Planning- Project Proposal

  Hey everyone, welcome back to the blog! This week were finally transitioning to planning after researching in depth about my chosen genre and my brief- a film opening! Today I'll be covering my project proposal to give a good start and foundation to my project, so lets get straight into it!

A Little About Me

  Hi! My name is Inaya and I'm currently a junior at high school. Ever since I was young I've fell in love with the idea of creating whether it was a drawing, clothes for my dolls or making Youtube videos with my little sister for fun. My family comes from a background of immigrants from Pakistan who are gifted with many talents. My religion and culture stands to be a very important part of my life and I hope I can capture it with my film opening that I do for my brief!

Brief

  I chose to do a film while I myself love to watch movies in my downtime and enjoy the rollercoasters of emotions that I go through. Ever since I was young and even more now, I found happiness and fascination with capturing memories and using cameras, so I thought this was a great opportunity to expand my knowledge on its techniques and elements. I intially had considered a magazine as I enjoy writing but after some thinking, in recent years magazines have not been as popular as they use to be, so I wanted to do something that is still really prevalent in our day to day lives.

  Once I was set on my brief, I researched on three genres which some of I felt drawn to due to my personal taste being romance and drama and one I was intrigued by, being thriller. As I researched, I found that the style and approach that the romance genre offered was something I already find similarity with as I like writing romantic poems and listening to soft meaningful songs that have to do with romance. And as a regular fan of the romance genre it would be nice viewing something of this genre that I created.  

  Now that I had my genre, there were two sub genres I had to pick between: rom com and romantic drama. This was a hard choice as I love both sub- genres, but I had to pick one! When I got to the specific of each one, I found a main difference. Romantic dramas highlighted real issues that are deeper and have the potential to sadden the audience while rom coms may highlight some issues but on a much lighter scale and stay away from sad themes that take away from the comedy aspect of it. When making my film opening, I imagined myself making something deep and more meaningful which is why I ended up picking the romantic drama sub genre.

Target Audience

  After taking the themes, and content of most romantic dramas into consideration, I have decided that my film will be primarily for women of ages 14 to 29 who live in diverse countries that practice more western ideologies such as the US. Some similarities my audience may have with each other is that they are women who are of color and a minority and have strong cultural backgrounds and similar dynamics. Through my opening, other similarities of my targeted audience can also be observed like enjoying deep topics and seeking for meaningful relationships. Since I myself would also be my target audience, hobbies that I do and others that watch this genre are activities which explore emotions and self understanding like poetry, journaling and listening to love songs that spark connection.

Social Issues and Representation

  In my film, I want to be able to represent young South Asian women. Despite the diversity that has reached movies and film making, I still feel that in western media there is little representation overall. South Asian women are usually not considered as main leads and I want to change that. Along with this, I want to highlight social issues within traditional south asian family dynamics like sticking to people within the same culture to please family and keeping up a respected reputation within the community. This is why I want to use the trope of forbidden love to capture this reality. Some media that has done this are "Never Have I Ever" and "Ms. Marvel".                                                                                                            

Software and Hardware 

  For my brief, I want to be able to capture the best quality I can and so I will be using different types of cameras like my digital Kodack camera, maybe my Nikon camera and my iPhone. Extra lighting tools would maybe be helpful in some circumstances, but as I'm trying to keep things as realistic as possible, I will probably use natural lighting more. When it comes to hardware, I'm going to have to learn how to work with focus, and learn how to play with the elements that go into the color like exposure, ISO and more, although I can also manipulate some of these factors later with editing. As for software I plan to use Adobe Express or iMovie as both offer many features. I just need to see what software I'm more comfortable with. For stability I will be also investing in a stabilizer to make shots come out still as possible when needed.

The Game Plan:

1. Brainstorm and to Create a Scenario and Overall Story
2. Create Script
3. Mood Board
4. Storyboard
5. Location Photos and Recce Report
6. Actor List
7. Prop List          

  Some things I think I definitely want to practice are how to get familiar with the camera and the settings. Therefore I will practice taking videos and different types of shots so that when it comes to filming I am prepared. In these shots I will have different lighting so that I can learn how to adapt effectively.

  If I manage to stick to this proposal, my process of creating my brief should be straightforward. I am excited to plan this out and use my research to make informed decisions throughout this stage! This stage is where I feel like I can get creative and hopefully make something meaningful.