The short film, Elle qui Pleure, strives to convey the themes of the importance of art, love, and self-acceptance through the use of an alternative storyline.
Elle qui Pleure is an experimental drama film that both abides by and breaks its genre conventions. The genre convention that is characteristic of drama films is how the plot of the narrative is driven by its characters, who they are and what they do. This is seen clearly within the short film as the narrative is guided by the main character's goal to comfort the weeping woman. The use of various close-ups and mid shots within the piece is yet another drama convention that the short film includes. In terms of it being an experimental film, the short does abide by the convention of having an alternative storyline, which is presented with the act of entering the painting.
However, due to time and technical constraints, Elle qui Pleure fails to include an alternative editing style that is commonly seen in experimental films. Though initially planning to edit the clips to have a more "painted" look, the decision to simply change the vibrance and saturation of the clips was made instead.
Elle qui Pleure also has the unique quality of breaking art conventions for the painting within the film. As the painting emulates the art style of the Italian Renaissance, the act of painting a portrait of a black woman within this style breaks the convention of only portraying white figures. Though it was not a primary goal during the casting process (as only talent and availability were considered) after casting an Afro Latina woman as the lead for the film it became a priority to research and reflect on how this decision impacts representation within the media. When researching paintings of the Italian renaissance and similar art movements such as A Weeping Woman, Josefa de Obidos, and Cheers, there was only one painting portraying a black woman by an unknown artist found. By not only casting an Afro-Latina woman as the lead but also painting her in an art style not commonly known to portray black portraits creates inclusivity and perception for viewers, particularly afro-latine viewers, watching, letting them know that they too are pieces of art. This inclusivity ultimately successfully aids in the message that the film strives to convey, self-acceptance.
The Afro-Latine representation within the film also opens up the conventional drama target audience of white women to a black and Hispanic community. The target audience age for Elle qui Pleure is anything 20+. As the usual drama age range is over the thirties, the fact that this is a student film with a young leading actor draws in a younger crowd. A large portion of the target audience that the piece strives to connect with are artists and/or art appreciators themselves. This appeals greatly to the queer community as art and the creative world play a large role in queer culture. The theme which the film strives to convey of self-acceptance, like for the black community, also appeals to the lgbtq+ community, making it more inclined for this audience to watch.
The artistic target audience can further be reached through the artistic brand all three components plus the blog strives to achieve. Within the Instagram, images of the painting process are displayed as behind the scenes photos that have a clear physique as each post includes the same natural colour scheme consisting of primarily browns and greens. The postcard includes a vital scene from the film where the main character stands in front of the painting and includes the brown factor in the colour scheme. As mentioned before, this art physique carries into the blog as well as the background image and the images on the columns are all art pieces with the natural colours stated before. Because of the art theme that my films brand is trying to convey, all three components plus the honorary blog component include elements of design. This is primarily seen through the advertising posts on Instagram, the back of the postcard, and the layouts of the posts within the blog.
One issue however that the social media and the postcard component fail to convey is the theme of self-acceptance. Nowhere within these components is mentioned that the major aspect of the film is how the main character encounters herself and comforts her, ultimately being a metaphor for self-acceptance. This message is very important as it appeals to the majority of the audience but because the Instagram and the postcard fail to include this aspect, the film risks not reaching all of the audience it potentially could of. A good way to fix this could have been to include within the description included on the Instagram as well as the postcard that the film is "an ode to self-acceptance".
Nevertheless, the audience that the Instagram and the postcard do reach have many ways to interact with the film. Within the postcard itself, there are two QR codes that viewers can scan to access the social media as well as the film on youtube. The Instagram account also hosted interactive posts such as a competition granting two free tickets to watch the film live and providing a place for viewers to comment and submit their honest opinions of the film within a story post.
It is important to note that a lot of research was actually put into learning what would be the best path to take within social media and the postcard. By researching other short films on social media platforms such as CODA's laid back Instagram vs The Long Goodbye's more publicized posts it was easier to decide which approach would be best for Elle qui Pleure, ultimately deciding on a more casual, behind the scenes account that would slowly venture into a more advertising account. By researching other film bloggers who talk about the importance of postcards, such as a man by the name of Mark Stolaroff who designed a diagram titled "Anatomy of a Postcard"m ensured that the postcard for Elle qui Pleure would include all of the necessary information a real postcard would such as contact information, a description, and most importantly, a compelling and captivating front image.
Though I could've utilized more time to fully communicate the ideas I had in mind, at the end of the day, I am proud of the work I made. Despite the fact that I could've spent more time organizing and shooting the shots for the film, and I could have definitely managed my time more wisely, the end product accomplished what I had set out to do. All three components contributed to the creation of a brand (although it could be more developed) and the film itself conveys the theme I had been trying to convey since the beginning, self-acceptance.
The portfolio project is over and I'm not quite sure how to feel about it.
I am proud of my short film, and though this last week was very hectic as I tried to scramble everything together, I am a little sad that it has officially ended. Well, at least the creation part as we will be critiquing soon. There are many things that I wish I could have improved on, but I would like to take this post a different direction than I had originally planned.
If I haven't made it known before, I value Media Studies in a way you can't even imagine. AS online last year was really the only thing keeping me motivated throughout the school. And it's not just because of what we learned during it. Of course, the topics we learned in class helped greatly, but at the end of the day, it was my peers and my teacher who really held me afloat. The environment in class last year as well as this year was an environment like no other. I've made countless friendships because of classes before, but in Media Studies, and this feels cliche to say, it really does feel like we are a tight-knit family. Even if you aren't close with someone, people always tried their best and went out of their way to help and support you. It's truly amazing.
It's a bittersweet moment for me to end this project. Apart from me wishes it could go on forever. But alas, all things, including my last high school year, come to an end.
I would like to thank you wonderful teacher who I've had for three years for pushing me to take your class. I've already expressed this to you before but your class has genuinely been my favourite class during my entire high school career (and you've been my favourite teacher throughout it all).
I would also like to thank any of my blog stalking classmates. If you're reading this, I love you, I'm glad we were able to have a class together.
Goodbye for now,
Isabella
A lot has happened since my last editing post.
I am disappointed to say that the stylistic editing effect I was trying to put over the clips of when the main character is in the painting did not turn out well. Because of this and also the fast-approaching due date, I've decided to scrap this idea. Instead, I've decided to add an effect that changes the saturation of the clips, making them all vibrant.
I also finished editing the music as well as cutting the clips to the songs I picked. In the end, I went with a completely 180 decision compared to my original thought process. After some advice from some friends, I in the end decided to go with a piano tune as it fits better with the overall feel of the film.
I used YouTube Audio Library to find these two songs:
No.9_Esthers_Waltz_-_Esther_Abrami
Sonatina_No_2_in_F_Major_Allegro_-_Joel_Cummins
The first audio ultimately took up the museum scene while the second audio began once the woman sees the glimmering shine in the distance and follows it till the end of the piece.
The last thing I needed was to include the title and the credits. I blurred out the last frame of the scene and put in my title using the font "Brittany Signature" (as seen in my font post), before ending in a black screen where I placed my credits to the beat of the song.
With this, I finished the editing process and continued to the postcard. I referenced my previous research blog on postcards during the making of mine as well as looking at examples online. During my impromptu research, I found this website that designs your own postcard and used one of their layouts as inspiration for how I should do mine.
Unfortunately I'll be withholding the posting of the design until the final post, see you then <3
Now that I am beginning the editing process one of the factors I will be needing in the future will be the font used for the title sequence. In order to find the best font fit for Elle qui Pleure I used the website DaFont. The type of font that I was looking for was something elegant yet artistic and I feel like I did find various fonts that fit this profile using this website.
This past week I've been taking every free moment I have to start editing, here's how it went:
The first thing I did was align the clips in chronological order. I had some small hiccups within this step, the first one being purely my own dumbness. When I first started organizing the clips I was editing directly from my SD which means... that as soon as I took it out everything was gone. That wasn't a huge issue though as I just simply downloaded all of the clips into my computer and replaced the missing files. There was also a moment when as I was trying to delete the missing files I accidentally deleted the sequence but I quickly was able to reverse this.
The next step was to edit everything together. There were moments during this process that were annoying such as my computer lagging too much or some clips being too shaky, but at the end of the day, I think everything flows well together. The only problem with the results is that it only takes up 2 minutes and 30 seconds and this portion that I edited is supposed to take up 2/3 of the entire production, meaning that I don't think I'll be able to reach the 5-minute requirement.
After I finished editing all of the clips together I went back to the research I had done on stylistic editing. I didn't feel too confident about the options I had so I decided to go back to the drawing board. With a little help from my friend Logan, this video by Justin Odisho was brought to my attention.
Basically, Odisho goes through every stylistic effect in Adobe Premier. At around 1:09 he covers an effect called Burshtroke which makes the clip you're working with appear to have been brushed on. I think out of the other options I had researched this effect will be the safest and easiest option.
Earlier in the year, actually, the very first project of this school year my peers and I were assigned the brand identity project. Basically, we had multiple lessons on the importance of a brand and the attributes forming one. Then we had to use the information we learned to brand ourselves. I remember being very anxious over this project as my mind wasn't wrapping around the idea of making a brand for myself, so, I turned to my comfort zone, art.
I had planned on talking about this project and my brand within the blog for a while as I noticed increasingly during the past few weeks that my brand was still very prevalent within the work I was doing. It was only today, however, after having a lesson on the Critical Reflection component that I decided to truly reflect on this.
One of the questions I have to answer within the reflection is how did the elements within my project work together to form a brand. To answer this, I decided to look back on the presentation I made for the brand identity project we made in late August.
For one, my brand contains a cohesive aesthetic, or in other terms, its Physique-
What does this mean you may ask? Well, as mentioned before, when making the identity project I relied heavily on my artistic side. As seen below, I chose to draw my logo, I integrated art pieces within the presentation, talked about how one of the ways I communicate my brand is through art, and finally even did my digital story on an artist and how he has impacted me and the world.
This art theme coincidentally continued within my blog as the backgrounds and side column images are art pieces (as shown below).
This art theme was also integrated into my portfolio projected when I, once again. coincidentally decided that a painting would not only be a major prop within the narrative but also a setting. Because of this factor within my project, both the Instagram for my film and the postcard will have major art and design elements as it is a theme in the short film.
Another element that creates a cohesive aesthetic within my brand is its colour palette.
As seen in my brand identity presentation, I defined my brand as having a natural palette, meaning, anything in green and brown tones. The images within my blog have this very same colour palette, leaning more towards the brown side, while the Instagram for my film has had a consistent green tone within each post.
Outside of the physique, another important factor within my brand is the message it is trying to send, or in other words its culture or purpose.
Within my presentation, I shared the purpose to "love", as seen displayed under my logo. Alongside this my brand also promoted the ideas of acceptance, freedom, and belonging.
Within Elle qui Pleure, one of the biggest themes is acceptance. This is displayed clearly through the narrative as in the end the main character encounters the painted version of herself and comforts her, ultimately acting as a metaphor for self-healing and acceptance.
There were couple of complication we faces, the biggest one being the afternoon sun. Since the sim was directly above, Maya’s hair was casting a lot of shadows over her face. Because if this Im not sure I’d be able to use some of the shots I took, however, despite this I do think that the majority of the shots turned out good so I do have something to work with.
The scene that we shot was the one where the main character meets the weeping woman. Since Maya portrays both the protagonist and the woman in the painting, we enlisted the help of her sister who looks a lot like her to take the place of a double.
I also had the opportunity to take the last reference picture I need, which means that hopefully with a bit of an all nighter I can finish the painting today. Hopefully.
Here is the long-awaited painting process blog that's been in the making for an entire week!
After painting the white basecoat almost two weeks ago it took me a while to actually start sketching as of course there are other things I as a student have to worry about. On the 20th Sunday night was when I began actually drawing out the composition. Also, I think it's important to note that weeks prior a created sketches in my sketchbook just to try to plan everything out and I will be including images of it here once I get my sketchbook left.
After finishing the background I started colouring the portrait. I began with the skin tones but then was quickly discouraged over the more detailed oriented parts so I turned to the dress. It was actually really fun to paint the texture of cloth, it was something I've always wanted to do but never got the chance and I feel like it turned out pretty great.
From the last image, I've finished the face and also the details on the dress. I'm choosing not to post these updates as I do want to keep it for the big reveal and as I'm not done with the hair yet that is being pushed off till later.
Tomorrow I'm meeting up with Maya and her sister at Markahn Park to film the last scene in the film (not to be confused with the last scene I need to film) and hopefully, then I'll get a reference pic for the hair as right now I'm working off of 3 separate images and I'm struggling with it.
There are sixteen days till the portfolio project is due and it is safe to say that I am kinda freaking out. I am officially saying the infamous line "a lot to do, not a lot of time to do it." In order to attempt to calm my anxieties, I've decided to write another schedule to make sure I keep a level head and don't succumb to the pressure of having to finish.
As of right now, there is A LOT left to do. Some of which include finishing shooting, editing the film, editing music, creating a postcard, and finishing the social media portion. It is safe to say that my time during the following two weeks will be fully dedicated to this (which isn't great news for my seven other classes).
Once again. this schedule includes both my media studies and outside responsibilities. The media studies portion win be bolded.
Monday:
Around the time that I originally wrote this blog, I was heavily inspired by the aesthetic and music from Fantastic Mr Fox. I would picture the scenes of my film with Mr Fox in the Fields playing in the background. Because of this all of the music I researched including the ones listed below are pure of the bluegrass genre. However, after filming one scene with a good amount of shots I'm not sure if this is the type of music I'm looking for. Regardless, I present you with my research.
I began searching for similar songs to Mr Fox in the Fields using the website Chosic as it has a "find similar songs" feature, but after looking through it I couldn't find anything to my liking.
After this I directly searched up on google "bluegrass royalty-free music" and found the website called Free Music Archive.
From there I made note of a couple of songs:
I then continued my search through google before finding the Proud Music Library where I noted two songs:
After going over the music I had listed above I do see some promise with Madame Flowers but I know that I will need to find different songs for different parts of the film that these bluegrass songs would not work for.
Now that we've officially filmed the first scene for this year's portfolio project I decided to make complete props and equipment list!
1. The Painting!
2. The Red Apple
6. Canon t7i + 17-50mm Sigma lens
8. Ring light
Here are a couple of things you've been missing out on the Instagram
