Reflection

I know this project has not been easy for me or any of my classmates. None of us would have thought that our school year would end up with all of us in quarantine due to a pandemic that is affecting more and more people everyday. I'm a senior, and I was really excited to join to this class because it would help me focus on what I will study and help me in my decision for a future profession. When the project was assigned it was all going great. I was working in class, sharing my ideas with my classmates, working at home, getting inspiration from the outer world, etc.

After all, the situation didn't stop me from being inspired to complete my project with passion and with the objective of doing the things right. I started with the development of my project in a time where Awards season just ended and I was becoming a really big fan of tragi-comedies and criminal movies. I was getting inspiration from the big Scorsese with his big classics, the Safdie Brothers who are just starting with their promising careers with amazing movies like "Good Time" and "Uncut Gems", the record-winning director Bong Joon Ho with his movie "Parasite", and many more.

I wanted to make a film opening with a lot of significance, not just the story of some guy who is a scumbag and is worthless. Well in terms of the story he is, but there is more to it. It involves the representation of traumas that a later developed with having anger issues, depression, drug abuse, alcoholism and more. There is always a deeper meaning, even when it is so simple, because real life is simple and scary at some points.

My character of Michael Ortiz was created with a whole background and with a kind of tragic "origin" story. Originally it was intended for a friend of mine to be the protagonist but due to the situation I had to become Michael (I am not the best actor but I tried my best). I didn't want to change the story when they told us that we must remain home because I was so deep into it. So I had to make some changes in the script and the production design.

I changed the film opening setting from making in the beach to making it in the bathroom of my parents. I was originally going to make it inside the bathtub but I changed in last minute to the shower but it actually looked better and I could achieve the same objective. In terms of production design I used all the probes that I originally was going to used. This are a vodka bottle (from my parents), a pack of cigarettes, pills inside an orange capsule, and just garbage. For the costume design, I used a suit that I haven't wear in a long time which involves grey pants, black shirt, black shoes and a purple tie.

After wrapping up with the shooting, I used the software of Premiere Pro to edit the opening. When doing this I additionally had to add all of my sound editing with extra audio, folley, and some correction. I also made color correction to make the opening have a dark look. I finally decided that I wouldn't add any soundtrack to it for two reasons; 1. Domino Records never answered me my emails if I could get the license of an Arctic Monkeys song. 2. I believe that by having no sound it gives a realistic tone to the scene and really shows the struggle of the character to the audience.

After all, this has been a really fun project that really requires a lot of hard work and dedication if you really want to make it right. With visual techniques learned in class and creating it with deep analysis learned in the school year.