Media Studies - Moonlight Sonata Development

This Blogpost (Written by me, Maxi) features the development of our film opening; Moonlight Sonata.

Note: We initially brainstormed the idea of Moonlight Sonata after having a conversation with our music teacher in which she told us how she wanted her kids to play the piano when they grew up. We then talked about the idea of making a film surrounding a kid who's mother had turned greedy and tried to abuse her child's talent, and how this killed his passion. We further thought that the best way to resolve this conflict would be the introduction of a love interest, who reignites the characters flame for the instrument. The title came from the well known piano piece by Beethoven, after our music teacher played it in the music room, and we decided that the name would fit the movie perfectly.

10 Possible movie titles:

• Liebestraume
• Harmony
• A Reignited Harmony
• Reignite
• Perfect Imperfections
• A Musical Match
• The First Verse
• The Duet
• Two Halves Make a Whole
• Moonlight Sonata

These titles all convey a sense of passion, connoting romance, and also incorporate subtle hints that music will play a role in the film. Moonlight sonata was our final choice; we chose this as our title as moonlight is commonly connoted with subjects of love and romance. While a sonata often is a long song that tells a story. Furthermore Moonlight Sonata is a well known song that may attract audiences that have interest in music/more specifically, classical music. Since our target audience is teenagers, male and female, and also people who enjoy playing music, I think this name will be able to capture their attention due to their interests.

What will be included in credits:

• Production Company

• Regents Media Production

• Distribution company

• 20th Century Studios

• Production Team 

• Producers: Timothy Sulaeman, Maximilian Gehlen, Sharon Tan, Nayana Sumaniaka

• Director: Timothy Sulaeman

• Screenwriter: Maximilian Gehlen

• Creative Designer: Sharon Tan

• Casting Director: Nayana Sumaniaka

• Cast

• Young Hazel: Timothy Mulia

• Mother: Hawila Eva

• Adolescent Hazel: Mathew Tan

• Present Hazel: Danny Budiada

• Teacher: Benjamin Whitaker

• Harmony: Jasmine Riadi

• Extras: Nicholas Mawardji, Elvina Ryanto, Nayana Sumaniaka, Michelle Darmawan, Eileen Milano, Charlene Crestella Wijaya

This cast was decided by all team members, and were based upon the visions we had for each characters personality and looks. Hazel's Mother is also the aforementioned music teacher who gave us the idea to make the film. Cast members were all contacted by Nayana, our casting director.

List of locations

• Regents Secondary School Bali

• Jalan Belanjong No. 14

These locations were chosen due to their availability, as shooting shots in our school would allow for all of us to gather easily as we could just start shooting once our classes had ended (the teacher in the film is also a teacher at our school, which makes it even easier as schedules are less likely to clash). One of the scenes in the movie also takes place in a school, and thus it makes sense we'd use our own school due to it having quite a fancy/posh facility, that would fit the film perfectly.

The other scene at Jalan Belanjong No. 14 is the address of my house. Shooting here is easy as I live there, and thus could arrange an appointment in which other cast members could come to my house quite easily. I own a piano and have a house with a very homey environment, as well as it being quite large, which allows us to shoot there easily.

Screenplay Development

Moonlight Sonata's screenplay can be seen in a separate blog post. The screenplay was written solely by me on the day we started brainstorming ideas for the movie. However, it was edited over and over until we arrived on the final version that the whole team was satisfied with around 5 days after creating the first draft.

Filming Process/Development

Day 1

Our team member Timo as mentioned in the team introduction is a video producer, which means he already had most of the equipment that we would need for the production process, including a SONY A7 Camera with a Zeiss 24-70/F4.5 Lens, and a MOZA AirCross Camera Stabilizer. The rest of the equipment however, we decided to rent. These pieces included a CN1200DH 5400K 72W & YongNuo 360 III RGB LED 3200-5500K Lighting Panels, and a GODOX Gm55 4K HDMI Camera monitor. We acquired our microphone (a RØDE VideoMic) from one of our classmates, who was kind enough to lend us his. We all agreed to split the prices of renting the equipment and believed that this would all be worth it to achieve our goal, which was to create the best possible film opening that we could. We had arranged three dates for which filming would occur. February 10th (School), February 11th (My house), and February 12th (My house). 

On February 10th, in our media class, we began setting up the equipment in the classroom which we would then transform into the music room (we did not want to use our actual schools music room due to the location being too cramped and not being ideal to shoot in in general). We took the equipment from Timothy's car and set it up in our media classroom, and later on moved it to our set.

In the images below we can see us grabbing and setting up the camera, mic, stabilizer, and monitor, as well as us on set with the lighting panels.

After setting everything up, we then decided to try and shoot some practice shots on our phones, where we then thought of what and what not to change. It also gave us the basic ideas of how we were going to shoot the real shots with the actual equipment.

This image shows a practice shot in which we were saying how Harmony's walk-in would look like on our phones, vs how we actually shot it with the real equipment. The output of this test-recording session can be seen in this drive link.

Practice shot (With Sharon as model)

Real Shot (With actor Jasmine May)

We did this for a multitude of other shots as well. In the actual shoot we took a variety of shots and takes, far more than what was detailed in the screenplay, just to see if it would look good/even better than what was in the screenplay. For example, we took shots in which the teacher was yelling Hazel's name while sitting down, and one where was standing up, as well as shots that focus solely on Hazel's hands playing the piano, which was also not detailed in the screenplay. These images can be seen here:

This then wrapped up our shooting for day 1, after getting more than 70 different takes, we were more than satisfied with how they turned out, with all actors performing incredibly well.

Day 2

Day 2 was February 11th, in which we had Young Hazel, Adolescent Hazel, and Hazel's mother on set with us at my house. Present Hazel could not join us on this day as there were scheduling conflicts/complications. Beforehand, my living room had to be completely rearranged as so that we would be able to shoot there. Once the living room was rearranged and all the equipment was set we then began shooting. Problems arose however due to the usage of younger actors (young hazel's actor was only 4 years old), which made it harder for us to give him stage directions and for him to act well. However even with those issues, we were able to get the shots we needed and finished the day satisfied with the shots we got. These images show the before/after pictures of how we had to rearrange the living room in order to film, as well as filming the shots of the 2 younger Hazel's.

Before Rearranging

After Rearranging

Day 3

On day 3. February 12th, we filmed the scene in Hazel's Home which featured him in the present, being scolded by his mother for his lousy playing, which shows how he has lost his passion for piano. Here, we decided that since we wanted to show how Hazel's mother had progressed into a more strict/angry mother, we dressed her in more formal attire, while also having her tie her hair, and to portray an aging effect, we colored her hair white using baby powder, to make her hair white. Furthermore, we wanted to convey Hazel's emotions by having a close up of him crying. Since it his hard for most people to cry on command, we applied eye drops to Hazel's actors' eyes to make his "crying" more realistic. We also experimented with different ways on how else to convey the progression of Hazel's piano skill. For this we decided to make Hazel wear more formal attire, as if he was about to go out for a competition. Thus, we made him wear a buttoned up shirt, with a watch and nice, long pants. After we had gotten all the shots we needed, the filming process was now done. Here are some pictures of the process including the application of baby powder, the props we had used throughout the shooting at Hazel's home, some more team pictures, and the shooting of Hazel's and his Moms' scenes.

Choosing of Typeface

After filming had finished, we began to decide what the typeface of our title card and our credit sequence would be. We researched the typefaces used by various films and shows of the drama and romance genre. These are the typeface's commonly used by these shows/films: 

Most use a form of all caps with white text, which we planned on doing in the first place. Some also use a handwritten font, which we decided against because it did not fit the overall effect our film is trying to convey. Handwritten text feels too casual and conveys a sense of childishness/immaturity, while the film is trying to be more serious and dramatic.

Here are a few examples of typefaces we experimented with for our title card. We also tried to add a glow effect on the text as well, as we believed it showed the same sense of glow people associated with the glow of moonlight. This adds extra meaning to the title of the film itself, as moonlight is commonly associated with ideas of romanticism. All of these fonts also denote a more serious tone that the movie is trying to convey.

This is a typeface that we believe perfectly conveys the sense of seriousness, as well as still incorporating the ideas of having a glowing effect that represents the glow of moonlight. This typeface is also more elegant, which goes with the overall atmosphere of the film too. The use of all caps also creates a more serious/dramatic effect that we wanted to convey. All in all, we chose this as our final typeface we would use as the title screen.

Post Production Process

After Timothy had edited his first draft, there were multiple things that we wanted to change. Some of the things he originally included were a filter for the first shot  of young hazel, which was supposed to show that it was footage from that time period. However, we as a team decided that it wasn't appropriate for the scene and that it didn't look good. Another change was how the music club teachers audio wasn't muffled when he starts talking, which we thought was better if it was muffled to show that our main character was too focussed on playing the piano to hear him. 

After that, to fix continuity issues, we included background audio in the classroom of other students talking when the music club teacher started the class, as beforehand the audio cut out once he started talking. This didn't make sense as students generally don't stop talking even if a teacher would start the class, and so we added it throughout the scene. Other than that, we originally planned to have the title card appear as the soundtrack hit its crescendo. However, after testing it out, the pacing of the film didn't match the fast pace of the songs crescendo, thus we replaced it with a slower part of the song, which we believe still fits quite well. Lastly, we weren't able to include a close up of Hazel's mother when she yells at her, as our running time was far too long at that point, which means we weren't able to show her costume and facial expressions, however we still convey her increased strictness by the intonation of her voice and how much angrier she is.