Entry #3: Constructive Criticism

Mood: Pensive

Well, let's just dive into it. A lot of things have happened since I last posted. Firstly, Srishti and I decided that for our film opening we would show a scene that takes place in a sketchy, woodsy area. We had thought about shooting at Markham Park, a place near us that has woodsy areas that would look fantastic for our creepy scene of the main characters discovering... something. We wanted to make this creepy scene cut off right before viewers could see anything and then put up a title that says *two weeks earlier*. I've always liked films where "the beginning is the ending" and vice versa because I feel like they create a sense of suspense and evoke curiosity, enough that people will keep watching. Overall, a majority of our original intro idea was based upon getting viewers to want to continue watching.

As we continued to evaluate our ideas, we started to realize that a lot of movies and TV shows utilize this method and began questioning whether our film was going down the road to being totally cliché, an obvious horror. I still loved our overall plot (people find different objects with the same symbol in their houses, band together, become close friends, journey together to solve the mystery, and uncover the reasons for this mystifying occurrence), so I knew we only needed to alter what would be included in our 2-minute film opening.

Yesterday, my media class went to the cyber lounge (the school's fancy way of saying media center with cool gadgets), and we separated into groups to present our project ideas to fellow classmates. My peers brought up the same concerns I had, our intro possibly being too cliché, so my mind began to run wild with new intro ideas.

After combining some suggestions and discussing ideas with my partner, we came up with an idea that we agree would be intriguing enough to captivate an audience. Instead of starting with the oh-so-mysterious woods scene, we want to begin by introducing the main story of our enigmatic character, the girl on the edge. In this introduction, the importance of the infamous symbol will be explained so that the audience's interest will be piqued once it is revealed in the main character's house. 

My vision for this film is that the audience isn't struggling to figure out who the mysterious character is. Instead, I want the focus to be on why the character is doing what she is doing: Making a group of students go on a wild chase to understand the symbol and who left it. The true mystery is not in the identity of this girl, but in her character and the factors that drove her to this madness. To me, it feels like too many films and TV shows are focused on discovering who did this and who did that and not enough on what drives people to commit such actions; I have always longed to watch a production that goes deeper and focuses on the character rather than the action because I find it more interesting.

Entry #2: Drafting A Drama

Mood: Ecstatic

I’m super excited! Today, Srishti (my partner) and I needed to come up with a basis for our film and we did! We have been having a difficult time trying to both stay on the same page, but we came to many mutual agreements on the important elements for our film intro such as genre, gender of the lead character, and general storyline. I really enjoyed how we came up with our baseline idea; we sat together and wrote down every idea we could formulate, whether simple or elaborate, and talked about them together. As we discussed different elements of the film intro, we discovered a few things that we wanted to stay away from, such as voiceovers. Our film idea is not fully developed yet, but our creativity if definitely flowing and I feel confident in our ability to create something that we can be proud of. I’m not going to lie, I was anxious that we would not be able to come up with a solid idea that we could both agree on, so I’m glad that we could.


Our idea is still a drama, but it now contains a few other genres like mystery and coming of age mixed within. The story revolves around a group of teenage girls who are all close friends and attend school together. A few settings that we have considered are my house, Srishti’s house, a park, and school because there is another important character that attends the girls’ school (but shhh, it’s a secret). As for casting, we know a few girls that we could recruit to be our actresses; we are not focused on this part as of yet though because we want to establish the personalities of each character.

As we created our film idea, I had a few examples in mind. The first was The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a film about a socially-awkward boy who meets two outgoing teenagers and befriends them. They go through all sorts of real life drama and learn about themselves and each other through crazy midnight drives and deep conversations. I want to create something that can be relatable to teenagers because, just like every one else, they want to feel understood, something I felt when I watched that film. Our teenage cast is a result of this goal.

After adding a mysterious element to our plot, I was also reminded of a TV show on ABC called Pretty Little Liars (PLL for short). PLL is an extremely popular show among my demographic, and I would say its because it’s a mix of mystery, teenage drama, crime, and romance. Similar to our story, there is an overarching mystery with subplots filled with drama between the characters, their families, and their teachers. Unlike PLL, our idea is for a film so there will be much less going on at one time and the focus is on one main girl rather than four.

Overall, we are making progress. I am excited to update again later with more ideas after researching further into the conventions for mystery films as well as how to smoothly integrate more than one genre into a film. Bye! 

ABC Family. Advertisement. Fansided. Ed. Taylor Rios. Fansided, Sept. 2015. Web. 10 Mar. 2016. <http://prettylittleclues.com/2015/09/08/pretty-little-liars-6x20-spoilers/>.

Summit Entertainment. Advertisement. Tomahawk Beat. Ed. Faith Branson. Tomahawk Beat, 25 May 2015. Web. 9 Mar. 2016. <http://tomahawkbeat.org/2015/05/moviebook-review-perks-of-being-a-wallflower/>.

Entry #1: A Warm Welcome

Mood: Anxious

Hi, welcome to my blog! My name is Cheyenne Desrosiers, and I am a 16-year-old girl interested in understanding media. Before this course, I had never paid attention to how the media was working to manipulate its viewers in order to reach an achieved goal; instead, I passively consumed media without considering the implications. Now, I am aware of the different methods used by companies in order to obtain my business. Going into this project, I am extremely excited because it’s going to be a fun challenge where I can incorporate all of the elements I have learned throughout this year. I have never created a film opening nor thought of ideas for a film, so it will be difficult to get started since I’m new to this.

So far, I have been relentlessly searching Google for information on the drama genre through websites such as this, this, and this. All of my sources have provided an insight as to how dramas are typically formed, the recurring elements, and tips on how to create a successful drama. After researching, I feel like a drama would be the best route for my partner and I because there is an abundance of real life events that we can incorporate into the film. I interacted with a few guided questions that explored the coming-of-age genre in order to further my understanding. My research has been extremely helpful because I've explored common coming-of-age issues that must be overcome, and I find that I greatly enjoy the genre. However, I am concerned that my lack of skills in the script-writing area will hinder my ability to write an enthralling drama. 

The main problem at the moment is trying to figure out where we want to take the film. I have only created a film idea once in a group setting, so I’m nervous that it will take me a long time to come up with an idea in collaboration with my partner. There will be a lot of trial and error with this project, but I am genuinely thrilled to be doing it because I feel that a long-term project such as this will allow me to test not only my creative capacities, but also my organization, cooperation, and responsibility. There are so many aspects of this project that will greatly help me to improve myself and my ideas, especially for the future. 

Please enjoy taking this journey to a great final product with me (I have hope). I'm excited and ready to learn!

Dirks, Tim. "Drama Films." Filmsite. Ed. Tim Dirks. AMC, n.d. Web. 8 Mar. 2016. <http://www.filmsite.org/>.

"Drama." The Script Lab. TSL, n.d. Web. 8 Mar. 2016. <http://thescriptlab.com/screenplay/genre/drama>.

"Top 10 Central Themes in Film." The Script Lab. TSL, n.d. Web. 9 Mar. 2016. <http://thescriptlab.com/screenwriting/story/development/1005-top-10-central-themes-in-film?showall=&limitstart=>.