Preproduction: Developing Film

 Introduction

After our group established its intended audience, our crew member's responsibilities, and the film's cast/ characters, we began planning our film's logline (the phrase/ enticing summary of our film), a brief overview of our vision of that the plot would be, the setting, hook, our movies genre, and the tone it would establish. With that information, our group gained a basic understanding of the way we would produce our film, so that in future planning activities, we could refer back to this section and take note of our original ideas, while making changes to this section, if needed. Below, shows a table with the information of what to expect in our team's upcoming film. 

Develop a logline for your movie.
Protagonist  Inciting incident		Protagonist's goal:  Central conflict:
Mercedes  Has an obsessive friend		To retain a healthy friendship  Christine wants Mercedes to herself
Define the logline for your film. Ideas should be clear, concise, and enticing.
Logline: Mercedes has an obsessive friend named Christine and aims to keep a healthy friendship with her, even though Christine wants Mercedes all to herself.
Summary paragraph Of Film:     Mercedes has an obsessive friend (Christine), and only wants a healthy relationship with her, but does not know her friend wants her all to herself. This event takes place inside Piper Highschool’s campus, during school hours (7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.). Each opportunity Christine gets the chance to be in Mercedes' life, she takes advantage of that, because of her deep-rooted infatuation with her. One day after Mercedes and Christine crossed paths and bumped into each other in the hallway, they all went downhill from there. We introduce the severity of Christine’s lust for Mercedes is in the beginning shots of the film, the hook, where upbeat music plays in the background, but has a subtle unsettling undertone as Christine is shown chanting, “she loves me, she loves me not, she better love me,” which refers to Mercedes. Our film is meant to reflect the unnerving feeling of having a friend with ulterior motives, who is secretly obsessed with them (or a perception of them), which takes them in a down-spiraling path of doing whatever it takes to be around them, regardless of possible consequences. To add, our film challenges the convention of the protagonist being the first character introduced, and instead, our team attempted to show Christine’s intentions behind her actions towards Mercedes and those around her. This paradox of drama and complex human emotion is terrifying, not in the physical sense, but more in the psychological sense, as it holds a black mirror to the dark places of the human psyche of wanting to be wanted.

Preproduction: General Information of Film

 Introduction

Welcome dream team! In preparation of our team's upcoming film "Trust Fall, our group established critical information about the ratings, themes explored, genres, sub-genres, and warnings of discretion as some of the content in our film may be triggering for some of our audience. Our group did additional research in information we should include as we were unfamiliar with the specific requirements and guidelines for the film industry's rating system, trigger warnings, and the official genre categories our film would fit in, if it were to be published as a a real media text available to the public.

Title of the movie: Trust Fall

Genre (s): Dramedy/thriller

Rating of the Film: PG-14, Viewer Discretion is advised    -Disclaimer: SV, some language, violence, fear, suggestive dialogue, and sensitive imagery.  The theme of the film: Be careful of the friends in your circle; trust is earned not given; be content with what you have.    -Coming of Age story about young love, Human vs. Internal Conflict, Class Struggles (Upper Middle Class vs. Lower Middle Class), and the temptation of sin.

The theme of the film: Be careful of the friends in your circle; trust is earned not given; be content with what you have.    -Coming of Age story about young love, Human vs. Internal Conflict, Class Struggles (Upper Middle Class vs. Lower Middle Class), and the temptation of sin.

Sources:

-Bodhi Green, M. (2020). The Most Common Themes in Movies Explained. [online] StudioBinder. Available at: https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/movie-themes-examples/.

‌-Cambridge Dictionary (2024). come of age. [online] @CambridgeWords. Available at: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/come-of-age#:~:text=to%20reach%20the%20age%20when [Accessed 7 Apr. 2024].

‌-Rating System Wiki. (n.d.). TV-14. [online] Available at: https://rating-system.fandom.com/wiki/TV-14#:~:text=Content%20may%20be%20unsuitable%20for [Accessed 7 Apr. 2024].

-‌CrimeReads. (2020). What Drives Obsession in Fiction? [online] Available at: https://crimereads.com/what-drives-obsession-in-fiction/#:~:text=In%20fiction%2C%20obsession%20tends%20to.

Preproduction: Production Company Logo Design

 Introduction

Our group discussed how our production logo would correlate with our general film theme, genre, its message, and what we stand for. We found that our original film idea that included a group of students going against the grain of their majority mind-controlled populated school, in a way related to out new film's story idea which includes an obsessive stalker falling deeper down the rabbit hole of her feelings, which causes her to become possessive, invasive, and manipulative. Manipulation and possessiveness are common mind-controlling tactics and are not uncommonly seen in film relating to mind control. In movies a common symbol of someone being put under mind control, like hypnosis or MK Ultra for example, a white butterfly is used to represent that person's new found innocence, oblivion, and vulnerability to influences, which is why our group decided on using a butterfly. Butterflies across many cultures are seen as an auspicious symbol of purity, kindness, hope, and good fortune, therefore, referring to "Milagros," which means miracle in Spanish, we figured that butterflies would also fit the meaning of our production company's name. Additionally, we figured a nice touch would be to add a wreath of flowers with blood dripping from them, which symbolizes a false sense of security, and a juxtaposition of what is perceived versus what is the actual message and portrayal of the symbol. Juxtaposition is commonly used in both horror and comedy to set up the audiences expectations, or to point out absurdities, and we found that would hint and prepare our audience for what is to be expected our two-minute film opening.

Short description of logo composition: Milagros Studios

Our group symbol is of a butterfly with all our crew’s favorite colors in a darker shade, for a mysterious effect, seated next to a flower wreath with blood droplets on it.     Connotation of Butterfly: butterflies are commonly associated with miracles (our production company name in Spanish is Miracle). The butterfly has fang-like teeth to put more emphasis on the type of movie we will be making.    Color meanings: The colors are chosen on the butterfly and the flowers as the production team’s favorite colors. The colors have a darker shade to them to represent the darker theme of the film we will produce.    Connotation of Flower Bush/ Wreath: Flowers shown up as wreaths are also commonly associated with the hope of a miracle, such as an unfortunate event that may or may not get better. It shows both the positive and the negative suggestive themes of our film.    Connotation of Blood: The blood represents the misfortune that occurs before a miracle. It also helps with attracting an audience that is interested in our movie genre (drama and thriller).