The main characters of my film are the married couple, and I need names for them that fit their personalities. For the man, he is an established business man, so I looked up a list of business-like names, and found a list of the most "successful" names. I scrolled through and the top names were ones like John, Micheal, and Joseph; I liked the name David from the list and felt that it was a tiny notch less basic than the other names. I wanted a classic businessman name, and I thought David would work well for this purpose. I then looked up a list of last names, and after looking through the long list, I settled on "Harker", because I felt it sounded good with David, and sounded good alone. As a white couple, I want David and his wife to have very American names, and Harker sounds very American. I also think it sounds powerful, and I could imagine male coworkers in the office casually calling him Harker, but also people lower than him referring to him professionally as Mr.Harker.
For the mother, I looked up popular female names from 1980, because even if she’s older than that, it still sets the names in the right age range. I want her to also have a pretty basic name, to make her and David fit in with average American couples. I settled on Jackie for the mother, because I like the name and it gives her a casual feel. I want her character to be well liked by all of David’s coworkers and the other adults in the film, and I felt like Jackie was a very friendly and inviting name. Jackie Harker also flows, so the name works.
I also need a name for the son, because even though he isn’t in the opening scene, the scene discusses his future. I got a list of the current popular male names, since if the parents have a basic name, then their son’s name should match with that. I scrolled through a list of 100 names, and decided I liked the name Aiden. It’s basic without being completely overused, and also sounds good with Harker.
Sources:
https://www.business2community.com/social-buzz/25-baby-names-that-spell-career-success-01375026
https://hobbylark.com/writing/cool-last-names
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a29351513/popular-baby-boy-names-2020/
https://www.momswhothink.com/top-100-baby-names-for-the-1980s/
This being said, I'm really happy with how my opening is turning out so far. I edited a lot of the first half, which has shots of Miami and of Jackie walking up to David's office. I'll most likely go back and tweak this first part after the office clips are all in, but I wanted to lay them all out first. After I know how long the office conversation is, I can edit the first half to be longer or shorter depending on what I need. Once I start putting in all of the office clips, I'm probably going to do be doing a lot of color correction since the lighting varied a lot throughout the clips. All of the shots of David are slightly back-lit, but some are a little more than others, so I'm going to have to try and make them all match each other. I haven't quite gotten there yet, so I'll update you guys when I do!
I finally went out and filmed the bulk of my opening! I picked out my parents outfits and they got ready, then we packed all of our props into the car and made our way down to Miami. Since I hadn't seen the office yet, once we got there my dad showed us around and showed me a few different filming options. I'd already decided I wanted to use the boardroom, but my dad ended up showing me a second boardroom option, which I actually ended up liking the layout of better. We then set up the props on the table to try and make the end of the table look like a desk. I took a time lapse of us setting up the table, which actually turned out out of focus, but I'll insert it anyways.
Next we all got out our scripts and storyboards, and we began filming. Since the opening is primarily the conversation in David's office, all of our shots were in the same place. Given the fact that neither of my parents can act very well, it still took a while to film as we were trying to get all of the emotions right. The conversation ending up being a lot shorter then I had planned on it being, just because it went by a lot quicker than it did in my head. This made me super nervous that my opening was going to end up way too short, so after brainstorming for a bit I decided to get some shots of Jackie walking to the office. I got a bunch of different shots of her walking through the Miami streets, into the building, and up to David's office, all of which only show her feet and lower half. My idea is for the beginning of the opening to show her walking around, and then cut to David's office. After showing his office for a little, he gets a knock on the door, revealing Jackie walking in and connecting the two characters. Even though this was a spur of the moment decision, I think it will serve my opening well, and hopefully all of my shots work out well together.
Because I’m heading down to Miami in a couple days with my parents to film, I needed to make sure my storyboard and script were set. I created my storyboard and will include pictures below, and I’m pretty satisfied with how it turned out. I want my filming session to be efficient and productive, so I wanted to have a pretty set idea of shot angles and composition before we go in. Obviously, I’m sure I’ll want to change a few things once we get to the location and start filming, but I’m confident in my plans thus far. In setting up my storyboard, I added a few stage directions and altered a few words of my script, but overall it’s pretty much the same as the script from my last post.
I finally finished the draft of my script. I'm planning on filming this Saturday, since both of my parents are available to film and I want to film sooner rather than later. Over the next couple days I may tweak a few lines, but overall my script is pretty set. I included my script below!
