CCR Prep

 CCR Question #1

    Once the editing is complete for my film opening, I will begin making my two separate Creative Critical Reflection (CCR) videos. Question one is "How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?"

    So far, I am deciding between how I want to execute my videos such as creating a podcast, talk show, doing an interview style or other options but here is my idea for how I can answer question 1 based on research and my own film:

    My film "The Seventh Lie" fits under the thriller genre and uses a variety of different thriller conventions such as scenes full of tension, unexpected twists, viewers question and analyze for clues, and has manipulation or obsessive themes involved. The great thing about the thriller genre is the characters are often regular people just put into stressful situations, which makes it easier for viewers to relate to such circumstances. In this case Verena is a normal teenage girl going through the 7 stages of grief, after her brother Janus passes away. Unaware and numb to the feeling eventually (this is where our film begins) a stranger serves as a replacement for her brother. However, since she and her family are so far gone and lost in their grief their family is living a lie and aren't aware that the boy sitting next to them at dinner every night isn't their real brother or son, he is just a replacement.

    Some common thriller conventions include the vibrant atmosphere, the MacGuffin, the inciting crime, a protagonist with a special gift, a ticking clock, the protagonist pursuing an investigation, high stakes, elements of suspense, and unyielding antagonist, the final victim, and justice or injustice.

    This idea not only uses thriller conventions it represents a bigger issue in society, grief. There is a large portion of society that can relate to the feelings of grief and loss whether it is losing a loved one, a pet, going through a breakup, losing a career, or even leaving behind friends. Grief is experienced in many different ways which is why my partner and I chose such a heavy societal topic, this film opening can bring these strong situations into the light but still while incorporating thriller genre conventions.

    Often times people don't know how to deal with grief or are silenced. We decided to use this in our film opening when the replacement Janus is being praised by Verena's mother when she says "Oh sweetie, Janus would never lie, eat your dinner!" Here Janus, the antagonist of our film, is being praised which is a common trope we see in thrillers. This is a clear example of how my partner and I decided to not challenge these conventions and instead stick to thriller conventions. 

Source:

Chase, J. (n.d.). Genre conventions: How to satisfy suspense readers by meeting expectations. The Write Practice.

Sørup, J. (2021, May 13). Film Genre Analysis: What Sets Horror and Thriller Apart? FilmDaft.

Breaux, K. (2025, July 15). Grief is a social issue: When the world silences our pain. Red Bird Ministries.

    

Editing Part 2

   Editing Titles/Logo

    During the 2nd filming day, as we were shooting our establishing shot of the family's house I had the idea to do a tilt up from the sidewalk towards the house and then continue upward into the sky. The reason I thought of this was because I wanted to place the title "The Seventh Lie" in the sky directly over the house.

    This is how it turned out:

    My partner Manuela was able to edit the title onto the screen by removing the background and adding it to the V2 track, that way it would only show over the video, making it clearly visible in the clip. By incorporating the title onto the establishing shot we are showing where the action is taking place, which is a household setting. By emphasizing on the title "The Seventh Lie" over the house, it hints at the lie taking over their lives and almost feeling trapped in their own home because this is where the replacement Janus and Verena's family currently live for the duration of the film opening. 

    In class, when we created our production company logo we decided we wanted it over the record player, so here it is placed by repeating the process of incorporating the title on screen. This is the last part of the opening credit scene, so we wanted it to be dramatic so the lighting and soon to be edited in classical music add to that.

Editing Process

 The Editing Begins

    Editing is a crucial part of the production of a film because editing is a time consuming and detailed process of choosing, cutting, and putting together different clips to form the start to finish of a film. In this case, for our opening my partner and I are in charge of everything including coming up with a story, scripting it, filming it, and now we have reached the editing portion. Editing doesn't only involve putting clips together, it involves creating foley sounds, and finding the perfect non copyrighted music that fits our thriller opening. With editing, we want to make sure all of our hard work during the filming process pays off through our learned editing techniques within the Aice Media course.

    The storyline of any film can be told through it's dialogue, characters, lighting, and mise-en-scene elements, but without the editing the story can't be fully developed with those moments of tension, control, and even pace of certain scenes. This stage of editing allows my partner and I to really set the scene of our film, enhancing the mood, tone, and message of our story. 

    Since yesterday, we have put together all the filming material together onto a digital program that we will be using to edit called Adobe Premier Pro. We found that this may be the easiest editing platform to use since we had used it previously for another project, and became familiar with the software. This software works really well for editing long videos, so it will be a great resource to use for our film opening "The Seventh Lie."

    My personal goal with this editing process is to get a better understanding of what it means to be an actual editor of a film, and learn to appreciate them whenever I watch a movie or show, noticing the techniques fitting together like every puzzle piece to create the final masterpiece.

Source:

American Film Institute. (2023, May 31). What is film editing and what does a film editor do? AFI.

Filming!

Filming

    Update its week six, and we finally got actors to begin filming this week!! I am super excited because the scenes my partner and I filmed actually came out really nice, and I am starting to see our vision come to life which is a great feeling. We started filming on Tuesday, February 24th and continued filming today Thursday, February 26th. So far, we have all the main scenes done. All we are missing for our film opening is to include the picture frames of the sibling photos of Verena and Janus. 

    We came to the realization this is something that will get done this weekend or the beginning of next week because we were only able to take all of those pictures today since my friend, who I recruited to be the original brother Janus, was only available today. However, I don't see this as a problem because this is something Manuela and I can do on our own and won't take long.

Day 1 of filming:  

    We met up around 6pm this day that way it would be dark outside for the dinner scene. Instead of going in order of filming, we focused on the dinner scene because we weren't sure if our actors (playing Verena and Janus) could film another day this week, that way we got the dialogue and main portion of our opening out of the way. For the actual filming process, we borrowed a tripod to stabilize the dinner scene, which turned out great. 

Here is a picture of us setting up the table with props like the cooked mac and cheese, Publix apple pie, candles from my house, flowers, table cloth, bowls, and utensils.

Here is me going over the dialogue with our actors. I wanted them to understand how we envisioned the scene to go, specifically with facial expressions and certain pauses so this was an important part of the process.

    Overall, this filming day was successful and spend a couple hours filming. This day we didn't rush the process, which allowed us to play around with different lightning and angle techniques.

Here are some more behind the scenes photos I took:

Day 2 of filming:

    Today, we finished the rest of the scenes and took a bunch of different photos for Verena and Janus. Today my friend came to take pictures pretending to be the Verena's actual brother who had passed away. That way in our credit scene we have two different "brothers" and perspectives flashing back and forth between photos, creating that suspense that the thriller genre is known for.

Here we also filmed a short clip of the house for our establishing shot, this is where we will be putting our title "The Seventh Lie." 

Both days were successful in filming and I can't wait to start editing!

Props

  Extra Props

    I know I've discussed props before in a previous blog, but here are actual examples of the types of props that will be placed in the dinner scene with the family.

    These are some bowls in which the family will eat their home cooked Mac and Cheese, and also add extra accents of blue to the film. This film’s purpose is not to show an entire film and storyline, but we do know that Verena is our main character and as she develops the truth of her brother Janus not being the real Janus we would notice throughout the film is the color blue, representing honesty that reflects Verena’s character or even seen as foreshadowing for overcoming grief.

    We can place flowers like this around the house since Verena’s mom is a big gardener and would likely have many flowers inside her home as well, adding an extra touch of realism to the film. We could potentially place it on the table but it may block our actors mid conversation, unless we find a way for it to not block anyone’s view.

    

    For their actual dinner, I suggested we buy the microwaveable Mac and cheese boxes, because it is just to show food on the table as they “eat.” It takes minimal effort to make that way we don’t waste anymore time when we begin filming and already come in a pack of 4 which is the perfect amount.

    Unfortunately, if I am being completely honest my partner and I ran into our first couple of obstacles. One being our casting, which I mentioned in my last blog, and another being we haven’t made the picture frame props for the film yet since the picture frames need to be of our actors. Our goal for next week is to get started on those!

Casting

 Casting Process    

    As much as I would love to show pictures of our cast list or other known as actors for our film, my partner and I have had many issues regarding our cast. So, let me break down the process for you.

    Our plan was to get people who could act and play the roles of Verena and Janus. This is because in our script we have dialogue, which is difficult for it to come out good if the actors are not fully committed or aren't trained for this. We need this dialogue to sound realistic and not scripted. So, my first thought was "Oh I know some people in drama that may play these roles well, if they're able to." I started texting my friends in drama if they or anyone else would be interested in playing either the girl part, Verena, or the guy part Janus. We had options to start with but they were very inconsistent and uncertain if they would be able to. 

    After searching for actors for days maybe even weeks my friend texted me this:

At my school, the drama class is currently working on plays for the beginning of March. This means they would barely have time to help us film our portfolio project and were less likely to agree to helping us due to their own responsibilities at the moment. We didn't want to pressure anyone since that is their commitment, however now we are somewhat stuck on what to do. This is our first major obstacle, which I know we will overcome, but I'm worried we're running out of weeks to film. 

    If I am being completely honest I feel like we are a little bit behind but good news is that we did end up finding our Janus that will act in our film. Now for filming days we are scheduling them out beforehand, that way it works for everybody in the group. I’m deciding to take this obstacle we are facing as a lesson, and continue to move forward with this process.

Location Scouting

Final Location

    Hey there for our opening film idea we are filming a family dinner which typically takes place is a household setting, so this is what we were thinking for locations!

    Originally we thought out of the box, and considered renting out an AirBnb, a place where people rent out a home/room where travelers usually go to visit for a short period of time. We thought this would be a good idea to get the "best quality" filming since the houses are usually very nice, however we came to the conclusion this would have its obstacles such as pricing, choosing dates, and even distance so we scratched that idea. We also quickly realized this would not be ideal since we would not be able to film all of the footage in one day. Here is an example of an AirBnb house:

This is clearly one on the more expensive side because of its size and amenities included such as a mini golf course, hot tub, games and more.

    I suggested we use either one of our houses or ask to film at a friends house. Ultimately, we decided on Manuela's dinning room for our film opening since it would be more convenient, free, and perfectly suitable for our film opening "The Seventh Lie." 

This is Manuela's dinning room where we will be filming the main part of the opening.

    Overall, this wasn't a hard decision considering her house has a long dinner table that could fit all of our actors, and places we can film with dimmer lighting. We plan on playing around with different lighting techniques so that it isn't so bright when filming this dinner scene.

Production Company Logo

Static Studios Logo

    Hey, so this week my main goal is to come up with a production company logo, find/make props, and begin filming! In this blog post I will talk about the process of coming up with a production logo. To start off, I used someone's past project as inspiration for ideas on how to incorporate a production company for this project. 

  When coming up with the company production logo, my partner and I looked online for some inspiration on potential names. We started off with deciding between names that end in production, studios, pictures, and films. We also spent time envisioning what we wanted our brand to look like, and we pictured a flexible name for different film types but also focused on our thriller genre. So we came up with "Static Studios."

    Once we decided on "Static Studios" we played around with different fonts using Canva that we thought was adaptable to suit multiple films.

This is a picture I used as reference when thinking of how to construct our production company logo.

    
    These are some ideas my partner and I came up with using Canva. The idea was to keep it simple but also fit a thriller theme, so having a less harsh static background compliments the thriller style we are going for while still keeping the design clean. Our final production company logo is going to be the first picture and once we start the editing process, we will use a glitch effect for the letters that gives off that static sensation we are going for.

Source:

Saint Malo, D. (2022, February 27). Film production company names — Creative ideas & examples. StudioBinder. 

Audio

The Power of Audio

    Audio shapes the way a film is told and experienced as, helping to create connections with the narrative, and establish tone/tension. Sounds, music, and even dialogue make the scenes feel more alive by producing emotions, and creating a new world for the audience to be apart of.

 
    Audio as part of "The Seventh Lie" will be used to contrast good and evil. For instance, we will use a record player to play classical diegetic music as we see the mother begins to place the needle on the record player very gently during the credit scene, before the dinner. The contrast will be the classical music playing over the pictures of the happy family and then suddenly the music changes to dark ominous music when showing the unsettling and eerie pictures of this replacement Janus. Using audio here serves as a tool to foreshadow the upcoming events in the plot of our film.

The record player:

    One way audio is used in films is through dialogue of characters. We will be including dialogue within our film opening so it is very important that the audio comes out clear. We figured using mini microphones that can attach to our character's clothing was the best way to get good sound quality in our film. 

    Other sounds that will be heard in our film are diegetic sounds like footsteps, birds chirping, wind, utensils being used, and the dinner table conversation. By creating these sounds using foley this will increase the realistic feel for our film and connect with our audience more than if there was zero use of audio.

Source:

C‑I Studios. (n.d.). The role of audio in film: Understanding its importance and impact.

Costumes

Wardrobe Ideas

Verena's Costume:

     Costume design is used as a narrative device to convey themes, shape characters, reflect societal norms, and set the style or tone of a film. In this case, for our opening film we decided on a couple outfit ideas for Verena and Janus that reflect their character's mood. We wanted to subtly use fashion as symbolism for mirroring the characters true intentions throughout the film.

    These are a couple of pictures I found on Pinterest that spoke to me for Verena's outfit inspiration to truly capture her personality. Including accessories like the bow for example, is something Verena will be wearing to give off a gentle look of innocence and sweetness. All of these pictures have blue in them to again stand for truth and honesty.

Janus's Costume:

    Janus on the other hand, will be a clear reflection of his threatening intentions. To make this film opening have more meaningful and engaging aspects then just the plot we have decided to put a lot of thought into every aspect of this film production, including costumes. So, by dressing Janus in only dark colors like red and black the audience may pick up on his ominous look and behaviors from the start. Using dark colors is a common tactic in filmmaking for a villain.

    Although the parents faces won't be shown in the film, their outfits will be seen. The mom will be wearing a dress and the father will wear a button up shirt since he just came back from working. Including their outfits will set the tone of the film to be more realistic, rather than too theatrical as seen in movies with a clear antagonist such as Darth Vader in Star Wars. 

Sources:

Design & Living Club. (2024, March 6). Fashion in film: Costume design as narrative device and cultural reflection. Design & Living Club.

Set, Lighting, and Props

Set coming to life

    "The Seventh Lie" will take place in a location set at a dinning table in a house. Another scene will take place upstairs in a hallway. We chose this home location since we want our film to feel realistic. 

Example of how we want the dinner table to look (Set)

    Since our film opening is a thriller we are going to be using a lot of low key lighting to intensify scenes. Low Key lighting is used to emphasize important parts of the film, and tell the audience a story. Often used in horror films, is the use of shadows which is an example of how producers tell a story in unnoticeable ways to build drama.

    One way to use low key lighting is in the upstairs hallway with minimal light coming through the bathroom door that Verena is going to pass by and see Janus drawing a mark on his face (copying real Janus's birthmark he had). Using low key lighting for this part is essential in creating that mystery and building drama towards Janus and his negative intentions with this family. I think it should be somewhat similar to this picture:

(Lighting)

    As for the props, they will be more on the simpler side since our set is in a home. Some props will include regular furniture in a household setting, picture frames to show a mixture of joyous family pictures with unsettling pictures of this replacement Janus. To make it noticeable he is a danger to the family and the antagonist of this film we are going to play dark music over the pictures with him in it and switch the music back to classical music for the picture frames with the original Janus. Props are important in every film because they contribute to making the scene feel real, and most times there is a main prop that is important for the plot's development or sometimes props are just made to make the scene feel realistic. Our main props are going to be picture frames, and we will also show Verena in her room near the end of our film opening holding her phone in her room. 

Sources:

Pavlov, A. (n.d.). 5 non-obvious ways you should be using LED lights on set. Videomaker.
Neill, J. (2025, June 24). Beginners guide to low key lighting in filmmaking. iFilmThings.

Character Development

Meet Verena and Janus

    Verena is the protagonist in our thriller film opening "The Seventh Lie," and Janus is the antagonist of the film. However, for the film opening this family just sees "Janus" as their "brother" or "son" but little do they realize this isn't their real brother/son. This is because they are grieving the real Janus as he passed away and are unable to accept the harsh reality of their situation.

    As I mentioned in a previous blog coming up with their names was very intentional because we intend this film opening to be as symbolic as possible since "The Seventh Lie" is about about going through the 7 stages of grief with a dramatic plot twist.

    We originally wanted a pretty name for Verena but then quickly switched it to the idea of her name meaning truth and honesty. For Janus, we both agreed we didn't particularly love his name but the symbolism behind it was too good to pass up. His name is "depicted as having two faces looking in opposite directions." This shows his "two faces" as the original Janus and now him, who is acting like him to fit into their family.

    To get a deeper understanding of who our characters are Manuela and I created Vision boards for both of them which will be shown through props and even costuming design once we begin filming.

Creating Verena's personality

Here is Verena's Vision Board that dives deeper into her aesthetic. 

    My partner and I decided to create a vision board that shows a little more to her personality and social identity than what our film opening would show. We created Verena to be a down to earth, friendly, and honest 16 year old teenager. We decided we wanted to give her a color that represents honesty and the internet said blue is commonly associated with themes of trust, power, confidence, and purpose which is exactly how we envisioned Verena to be. So, using this information we gave her a blue aesthetic to be symbolic. Some of the things she likes come from her mother's interests as well such as gardening and her love for music. 

Creating Janus's personality

    Janus on the other hand, was a little more complicated to come up with because we were deciding between making the vibe of the original Janus or the fake replacement of Janus that is now living with Verena and her family as her "brother." Janus was 18 years old, enjoyed playing sports like basketball, and was always with his friends. 

Sources:

Swift Publisher. (n.d.). Marketing psychology of colors: The importance of color meanings.

 

Media Theory

 Stuart Hall Reception

    The Stuart Hall Reception theory in media studies is the idea of "Encoding and Decoding Television Discourse" which I think is a great way to put it. This media theory has to do with creation from a production and then the analysis/interpretation from the audience.

- "Encoding- The encoded messages usually contains shared rules and symbols common with other people. So the (encoder) sender has to think how the receiver will perceive the message." 
- "Decoding- Would be a successful deliver only if the message sent by the encoder is understood completely to its content as it was intended."

    This media theory deals with an audience perceiving the content similarly or differently than the creator meant to. In this case, my partner and I would like to incorporate this media theory into our own film project since our plot may be somewhat confusing to some. We would love for people to catch onto the idea that the family being filmed (actors) is going through the stages of grief, starting with denial. The idea we had for our film opening isn't about the boy "Janus" it's about how deep grief can affect loved ones and the idea of what you have to go through for survival. However, an audience may perceive this idea differently based on their own life experiences, culture, age, beliefs, and even mood at the time of watching the film. 

    This theory will guide how we will choose to film particular scenes like the dinner table. As some may see it as a normal interaction between siblings others may pick up on the deeper meaning behind the dialogue between the characters. We want this film to showcase different viewpoints and show how every viewer can interpret this film differently based on their life circumstances.

Sources:
Revision World. (n.d.). Reception theory. Revision World. 
Media‑Studies.com. (n.d.). Stuart Hall’s reception theory.
CommunicationTheory.org. (n.d.). Reception theory.

Screenplay

 My final Script

    Before starting my screenplay or script I decided to research what a screenplay is and how to write one. A screenplay is the written script for a film, in this case the opening of my film story which includes dialogue (characters speaking) and action lines (scene description). This script my partner and I conducted during class was a huge step towards this project because it finalizes and organizes the ideas we originally had in our heads onto paper. This way, we have a strict plan to follow when we begin filming in order to get our message across and everything can run smoothly.
  

    It took us two class periods to come up with this script because we already had the plot idea of our film. We came up with ways to create symbolic meanings behind certain scenes, such as the dinner table, and even character names as mentioned in my previous blog about our project idea.  

This image was helpful when writing our script to the film opening.

Click here for script!

Source:

Heckmann, C. (2024, December 17). Screenplay opening scene examples — 6 ways to begin a script. StudioBinder. 

Project Idea

Final Decision for "The Seventh Lie"

    I am excited to share this idea because there are a lot of deep meanings behind this 2 minute film opening, that my partner and I came up with.

    Our plot revolves around the 7 stages of grief, beginning with denial. However, since our genre is thriller we thought it would be a great idea to throw in a twist. This film is about a family who went through the death of their son, but after some time has passed they seemed to grow numb to the sensation and randomly started accepting this random stranger in their home as their "son," serving as a replacement for their real son Janus. This family is unaware that they are doing this because their grief is so deep and strong, that they feel some sort of comfort with this boy who is pretending to be Janus. Our film will begin with Verena (the protagonist/sister) noticing something is off with Janus before dinner and during dinner at their house but her parents dismiss this.

    Eventually, Verena would be the only one coming to a realization but we will not see the complete reaction from her when she realizes this isn't her brother since that would be developed later on. The reason we wouldn't show this from the beginning is because from what I've learned about thrillers in my research there is a plot twist around the middle of the film so it wouldn't make sense to start it off like that. However, if we were to film the end, the family's issues to accept their son is dead would be resolved as they find out the boy that has been living with them isn't their real son Janus. This would then reflect the seventh stage of grief: acceptance

We even gave them names that have special meanings behind them:
- Verena (main character/sister) is depicted as "true"
Since Verena would be the one to find out, we decided her name should represent truth, as she is staying true to herself and family. 
- Janus (character/"brother) is "depicted as having two faces looking in opposite directions"
Janus's "two faces" would be represented as the original brother and the replacement one.

    This protagonist in our film, Verena, will ultimately deal with person vs. self conflict because she will begin to struggle with the feeling of not being seen or heard by her own family as she discovers Janus isn't her real brother and her parents don't believe her at first since they are still grieving him subconsciously. 

    As you will see in my script, later on the dialogue is an important part of the plot, showing the beginning of conflict within the characters in our film!

    

Campbell, M. (n.d.). Verena. Behind the Name.
Campbell, M. (n.d.). Janus. Behind the Name. 

Group Meeting

1st Group Meeting

    A major part of Manuela and I's week 3 is having a complete idea of what we wish to film for this opening. Before completely committing to it, it's also important to share this idea with other classmates to see what they think, and to take any constructive criticism or suggestions they may have for how we could improve/reapproach our idea. A great way to do this is through a group meeting. So, on Monday in class my teacher placed everyone equally into different groups. I was chosen to be in a group of 7, including me, Macie, Kain, Nicole, Ava, Caesar, and Sofia.
   
    In this group meeting we decided to go one by one and explain our film opening ideas, some of our genres included Thriller, Drama, and Coming of Age. Then we proceeded to mention any obstacles we may be facing during this time of planning and free to any suggestions. For instance, Nicole wanted to include the use of substances in her film but wasn't sure if that was appropriate to use, suggesting a potential obstacle in the development of her plot. However, this meeting was very helpful because we also got a better image of how other students do their blogs and research since we each shared our URL's with one another.

Macie's blog-

    Macie was the first person to introduce her idea, and she seemed to have her plot mostly figured out, and shared how she wanted it to be really creative and not follow the common tropes of a thriller such as a missing person or stalking. I found myself a little confused on how she would plan out and film this elaborate plan of hers so I asked how exactly she planned on filming a specific part which gave me a better understanding of her plot. 

    Since me and Macie have the same genre, Thriller, I gave her the suggestion to not add too many plot twists for this project because we aren't filming the entire movie. I mentioned how when I researched the thriller genre it says there are typically plot twists in the middle of the storyline, so it doesn't make sense to start off with multiple plot twists. This was originally a problem Manuela and I had also encountered with our first idea. I'm glad she took the criticism well and completely agreed with my suggestion.

    Another example of  a blog done by a student is Sofia's blog. After Sofia explained that she wanted to base her short opening film on running I gave a suggestion of filming at the Tequesta Trace Track, a track located near my house.

Sofia's Blog-

    I enjoyed this group meeting because I was able to gain ideas from others I wouldn't have thought about to include myself, and it taught me to give honest criticism. I am really glad the people in my group liked our idea because it makes me feel like this will be a good outcome. This group meeting impacted the success of my portfolio project because I received both compliments and commentary for this idea, making it easier to improve. 

Prop/Set Design

Behind the Scenes of planning 

    In class, Manuela and I went through a couple of different plot ideas we thought would fit our chosen genre, thriller. Once we weighed out the options and began to think about the ideas from a realistic and student perspective we realized which was the best option for our circumstances.

Some of our initial thoughts/questions when choosing a plot included:

• How difficult would this be to film?
• How entertaining would this be?
• Do we have a location/set to film it?
• Do we both really like this idea?
  

    After assessing the situation, we came down to a collective decision for our plot that we both were excited to start brainstorming for. Some other things we discussed were potential prop ideas, set design, and the incorporation of our credits at the beginning of the opening. I wanted to just share a couple of our ideas before officially announcing our script!

Here is a picture Manuela took of me working on our plot idea in class!

Set Design:

    Set designs are crucial for establishing the film's aesthetic, conveying story themes, and building a space for characters to interact in naturally. Coming up with the set design comes with the planning of creating precise drawings for what we want (storyboards). Once we have our set design in place we can "dress the set" which involves including props and furniture. These should all be purposeful and placed with intention. This is important information to know because everything can be interpreted differently by audiences. For instance, choosing specific colors within a film is a great way to reflect an emotional state within the characters and can be done through set design and even props. 

    Similar to this picture we want our film opening to mainly take place at a dinner table in a household setting. The reason for this is because we are going to be filming a family eating a meal together. We wanted the filming location to be easy that way we can spend more time developing the meaning/symbolism behind the actual opening. This is an easy location to obtain since we can use either our houses or ask a friend to film at their house.

Prop ideas:

    Props are objects that can be bought or created for the development of a character or storyline. A popular example is the lightsaber in Star Wars. In our case the props will be made by us. For instance, we want to have photographs around the house of this "family" that will be used to develop the characters and plot of our film. This is something we may need to purchase supplies for to make it look more professional, such as buying picture frames or buying standard photo prints from somewhere like Walgreens for better quality. 

    We want our film opening to look professional and not just like a student production so we will try out best to make our filming location and props look as realistic to a movie as possible and consider the different types of props that we can use like hand, set, trim, personal, and breakaway props. 

Sources:

StudioBinder. (n.d.). What is set design in film? StudioBinder. 
DeGuzman, K. (2021, November 14). What is a movie prop — Types of film props & why they matter. StudioBinder.