Time to Tackle the Beast

 Hey guys! Welcome to 2024…

Coming back from the new year I have immediately jumped into trying new things. We were given a super cool project called the Film Distribution Project. This was basically own way to get to know the Film Promo option of the portfolio project, but with a little twist. This project was also a collab with our school’s creative writing classes which I thought was so fun. The students in creative writing would come up with stories and develop characters, a plot, and a movie title. Then, within our groups, we were assigned 3 different stores and we were given the freedom to read them all and chose the one we felt the most confident to adapt into a trailer and a teaser. Mrs. Stoklosa assigned us our groups, so I got to work with some new people I had never worked with before: Ava and Rafa. We decided to adapt a Rom-Com story about Theo, a CIT (cupid in training), getting a match mission to finally earns his wings. However, he accidentally follows in love with the girl from his case file. We created a poster, trailer, teaser, and presentation to demonstrate the way we would market and distribute this film if we decide to produce it. Here are some of the things we created:

                                                                Film Poster

SHOT THROUGH THE HEART- Official Trailer

SHOT THROUGH THE HEART- Official Teaser

Now that we have completed that project, we are FINALLY starting our A -Level portfolio projects. I’m not gonna lie… I’ve been simultaneously anticipating and dreading this project. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the fact that it’s a long-term project. It’s more that I have so much creative freedom Im not sure even where to begin. 

Working on these sample projects throughout the year so far has really prepared me, however, in being more inform about each category I could chose, as I’ve had experiences in all of them so far.

Music Project- AS Level music distribution project/CBTV annual music videos

Film Promo- (most recent) Shot Through the Heart

Documentary- Encontrando un Futuro

Short Film- independent project… (coming soon :D )

So when it came time at least to decide what category I was gonna pursue, I made my decision based on my past experiences. At of all of them, my time producing my documentary (see above) was truly the most memorable. I loved the process of it and I am still very proud of the final product that came out of it. Also, my intended major when I go to college is Sports Media. This is truly something I’ve always wanted to pursue. I also consume a lot of sports documentaries for entertainment in my free time (more on this later in the week). Because of this, I’ve always dreamed of making my own sports documentary and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do so. 

Brainstorming, however, the concept of it was the hard part. My first idea was to follow a Cypress Bay Sports Team, possibly soccer, as they are on the way to a possible State Championship. However, we turn in our final projects in April and their journey might still be going on aft my designated filming period, making my documentary incomplete. I decided to sit down with my teacher, Mrs. Stoklosa to just sit down and brainstorm possible ideas, as this has always helped me organize my thoughts and figure out a perfect concept in the past. After some time of just talking, she suggested I focus more on the emotional side of sports, rather than the actually physical side of it. This took me a second to really understand it but once I understood it I took it and ran with it. Sports for me has always been a key part of my life, not only through being a stress reliever and a way to compete, but also a way I made so many key friends in my life and so many memories I will cherish forever. I sympathize with athletes. I understand athletes. Sports, while being universal, also means something different for everyone as everyone has their own world/experience in it. I want to document that. I want to figure the different ways sports means to people. How it has impacted their lives. 

In my mind, each episode would be one person, each with a different “role” in sports, whether it’s player, manager, coach, all of the above etc.  For the extract I would be producing, I would want to feature it on a fellow student of mine, Riley Orovitz. I will talk more about her once I have asked her about it and have making sure this is possible. 

We are still in the earliest stage of pre0production, but I am already so excited to see how this goes. Keep you posted :)