Reflection

My name is Jonathan Casaverde and for my portfolio project me and my group decided to create an original action/thriller film opening titled “Champion”. My group included Arianna Shakibi, Rafael Sanchez, and Tomas Quilaqueo.

• Going into our portfolio project we wanted to battle against the stereotypical boxing movie of a stubborn fighter learning and improving. The cliche of overcoming multiple obstacles and gang related violence is overused boring. So how can a group of teenagers break this stereotype and aim to create an original piece? We simply researched all of the used cliches and created a storyline that broke away from that. Developing a deeper story and creating character with more depth.
• The film opening focuses mainly on an illegal street fight in which Vincent Montoya boxes against Booker Cannon. We started the fight with Montoya showing a strong front and pretty much dominating the fight. Slowly we flipped it to the opposite, having cannon take the lead and at the end throwing him towards the pick up consequently  knocking him out.
• We challenged the typical boxing convention of an African American protagonist who is deeply intertwined with gang violence. We used two fighters of Latino descent and refused to connect them to illegal activities but kept them in the lower income group. However the challenge of using female roles instead of male roles was a path my group did not choose to take. We found it difficult to integrate a female role without focusing more on sexuality rather than personal growth. We wanted our opening to be strong and impressive not weak and common
• We also challenged the idea that illegal boxing is criminal and ugly. We wanted to show a more personal aspect to montoya, given in our hospital room scene, to allow the audience to relate to the protagonist and to not discriminate against him. Typically audiences find illegal fights to be just that, illegal and shameful, but throughout our 2 minute opening we aimed to shift that perspective to a lighter more accepting tone. We sought out to create the thought, “what if I was in that situation” ?
• To create and interest for the whole film we ended our opening with the hospital room scene in which Vincent Montoya can be seen in a Coma. Our friend Ethan Gaer, who is the sports announcer at our school’s TV production program, helped do the voice over. The voice over was done not only to explain the situation that montoya found himself in, but to create suspense with the question “Will he ever be the same” ?
• Although the fight scene might seem as the main focus in our portfolio, the ending scene is the strongest point. The fight scene is filler to allow our audience to build connections and understand our characters. The final scene is what really makes this opening successful.

Given the fact that we are not entirely familiar with the film industry, we would like to distribute locally. At small independent film festivals and local school competitions. We would like to enter our film into a TV Production competition, or the Broward Initiative Shortcuts, which allows Broward County students to submit original works for a chance to win scholarships and prizes. Our schools Film club also holds an annual film festival in which we would be highly interested in entering. The festivals would allow us to receive criticism from other peers and grow our product to diverse audiences.

In this project I mainly grew in the creative aspect. I’ve never been one for editing or directing, yet I love using my creativeness to convey a story. With the help of my Tomas and Rafael, we were able to develop what we consider to be a short spoken masterpiece. Using very few words, we wrote a screenplay that would hook the audience and familiarise them with our character within two minutes. Successfully doing so allowed my team to really relate to our audience and keep their attention on our product. On the actual filming day I battled with my anxiety. Our group had a very difficult time communicating and deciding on a date to film. I work a part time job, which allows me to save up for college, but also consumes a major part of my free time.

We had made arrangements to film our opening on the evening of March 16, yet none of us thought to check the weather, and that ended with 30 teeangers left with nowhere to go but home. I left anxious and on the verge of a meltdown. I had taken the day off from work which is difficult for me to do so given that I am a manager, and feared that I would not be able to participate in the filming. Thankfully, we decided to use the rain to our advantage and ended up filming a major portion of our opening in the pouring rain.

This taught me patience and helped me deal with my problems head on and not avoid them. Juggling this project and 4 other AICE classes plus a part time job really helped me grow to a more responsible young adult. The creative process allowed me to expand my knowledge on my field of interest and really understand how difficult it is to create an idea from the ground up.

To edit our portfolio we used adobe Premiere Pro, in which Arianna and tomas we are able to create and original title scene and combine our multiple footages to flow. We also used a microphone to record our foley sounds. We wanted to make the punches sound as realistic as possible, so we recorded ourselves repeatedly punching pieces of raw meat. I was not involved in the editing process as much as Arianna, as I stated before, technology is not my strong suit. We also used DSLR cameras and a cheap stabilizer to keep our shots clean and crisp. We wanted to look the most profesional we could make it with our limited resources. Thankfully we didn't need to record any sound on the actual days of filming and that made every shot much simpler to film.

The chance to create this film opening allowed me to grow in multiple ways. Working with my teammates I got hands on experience developing a new storyline and working together to succeed in our debacles. This was a truly educational experience and I’m so glad i was able to take part in this portfolio. Thank you to cambridge for their time in viewing my film, I’m Jonathan Casaverde, and this is Champion.