Project links and stuff

Hey Scourgies!

Heres the links to the short film, social media, and postcards.

Film

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ApkI36eAvHD2bTPL3KUntSRW3eErsFBT/view?usp=sharing

Saw emi do ts so backup yt link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MOUa5-7QtM

Postcard

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Ua3zGuFLWdRmy7NYeKdiX9uYhrn_GNFr

Social Media Page

https://www.instagram.com/thescourgeshortfilm/

I really hope yall enjoy this as my team and I spent 2 months working hard on this!

This is probably gonna be my final post ever, unless I decide to come back to this blog lol, which is unfortunate (im gonna miss my teacher), but hey, we all move on right?

Of course I wanna wish all of yall very happy lives and I hope yall are well, and for the cambridge grader, please have a wonderful year.

man im kind of emotional and im not even 100% done with the film while writing this.

Alright guys bye now im gonna go before I cry

- Zamudio

ts feels like ts song :cry:

ts is not at all just me wanting to share some bs

Complete and Final CR

Clash Royale is a mobile game that was created in the year 2016, the game is owned by SuperCell and recieves seasonal updates to the game, including balancing, new cards, and new gamemodes. Clash Royale is widely loved for "carrying childhoods". The game-

Hey guys I included the bit but i improved it cuz im a nerd.

oh shoot cambridge please dont count that first bit in as part of the CR

okay with that heres the final Critical Reflection:

The scourge as a film is meant to be unconventional to a certain extent. The point of the film is to kind of criticize religion, though that wasnt made awfully clear. However, the film was overall mostly meant to be comedic instead of being a deep film.  Of course, this has changed a lot during the time in which we were creating the story and getting comfortable with certain ideas. For example, we originally wanted to have the film be about weed and the devil, before coming up with the idea of religious criticism. In the end though, we fell on a larger focus on comedy, as stated before.

i lowk dont know why its
formatted like that help

The research for this film was very divided since I'm pretty sure this genre was a first for all of us.  Joaquin based a lot of the references and topics with more depth on the video game The Binding Of Isaac, which held religious themes that we could apply to our film, such as the actual biblical story of Isaac, Abraham's son, who was almost sacrificed due to god testing Abraham. On the other hand, Emi poured plenty of research into The Amazing Digital Circus, which was a good inspiration since it also had plenty of biblical themes and topics, such as Caine and Abel, whilst remaining silly and whimsical for a good portion of the time. Lastly, both Emi and I spent some time researching Dan Da Dan, which could be considered the least "deep" piece of research we did, since the stuff derived from that research was more about the comedy style the anime uses, in which its fairly absurd or weird humor. That aspect was included in our film for some of the comedy bits.

Becuase of the genre and branding delevoped from our research, The Scourge was developed as something considerably not for everyone, with a more niche target audience. The comedy aspect in a way makes it so a good amount of people could enjoy this movie, but the depth behind our choices and the style of our branding alongside the culture involved is what breaks away our target audience from the rest. The target audience for the film is teenagers, considerably teenagers who are alternative, queer, artistic, or into absurdist comedy.

      

Due to this our social media was designed with our brand in mind, consisting of plenty of posts involving a consistent color pallete and font. These choices allowed for the social media page to look kind of creepy, since its supposed to look cult-ish. Similarly, our postcard kept the same pallete, font and overall vibe that the social media page had built up. The two components combined look relatively cult-ish and uneasy.

This inclusion is put in place to appeal to our target audience, as the social media and postcard are relevant to the underlying themes and such that are included in our film. Since our target audience is one that will apreciate that kind of thing, it helps them engage with our products and it also contributes to the building of our brand.

Also, the social media page provides a gateway of which the audience can get to know my team and I, with some behind the scene footage, and meet the director / actor posts. The content provides this gateway while still allowing for the building of the brand through the color pallete and font choice, further engaging with our target audience. The postcard also assists in this by providing the handle to the instagram page on the back. And again, the postcard is heavily based in our branding with its design and theme going for the "cult" vibe we have going on.

The scourge was never really meant to be only about the comedy, as I have stated in the past. The film was also built around the concept of religious power and power struggles. The scourge is supposed to represent how much a person will do for meaningless power. This topic is shown through our main character Otto, who follows a culty religion simply because she wants power, leading to her doing a bunch of ridiculous and life altering things (hint hint), when in the end shes not really fufilled or anything. This representation is very obviously a big exajuration, but the actual topic is very much real and present in many authority figures in present day.

However, this theme was unfortunately not developed fully. The damn 8 minute maximum is awful, and we all hated it a lot (I think the film before cutting down was like 11 mins or so i dont remember). If we had more time we could have made a much more powerful statement regarding the power struggles Otto went through.

Finally, this production is something I will probably hold at the very least somewhat dear to me (im not usually attatched to art I make), I highly doubt I will ever work in the film industry, but even then this film is something WE created. Though, I wish I was able to contribute more than I did, since it was challenging to meaningfully help with my everchanging schedule, And I will admit I, atleast, was really carried by Joaquin cuz hes like really smart and good at what he does. But, the production of The Scourge is something so strange yet meaningful to me in the sense that I cant exactly put it into words.

I think that the one thing I could truly wish for for this film would be for us to have had much more time. As stressful as it was, this film was amazing to produce, amazing to learn stuff for, amazing to ideate, amazing to plan, etc. And I really think we couldve made something beyond my own expectations if we simply had an extra 2 months or so. I truly loved this project and Im kind of upset I'm most likely never gonna have anything like it again.

But with that said, I unfortunately have to say goodbye to The Scourge, and my buddies Emi and Joaquin who were truly amazing to work with. I love yall scourgies and I'll see yall never...

Rotten Tomatoes. (2024). Dan Da Dan.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/dan_da_dan

Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). The binding of Isaac (video game). Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Binding_of_Isaac_%28video_game%29

Unknown author. (n.d.). [Image]. Google Images.
https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTSJueT6iYKmojbFdDbhHPQpSrAEmvq-oC_CAbAju_deLqiQmMu

The not so critical reflection

 Clash royale is NOT a mobile game that was created in the year 2016, the game has faced many highs and lows and changes that are still going on. The game-

okay should i stop the bit its getting a bit old

nah

hey guys! hows it going.

Just wanted to make some reflective comments and stuff because there really is a lot to reflect on.

If there was one thing I would absolutely change it would be...

suprise suprise, time management.

A lot of procrastination occurred throughout the making of the film, (honeslty i think it was mostly Joaquin and I, Emi didnt procrastinate that much, though I will say a lot was me). I wanted to change this because a similar situation rose for last years AS level project, in which I experienced a lot of procrastination and laziness, but the thing I feel about this years project was that the poor time management I had this year seemed to stem from stuff going on around me, as well as my schedule. For starters, Ive had to work every weekend (I know others have to too, im just saying its a bit annoying having thursday, friday, saturday afternoon, and sunday afternoon blocked up by work), my mom also enrolled me in some taekwondo classes which took up my monday and wednesday (not entirely, but smack in the middle of the time I had after school). I know I just talked about my woes, but this arguably wasnt that big of an issue, as I still had plenty of time in school for planning and research, and I was allowed to skip martial art classes to film, same with work, my manager let me off on some days as long as I gave a decent heads up. Where I would say most of my issues rose was a situation with my parents. During mid febuary (literally like a week or 2 after we started the project) my parents found out I was queer, and a lot of problems rose up from there. I think I had a few depressive episodes, stuff like that. The situation kind of got worse over time (its still not great right now), which sucks because often times I'll randomly just be barred from accessing my computer, which is really not good for this project.

Its alright though

I still got stuff done

and I'm really grateful that I have really good teammates.

why did i pour my heart out for a blog post?

uh

Anyways

uh

As for other things, I think I could have done a bit more research for this film and the postcard, Im not sure if its just because I made it, but the postcard looks a bit lackluster. Joaquin and I are gonna make a second one though, which will hopefully compliment the other one. The last thing I'd like to say is that again, I'm really grateful to have these amazing teammates, I dont think we could've done this without any of us. I almost forgot but also special thanks to Ren for helping us with the car scene, that scene had us worried lowk.

 

Scourge fam

With that I'll say bye for now.

How the hell did a regular day become a literal hell on earth filming session

 oh my god oh my god this is terrible

have to make this blog during fucking filming because of how long this is taking,

We agreed to meet up to finish off filming at 4, Its currently 11:32.

alright for now ill go over some positives and fun stuff, because I think i'd go insane if i started with all the negatives.

ren had a suprise cameo, hes playing the guy who gets a heart attack and gets run over.

I also brought pizza when i got there really good stuff it was stuffed crust half pepperoni half cheese and i got it for free since I work at papa johns :plead:

I have some video here

ren cameo

anyways so after a while of filming we had planned to go to the church near sundown to get the scene thats literally at the beginning (which we havent gotten for some reason) buttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

Easter meant almost no parking, we were already running a bit late, and then when we did get there (kind of on time, probably still not enough time to film the whole thing), Joaquin forgot the jacket or coat for annie. Which was so painful to our morale. 

Also, we noticed that the church was closing, so we created this like mental blockade that the church would close the gates and we wouldnt be able to film the nighttime scenes there or atleast park there to flim them. We spent like 30 mins seeing what else we could do (like do a 24 min walk from the ymca to the church in an underilluminated sidewalk because freaking weston sucks for walkability) and it turned out the church just didnt close their gates lol. Major time waste and pissed us all off :sob:

Since then, nothing really bad has affected production, but I think everyones energy is in the trenches, same with our morale. Everyone wants to go home and we're in too much of a rush to get effective bts.

Heres what i did get though, I guess.

joaquins dog

Joaquin getting a good shot at night with a questionable pose

10:30

Edit: Its 12:30 i think i can leave now im not so sure though, helppppppp

Edit 2: Hey guys its like 3 days after and im realizing that the videos just straight up dont work and I tried fixing them but it still just wont work lol :broken_heart:

Post production stuff

 we got a list of sound effects to work on, but since we kind of finisehd filming hella late we just made ts and have to do it in like 3 days guh :broken_heart:

heres the list

SFX:           

• footsteps 

• Clothing being grabbed/ruffled with

• General outside ambience

• Rosary falling on the ground

• Wind blowing

• Footsteps on grass

• Car arriving on church

• Paper list and business card noises (paper noises)

• Car driving noises

• Car parking noises

• Car seat noises

• Putting up flyer noise

• Otto’s nose being broken

• Sounds of otto writhing around on the floor

• Otto being dragged around the floor

• Flyer being ripped out of tree

• Heart noises

• Car speeding by noise

• Blood splatter noise

• Heavy thud from being ran over

• Scribbling on paper noises

• Gun noise

• Fingers going over concrete

• Crawling through concrete

• Glass hitting the floor

• Hellish noises (made with my mouth :P)

Joaquin said the red ones were gonna be done with foley and the yellow ones were gonna be downloaded.

Im gonna help him with some of these foley things while Emi does most of the editing as of right now

I would like to point out something lowk. What the hell is car arriving at church sound :sob:

like all of these noises make sense in their names besides "car arriving at church"

like obviously car arriving at church means like car noises slowing down and stopping

cuz like that one scene with mabel arriving while otto and annie talk for the first time

its lowk kinda funny tho

i think i might be dumb

im a fat chud.

Okay next week I'll be posting a tiny bit about the foley probably, if I can.

this is completely off topic but I joined my friend cuz he told me he got a new avatar and I see this

Idek what to say guh :broken_heart:

Production day 2-3!

 "Hey scourge fam!" -Me, ready to announce the dumbest thing ever.

Alright anyways so hey guys hows it going im good how about you really? i didnt know that they did that oh yeah the kids are great awesome so when are we gonna do the thing should we get a cup of coffee?

okay seriously now hi guys.

Scourge fam got to film again so im merging these 2 days as one (totally not because i mixed up the video and dont really know whats from each day)

DAY 1 of 2 (i think)

This was saturday morning, this was the first time not filming at the church and we got to go to both emi and joaquin's neighborhoods to film stuff. On this day we got some shots done regarding the scene where Otto was putting up posters (and lying on the ground after I punched her), some scenes with my character Isaac being a pissy guy, and we got to practice the scene with the guy that gets run over (i hated that, the way joaquin wanted to do it was not safe at all.) 

This day was not the most successful of both days, but it was still great as we were essentially ramping up in speed and getting more grounded into our work.

Real quick: emi

DAY 2 of 2 (probably)

This day was more interesting, we had our guest actress for mable and we had to lock in and film most of the mable scenes given the opportunity. We got a lot of great shots and my annoying ass character was in there again. At some point we needed to film the car scene (mable and otto talking in the car) and for some reason went to publix. Funniest thing happened, Joaquin said we needed to buy popcorn chicken for the scene, whenv he came back with the chicken we reviewed the script and realized that the popcorn chicken was not nessesary and was included as more of a joke which was hilarious (but wasteful). That chicken was good as hell though.

As for the last stuff, we got everything outside of the final scene and I think the run over scene done, which is great because it means we wont have to film anymore after next time.

Heres some video and images to go along with this awesome description :plead:

Last but not least

quick update on postcards (again...)

 I know all ive really talked about recently has been the postcard aspect of our project, but I think we finally got our final design nearing.

This is the business card that will be handed to Otto in the film.

Now that we have a finalized design to utilize in the film itslef, we can use this to develop the final design for our postcard. I decided that as of right now (that i dont exactly have feedback) Ill just try out new things on my own. For the back I decided to stay close to the previous design (as seen below) Its not the greatest but its still pretty solid for the postcard back and If I gotta change it later its easy to do.

As for the front of the postcard, I dont need a redo, I just really need to take out the "Annie Christian" name and replace it for something else, SO I got the idea to just put our names. Its got me really doubtful though, So It probably wont stay like that. As I said before, the rest of the card can stay the same.

with this I have the good news that the postcard (at least the first one [If we do decide to make another]) is almost done! Just another review with my teammates will probably put the nail on the coffin.

Thanks yall :plead: