A Little Update

 Here is a screen recording of me going over my progress:

Creating the foley

        It was difficult to line up the actions in my video with the foley I was producing. However, I was able to cut out the individual sounds and align them with what was being shown on the screen to keep my film as synced as possible. My sister and I worked together to produce the foley needed for my film.

We used the Voice Memos app on the iPhone 14 to record the sounds

Recording the sound of when my character opens the bedroom door in the film. This is how the sound turned out:

We recorded my sneakers on the wooden floor as foley.

    I used this website to acquire the sound of walking on tile. Specifically, I used this sound:

    For the house alarm sound, I used this youtube video:

    After having practiced recording foley during our sound project, this task was generally easy. Here is a clip of my partner and I creating foley for our sound project that we did a while ago:

    Overall, I learned the importance of being patient when recording foley. It is difficult to get the timing just right, but there are always ways to fix it (cutting out the sound clips on Adobe and individually placing them where each sound occurs).

Representation in my film- preparation for the CCR

     My film represents the large amount of teenagers who face abuse or neglect. Although not particularly stated, many elements in my opening insinuate that Birdie has abusive/neglecting parents. I tried to communicate this idea without words-there will be no stated words in my opening, it relies heavily on mise-en-scene and actions. This could symbolize the way many of these teenagers feel restricted to speak.

    When researching, I found that at least one in five youth in the US, UK, and other developed countries experience neglect, or exposure to abuse. This can seriously affect their development, and put them at risk for mental health issues. Specifically, it can more than double the risk of depression in later childhood and adulthood (the upcoming ages of Birdie). Emotional neglect is severely understudied in todays society-the lack of social support, like what Birdie faces later in the film, will impact her health. 

    Birdie faces physical abuse as well, implied by the bruise on her face. Each year approximately three million cases of child abuse are reported. For every incident of reported child abuse, approximately two incidents go unreported. This further supports my decision to make my entire opening without dialogue.

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    Doing research on the signs of physical/emotional abuse of teenagers greatly helped me for this project. Having divorced parents also helped me capture some of the emotions Birdie feels. 

    I had a best friend when I was younger who often told me that she wanted to run away. Her parents would fight and try to belittle her. I would often try to support her emotionally, which coincidentally is shown to be the best method to help those who are emotionally abused.

    This research will be included in my CCR questions dealing with representation. Here are my sources!:

https://www.childhelp.org/child-abuse-statistics/

http://www.sardelichcounseling.com/abuse-of-children-and-teens-emotional-physical-and-sexual.html

https://hr.mit.edu/static/worklife/raising-teens/abuse-of-teens.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/education-38132401

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.681176/full

https://www.childprotect.org/facts-about-child-abuse.html

    

Font Finding

     I used a website called DaFont to look for some fonts to use. Here is what I have found so far:

    For the credits I am deciding between these two fonts. I like the first font because it is clear and “indie-ish,” but I like the second one because it gives a more natural, handwritten feel to my film.

    
                                                      

    For the title, I found this font. I like that it is thicker than the other ones. It is still cursive, but to me it is clearer and more defined, which I like. I’ll keep looking for other ones but I really like this one.

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    I still need to film the credits too. I was thinking that I should include her name somewhere in the credits so the audience isn’t confused about what the title means. I want to include the electric guitar in the credits as well, because the background music is going to sound pretty natural and homemade (the guitar is going to insinuate that she is playing the background music). 

This is the guitar

    I could somehow put the name on the guitar or the guitar strap. I would have put it on my bedroom door but I already filmed multiple scenes there, so I am not going to do that.

    I could make like a collage with pictures with her “friends”(my friends) and on one of them write “Birdie’s 16th Birthday.” The audience would know her age, the people she hangs out with, and just get to know her better. I would put this clip in the credits by the way. This idea reminded me of that scene from Stranger Things where Eleven is looking through Nancy’s room and finds a collage of Nancy and her friends.

 

I finally came up with my title!!

     I was brainstorming title names and one idea stood out to me: name your film the name of the character. Since my opening revolves around the characters life, I thought this idea was perfect. There lied one problem- coming up with the character’s name. After going through many names like…

1. Camryn (meaning crooked)

2. Angie

3. Liana (meaning vine, symbolizing how she feels trapped)

    I finally found the name “Birdie” from this website.  For one, the main character wishes to escape from her house, like how a bird wants to escape from its cage. It also brings an indie feel to my film. I also thought of other film names(some were inspired by songs), but they didn’t stick out to me like “Birdie” did.

-Here we go again

-Burden of youth (Like a Tattoo by Sade)

-Scars of aging, scar of age (Like a Tattoo by Sade)

-Unloved (This one is just a word I thought of when describing my film)

-Neglected (Another word I thought of, but having a title like this would be hard to attract an audience because of how basic and general it is)

-Erased (Already exists)

-Here forever

-Running through my head (Wish You Were Here by Avril Lavigne) 

-Broken Inside (Nobody’s Home by Avril Lavigne)

    My character would definitely listen to Avril Lavigne and that’s where I drew a lot of inspiration from. And that song by Sade was stuck in my head the entire time brainstorming and I just realized how fitting some of the lyrics are to my film.

                                                                                          

Avril Lavigne vs. My character

(I found the picture of Avril on Pinterest, I couldn’t find the source of it)

    I still feel like “Birdie” is the best choice out of all of them. But I just realized that it is kinda close to “Lady Bird’s” name. Hopefully it wont be a problem because I was not even thinking about Lady Bird during this part of the process. 

 

Next steps

     I am going to start working on the editing process now. I also have to make some time for my CCR. Since I am not really going anywhere for spring break, I thought that I would be able to work A LOT on my project then. I may also need to redo some shots if it didn’t come out the way I wanted it to. 

    While I am editing, I will take screenshots of the technologies and softwares I use to prepare me for the CCR. I’ll also post some before and after shots when I am editing the brightness/exposure of some of my clips. 

    And also, for the music part of my film, I asked my friend who plays the electric guitar to record a song for it. She told me she thinks the “F Song” by Strawberry Guy would be a good fit for my opening and I totally agree. I feel like it is more upbeat, but it will fit with the ending of my film when the alarm goes off. She already knows hoe to play it so that’s a big plus!!

Here’s a video of her playing a song

Filming- The process of it

     Having an outline of all my angles really helped me with this process. Of course, there were still some changes that I had to make to the angles once the filming process started. Some of the shots were too dark, since I had to shoot it in the night time:

Before

By turning the brightness and exposure up, I am able to make it a bit brighter… I’m still looking for ways to take away the shadow that is on my face.

After

    For one of my shots, I wasn’t able to ask my mom to be in the film, so instead I asked my sister. I think she looks like a mom though:

I used a ring to make her look more like an adult, and communicate that she is married

    A lot of over the shoulder shots…

    The filming process didn't take long but we worded LATE. Our last shot was taken at 12:07 a.m… But I’m glad that we were able to complete it!!