Mood board.

For the movie opening I want a very specific mood and aesthetic for the whole film. I want all the grunge and dark colors, as well as the rock and roll aesthetic.

that is why I created a mood board to better show off how I want the aesthetic to be, and then work my way to portraying it I each element of the movie. 

Here as you can see the main theme is partying, night life and rebelling. With some hints of red which means danger, showing how this teenagers are not going to end up well and something is about to happen.

I love when movies/series have a unique aesthetic, that is why I want to create my own piece that when you see it all the shots and scenes are related in some way, were every element is meticulously chosen to give off some type of message or vibe.

Then I made another mood board for the costume and characters aesthetic:

As you can see the whole mood of the characters will be very rebel, dark, and rock and roll vibes, they will be all black dressed, with chains and leather to add up to the rebellious theme, they will have very dark and heavy makeup showing how they are covering their true self. 

here is another example of the outfit Inso, I wore this for a shoot and represents perfectly the vibe I want to show off with the costumes:

Target audience.

 For this movie opening the genre is going to be teenage drama, so the target audience will be teenager or even young adults that passed their teenage years not so long ago. As the main characters are all teenage girls, this will probably make the target audience mostly girls, however because of the car sequence and the partying theme, some teenage guys may be interested in the movie too. However, the main target audience will be teenage girls, who are a little bit depressed and love drama, they don't have a good relationship with their parents and they probably are a little bit rebellious!

To get this specific audience the movie will count with some key factors like alcohol abuse, partying, loud music, dancing, and fashion too, as this girls will be very fashionably dressed after they are going out to a club. The fact that they are doing illegal things like drinking and going to a club under 21, driving under the influence, and trying to break into a bank, are all things that attract teenagers as most of them love to break the rules and rebel against authorities, they just love romanticizing drugs use and vandalism. Also teenagers love driving fast and listening to the music all the way up for some reason, so this teenage girls will reflect them in the film. Moreover, in the film a conflict with the main character and her parents is going to be showed, where the girl feels like her parents are never there, where her parents don't give her attention and don't take care of her properly, and that is why she does all this things. With this conflict, many teenagers will relate in some way and a strong bond will be built with the main character, making the audience feel empathy for her as they know someone or they themselves went or are going through the same thing.

very similar to what happened with the movie "Confessions of a teenage drama queen" but in a much "Disney" way. In this movie we saw how the main character screwed up multiple times, she was in a constant fight with her parents, and she always served looks, because of that, and the fact that it was produced by Disney, this movie attract many teenage girls who could relate to her, felt bad for her, and kind of wanted to be her too. In this movie there is also alcohol abuse by one character (this was before Disney was so censored) that then is explained by his horrible life, he is going through a lot of stuff so he gets drunk to forget, and that creates a strong empathy from the audience towards him. 

The car crash.

 I was kind of unsure if I was going to add the car crash scene, as I have seen some openings with this same scene and they weren't very realistic, they were all the same, using a bad quality sound effect and filming it from inside the car. But after doing some research and watching some tutorials I figure out some ways in which I can make it look a little bit more realistic.

https://youtu.be/VJF9bwY1CHo?si=VBZKnPxqAuxH5rcv

In the video I liked how the car is filmed from the outside too, how there is an establishing shot and then a close up with the camera moving in a panoramic motion showing the driver and then quickly cutting to a black out and then the sound effect implemented at the end. Also, a good advice that the video shows is to film the cars driving away from each other in reverse and then when you edit it make it look like there are approaching each other, this is to ensure the cars won't touch each other in any way, to prevent any accident. 

https://youtu.be/KDjQUpS0NSo?si=Bl7GVSmXHKk2xiY4

In the second video I liked how the guy is more specific and shows you step by step on how to create this illusion, also he shows you how to film it, and considering one of my options is to film it in a convertible, this video helped me a lot to better know how to do it in case I decide to use it. Moreover, I loved how he added not only the crash sound effect, but also a siren after, it makes it more dramatic and it lets the audience know that this was a serious accident and that medical assistance was needed, which means someone was injured, maybe... And as the opening will finish with the flashback after the crash scene, the audience will be left excited to see more, to know what happened to this girls, how they ended up after the accident.  

Figuring out the settings.

 The film opening will have three main settings, the bank, the car, and the bathroom.

For this I decided that the setting should be a very calm city where there are not a lot of people as in the film it will be 6 am and no one is supposed to be out, so that is why I decided to do it in Weston and in a day and time that not many people are out, like on a Sunday in the evening. For the bank part I needed to choose a small bank that not many people go to and that we can film without being suspicious or anything, that is why I picked Bank of America in the town center.

this bank is super hidden and there is no one ever in there so it would fit perfectly for the plot too.

In my opening the social status of the girls are not explicitly said but I always had the idea that they would come from a "good family" with a good economic status, that is why Weston also fits the plot.

Then, for the bathroom scene I will film it in my house in my bathroom that has a great lightning. 

Finally, I have two options of cars, first a very sporty and convertible car that would add up to the "spoiled" and "irresponsible" theme, as their parents are letting their teenager drive it to go to a club, this is a car that would be perfect for the opening but I don't know how comfortable it will be to film inside as it is super tight. Then, the other car would be a truck which would be way easier to film inside but it doesn't add to the plot. This is something I will see as I film. 

Choosing the main song.

 Before starting to film I am in search of the best song that fits the story, I wanted a song that gives off teenage rebel vibes and partying, something euphoric that makes you dance. for this I will be looking through this four non copyrighted song websites:

Freesound.org
this website I found it more useful for specific sound effects and not for music, so ill have this one in mind when editing.
Bulletproofbear.com
unfortunately, bulletproof bear had the best music but didn't work for me, it wouldn't let me download music without creating an account which is okay but when I tried to log in it wouldn't let me so I guess that ill have to look for more websites.
Bensound.com
this are some of the sounds that I found and might work:
Music by: Bensound.com/free-music-for-videos
License code: UBSW4ZUWIYVG1TNO
Music by: https://www.bensound.com/free-music-for-videos
License code: O4LHJY1CGJLMQ1NJ

I found this site that also has non copyrighted music,
https://www.purple-planet.com/

and this were the best sounds yet:

Work It (1:56) 100bpm
Grease Monkeys (1:14) 120bpm

 I am still not 100% sure that I will be using this tracks but it was definitely a good research and now I know what sites to use when I will be editing the film. 

New story board.

 After the group meeting I did quite a few editions to the storyline and the theme of the opening, turning an action/comedy story into a dramatic one, here is the final story:

The big change that I did was instead of them being delinquents and robbing the bank, they are just teenagers that don't have a family support system so they do dumb things to get their parents attention, in this case getting drunk and breaking into a bank at 6am. 

I plan the credits to be flashed in between the first and second scene as they are driving and the characters are introduced, and the title of the movie is going to be showed in the scene where the driver is dancing and singing in the car from outside of the car contrasting the "party" she is having inside and how calm it is outside since it is 6 am and no one is around. 

moreover, the car crash scene is going to be portrayed with sound effects and thought the inside perspective just showing the girls, this choice was made as I am not very experienced with this type of filming and I don't want it to look that much unrealistic. 

Finally, the flashback will be added at the very end of the opening with a text saying something like "the night before..." as I will be specifying the time in the scenes, which is easier for the audience to be aware of the timeline. This main character will get a text message while she is getting ready from her mom saying something like "take care" and "I will be back next month" showing how her mom would just let her teenage daughter go driving to a club without even being there to take care of her.

I want this opening to be about how teenagers that don't have a good family support system, end up messing up and sometimes getting into serious problems because they don't have their parents to educate and take care of them. This is a topic I am very familiarized with and I see it all the time in the teenagers nowadays, coming from a great family that are over protective I can say that this teens need some limits in their life or they could end up like the three girls in the story.  

Complete change in Costumes and Mise-en-scene elements.

 As I changed my whole concept and idea for this movie opening, all the wise-en-scene elements were affected by it. I had to change them as it would make no sense to the whole storyline. First of all, it is not going to be placed on the early 2000s anymore, as the main character will be receiving a text message with a smartphone so it wouldn't make sense. Moreover, the girls are no longer going to be delinquents, they are just dumb teenagers that did an awful mistake. therefore, their costumes will change, they will be all dressed up as if they were coming back from a club/party and their makeup and hair is all a mess because they were dancing all night.

the aesthetic will be something like this:

we can see that black is still the main color of the costumes to indicate that they were coming from a party at night, also showing a negative connotation to them, because they ere reckless and don't care about anything. This girls just want to have a good time, drink, and dance, they don't care if their actions might have consequences.

while they are driving they will be drinking alcohol, the way I will portray the alcohol is by using a bottle and covering it with a brown paper bag as it is a well known way to show alcohol without actually showing it.

Group Meeting

 The group meeting we had on class was very eye opening, my group really helped me make changes and have new ideas to have a better movie opening. I made changes and now the story is going to be that this three girls are coming from a party and its very early in the morning, they are all drinking while driving and blasting music, dancing and singing, having pure fun. Then they have an impulsive idea that they want to break into a bank, two girls go out to do it, and the driver stays inside the car singing and dancing to the songs. Suddenly, an alarm goes off and they all escape rushing, because of the rush, and the fact that the driver is drunk, they end up crashing. Finally, if I still have time, I will do a final scene of the main character (driver) getting ready to go out and receiving a message from her mom saying "Please take care today". Before this group meeting I had a much more "action" and "comic" vision of the film, but now is much more of a drama, as the original idea was that the girls were a group of delinquents that went to rob a bank and then was chased by the police. I liked this idea way more, as it has a much deeper message being that teenagers sometimes can have mistakes that they'll regret the rest of their life and that they are too young and need their parent to guide them and be close with them, which is shown by the fact that the main character's mom doesn't even ask how and where she is going or with whom, she just texts her "take care" but if she had her mom taking care of her she probably wouldn't end up making such serious mistakes. This is a topic that I know about and I can much relate to as I am a teenager and I've seen people that their parents are never at home and they make a lot of mistakes because of that. 

My team suggested me to use a brown paper bag to cover the "alcohol" bottles so that the audience knows what it is as they can't be showed, also I had trouble with communicating the audience that the scenes of the car where very early in the morning, so they told me to just use edition to add the time in that scene and in the last scene when she gets the text message from her mom to ensure the audience knows the time frames. Moreover, one of the girls suggested me that last scene where the main character is getting ready before that party. I feel like the movie after my opening would go on digging inside the relationship the main character has with her parents, how she is not taken care off and has a very messy life, and that opening would actually be the last scene and the girl would end up in a wheel chair and one of her friends wouldn't make it.

while each group member was presenting I was writing down different features of their movie opening and adding some suggestions to it and this is what I came up with:

Ayami

·      Coming out story 

·      Character vs character 

·      Conflict development 

·      Do the shot list 

·      No dialogue 

·      Only one character will be visually seen 

·      Conflict between her friends and her

·      Represent the coming out on the opening so that the audience knows what is going on 

·      Conflict with her parents 

·      Goes to the store and gets flashbacks 

 

Violette 

·      Drama

·      Changes her identity in the bathroom 

·      Flashback of funeral

·      People think that she died 

·      Cut down some scenes to fit the 2 min

·      Just focus on the bathroom and flashbacks 

·      Include a voice over of the girl 

 

Dan 

·      Interrogation 

·      Security camera shots 

·      Include flashbacks inserts of what happened why he is there 

·      Research actual cases to see behavior 

 

Sebastian 

·      Horror 

·      Group of friends partying 

·      Got super drunk 

·      Serial killer stocking them 

·      Not showing inside of party 

·      Gets a message of serial killer 

 

Kayla 

·      Sci fi 

·      In the future 

·      Dystopia 

·      They are sick

·      All dressed up the same way 

·      Include security camera