Im back...

 Hey guys! I feel like it's been so long! What's up?? Hope you're doing amazing! Anyway it is now officially the end of Spring Break which I was honetly really sad about since once you're on vacation, you just want it to last forever, but hey it is what it is and back to reality. Anyway, you're probably wondering, did you even think about your portfolio project, the answer is yes I didn't forget about my child (that sounds weird but whatever) and yes I did film a good amount alongside my dear costar Rafi Prieto who you may have seen in my film opening last year, we won't talk about that one 😂😂 and we were able to film a few general shots, and reshoot a couple things which you'll have to stay tuned for and we are gathering up to do the ritual scene, not gonna lie it might be the hardest to film and not only shot wise since I'm planning to use a variety so it's not boring, but also actually kinda scared becuase it might actually look like we were doing an actual saenz, which we're not I promise, but the fact we're using a pentagram, a creepy American Girl Doll, and some candles might not exactly rule in my favor. Anyway, I was able to also finally make a social media page for my short, which is also part of my portfolio project, alongside the film, a postcard ad or poster whatever you wanna call it, and my social media page to promote! So I suggest you go check it out!

IDEA!!

 Hi! So I know it's kind of late and all but after we finished filming for the night, we were talking about our projects and then we had a thought, since she's doing an opening, what if we like correlated those 2 stories together? I know it's kind of a random thought but since the doll is practically possessed, what if that is like the prequel for my friend's short film opening? Because the character in her opening is named Lillie and she is crazy and pretty much has to kill others for her survival, but what if all that madness and corruption was caused by one certain thing? The doll who's spirit is the soul of an actual serial killer who needs to kill to keep her physical body alive. That's just a rough draft though and it literallly went through our heads as of a few minutes ago, and obviously can't say much since that would also spoil my short film and we dont want that. We could actually make this like a summer production and make it into something big and now I'm like very hyped at the moment. Wow the things late night talks can lead to...

But now I wanna know your thoughts, do you think it's a good idea! And if it is, would you watch it? Plz lmk in the comments and I'll see you guys next week, byeee!!

It's Filming Day!

 Hey guys! So It's filming day! I'm currently starting to write this just a few minutes before leaving to my co star's place and I actually decided to do something new and actually blog my process while filming, but obviously can't record much since that would be spoiling so yeah hope you enjoy!

link to vlog:

https://youtu.be/r2Wami4ZhgM 

I have returned!

Hey guys! Missed me? So you're probably wondering, where in the world have I been for the past couple days? Well like I said I was out of town and the reason I didn't post any blogs was mainly because I was out most of the time and I'd be too exhausted to do anything when arriving to the hotel, and also the fact that the wifi of the hotel I was staying at was not exactly cooperating, like it would work on my phone but not my laptop. I'm finally home at least, I was able to watch a few films while on the road and some scenes on Youtube if the film wasn't on a streaming service I already had, which is dumb considering the amount I have access to (Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus). I watched Scream 5 and Hush, which made me a ball of anxiety, especially now when laying in bed in the dark with only a lamp and my computer screen lighting up the room, also watched Chucky which were honestly not too bad since they weren't really scary, which is funny because I'm a pretty big scaredy cat. Anyway, I have plans to meet up at Rafi's house in the afternoon to go over the final script and film some scenes at her place and then we can go to my house and do some night shoots there. 

So yeah that's how much I'm willing to write since I'm exhausted, got home like an hour ago after hours of driving in traffic so good night and I'll see you guys in Day 1 of filming.

Another update (get used to those lol)

 Hello and welcome back to another amazing blog. So remember how I mentioned a few days ago how I would be out of town for Spring Break? Well I'm apparently leaving tomorrow... and my mom literally told me a few minutes ago may I add... I don't even know what to say. So I started texting my costar and we spoke about what we could do, since I'd technically come back on Friday and there's not really much I can do if I'm out of town besides either update my blog, or actually decide on a freaking final draft for a portion of my script, which I always seem to change at least one line every time I open my celtx page to open my script, oh speaking of... I ended up choosing a title for my short film, and it's officially called, "The Doll Game", I ended up with that name since usually when any sort of challenge goes viral online, the names of those things are usually very simple and basic so what's one more right?

So here's what I have planned, while on the trip and/or on the road I'll watch some horror films with a similar plot so I can have better ideas with my variation of shots and not use the same shots over and over again. We have plans to start filming on Saturday and for Rafi to sleep over so it's easier to do the shots at night and not worry about her coming home late. So yeah that's the plan so far, and love the fact I'm watching horror for this project, this shows dedication because I hate horror. Wish me luck folks and I'll see ya next time.

Update!! and Research!!

 Bonjour! Don't even ask why I said hi in French, I'm just trying something different to introduce myself. Anyway, I was able to test negative and I am planning to go see my costar during the weekend in order to start filming at least something. But since my mother knows she tested positive, I'm obviously not allowed to be near her at least til next week so, there goes that idea. At least I'm negative which means I get to leave my room at last and my mom gets to stop spraying me with alcohol so I don't smell like a hospital. So yea that's my little update, but on the other hand... I'll be discussing some color palettes for my short, starting with the meaning of the colors behind the outfits. I have some color wheel images below which kind of helped me as a guide to choose a good color story for my characters and fit their personas.

 

For Grace, I wanted something that was kind of a white and yellow color at the beginning because although yellow could mean excitement, it could also mean cowardice and the white to kind of represent her innocence into a brand new experience and naive to being peer pressured. While for Rosie, I wanted to include blue because it represents her confidence, but could also be a representation of "can you really trust her word"?

For the actual day of the ritual, I wanted to introduce them before wearing pjs, which by the way the colors in the ojs don't mean anything, Rosie would be wearing like a grey shirt to kind of make fun of and in a way foreshadow her being secure and reliable, along with a sage green jacket to represent her future guilt over the events that would go down in just a matter of hours. For Grace, I decided to put her in a red shirt since it not only helps her stand out, it also highlights the warnings of doing something she deep down doesn't want to do.

Do we have a filming date???

 Hello and welcome back! So I wanted to pop in real quick to give you guys some news! I finally have a filming date! Which I hope doesn't change since technically isn't the first time I've changed it and obviously things don't always go according to plan. As you may have known, I probably have mentioned this earlier but I'm too lazy to look back at the 20 million blog posts I've posted in the past month. Anyway, my original plan was to start filming this week since obviously the ealier we finish filming, the easier it is for me to finish editing quicker and get this whole thing over with. But obviously because the universe seems to hate me, my costar tested positive and I had to quarantine since I was in contact with her and literally can't leave my room so life's going amazingly. I was going to see if I could maybe film sometime during break but turns out I'd be out of town for Spring Break but I wasn't sure when (I tested negative on my at home tests so it's fine but still taking a PCR tomorrow), so if I didn't know when I was leaving and coming back, obviously how would I plan my schedule? Well if I'm planning to leave for the weekend, then we could film either monday or tuesday, since my co star would no longer be contagious, but I think the date might change so we'll just see how it goes but for now, stay tuned and stay cool.

Meet the characters & lil update!

 Greetings once again! I feel like I haven't posted anything in so long! It has actually been about 24 hours but you get my point. It is now day 2 of Quarantine and I think it's time to introduce our characters! Yay finally! 

So we are first introducing our amazing main character Grace! Who is played by yours truly obviously. So basically to give her a bit of a backstory, she is very sarcastic (kind of like me but leveled down slightly) and she also isn't a huge believer on the paranormal on any of that stuff, but if it's a thing she'd rather not get involved with any sort of things. Her best friend is named Rosie, who's played by my darling friend Rafi Prieto who you might remember from my film opening last year, yeah that opening that shall not be named. Anyway, Rosie is the type of person that tends to always want to have fun, but you know it's bad when she isn't chill or when she's freaked out. In a way she could literally guilt trip you or generally manipulate a situation into her favor to end up doing what she wants. Like for example, doing a certain ritual. Lastly, I wanted to include one more role which would be Grace's sister, it's a very brief portion of the scene of when Grace is debating with herself whether to do the ritual or not. But I'm not sure if I wanna keep it in since she basically has no purpose in the short film, but hey we'll see.

Quarantine Chronicles day 1

 Hi, hello, hi it's me again and welcome back to my blog! So if you haven't read my last post, you may know that I'm in quarantine after being in contact who tested positive for covid, which means I'd have to stay in my room for the entire week. Quarantine would definitely help me gather my thoughts better about my film, as well as giving me more time to do better ideas to finish my script, which technically I kind of finished but there's just days I just hated what I wrote and end up writing a completely different thing than what I originally wrote. It had also given me some ideas on how to develop my script better with my sounds and all that jazz. I was able to find some audios online that sounded extremely creepy, especially this little girl audio that was like, "Don't be scared, all I wanted to do was play with you", which is exactly what I was looking for so I'll also use that. I also found some other sounds I could use like the casual knocking sounds, taps, all the sounds that you'd probably hear in the conjuring. I'm also thinking of maybe watch some horror films since I'm in quarantine and the things I can do are pretty limited at the moment. Hopefully I got nothing so I can at least get out of my room to get some water myself, not that I'm complaining since I'm in my safe/creative space so it's not all too bad. There's still Facetime and internet to keep me sane for a few days. So yeah, that's all I got for today and I'll most likely see you tomorrow! Bye!

What is going on with Sundays these days?

Hello so first of all, hi how are you? I hope your day was better than mine, but I'll explain that in a second. First of all, I only need one more part of my script and then I'm done. I also met up with my costar on Friday to do like a cold read, as well as helping me a bit with my script, I added the ritual part and decided to do the chanting in Latin because apparently anything in Latin just makes it sound spookier. I decided to use Latin because I've seen in films and TV shows that include like witches and rituals and all that stuff always include their wording in Latin.. For example, Bonnie in the Vampire Diaries performs spells in Latin, witches in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (I never rlly watched this show so don't judge), and also Agatha Harkness in Wandavision. Anywho, there was this part in my original film where the main character talks to her sister who's supposed to be like her voice of reason, but then I decided that instead of adding the sister, I could use stuffed bears, one white to represent the smart thing to do and its name is Angie (short for Angel), and the red bear the opposite named Lucy (short for Lucifer) and have the character look back and forth between the bears as if having a conversation with them.

Bonnie Bennett- Vampire Diaries

Agatha Harkness- Wandavision

So onto kind of bad news, so during the weekend that I was with my costar, I later found out this morning that she tested positive for Covid, which is perfect timing since I was planning to start filming next week so now I'm freaking out since I'd also have to be in Quarantine for a while for being in contact with her which is just amazing... But I won't freak out because we can still film over break or I could change the film into being a virtual thing and they do the virtual via Facetime or something, but either way I'll figure it out and we'll see how it goes in the next couple days, remember stay calm and positive!

Update!

Greetings once again from your favorite and best website in the entire internet because let's face it, out of all the ones that exist, you decided to sit here and read what I'm saying as everything just comes up in my head. Anywho... I got another update for you guys! So a few blog posts ago I mentioned how I've been having issues downloading the adobe programs I needed in order to do this project and how it would say here was another adobe system running even though i didn't? Well my aunt was able to come over and we were finally able to solve the problem and I have officially able to install both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere and oh my god the relief I felt when everything worked so well. Now I got where to edit my actual film and do my posters, social media posts, etc. 

  

Here are the notes that I made in case you're planning to do the same for yout project

On another note, speaking of social media, yesterday our teacher gave us a little presentation over making a social media page in order to promote our projects and pretty much everyone had to make one whether it was for a music video, a documentary, a promo, or a short film. She told us to start making it this week in order to get it out of the wayand I really want to do it. I decided to use Instagram since I'm most familiar with that platform and how it works. I've even started planning on how to organize the page, but I don't even have a name for my short film and that alone takes a while to think about so imagine my stress. Hopefully I can come up with something in the next couple days since my minimum of posts is at least 20 so no pressure...😥😁

Wish me luck!

 

When and where in the world am I filming?

 Hello again and welcome back once again! I probably said the same thing twice but it's whatever, I'm at a point where I can only focus on so many things at one time since we have an amazing thing for us seniors to what we call ✨senioritis✨. 

Anyway, I was finally able to confirm some things that I haven't able to confirm before and that is my film locations and when in the world will I start filming. Before I get to that you're probably wondering, "why haven't you told us about this earlier", "You're so waiting for the last minute", "What took you so long to figure it out?". Well the answer to all those questions is basically that I've been extremely focused on my storyline the past couple weeks and brainstorming what would suit my film best, can you imagine how long it took me to realize that I'd only need 2 characters instead of 4 when you were almost done with your script and had to redo the whole thing? Because that was definitely me. Also, I don't even know what I want to call this film yet, like I originally named it "The Doll Game", but I feel like that title is too generic and need something more creative and attract people's attention, which I haven't figured out yet so that might take me a while, but I am open to suggestions if anyone has, that would be great.

Now, I do actually have my film locations and everything will basically be filmed at my house and it'll also be indoors since filming outside could really mess up with the audio, as well as having less control over the lighting. As for the when I'll start filing, I'll very likely start filming sometime next week and maybe reshoots during break if necessary since I spoke with my fancy costar and so far, she has no plans so there shouldn't be any issues as of now. So yeah, that's my little update and hope to see you folks next time!

Do we have a cast...?

Hi hello hi! It's my blog posting again brought to you by nobody in particular since I'm still in high school and don't do sponsors as of yet. Anyway that was pretty off topic but now, as joker played by the amazing Heath Ledger said once, let's get serious. So after I last updated over my slight change of plans regarding my casting which if you may not know, it used to have 4 characters, but I then decided to change it to only 2 since I'm not overcomplicating myself with this project more than I probably am already since I am working on this project by myself, well not 100% by myself if you know what I mean. The point is, I pretty much got my casting down which wasn't hard since it was only 2 people.

You're probably wondering, "who will be the stars of Paola's next short film?", well if you're new here you might not know who they are, but if you've been here a while, you'll definitely see some familiar faces. So playing the amazing main character is... (drum roll) ME!! Yayyy whooo standing ovation! But yeah, I'm obviously going to star in my own film, I gotta put myself out there somewhere. Anywho, you might know her and you may love her but playing the (toxic) best friend Rosie is.... Rafi Prieto! Woooo! Who you might recognize from my lil film opening that I did last year for AS level and honestly, I can't even look at that opening without either cringing or questioning my life decisions. But it's fine, I'm fine, I get to do something with what I learned, especially from past mistakes ,*cough* the opening *cough*, and hopefully make something so that when I look back at it in 5 years I can say.... "Yeah I did that" or at least not cringe when watching it. 

So yeah, that is all I got for this fine day or night and I'll update for sure in the next couple of days.

Update... Again...

 What's up my folks! Good morning/afternoon/night so today wasn't exactly the best day. So for some reason, I was trying to download Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Photoshop, which my school provided me and other students for free, to at least have those ready to go for when I start post production since I like to prepare things ahead of time, but to do so, you have to install the Adobe Cloud which for some reason isn't downloading because it says there's another one running and when I go to check my Mac's "Activity Monitor" it shows a bunch of things which I definitely don't understand, what am I a computer geek? And I don't know what to do, send helppp.

On a lighter note, I was able to have a clearer head with my plot since I was talking to a friend since she needed help with coming up with her opening, and I told her my little dilemma and I even showed her my infamous short in Spanish, which was how it was originally written. Let me tell you, watching that again made me question what 15 year old me was thinking on the shot choices and how I didn't really use a variety, as well as some acting bits where I just wanted ti vomit. But the good thing about rewatching is that first, was that I'm able to use it as reference to see what parts I did do correctly, as well as the parts that I definitely need to improve on, and second, getting someone else's opinions and critiques definitely shined a better light on me based on what I can do, since as I mentioned at the beginning of the week, I didn't want to overwhelm myself by adding too many characters and how less can be more so that's what I'm going with right now, including rewriting my script which is so much fun. I was also able to cast the main character's best friend and I'll definitely do the post giving a character introduction in the next couple days so keep a look out for that!

Did you Know about Youtube Studio...?

 Hello! So I'm here to talk a little bit of the music I wanted to include into my short film and man it was a long process figuring out what kind of mood I wanted to go for with this. Then I was able to find some Royalty Free sounds on Youtube and decided to put all those into a Youtube playlist which would help me access them a lot easier when I finish filming and start editing. Another interesting I found on Youtube is something called called Audio Library which can be found in Youtube Studio. Youtube Studio is a program which helps content creators organize their channels, post videos, check the analytics, editing techniques, and audio options as well. 

When clicking on the audio library, there's a bunch of different free music choices, as well as sound effects for any genre and any noise you might possibly think of. There's a search bar to help identify a certain sound or music in there to choose from, which you then download and use. As an example, I put the word 'horror' in the search bar since the type of music I'm looking for has to do with the genre of my film.

There are also other multiple other programs I really like to use which include Chosic, which is a website that includes Royalty Free music if the first option of using Youtube doesn't work out. Chosic also includes the option to download songs from Spotify, has a song generator, and a bunch of other things.

Ritual Research

 Hello and welcome back! If you haven't read my last post, then you probably should or else I'll send a haunted doll to haunt your dreams (I'm kidding), it's also not that long so you can't complain. Anyway I would like to share some research that I did which helped me get inspiration to what I wanted my short film to be, but it would obviously not a complete ripoff but still in the same concept. So, there's this ancient (i think) ritual which is called, "One Man Hide and Seek", and it would basically involve inviting a demon into your life by putting it in a doll, yup very creepy and many people wonder why they'd ever do this, but hey it's people we're talking about and we can do real stupid things. Back to the topic, I've seen that you had to get a doll with limbs, cut it open and replace it's stuffing with uncooked rice, put a piece of hair or nail from you inside of it, then sew it shut with a red thread, then you put the doll in a bathtub full of water, leave the bathroom and I guess you then play hide and seek with a demon, definitely not creepy at all.

This game caught my attention since so many Youtubers have done this exact same ritual which include Shane Dawson, Guava Juice, and OmarGoshTV. (linked the vids to the youtuber's names if you're curious but don't watch if you don't like paranormal things). These types of videos initially went viral in around 2017, except for Guava Juice's since his video was from 2015. I never really knew anything about this game at all until I watched this Shane Dawson video about the Scariest Challenges in the Internet and the ritual game was one of them and it was apparently originated from Japan, of course it was freaking Japan. I tried looking up the original video present day, but it seems the video is now private so I'd recommend searching for reactions or reuploads but Idefinitely don't recommend watching if you're sensitive to these types of things so Trigger Warning for that. 

I knew when coming up with this concept I wanted it to be simple yet different. I decided to use an American Girl doll as my "possessed doll", the picture of a pentagram, and some candles which would help with the vibe. Then I would chant the words for the ritual to work a certain number of times and that's it. I decided to also like add some mascara on the doll's face to give it more of a creepy little girl vibe. So yea that's my lil research summarized so that you don't have to so you're welcome 🤣🤣. 

     This is an example of an American Girl doll if you're not familiar, and if looks could kill... Jeez

Update!!

 Hello and here's another little update and I am still working on this freaking script which helped me ralize a couple things about it, hence why I didn't post at all last week. So what happened was that while I was originally writing my script, a million different scenarios went through my mind, and one of them was question whether I was making the right decision to have 4 characters that are best friends or stick to the original's idea of 2 best friends. In the end, I decided to go with my original idea since I feel like I'd be overcomplicating myself script wise trying to figure out how to make all the characters equally important into the story and it just isn't possible with the sinopsis I had in mind. 

At the end, I went over my original script to see what things I can change, and one of them has to do when I included a sister to be like "the voice of reason" to kind of contrast the main character's friend's peer pressure into doing this "trendy doll ritual", I also remember including like an angel and devil bit on the shoulders of the main character and it would be like the "do it" and "don't do it" type of thing, but we already know what happens anyway or else the whole film would've ended in like 2 minutes. But yeah, that's my little update so far and my next post would show like my research into satanic rituals similar to my inspiration for my amazing short. See ya next time!