Creative Critical Reflection

Here is the link to my ccr! I worked on this project with  my amazing partner Andrea Briseno

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1piod8-EcDIkZ1zkvaR3BM8PNVzNOnCb2/view?usp=sharing


I'm so proud of Andrea and I. We worked super hard to put together an amazing film opening. I'ts relieving to be done, but i'm also a bit sad. But here is a quote that I would like to share with y'all:

My Film Opening is Finally Done!

MY FILM IS FINALLY DONE!!!!! I'm so proud of it!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A8MjI5XVYm-g0PaJiCbdswchKYzd7kJ5/view?usp=sharing


Featuring the copyright free song "English Country Garden"


BY RACHEL GROSSMAN AND ANDREA BRISENO

Many changes...

Hey everyone!We have been on a wild ride. When we first were assigned the project, I thought Andrea and I would make a film opening that was a "character driven" story. We could not think of any ideas that we would want to pursue concerning that topic so we decided to come up with something else. That's how we ended up doing a story about a girl that can talk to a tree. I'm glad we ended up going this route. Our film opening is unique and very cute if I do say so myself.


At first, we thought that a girl named Eva was going to play the role of Alice, but she backed out. Andrea could have played the role(she has lots of acting experience after all) of Alice, but her foot was broken at the time...so I had to step in. I was a bit nervous at first, but I soon came to accept the idea that I was going to be the star. We also had difficulty finding time to meet up and shoot. Andrea had to go on a drama field trip and I was drowned in homework. We thought that maybe we would never shoot our film opening. But luckily, during spring break, we were able to finally shoot.

Andrea and I also encountered some difficulties when trying to find song for our film. The song that we use on our film, “English Country Garden” from the YouTube Audio Library ,at first was too short. It was only about a minute and a half. At first we were disheartened that we were not going to be able to use it in our film, but then Andrea came up with a brilliant idea to edit the song to make it longer. I have no idea what she did, but she increased the length by 30 seconds.

We also encountered difficulties with the voice of Winola. Winola is voices by Andrea’s friend Caitlin Turner. She sent us Winola’s audio by using the voice memos app and then sending it to Andrea via text. We really liked the pitch and emphasis on the words, but the clip was too fast. Thus, we used an app that was able to slow down the tempo but not the pitch. That was honestly such a lifesaver.

Lastly, I was showing my unfinished film to one of my friends named Liz so that she could critique it.   She helped me figure out how to incorporate the voice over of Winola in the least cheesy way possible. At first, the music was playing in the background when Winola utters her line. But we determined that it would be best if the music faded out. This made the Winola's voice more dramatic and abrupt.

Reflecting on my project makes me proud because I now realize how much work that I put into this project. Blood, Sweat, and many many tears.

How we plan to distribute our film......

When people see our film, we want them to be in awe of the relationship between Alice and Winola. It is a relationship that audiences have never seen before, and we think that people will find it sweet and wholesome. We want our audience to connect with the characters, whether it be them seeing their current self in the characters or themselves when they were children. Our film will be full of childish wonder. Thus, we believe that we have two target audiences. Our primary target audience is children between the ages of 8-16.  Our secondary target audience are adults aged 30-50(many probably the parents of children seeing the film). Children love the mystical element that the fantasy genre is oh so famous for.  The 2010  Tim Burton Film "Alice in wonderland" did approximately 1.025 billion dollars in the box office. It was labeled as a fantasy/adventure. This film was targeted to adults and children as the fantasy drama is something that kids and their parents will enjoy. We can assume that Alice in Wonderland was a film that many kids went to with their parents. With a total lifetime gross so large, we can infer that lots of people enjoyed and watched the film. I do not think our film will come even close to that enormous number since we lack a famous and noteworthy director like Tim Burton and a budget of 200 million dollars. Yet, I think it goes to show that films like this can attract both kids, tweens, teens, and adults.

Sadly, we were not allocated 200 million dollars to make our film, or even 10,000 dollars to be matter of fact. Since our film is so low budget and we do not have many connections with high profile Hollywood individuals , we think that the best plan to distribute our film would be to first start out at film festivals. We could first show our film at local festivals such as the Florida Film Festival and then maybe show our film at some higher profile festivals. We don't know if our film will garner enough attention to make it to box office, so we think that it would be smart to release our film on Netflix. According to CNN, Netflix has 139 million paying subscribers as of January 2019. That is more than Hulu, SlingTv, and Youtube TV combined. We will also create a website for our film and social media pages so that we could create a bit of media buzz.

Embracing Genre Charcateristics and Inspiring our Audience

The Giving Tree

Pocahontas

Our film Winola is going to be a fantasy drama. Since our film includes a mystical element, our talking tree Winola, it is established that our story is not something that any of us would encounter in our day to day lives. As for the drama side, we are going to be creating characters that the audience can empathize with and  include lots of tension with an even intenser climax. Our goal as film makers will be to move the audience emotionally and make them feel a specific way after seeing our film. Our story will be heart-wrenching and unique. There have been similar stories such as Pocahontas(Pocahontas goes to Mother Willow to seek spiritual advice), and The Giving Tree( A boy forms a relationship with a tree as it provides him with many necessities), but our film will focus on the issue of deforestation. We want our audience to think about the role that they play in nature. Deforestation is a very serious issue that is effecting the world globally. According to the World Wildlife Fund, we are losing "18.7 million acres of forests annually, equivalent to 27 soccer fields every minute." This amount is astronomical and devastating at the same time. Maybe after seeing our film, people will be able to reflect upon their past relationship with nature. We need trees as they provide oxygen for us to breathe and clean out the carbon that we exhale. (I took biology honors I know a thing or two about photosynthesis). Even if only one person decides to change their habits after watching our film, we will be more than delighted. 



We also want to represent the idea that anyone can provoke change, regardless of their sex, gender, age, race, sexuality. Our protagonist Alice is a teenager. Many teens feel as if they cannot make a difference in society because of their age and the fact that they cannot vote. However, in our film we are going to show that anyone can make a difference. She is up against a large corporation, but she is not threatened by them. She stands up for what she believes and after all of her efforts, she ends up stopping the corporation from tearing down the land where Winola grows. We want our film to inspire young girls and show them that they can make a difference. 

A 19 year old woman named Emma Gonzalez who is an advocate for gun control

Deforestation

References:
https://www.filmsite.org/fantasyfilms.html
https://www.filmsite.org/dramafilms.html

OUR FILM WINOLA

Hey everyone! Andrea and I finally came up with a title for our film: WINOLA. Winola is the name of our talking tree. We chose the name Winola because it means "charming friend". Throughout our film, our main character, Alice, will be developing a relationship with Winola.


Eessentially, in our film we are developing this relationship between girl and tree over the course of 3 years - starting when Alice is 12/13. We want Mother Winola to be a grandmother type figure to Alice so we would depict Alice coming to visit the tree everyday and she’d tell the tree about her day and her problems and Mother Winola would give Alice advice and explain to Alice her role as a human in nature. The central conflict introduced in the film would be that Alice finds out the area where Mother Winola resides will be destroyed and deforested to make room for a big corporate factory. After learning about and spending so much time in nature with her tree, Alice knows she must put a stop to this. Mother Winola who always has the right advice, tells Alice that she should not get involved since she is just a child and has no real power in this situation; for the first time ever Alice goes against what Mother Winola tells her and attempts to put an end to the destruction of her favorite place. In the end she succeeds and begins an initiative to protect the environment and plant more trees, Alice proves to herself, Mother Winola, and everyone else that it doesn’t matter how old or young you are, anyone can provoke change.

WINOLA