Group Meeting #1

Intro

    Recently, my classmates and I were separated into groups to discuss what we already have down for our plot, and entire story set up. We were then able to give creative criticism to help further develop each other's ideas. I LOVED this class, and although I was very set on creating my storyboard that day, I was still so happy we got together to do this. It ended up being such a good activity that made me reflect on a lot of ideas that we had shared with each other. And to make things better, all the members of my team for the project were split up into different groups, so we got not 1, not 2, but 4x the feedback!

    My group consisted of five other people: Veronica, Dylan, Juliana, Santi, and Mia. So, I'll give a quick rundown of all of their discussions before diving into mine.

us!!! (I took the picture)

Their Ideas:

    Veronica's (middle) idea was to revolve her film around an immigrant moving to America, and the struggles about growing up as one. She struggled with developing a plot to her opening, so, I suggested she could focus on her character's development as she progresses through her journey, and how this could be negatively affecting her friends or family.

    Next was Dylan (left), he had the idea to create a plot about illegal street racing, where cops get involved. Although his exact plot wasn't solidified, he knew what he was doing and even had a decent layout for some of his shots. The group suggested he create the main characters need to illegally race over something sentimental, like money for his grandmother or family.

    Then Juliana (far left), who thought of the idea of a supernatural horror film, starring a vampire who keeps her stunning looks by sucking others blood (if she doesn't, she gets "ugly"). She had trouble deciding on a reason for the main character (the vampire) to mysteriously leave, so I suggested a fake game of hide and go seek. 

    Santi's (middle-right) idea, in my opinion, was the coolest out of all of ours. He pitched the idea to create a sci-fi doomsday film about a planet coming in to collide with Earth, with only 5 months left for society to live. I brought up the fact there would be a minor plot hole. If his group wanted the film to be pretty realistic, a giant random planet appearing out of nowhere would be suspicious, so I suggested scientists noticing a pattern change in one of Earths neighboring planets, Venus or Mars. This could both give their film opening a more realistic approach while also giving room to develop a history on how and why this happened.

    Mia (next to me) was the one who basically had no idea how to structure her film. However, she gave the rest of a group a decent base to try and build off of, a psychological horror revolving around a restaurant. She had a scene in mind where the main character would be all alone in a big empty restaurant, with a death. While this does sound absolutely awesome, I recommended that she should reconsider her ideas, as a big empty restaurant is pretty hard to come by!

What I Got:

    If I'm being so honest, not too much. It probably didn't help too much since I was the first to go, so I wasn't too sure on what I needed to say, but the questions asked by my group helped me a little. I tried explaining my plot to my fullest detail but wasn't able to fully convey my ideas without it sounding like broken up parts. I did however give some of the shots and techniques that my team wanted to try to incorporate in our opening, and the group believed it was a good idea. To add onto the problem, our plot wasn't too solidified either, so it was more of a big juggling mess. 

    Santi kept asking me amazing questions that did help me tie my ideas together, such as, "How is the audience going to know they are in a time loop?" Woah. Big question, the one me and my team have yet to figure out the answer to! But Santi and the others did give some great tips on how to create the full effect, such as events. Maybe one scene a character spills water, but when the time loop repeats, not long after, the cup of water remains like it was never knocked over. I believe little details like this could help develop the time loop aspect of our plot even further. 

    Well, with a little bit of deeper thinking about plot and the details that make it (so yea, basically everything), my team and I should be good to go!