LOCATION SCOUTING: ITS OVER 9000!

 As me and Drew work out the storyboard, we’ve decided to film at these locations.

YMCA Regional Park - For the biking around the court scene.

Peacemound park - for extra biking scenes and Trey walking around

Cypress Bay Highschool- for bully flashback scene 

A bedroom- For Trey’s bedroom.

We’re going to develop more of the mise en scene after we finish the storyboard. 

SKETCHING ON THE BOARD

 I’ve started on the storyboard. It’s nothing too impressive, unlike Trey, I don’t have a keen drawing sense. But I have a clear visual picture of what I want the opening to look like. Most of the shots look like comic book panels, which is intentional. I will post the update version soon.

WRITING THE SCRIPT (CONT’D)

 TWEAKING THE SCRIPT

The script was complete, but me and my new partner decided to rework some key aspects of the script. 

Trey’s Vocabulary 

Trey spoke with a lot of eloquence at times, which could work at our favor to really drill in the point that that Trey is estranged from his community down to the way he speaks, but at the end of the day, he’s still a child. To fix this, we replaced his some of his dialogue with lines that are more reminiscent with his age group.
Unimportant Scenes

We included a “get ready with me” scene where Trey put on his clothes, grabbed breakfast, and prepared his bike, but we decided to take it out since it wasn’t very important. We simply removed this scene from the script entirely and didn’t replace it with anything.
After reworking a few kinks, I finally developed a story for the movie. 

The Plot for Trey’s Split

Trey would embark on a journey to find common ground with the white and black communities in his city. He would do a lot of code-switching to properly converge within these spaces, causing him to lose grip of who he really is, begging the question:  just how much worth is it to conform in a world where you’re not accepted? Trey’s Split is a funny, sometimes emotional story meant to provoke thoughts and touch hearts.

Audience

My audience are the black kids who have been called white for speaking proper English. My audience are the black kids who like pop culture, but get made fun of for it. My audience are the black kids who throw away their identity to fit in with superficial people. I want this story to hit close to home to kids who struggle with themselves, and while I envision my story catering more towards black people, I would love for others of varying backgrounds to relate to Trey’s struggles, and pinpoint how wrong society is wrong about “nerds” or “Oreos”. There’s no such thing as “being too white for the Black kids” or “being too black for the White kids”, and Trey’s Split is meant to explain why.
What’s Next?
I plan to storyboard my film soon and film the following week. 

Writing the Script

PICKING UP THE PEN

February 13th. Today was the day. After utilizing my research on movie introductions and the Comedy/Coming of Age genre, I decided to officially write the screenplay for my film opening. Going into this, I fully prepared myself to be up for hours on end, staring at my monitor for hours, and become homies with that backspace button. I've written far less complex stories before and said stories have taken me days to develop and plan out. But when I actually began working on Trey's Split? I wrote everything with ease as if I had memorized every word on that document beforehand. That screenplay felt less like a movie and more like a personal diary, as I directly put myself in Trey's position. The jokes he would make, his apathy towards society, and his unwavering desire to belong to it... It felt raw. Personal, even.

WHO IS TREY?

Trey is a Black teen from the suburbs who loves everything geek-related like video games, comic books, anime, street art, and biking. He has a very apathetic outlook on life due to not being able to conform to the people around him, and constantly compares others who are high in social status to himself. Due to his lack of confidence, he doesn't say much out loud, leaving most of his rude comments and bold statements to be said within his own head.

Despite his negativity, Trey is actually a lot more intelligent than he thinks. Due to his grey lens on the world, he's developed a somewhat pragmatic line of thinking. He's aware that he's different. He's aware that it's all superficial. And a part of him already knows that it doesn't make sense that he can't fit in. But due to his insecurity, he doesn't want to embrace his non-conformity but instead yearns to be in the same league as those who ostracize him to designate himself and find a connection. 

Trey can be funny, intuitive, and resourceful when the time calls for it. The irony of his character is that he has all of the qualities of a likable person yet Trey himself is unable to recognize that.

 

Writing the Story and Picking The Genre

GENRE

I've decided to go with a comedy/coming-of-age genre. I chose this genre because I feel like it would most accurately illustrate my story in the best way possible. While Trey's social struggles are important, his current disposition of not being able to fit in with either white or black people because of his unique interests is silly for all intents and purposes, so the movie should reflect that. Here's what I've learned from my research to make a good film from the respective genre.

CHARACTERISTICS OF COMEDY



(Friday - 1995)



Comedies typically have bright and vibrant colors within the mise-en-scene. Most comedy films rely on dialogue, physical gags, and cartoony sound effects to deliver the jokes. Simple storylines are a common trend in these movies to focus more on the writing itself.
WHAT MAKES A COMEDY GOOD?
A comedy film needs to have good writing above anything else. It doesn't matter if the actor is bad at their job or if they have ten Oscars under their belt, if the line they utter falls flat, it will fall flat. That said, the actor's timing and delivery a major contributing factors to whether the joke lands with the audience.

(Juno - 2007)



Juno, for instance, has a multitude of funny jokes that were written exclusively for each actor/actress who was meant to say them, leading to the jokes not only being funny, but memorable as well.

However, it's very important to note that humor is subjective. I typically look for films that have low-brow humor, while someone else would prefer innocent humor. My film has humor that only people of color or outcasts would understand. To generalize it to a broader audience, I am going to include jokes and gags that most people would commonly find amusing.



CHARACTERISTICS OF CoA

Coming of Age films are mostly character-driven. The story hinders mostly the protagonist from improving their flaws by the end of the film. The characters in the story embark on an existential journey to find their place in the world and their experiences are divided between before and after.
The mise-en-scene depends on the characters' personalities, environment, and aspirations.


(Dope - 2016)



WHAT MAKES A COA MOVIE GOOD?
Like comedy, Coming of Age films need to have good writing. However, having good actors is an absolute NEED. The actor's depiction of their character's growth is important, and if it isn't memorable or believable enough the film's narrative will fail to reach the audience.
The characters within the story need to be relatable to the viewer to garner sympathy and understanding for the characters' internal battles.

Research

TO THE DRAWING BOARD

 I looked up how to structure movie openings and stumbled upon this video on YOUTUBE.

   

Here are two things that I've learned from this video.

1. The movie's opening needs to be ambiguous to the audience for them to get excited about the plot. Spoiling integral parts of the work in the introduction could potentially ruin the entire film. For example, the movie Annihilation used the Flashforward technique to tease the plot without revealing information as to how the characters arrived at that specific conclusion at the start.

2. Multiple techniques could be used to present the story, such as Flashbacks, a prologue of the past that influences the present, Flashforwards, a prologue of the future that influences the present, Media res, a prologue that opens in the middle of plot, Red Herrings, an intro meant to misdirect the viewer,  Bookends, an opening that's similar to the closing scene, and Dream sequences, which lay out what is dominating your main character's psyche; using abstract symbolism and imagery to directly put us in their subconscious.

For my project, I decided to go with a Flashback to summarize my protagonist's background and current struggles that will affect him throughout the film.

Comedy/Coming of Age

TREY'S EMERGENCE

When you think of the Coming of Age genre, you typically think of a generic, somber-hearted teen movie. The protagonist starts off as an unsure character, plagued with insecurity and poor navigation. The protagonist doesn't know what to do with his life. The protagonist sees a girl and falls in love. The protagonist realizes by the end that his life does have meaning as a result of their environment. Many will see that and will praise the movie for its unoriginal message and shower it with accolades. You know what I say to that? **HOIK-PUH!** That was a spit if you couldn't tell. I have an idea that will revolutionize Coming-of-age movies by giving them a close-to-home cultural spin.

Establishing Tone

My movie, Trey's Rise, will rely much on character-driven elements. Meaning much of the movie's style, humor, music, effects, and mise-en-scene will come as a result of the main character's state of mind. The opening is going to include a lot of humor, physical gags, and internet-based humor to match the character's personality and age. A lot of the dialogue is going to be witty, unfiltered, brutally honest, and introspective since most of what will be said is in the character's head. I'm going to incorporate visual elements from comic books, anime, hip-hop, and street art to give my film a unique style. Race, bullying, existentialism, and isolation will be prominent themes throughout the opening as well to match the character's daily struggles.

The Story

You see this kid? That was me in middle school. I used to be bullied for being overweight, black, and not fitting in. I couldn't exactly find my crowd in the world. I was "too black" for the white kids and "too white" for the black kids. I wasn't into basketball. Shoot, I didn't even know how to play the sport. I preferred to listen to Red Hot Chill Peppers or George Benson over Lil Baby and Uzi Vert. Simply put, I was a nerd, and I was persecuted for being myself. Not many people know this, but not conforming to a major society could get kind of lonely sometimes. Middle school me was sad, desolate, and yearned for connection.

One day I decided to give up everything that made me different to become friendly with what I considered "normal" at the time. It worked for a while until I realized that I didn't just give up everything that made me different, I gave up everything that made me, "me". Ever since I joined CBTV I've always wanted to adapt my story into a short film, but I've never found the time. But now that I'm being forced to create a movie opening, I might as well start now.

The Plan

I will write, produce, and cast for my opening and have my friend direct it. Andrew has developed many short films and has earned multiple awards throughout his career. Because he and I share the same creative mind, as well as a strong bond, I trust him and only him to help me adapt my story in the most accurate way possible.

  When it came to finally filming our music video, we decided to give it a southern countryside vibe. We implemented colors like brown, green, and blue to support the theme of the work. I was behind the camera to film, and Martin helped me direct the music video by providing shot ideas and scene directions. The recording process took over three hours, and luckily we were able to get several good shots for the video.

After looking at the music research chart and the links we used to develop it, I was able to add insight on music distribution in the Country Genre. Martin helped me elaborate on the information for the slides.


 Overall, my group has created an advertising campaign for the country genre to market "Cold" by Chris Stapleton. We  introduced an artist named Bryce Henderson, who blends blues and somber elements into his music to redefine the genre. The music video was shot with a southern countryside vibe, using brown, green, and blue colors, incorporating stellar cinematography and symbolic imagery to build the narrative. The project involved collaboration and contributions from different group members in filming, directing, and adding insights to music distribution in the Country genre.

After developing the campaign and directing the music video, I am able to identify what I can improve about my directing skills, my storytelling, and my planning methods.