Buying Background Actors with Friendship

 Bliss and I don’t plan of starting to film until next week during our spring break so this week we’re focusing on setting up everything we need for that. My job for the day was to figure out where we’re filming and who we are filming with. I’m already playing one of the main actors and I’ve convinced my friend to play the others. But obviously we need a lot of people to make a convincible party on screen. So I texted all of my friends who I thought would be interested and waited for responses. I asked the three following questions to every one of them. 

1) What days are you available to film this upcoming week? 

2) Would you be comfortable being on camera for a school project?

3) How much do you value our friendship?

The last question was very effective. Surprisingly I got a lot of people that texted me about it. I got 10 friends confirmed to be able to film that day and at least ten more people who said they would get back to me closer to the filming date. But the best news I got all day was when one of my friends told me about a birthday party they were having over spring break. And they were kind enough to allow us to film a lot of our B-roll for the party montage at that party. There would be a lot more people at that party than the one we would pretend to throw. Which would mean that instead of filming at angles that don’t show a lot of people to appear like it’s more crowded than it actually is would not be needed. Me and bliss are still considering if we want to take them up on their offer but it does solve a lot of issues we would have had. If we do take this offer we are going to need to cancel with all the other background actors I just texted but it may be more natural to film an actual small party than a bunch of high schoolers with no acting experience. Also we will need to go over the plan and the story board to see if the new filming location changes anything. We will also need to have our background actors on speed dial just in case the birthday party gets canceled last minute.

Looking For Music

 Right when the project started I wanted to use a song that everyone knew the lyrics to. My first choice was "The Pursuit of Happiness" by Kid Cudi with a close second being "Family Ties" by Baby Keem. But there were a lot of roadblocks that prevented us from using these songs. The biggest being one word that sounds like two, copyright. We looked into the process of how to get the song approved for our use but we realized very quickly that this isn't an overnight task. Meaning we had to look else where for music. And by music, I mean free music. So while I was on YouTube I searched for "Royalty Free Party Music" and the first thing I saw was a playlist. The playlist seen below had 35 songs and was about 120 minutes long. So my partner and I devised a plan. We both listened through the playlist skimming through the songs and choosing the ones we liked. The 3 that I liked the best was "First Love" by lvPem, "Circles" by Lensko, and "Floating" by Malik XZ9. All 3 of these songs were free to use as long as credit was given to the artist in the film. I sent these 3 over to Bliss and listened again to the ones she liked. Eventually we choose "First Love". The last step was to figure out if there was a proper way to give credit to the artist or any way they'd prefer. Which we found in the description of the video. The 2 conditions for the use was giving credit to the artist and the label that owns the music. After more research on the artist we found that the record label was named "BreakingCopyright". This was quite ironic as that's exactly what we needed.

Integrating Titles

During the party montage scene in our movie we wanted to have the titles be integrated into the scene. Integrated titles are text that appear in the setting of the movie rather than just text put on in post production. We had two plans for how we wanted to do this. The first was to track the image and photoshop our names and the other titles on chip bags, soda cans, and other things you would find at a party. The other plan was to actually change these items to have the titles on them in real life so it would all be practical. My partner choose to  explore the first option. So by default I explored the latter option. I first started by brainstorming what items I wanted to integrate the titles on. I needed 4 of these. The first thing that came to my mind was a Coca Cola Can. On a similar note I also thought of a Lays Chip bag. The last two needed a bit more creativity though. I decided to use a red solo cup and sunglasses for the other titles. With the 4 titles planned out I started to design them. The first one was the easiest where I wrote "Produced by Zack Zimmerman" on a red solo cup. But the Lays and Coca Cola ones were much tougher because I had to use their logo and photoshop off the words and put new words on them. But eventually I was able to make this work. The last step was a bit simpler than the last where I just needed to print out the words "Story By Zack Zimmerman" in small enough of a font to fit on the side of the sunglasses. After printing and gluing them all on, I sent the pictures of all 4 items to Bliss. And we decided to do the integrated titles my way because we figured it was easier and would look much better.

Mapping Out the Movie

Box 1: We start with a medium-long shot showing the two main characters, Chris and Jacob, inside the bathroom. The scene will introduce the boys. It will also have diegetic sound of someone knocking on the door and divulge of Chris saying occupied. This scene will also show the name of our studio non-integrated.

Box 2: This will continue on in the bathroom location. the dialogue between the boys will be as follows: Jacob-Are you sure about this? Chris-Dude, this is gonna make us legends. If this works, our names will go down in history. Jacob-if you say so. This scene will say the name of our production company non-integrated.

Box 3: After reassuring Jacob about the party being a good idea, Chris walks up to him, holds his hand out , and pulls him to a standing position. All of these scenes will continue in a medium long shot.

Box 4: This will show a closeup of the boys' doing their handshake. They then will more than likely say some sort of catch phrase that is to be determined later on. 

Box 5: This will return to a medium long shot of the boys opening the door. It has not been determined who will be opening the door, that will be an in-person directors choice.

Box 6: When the door opens, music from the party will play, which will continue to play until approximately box 19. The door opening will also show the party happening outside the bathroom. 

Box 7: Still in a medium-long shot the door of the bathroom closes after Jacob and Chris walk out. Revealed on the bathroom door is the title of the movie “Life Of The Party”

Box 8: This is the start of the party montage that will occur for the next 45-60 seconds. The camera will focus in with a close up on a sprite can that will be an integrated title for the music credit. The background of the shot will not be in focus but still be clearly a party. 

Box 9: In between each integrated title we will have 2-3 b roll shots showing the party. These will be of the teens dancing, talking, and having fun.

Box 10: The next integrated title will be a close up of a bag of chips on a table. On the bag it will be the editing title which will be for Bliss DeServio.

Box 11: Once again this will be B roll shots that will transition to the next title card. The specifics of this b roll are TBD at the moment.

Box 12: The third title will be 3 red solo cups that will say ”Produced by Zack Zimmerman” across them. This will be written in a sharpie to appear like the names people put on their cups to distinguish them. 

Box 13: After another thing of B-Roll the camera will get a close up of the side of someone’s sun glasses. The side will read “Story by Zack Zimmerman”.

Box 14: The following shot is an extreme long shot of the backyard with the pool in frame. On the roof of the house is one of the party attendees and they will start to run towards the edge.

Box 15: Still in an extreme long shot, that partier will then jump into the pool with a canon ball and right as they  hit the water the scene will jump to the next shot.

Box 16: The proceeding shot will be of that person in the water as they land. This will be filmed underwater and as the bubbles disappear the words “Written by Bliss Deservio” will appear.

Box 17: the Camera will then pan upwards and focus on a disco ball on the roof with all the lights still flashing in the background.

Box 18: After zooming into a Medium close up we will insert a lens flare in post production that will transition to the next scene in the morning.

Box 19: Box 18 with cut right into box 19 which will be a close up of the sun introducing the transition to the next morning. Like previously discussed, the music will cut out when box 19 begins. You will instead hear birds chirping.

Box 20: The camera will pan down slowly creating suspense. the bird noises will continue. 

Box 21: This will continue to pan, revealing a completely different setting to set up for the plot of the movie, that being of the mystery of what happened the night of the party and how they got where they are now. 

Box 22: Once the camera has completely panned down from the sky, we will see the two boys laying unconscious on the ground. they will have changed costumes and will be wearing completely oof-the-wall outfits which is represented by the feather boas in the drawing.

Box 23: In this box we will see Chris wake up, as well as sit up. This might either be a tracking close up shot of his face/body as he gets up, or may stay a medium shot of both boys.

Box 24: This will show Chris looking around and noticing that he is not where he's supposed to be. Like with the previous box, the nature of this shot is to be determined during filming.

Box 25: This will be a slight pan down to show his outfit and him noticing he's out of his normal clothing from last night. 

Box 26: This will either zoom back out to show both boys if we go with a close up or just continue to show both of them as Chris tries to wake Jacob up. 

Box 27: This will definitely be a two shot of Jacob waking/sitting up as well as Chris going back to a seated position. 

Box 28: Like Chris, Jacob will also look around and notice that they are out of place. like 23, the style will is TBD.

Box 29: Full startled by how things are, Jacob will shout "Oh shi-!" but will be cut off. this will most likely be a close up or a zoom in on his face.

Box 30: This will be a cut to Black scene where the director's name will be shown.