HERE IT IS!!!

 After so long we've finally completed our portfolio and im excited to share it with you! you can find all of the resources at this link: W*TCH Portfolio Project 2026

A full video with all the social media posts is available on the folder, but just in case here is a link to the Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/watch.wtch/

Collaborators: Zachary London, Nicolas Restrepo, Aneesa Bajaj

Reflecting Critically

       W*TCH! Is a teen coming-of-age/dramedy film centering around Claire, a girl who is newly inducted to the the popular girl group at her school, opposite her ex-best friend, Sarina. This project entailed the creation of  three separate components, A short film, A social media page promoting the film, and a printable postcard to be handed out at a film festival. Throughout the project, my group and I made sure that each component was directly connected to the other 2 components, through production decisions.

When we first began planning out our project, our concepts were very different. We heavily researched productions that broke the fourth wall, including Fleabag, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, and Deadpool. We originally wanted our film to center around the technique of direct address, and explore what would happen if two characters were to compete for the audience. Eventually through group meetings we discovered that this concept could be difficult to understand, and even more difficult to execute.

As we switched gears closer to the concepts of teen dramedy that made it into the final film, we started paying attention to productions that explored interpersonal relationships and the high school experience. We heavily researched the writing of Mean Girls and The Craft, movies that explore teen social hierarchies, and witchcraft in a way that is relatable to teens. After researching both films we decided to represent the social pressure to conform, and the consequent feelings of isolation that can come from that. In addition to analyzing similar productions we also researched the real groups we planned on representing 

When we decided to focus on the idea that many teens often overlook their own values to fit into a group we wanted to make sure that the way we represented it was a true reflection of how teens feel, and the abandonment that goes with it. We also needed to make sure we nailed the social aspect of it, and write about how teen girls interact with each other through both words and body language. 

        Something that needed particular care in the writing was our portrayal of witches and witchcraft. We did heavy research into real life witches, and the way their practices work. While of course there was still some fantastical aspect to it, removed from any real-life witchcraft, we still needed to make sure that what we were portraying came from a real place, and didn't show witchcraft in a way that disrespected, or misrepresented real witches. 

        On the set of our film, we used a real tarot deck, and incorporated elements of its design across our branding, so that the deck that you see on the film, is the same one shown in online promotional content, and on our postcard. We also made sure that the spread used in the film was a real life tarot spread, and the descriptions of the cards matched what they represented in real life. This also became the visual baseline for the brand shown In our film, social media, and postcard.

        We actually scanned the tarot deck to incorporate elements from it into the social media, the back of the tarot card being a subtle visual motif present throughout much of the promotion. By formatting the posts as different cards in a deck, we wer able to create a brand that visually matched the concepts represented throughout our film. For other elements we drew inspiration from gothic designs. For font choices we limited ourselves to 3 fonts across the entire branding.

        We would use Angelic War for the title of the film, and any other major headings, as it is very distinct and ornate. For subheadings we would use Slacksluger which is similarly decorative but not as detailed and finally for small print and body text we would use Cochin which was simple but elegant.

        The postcard echos this brand style. The front side graphic mirroring some of the posts from our page, and the back graphic providing details on when and where to watch the film, as well as our social media page, and contact emails for the writer and director.

        We used the design of the postcard and social media to attract our audience of teens, using a bold, but feminine crimson color. We also made sure the fonts we used were carried distinct features associated closer to femininity, such as swirling embellishments. The maximalist and flowy aspects of the design also help push it towards the feminine side, as typically masculine design language focuses on geometric minimalism.    

        The postcard provides a point of direct access to our film. When we hand it out at a festival, people can see the themes of the film on the front cover, which features the tarot card and the title of the film. The backside features 2 stills from the film composited together, the title of the film, its tagline, screening information, location, and contact information for the crew. 

        The title of our film by itself communicates to its target audience by establishing the type of themes portrayed throughout. We chose to name it W*TCH! As a play on the cuss bitch. Written out as if being yelled out to the audience. This calls back to the style of language used by characters in movies about teen social groups like Mean Girls

        The film itself communicates to the audience by being emotionally candid. It confronts feelings of abandonment, and isolation. It does this by having the main character, Claire, directly speak to the audience, this is where we used our research from productions like Fleabag, to see how we could write a character that consistently juggles a conversation with the audience, and other characters in the film.

        When we began writing W*TCH! We could not have imagined it would turn into what it has now. Through our research in representation we were able to form a cohesive brand for the film that calls out to our audience and captures their attention. Im glad that we were able to make something that people can understand the concepts of upon seeing it.

A review

WE FINALLY FINISHED EDITING!

But before I show you guys the opus (sans magnum)  I wanted to look back and see what we did well on and what we couldve improved on.

Timing became such a huge issue during this project, and I think if we as a group had organized ourselves better we could've ended with a much better project. We started in late February and we didnt really have a script until later in March. I think if we had focused on nailing down an idea instead of juggling a few around, we wouldve had time to really work with the concepts, and see what was the most exciting, and what connected the most to each of us, rather than rushing a script. I also think when it came to our social media page, we shouldve written out what kind of posts we wanted to have before shooting, so that we could've included our cast in more posts.

Regardless, I am immensely proud of our final product. I think we really nailed it with the branding, and the editing and sound design turned out incredible. This I feel was the saving grace of our film. Overall I am so glad to have had this expirience with my 4 group members and I while there are some things I would change, this has definently given me a lot of valuable expirience in creating longer term projects.

Time to get organized...

 Ok so. As we wrap up on the actual film itself, I should start considering how I plan on tackling the questions asked for our Critical Reflection (CR for short). This is an essay of around 1000 words basically asking 4 questions about what kind of message our production itself is sending to the world.

Here are the 4 questions:

How do your products represent social groups or issues?

How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?

How do your products engage with the audience?

How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

Here are my notes on the CR that i took from class;

So for the first question, I think its important to explain

    - We reviewed productions like Fleabag, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, and Deadpool, when we first formed our     idea, and then when we changed it we looked into films like Mean Girls and The Craft to inform our           ideas for w*tch!

    - We specifically honed in on how they write for a character breaking the fourth wall when we reviewed

    productions like Fleabag

    - Our Genre is dramady

    - I think the research we did that impacted production the most was fleabag, and mean girls, we really

    took a lot of notes on how mean girls wrote their characters for the main trio, and we adapted a lot of        how fleabag would break the fourth wall into our main character claire.

The second question is a bit more complicated. Making our products reallly engage with the audience is important. I think the primary we did that was through the social media and the kind of messaging we used. 

We posted several posts such as the one on the right, indicating the target audience for our film. This communicates that our target audience (teens and young adult, primarily women) should watch our film.

Our post card engages the audience by introducing the atmosphere of the film. It features a front graphic, in line with the branding on the social media, and on the back a short description of the film, and where to go watch it at Lightning Film Festival. 

The film itself engages audiences by capturing the emotions of viewers. Everyone has felt alone at one point, and thats the kind of emotion we are trying to channel.

For the 3rd question, Our branding makes a very clear statement about the film. The posts themselves are either formatted as tarot card, or feature them as elements. To do this, we scanned the deck we used from the film to create several brand elements. The font usage is also super important. We use 3 fonts; Angelic War for titles, Slacksluger for headings/subheadings, and Shrikhand for body text. These fonts are all very flowy, with the heading and title fonts being detail oriented.

We also focused on a very gothic design language, commonly associated with witches or otherworldly concepts.

For the fourth and final question, It's important to show that we represented highschool girls, and more importantly their social groups. It happens very often that teenagers, sometimes make decisions that they don't agree with to "fit in," this often can leave others feeling abandoned. This is what we tried to represent as the main conflict in our film. 

We also represent witches in our film, in which it is important to consider that there are real practicing witches in our world. And while non of the witches in our film are specifically of any denominational organization, its important that we represent the practices were adapting properly. For this we used a real tarot deck during the production, and used a real spread that is actually used by practicing witches.

 

the ACTUAL last day of filming

 So we've made an addition to the script! meaning we need to film for another day unfortunately.

Basically, in editing we realized that there isn't really any moments between Claire and Sarina during the timeline of the film. Like sure, theres flashbacks showing their relationship, but nothing that indicates where their relationship is NOW. 

So we decided to add a little tid bit of a conversation, between the montage and the Tarot reading that basically serves this purpose, as well as having Claire take more of an active role in the story by confronting Sarina.

So we called back just Sarina and Claire to shoot this scene, and we also decided to last minute shoot something on the black void that we may or may not use:

In Ariana Grande's music video for "No Tears Left To Cry" Ariana dramatically spins around, and leaps off a building.

What captured my attention about this is that in the behind the scenes, it look extremely simple.

Music Video

Behind the Scenes

So we decided to take a shot at it, record it very quickly, and if it turned out bad we wouldn't use it

We shall see how that goes in the edit, but the next update about this film specifically should be the film itself so STAY TUNED

FILMING (the third and final day)

 Yesterday's shoot was a success! We started by using black trashbags to board up my entire house so that the daylight wouldn't show through (since it is kind of an evening scene)

You can see the trashbags if you look hard enough

Once our first two actors arrived we wrapped up recording some flashback scenes that were missing from the previous shoot! Next we started on the all the montage shots. We wanted to have a more dramatic shift, so we used natural lighting for the montage, up until the tarot reading where we dramatically shifted to a more creative style of lighting.

My dog in the red and purple lighting 

(he wanted to be included)

 This scene actually ended up taking until 10 pm to shoot :( but its okay because we wrapped :)

2nd DAY OF FILMING!!

 So today we actually had major success filming!

One of our actors was busy with work so we had to kind of be weird about what scenes we shot. We ultimately came up with this: today we would film all the flashbacks and black void scenes, as well as the scene right outside of Andreina's house and the new opening. This would allow us to get all the location shifting out of the way so that tomorrow we could focus on just filming all the single location stuff.

So today about an hour after I got home from work, the Crew came to my house to film, we started setting up my sisters room to be Claires room, and we had to take a quick detour to pick up the black backdrop from my dads friend (my dad lent it to him over the weekend) Once we got back we did the lighting set up for the backdrop which looked like this:

Our actors mostly showed up late :/ so we finalized all the character posts while we waited for them to show up!

So after our actors showed up we started with filming the bedroom scenes, then we shot everything in the void, and finally around 6:30 we filmed claire arriving to Andreina's house. 

Tomorrow we're actually filming the plot so stay tuned to see how that goes!