Shaylyn Lyons Final Film Task

  In this blog, you will find all the documentation of creating the short film 'My Monster Anxitey' made by Shaylyn Lyons. 

  Link to My Monster Anxiety on YouTube

How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? https://www.spreaker.com/episode/44429485 How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?  https://www.powtoon.com/c/fHZHZkSuaDY/1/m How did your production skills develop throughout this project?  https://prezi.com/view/MALL0qD2z6fGaDKgWMkr/ How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware, and online – in this project?  https://www.canva.com/design/DAEcWLnGhj4/q--60lf1exUGiH7j6glApA/view?utm_content=DAEcWLnGhj4&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=publishsharelink

 I used this rough edit to block my scenes together to get a general idea of my final film opener. It helped me realize the shot of the school isn't important, so I cut it out from the final. After that, I used the rough edit to help me stay on track of my shots and edits I needed to obtain. Another factor I cut out from the final was the items around the characters due to time constraints. However, I believe that was best because it allowed the character introduction to be the main focus without distractions. 

What locations are you using? I will be using my grandmother and my house as a recording location. How long do you think it'll take you to film?  I believe it would take 2-3 hours to get all my shots since most of my film opener deals with animation.  Who are your subjects? The cast list contains close friends and family. My Mother, Father, best friend, boyfriend, and I will be in the cast.  What do you think your process for directing and filming will be in the context of COVID-19? The process for directing and filming with Covid-19 shouldn't be an issue. When constructing my film opener, I realized I wouldn't be able to record with my best friend since she is at high risk. I will instead be using each character's photos with a color in the background, as seen in the storyboard. Ill will add the character's favorite items or symbols that represent the around the character and animate them to move slightly to draw the viewer's eyes.

 I realized that my first storyboard was too complicated and had too much information. I almost all act one in the opening scene, which was not what I was going for. I took inspiration from a film I watched with my family. In the film's opening scene they used suspenseful music, fire embers,  slow movements, still images, and bold white lettering for the credits. The opening scene introduced the character, set the mood and setting without revealing big plot points. I thought their film opener was excellent and decided to take inspiration when revamping my opening scenes storyboard with color and fewer slides. 

 I chose the idea of a girl dealing with anxiety for my film opener, 'My Monster Anxiety', because it's a topic I relate to greatly. Veronica Claw is another version of me; she tells my story of how I dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic and many stressors that led to my declining mental health. During the brainstorming process, I had a project for Hallandale Highschools Drama club. We had to write and perform a monologue of an issue we had to deal with and how the experience had transformed us.  We had the pleasure of speaking to the creator, LeLand Grant, of a one-man play called Rhapsody in Black, which inspired the project. Rhapsody in Black was about his experience with Racism and how it had shaped him as a person. I took lots of inspiration from LeLands' show and the monologue I created during the project when choosing an idea for my film opener.  Link to Monologue  Monster by Shaylyn Lyons