Character development

   Howdy pals, so after doing the research I decided to start really developing my main character so the I can make a more thorough plot.
    I essentially wanna do a story about a deaf character that deals with the normal high school angst but also addressing the struggles a deaf person has to deal with in a hearing world all shown through this one person's experiences. When imagining this story I imagine a teenage boy, possibly a sophomore, because when framing this story I would want him to be young enough to tackle the struggles of a "growing boy" but I also want to frame the story with him getting use to his environment and being able to continue in that environment if that makes sense. So in this sense I would want a sophomore because I would be able to have him start off at a new school but also at the "end of the school year" which would be at the end of the film, he would still have future years to develop as a person at said school. To best develop my idea of my character I looked back at some of the films and TV shows I talked about in my research.

Anthony Hall

Sean Berdy

Sean Berdy plays Emmet Bledsoe in the TV series Switched at Birth, where his character plays a proud deaf teenage boy who has deaf parents and goes to a deaf school.

Anthony Hall plays Brian Johnson in the film Breakfast Club who plays a stereotypical nerd but is revealed to have depth and the true extent his academics play a part in his education.

   Creating this character I imagine a independent yet awkward boy. I want this character to be slightly stubborn and isolated taking on the teen clique of "me against the world" but depicted more as that is how his life has turned out; not wanting to feel like so but him feeling as though that is how life has to be. Yet at the same time I want to show him as quirky and slightly awkward; not necessarily as some cool lone wolf, but rather just trying to figure out his place in the world on his own. I want to show him as a normal teenager with average teenage boy problems and not show him as weak or/and dependent. In a way I want to model him as Emmet because I want to show him as a normal deaf teenager with his own interests, but similar to Brian in the sense where he has learn about how to be himself and deal with life on his own demonstrating growth and depth. I think one of the best ways I'm going to be exemplify this is through showing his passion in art. I think not only focusing on his deafness but his pure teenage spirit and giving him something to express himself with and be passionate about will really make him a lovable and well rounded character.

My biggest worry though is finding the perfect actor, or lets be honest, a actor.

    I have started to fall in love with this movie concept and really want to do justice with it. As you could tell from my research on the deaf community, there is barely representation of the deaf community in the media but on top of that proper representation. With that being said I talked to my American Sign Language (ASL) teacher about if she could help me advertise this more in the deaf community and do right by this film. I am currently taking ASL 3 at my school and my teacher constantly helps and throws events for the deaf community and she constantly encourages us students to do so as well so she was also excited to here me doing a project with my main character being a deaf character. The main problem is because I am a high school student with a time limit and no budget, she was telling me it was honestly going to be extremely difficult to find an actor that would, one match the character characteristics I'm looking for but two, find a deaf person that would even be willing to work with me in the first place so she told me to keep my options open. Therefore although a deaf teenage boy would be ideal, I need to keep my options open to a larger age range and no gender limit. Now I know your thinking "well if anything couldn't you ask someone in your ASL 3 class that knows how to sign to act for your film?" and essentially I could, BUT I know with such limited ways for the deaf to get properly represented in the deaf I don't feel its right to just get a hearing person to pretend to be a deaf person, not really knowing what its like to be deaf. I want to do this project right, even if that means I put it at risk and make it harder. I was talking to Mrs.Stoklosa (my AICE Media Studies A teacher) and she is urging me to find a back up plan. It hurts me to think it wouldn't work but I know its the smart thing to do, I am going to think of other ideas but hopefully it won't resort to me having to essentially start this process all over.

That's a Rapp on this post, till next time!

Sources:

“Emmett Bledsoe.” Switched at Birth Wiki, switchedatbirth.fandom.com/wiki/Emmett_Bledsoe. 

Shmoop Editorial Team. “Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall) in The Breakfast Club.” Shmoop, Shmoop University, 11 Nov. 2008, www.shmoop.com/the-breakfast-club/brian.html. 

 

   Pictures:

   “UPDATE: SIGNin' in the Street at the Downtown Disney District and Your Chance to Attend 'Switched at Birth' Finale Preview.” Disney Parks Blog, disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2012/03/update-signin-in-the-street-at-the-downtown-disney-district/. 

    https://imgur.com/gallery/w3kBthttps://www.pinterest.com/bokukokoaha/anthony-michael-hall/

Deaf High School Student Research

Hi again, so I finally decided I wanna do a comedy-drama teen film. Drama overall is more popular amongst the majority of movie watchers, but also I think it better matches with the idea I have for my film along with taking the situations my character goes through, but with the addition of not making things overly dramatic which plays a part in the comedy of any average teen film.

I have also decided that I wanted to do some basic research on the deaf community and basic deaf terms so that I could bring you all up to par for when I start diving more into deaf culture and things start to fall into place for the plot. I also started to dive into more specific research on deaf movies, high school deaf students, and DeVia.
Here is the link to research along with an analysis. 
I can’t wait to get started on solidifying the plot and getting started on the meat of the project!

*Sources listed within linked documents

Revealing my (general) idea

Welcome Back

Last I posted I talking to you guys I was between two ideas for my "full length film", after discussing both ideas with colleagues and teachers, along with some basic research I finally made a decision. Without a further adieu, here it is:

I have decided to do a teen film (still stuck between doing a drama or comedy) on a deaf teenager who is mainstreamed (in education mainstreaming means when a student with specific needs is placed in a general education classroom)

Here is the research I came across that helped me make my decision:

Last year I had found out that the most popular movie theater age group in 2016 based off of Theatrical Marketing Statistics was 18 - 24 years old. Along with that, in 2016 females were the majority in box office sales based off of the largest gross films of that year. Going off of those statistics it seemed most logical to do a teen film to appeal to the majority of the audiences, with that being said I hope to find a deaf female as my main lead to also appeal to the majority of female viewers. I do want to point out that I do say hope for a reason, I plan in delving into deaf representation and culture in a future post but, as a high school hearing student I do understand that it is going to be hard to find a deaf actor, therefore I am leaving to gender of the character open and continuing to develop a rough draft of the film.

Basing most of my ideas on the basics of the subgenre teen films, I started to dive more into understanding the genre. The genre seemed to only emerge full in about the past 40 years (although their is debate on its true start in the 1950s). Along with that the genre more than anything seems to be about challenging the "average teenage lifestyle" usually films being a comedy about a wide variety of teen stereotypes (whether they be about general teen struggles or teen individual characteristics). Having previously watched well known/exemplified  American teen films such as  The Breakfast Club , Ferris Buellers' Day Off , Grease (also having seen the play) I was able to also make my own general analysis and assumptions on top of my research. I decided to also watch  Not Another Teen Movie  do to the exaggerations of the stereotypes and overly done conventions of the teen film genre as it is a comedy mocking the entire genre. Seeing how the  sheer focus of the film was making fun of the general conventions of the genre I was able to study and gain a better understanding of the typical views on teen films and general techniques used in the film exemplifying said views. I am still torn between whether developing my story as a drama or as a comedy. Considered the popular choice for the subgenre and whats popular among the demographic I am worried that may effect the general idea or view of representation therefore I want to give it more thought.

That's a Rapp on this post, till next time!

Sources:

isabella_milne Follow. “Codes and Conventions of the Teen Genre.” LinkedIn SlideShare, 11 Aug. 2013, www.slideshare.net/isabella_milne/codes-and-conventions-of-the-teen-genre. 

Most Influential, Significant and Important Films in American Cinema - The 1960s, www.filmsite.org/comedyfilms.html. 

Most Influential, Significant and Important Films in American Cinema - The 1960s, www.filmsite.org/dramafilms.html.

“Favorite Movie Genres in the U.S. by Gender 2018 | Statistic.” Statista, Statista, www.statista.com/statistics/254115/favorite-movie-genres-in-the-us/. 

“Movie Genres by Box Office Revenue in North America 2019 | Statistic.” Statista, Statista, www.statista.com/statistics/188658/movie-genres-in-north-america-by-box-office-revenue-since-1995/. 

“After 500,000 Votes, 'Mean Girls' Was Only Ranked The 3rd Greatest Teen Movie Of All Time.” Ranker, www.ranker.com/list/best-teen-movies-of-all-time/all-genre-movies-lists. 

“Teen Movie Madness: A Statistical Analysis.” Forever Young Adult, foreveryoungadult.com/2013/04/10/teen-movie-madness-a-statistical-analysis/. 

  http://www.screeningthepast.com/2011/11/modernism-cinema-adolescence-another-history-for-teen-film/Teen_Films_The_Cinematic_Image_of_Youth_2012_in_Film_Genre_Reader_IV_ed._by_Barry_Keith_Grant

      Pictures:

      “The Breakfast Club.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Feb. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Breakfast_Club.

      “Grease (Film).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Feb. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grease_(film).

      “Not Another Teen Movie.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Jan. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Another_Teen_Movie.

I'm back

Hey everyone, I'm Carolina Rapp, an 18 year old videographer.

Carolina Rapp from July of 2018

Sorry for the log wait but great news is I'm back, working on a brand new project! If you don't know about what I am referencing to or who I am you can check out my last blog from last year when I took AICE Media Studies AS level.  I have been continuously working on my videography skills for the past year. I am still in Cypress Bay Television, CBTV (my schools television production class/club) but now I am Vice President of the club; I am also still Aftershock (which is my schools weekly show) so I have been making new videos every week (not including all the videos I make for this course). Along with that I also have been fortunate enough to have boomed in my freelancing, switching from just videomaking to do all kind of graphic design and marketing work. I believed I have grown immensely since last year and hope to really prove that through my project this year.

This year I decided to do the movie promotion project! I know it encompasses a lot of different concepts in the marketing and creating of a full length film but I think with my growth from last year I can truly do some of my best work with this project. This time I decided to start thinking of some ideas in advance, so far I'm down to two. I don't want to cause confusion by telling you both so I'll let you know which one I pick by my next post, so stay tuned!

That's a Rapp on this post, till next time :)