What Goes on a Film Website?

Hey guys! Alongside with our short film, Nick and I also have to create a postcard and website for the film. I got sick yesterday and I wasn’t able to go to school today either so I decided to do some research on film websites. 

An easy resource that I found to build a website is through wix.com. 

Wix.com allows anyone to create a website for free and even provides some templates based on the purpose of the website. As seen above, these are just a few of the many templates they provide. However, before I even get into creating the website, what content is needed to promote the film through this site?

http://www.crazyrichasiansmovie.com/

https://www.backtothefuture.com/

The very first thing I noticed with both of these websites is that they have a pop-up page which immediately plays the movie’s trailer. This gets the viewer’s attention and shows them what the film is about. Within both the websites I found, they either have a slideshow of pictures or a short video highlighting some scenes from the film. These pictures/videos act as the entire background of the website on the home page. Typically, the title of the film is in large text either in the center of the page or somewhere highly noticeable. Also, the film rating (PG, PG13, R, etc) is normally shown on the home page in small text at the bottom left or right hand corner. Another element of the home page is that it typically has the production company’s logo included as well. 

Both websites have various tabs. Within the Crazy Rich Asians website, a synopsis, gallery page, and “buy now” tab are provided (as shown above). There are also two more tabs, “original motion picture score” and “songs from the film”, which redirect the user to different websites in order to stream or download the music.

Within the Back to the Future website (as shown above), the tabs include: "the movies", "the cast", "bonus features", “collectibles” and more. When researching both of these websites, it is evident that as time as progressed, websites have become easier to navigate and more engaging to the viewer. The tabs are located on a separate page on the Back to the Future website on a plain black background, as opposed to the Crazy Rich Asians website where the viewer could see the tab options from the home page or pull them from the left side if their screen is minimized.

Overall, the Crazy Rich Asian website was more engaging, but it was helpful to see what elements are typically used on film websites. This definitely helped me gain a better understanding as to what to include on our website for our short film. Until next time…

                                                                                                                    ~rtmedias

What are Linear & Non-Linear Narratives?

Hey guys! As I discussed a few posts ago, Nick and I were thinking of doing an alternative narrative piece for our short film. However, some of you may still be asking what does that mean? 

I found a video, which I attached below, that thoroughly explains the difference between linear and non-linear narratives. The narrator uses cheesy jokes throughout the video, but it keeps your attention. I highly recommend checking it out!

Around the fourth minute of the video, Mr Tom starts to talk about non-linear narratives and that’s when he caught my attention. In one of my previous blogs, I talked about some potential ideas we had for our short film. Although we are still undecided, this video immediately reminded me of the idea Nick had about the person with Alzheimer’s. Specifically when Mr Tom was talking about the movie, Forrest Gump. 

That’s a really similar idea Nick and I came up with! We wanted to follow the parallel structure of a man/woman who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at a relatively young age compared to their life as an older person, however the beginning and end of the film would somehow relate to each other. By having it explained throughout this video, it helped clear up a few questions I had settled in my mind and also provided more examples of non-linear films as well. I found this video to be really helpful and I hope it helped you guys further understand linear vs non-linear narratives. Until next time…

                                                                                                                     ~rtmedias

Sources:

https://media.giphy.com/media/5aLrlDiJPMPFS/source.gif

A Thorough Introduction

Hey guys! Before I got too far along in this project, I wanted to properly reintroduce myself and give you guys a little update on my life. I also want to introduce my partner for this upcoming short film!

In case you guys are new here, I’m Rhea Thomas! That picture above, yeah that’s me! I’m currently a senior in high school and very involved in my school’s television production program. Last year, I served as the Vice President of Membership and this year, I have had the opportunity to be the President! I am also an Associate Producer of our weekly show, Aftershock. Since I was in middle school, my two brothers and I used to argue over who gets to use my dad’s DSLR camera when we went on family vacations. Being in fifth grade, I barely knew how to use it; however since my brothers wanted it, that meant I did too! Since I was little, I’ve always had a passion for media. I used to take my parents’ phones and record random videos of my dog or family members. I didn’t realize that these goofy videos would make me realize what I wanted to pursue as I got older. Throughout 7th and 8th grade, I was apart of the film program at my middle school and as I got into high school, I joined CBTV, my school’s television production program. If you would have asked me what I wanted to become in 9th grade, I had no idea and I never imagined I would become as involved in CBTV as I am. I just knew I loved the idea of creating these tangible memories and showing off my creativity which is what lead my to join AICE Media Studies AS last year. Over the past year or so is when I finally decided I wanted to pursue a career involving media in college and beyond. I’m so excited to be studying at the University of Central Florida for the next four years and I can’t wait to see what the future holds!

Right above is Nicholas Ramos, but I like to call him Ramos. Nick is also a senior in high school and is in CBTV. Nick and I have been close friends for about 3 years now and we met solely from our television production program. Nick serves as the Equipment Manager for our club, so we are used to working hand-in-hand. Ramos and I have competed in tv competitions together in the past and we will be again this upcoming April for a state competition. Although he is still unsure of what he wants to be studying in college, he knows he has a passion for both film and live broadcasting. I’m so glad to be working with him on this short film. Nick is insanely talented! Through our tv production program, I’ve seen what he’s been able to do in terms of graphics and even video concepts and I can’t wait to see what we can produce together. 

                  

Be sure to keep following me along on this journey of creating our short film together! 

                                                                                                                    ~rtmedias

Brainstorming!

Hey guys! As you heard from my last post, Nick and I met up yesterday and began throwing some ideas to one another. From the start, we learned that we are both want to create an alternative narrative/nonlinear film, essentially meaning the some scenes wouldn’t be placed in order. We used the app “Notes” on our iPhones to sketch out a few of our ideas.

An example of a nonlinear film. This is a draft of how the film, Eternal Sunshine is laid out.

We like the idea of making the viewer think in order to full understand the story, instead of typical films that usually spoon-feed the story to the viewer. Funny enough, we started talking about some genres and the main one we both liked was the Psychological Thriller genre. If you haven’t been following me for a while, you may not understand that this is also the same genre in which I used to create my film opening last year for AICE Media Studies AS! Be sure to check out my film opening from last year :) 

Like I was saying before, Nick had a list of a few ideas he’s thought of over time and as he started telling me each idea, I would add onto it or come up with a few different concepts. It all started with the idea of “stuck in repeat”. This could either mean that the viewer feels as if the film is being replayed due to a nonlinear storyline or the actual characters themselves are stuck in some sort of warped time zone where they are constantly repeating their actions. This was the first idea that Nick told me about and the idea he had was that it followed a male figure who killed someone. The first and last scenes of the film would be the same, however the rest of the film is used to develop the story, and at the end, the viewer realizes the male figure is the one who was killed. Shown below is a sketch of the layout for the film. The yellow circle represents the connection between the first and last scene.

As we were discussing this, we thought that this “stuck in repeat” idea is typically leads to a death within a film and we wanted to do something that hasn’t been seen before. We discussed creating a more light-hearted version of the stuck in repeat storyline but we couldn’t come up with any ideas on the spot so we moved onto the next idea.

The second main concept Nick had was surrounding the idea of ignorance is bliss. Essentially, the story would follow a young man/woman who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease from a young age. However, they become more content as their memories fade when they age. I really liked this idea and as we continued to discuss this type of film, we began to think of how we might be able to tie in this idea with the first one of “stuck in repeat”. We thought of showing a person’s growth and development of this disease over their lifetime and connecting the first and last scenes together. 

We kept talking about the ignorance is bliss idea and we began relating it back to the film, Momento. Within Momento, the black and white scenes were in chronological order and the scenes in color were played in the reverse order. Then I thought of creating a parallel structure of Nick’s idea of the person with Alzheimer's disease. As shown below, we could alternate scenes between the young and older versions of that person and tie in that idea of being content as their memories faded at the end.

Although these ideas aren’t fully put together, these 2 main ideas helped us come up with numerous alternate takes on them which opened up our optioned even more. As of now, we are still undecided as to which idea we want to use as our short film but I liked our thought process. Comment down below which idea is your favorite! 

                                                                                                                    ~rtmedias

Scheduling!

Hey guys! I’m finally back and we are starting to work on our short film! I can’t wait to see what my partner, Nick, and I come up with! In the mean time, Nick and I have created a schedule in which we are going to try our best to follow. 

Both Nick and myself are on the Executive Board for our television production program at school so we have a packed calendar. I serve as the President and Nick is the Equipment Manager. For the next two and a half months, it’s super busy for both of us as we continuously have meetings, practices for upcoming tv competitions (This year we are going to Washington DC! I’m so excited!) and Nick also has a job. Between all of this, we managed to create time for us to work on our project together so it’s important for us to try and stick to the schedule as much as possible! 

Here is a look at my schedule till the month of April: 

February

March

April

As you can see on the schedule, Nick and I already started to brainstorm ideas at our first meeting yesterday! Be sure to stick around for my next post to see some of our ideas :) 

                                                                                                                      ~rtmedias