I feel like I'm on a good path and know kind of where I'm going with this film.

Again I side tracked and lost the path of this post, the main technique I have chosen to use is to hop back and forth from one perspective to the other. To create a sort of free flowing conversation of opposing thoughts but embedding some similarities to show the strength of the relationship. I know at the end I want both dialogues to lead to three words. " Por Siempre Tuyo " which would go to show how both of them love each other very much. It's late, I'm drowning in ideas, I'll have a storyboard this week, till then, goodnight !

XOXO, Media Nerd

Class Discussion

Today in class we go to discuss our projects with the class. This was a very insightful process as I got to not only help others projects but understand the very different writing styles and filming styles. It also helped me to once again become more lost in my story and the path that I want to take with my film. I did however come to a name that I know will guide most of my thoughts. " Por Siempre Tuyo" which means 'forever yours'. The theme of this film has shifted after today. My main goal was to show the beauty in the relationship between two men and differentiate my film from the stereotypical gay films. I don't want to show any strong narrative that portrays negative emotions towards the LGBTQ community, I want to only portray the positive aspects of the relationship. In the discussion with the class my peers gave me multiple new ideas as to where to go with this project, different story lines and different takes on the same variation or emotions. Ana Rubin, who I planned on working with beforehand, gave me a great idea on showing both sides of the story and not keeping it one sided. Which brought me back to an original idea I had to show both sides with different color grading, yet this reverts me back to the ideal of tampering with a closeted relationship and seeing the beauty in that. I still have not reached my final conclusion and I know I need to do so before the end of the week. I need to have a storyboard ASAP but I feel like I'm at a standstill, I creatively cannot decide which story would be more aesthetic, which would be less stereotypical, which story would create ripples in society. I want to change some view points with this film, I just don't know how. I need sometime to think this over.

XOXO Media Nerd

Scheduling

So the main worry for me in this portfolio is finding the time to actually film. I decided I would need two separate filming days with multiple outfits changes and different locations. I chose on two days at the end of march. Two Saturday's, which with my work gives me enough shifts but enough time to get the filming in. I plan on splitting it down the middle. Shooting at least one half on Saturday the 21st, and then editing through the week to figure out what I need to shoot and edit. I also want enough room to be able to redo anything that doesn't come out how I want it. I will also take a few Mondays to get my B roll and make sure that the film comes together. The only thing I need to finish this week would be my outline and a script. I also want a shot list so I can get organized, however I do need finish the script first and my main concern is not having a direct story. I know that I don't want any dialogue in my film but I need to figure out the exact story, there is a million ideas that I'm debating I know I need to sit down and think it through. My story right now has multiple loose ends and my thoughts are not collaborating with me.

XOXO Media Nerd

Location Scouting.

So for the actual porfolio I want to create the sense of a well rounded relationship. The narration will carry the story and the shots in the background are just to show the romantic part of the relationship. I need to show different places, different outfits, different hairstyles if possible. I'm going to take advantage of the next weeks to try to get as many shots in as many places as possible. There are a few scenes that I need to have. I want to have a sunrise and a sunset scene, one for the beginning on for the end, I also want to have beach scenes, and scenes in bed, not sexually but romantically. I want to develop the story of two people who truly love each other and are willing to be real with each other. At the same time, I want to have situations shown where their relationship is not approved by many, showing the social stigma of being gay, how it's neglected and closed minded people shy away from it or just prefer to voice their opinions. I need to drive the pain throughout the film to allow the audience to understand the hardships of two guys holding hands in public. The looks, the stares, the emotion, and the words. It's so relevant to move this through the film, with my outmost goal is creating the need for social action, for a change in how we see the LGBTQ community. This week I will work on casting a group, mainly two and some of my friends for support and help, I hope to make some outlines of scenes and figure out filming dates and locations. We got this. I can do this.

XOXO, Media Nerd

Research

One of the main items of my research was past projects done in earlier years. When I spoke with my course director she advised me to look at past projects to gain and understanding of projects with full on narration. I believe in a much more personal level of story telling which includes a conversation with the audience, I feel more power speaking directly to them and I wanted to pursue a storyline where there is a connection. Stoklosa advised me to research a project form 2017-2018 called "Goldfish" which is an odd drama that uses first person narration to describe what the main character is going through. This film relaxed me a little, I had been quite nervous to use full narration, through this specific portfolio I realized how a mixture of narrated scenes, and silent scenes could help to make the perfect short film. through this process I also came to the realization that I wanted to represent myself in multiple ways. I had chose to do a gay love story, being part of the LGBTQ community I felt that the representation in the media was twisted and not correct, portraying it in a very taboo and stereotypical manner, I wanted to shift this. I wanted to show the beauty behind a gay romance, I want people to see the reality of it, and through narration, you can get the first hand account of what these individuals feel. What I did not see when researching narration are any in spanish. I wanted to represent my culture using my native language. I came to the conclusion that I needed to be able to represent many things within my film, and I had to do so effectively. I like a challenge, and I feel as if this will be a challenge.

XOXO, Media Nerd

A Change in Direction

Earlier this week our advisor allowed us to change the groups around and choose a new idea. When I spoke to Ana, she discussed with me how she wanted to try it by herself and create her own story. I was scared at first I will not lie. I've always been self conscious about the work that I create, I never feel like its enough and the ideal of not having a creative crutch alongside in this monster of an assignment was worrisome. Yet at the same time, it was creative freedom, I was free to do whatever I wanted with my imagination. So I thought of what I could represent with my film. I have always wanted my pieces to spark conversation and though, I want my work to inspire people or change views. I reasserted many topics that I felt I could portray in a good light, and I drew my conclusion to a film oriented around the LGBTQ community. Films that I researched included the Oscar winning "Call me by your Name" when analyzing this film I realized the the representation of the gay community was highly stigmatized and made to look taboo. In this specific storyline the characters relationship is tabooed and at times highly inappropriate. In other films like "Love Simon"  the characters show a feeling of shame in being true to oneself, with troubles with self acceptance and difficult developments in the sexuality. I wanted a piece that challenged this, I wanted to something that showed beauty not confusion. I wanted a piece that could show the LGTBQ community in the way that I know it, to be different than the regular version, something that adequately showed how real the love can be in this community, and not make it seem like a big deal, I want it to be a standard piece with no negative input, just positive love. I realized soon that I was ready to take this project on, and make it perfectly mine. Perfectly real.

XOXO, Media Nerd