The Final Product: Rae

The end result, hope you all enjoy it :)

Creative Critical Reflection

A beautiful journey this was... Thank you for being a part of it :)

Click here for my Creative Critical Reflection.

Happinessss Hit Her Like a Trainnnn On a TrackkkkkkkkKKKKkKkk

Hey everyone!!!!! Soooo our film is finished :-) and I could not be happier with it! At first I was honestly so frustrated and so scared this film would not live up to our expectations but it honestly surpassed them. The film is cohesive and the shots we were able to create are so exquisite. With Jessica's editing, Vicky's lighting, Taylor's direction and my acting really brings the entire piece together. We worked so hard to get this piece not only to something worth watching, but with three second semester seniors in the group, I think we worked diligently. Honestly, going into this project I wasn't expecting to do so well because of my "senioritis" but this class showed me that there is never an end goal, only growth, because nothing will ever be perfect. I'll go more into this during my CCR but I wanted my last blog post (technically last blog post) to be about my group members and how thankful I am for deciding to work with them. I'm thankful for my teacher Mrs. Stoklosa for always always scaring me which drives me to do better and bigger things. I'm most thankful for this opportunity to create something beautiful and something I'm passionate about. You wouldn't know it, but Rae was me once upon a time. And she is peers that I have classes with, she is every adult who decided to get that four year business degree instead of applying to that arts school, she is every burning passion people have but are afraid to pursue. That's what this movie is about. Optimism. I hope you've enjoyed this journey as much as I have, and I hope you find one for yourself.


I will be finishing and posting my CCR (Creative Critical Reflection) later on today to go into full detail about what this piece is and how it was formed verbally rather than through blog posts. I hope you can watch it after the film so you understand what Rae has meant to me personally.

Find the Rae in you, and let her fly.

Very Frustrated This Sunday Morning

Hellooooo! So we changed a lot of the film opening. Basically, we're cutting out the home scene, the classroom scene, and the scene that happens after Rae being on stage. It's just going to be Rae onstage and a voiceover playing explaining the plot. What we have so far is really really cool, i'll see if I can put a video, I hope you enjoy!! But anyway, the reason I'm so frustrated is because of this CCR. My film opening isn't done and Jessica is the person editing it so I can't film my CCR until my film opening is done. Problem is: I am in North Carolina. I am going ziplining, hiking, etc. up until Wednesday and this project is due Tuesday. I am trying to plan everything around filming my CCR but it's difficult when your partners aren't answering you :)) The lesson I have learned is that don't work in partners!!! It's hard to rely on people for such an important project!!

Also, do not get me wrong I really like my project partners, we've worked really well together up until this point. It could just be stress but it's very very irritating. Anywho,  let me upload this sneak peek of what has been done so far. (we changed all the names to say Directed By, Written By, Starring, etc post  this edit)

We Finished Filminnnnn :))

Hey guys!! so we finished filming today at Jess's house and I was able to get a couple pics of us finishing up! I'll put it below. But basically, the last scene we filmed was about Rae and her friend Julia doing homework while Rae watches the Broadway show "Annie" in her room. SAT scores come out and Julia freaks out because she's been studying day & night to receive a score she doesn't think is "good." Rae gets fed up and has her freak out moment where she goes off about wanting to pursue theatre, not school. As I'm writing this I realize that a "Hard Knock Life" plays in the background of our scene and doesn't that count as copywright? Guess we'll have to deal with that in the morning :-)) I'm gonna pretend that I didn't come to this realization and that everything is going so smoothly! Anywho, here are a couple of shots of the set today and a video from my group partners because I've talked about them but here's a better chance to see who they are!

Always Researchin' Oh! And Mis-En-Scene!

HelloooOoooo hope everyone is having a fantabulous night. While I'm still researching as to how to make high school movies not so cheesy I watched the Edge of Seventeen (that I said I would watch from a previous post) and Sky High (if you don't love this movie please just stop reading now).

The Edge of Seventeen was so so so so hysterical I loved Nadine's quirkiness in the film and how mix-matched her clothing was all the time which really helped me accomplish the look I was going for for Rae. Also, I think the character development in the film was absolutely spectacular because it showed Nadine's ways from young to old and how not much has changed. The reality of the movie is what made me really inspired and I feel like Rae does that as well. Everyone has their good days and their bad days, especially teenagers who feel like it is the end of the world everyday (aka me) So yeah this movie really just made me feel redeemed about my group's piece and that we are most definitely on the right track!

I also watched Sky High, the Disney Movie and I have to say that the mis-en-scene in this movie is EVERYTHING. I lovedddddd how Disney Channel made each character a "color" through their superpower and personality traits, it made the film so much more entertaining to watch. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Sky High should win an Oscar, No, not by any stretch of imagination. But what we're aiming for in Rae is a simple, quirky movie that everyone loves & enjoys. Getting back to mis-en-scene, I decided to wear a red shirt for Rae, a denim skirt, and one black/white converse and one red converse. I like the mix-matched but more importantly I appreciate the colors because the black/white shows emphasis on how she's supposed to be (college and valedictorian and all that) and the red shoe shows her inner passion (thank you color psychology lesson! You da bomb!) for the theatre and her want to pursue it further. So yeah! that's all for today folks :) Talk to you soonnnnnnn

Day 1 Filming

Filming... Success?

Hi everyone!!! Soooo, we filmed on Thursday in the auditorium and it was very very cool! I learned how to use the spotlight which helped us capture some really cool shots of me onstage. I had to reiterate my monologue many times so that Jess could get several different angles of me while Vicky did spotlight. Tay was very helpful in directing and helping Jess as well as Vicky. We worked so well as a team & we were even able to film the following scene that follows the very beginning which was super productive!

There was this one scene where Jess was filming an over the shoulder shot and she tilted to the light which almost looked like shallow focus which was so so so so cool. I was so impressed with Jess's creativity and how she does this so well! Pleasant surprise :)

Also, last minute I decided to change my costume to have two different colored converse on and I feel that it REALLY added to the quirkiness of Rae. Also! While filming, Tay (Julia) and I (Rae) improv'd a lot of our lines which made us feel like we were actually on set doing realistic actor improv!

NEXT STEP. We are going to finish filming one scene tomorrow on Monday and the following on Tuesday. Tomorrow Jess is gonna start editing the monologue scene and hopefully on Wednesday it will be roughly all edited. On Friday, I'd like to add Rae's voiceover to see the finalized look and add some asynchronous sound :) Wish us luck!! 😊