The Hardest Scene

The bloopers were just plain hilarious. The hardest scene to do was the make-up scene with my older sister in the show for a flashback. My older sister (played by Nur) was blabbering random stuff that made no sense it was so hard not to laugh as you in the bloopers video I failed at it. My favorite part was when Adam brought me water. Here's the story I say I'm thirsty and like me or someone else says like get it after the scene and then at some point Adam brings me water. The whole flashback scene was the hardest I had where I had to do a voice over but the make-up scene was spot on the hardest and funniest one to accomplish. Hey, I didn't fail though I succesed so a big pat in the back for me but not only for me but everyone in the show. You all did amazing and I gotta admit my last post was made to be annoying a little for the older kids. Not like I ever got off track.. Actually yes I did atleast once.

My Favorite and Worst Scenes

Looks like I was annoyed! (probably with the
little kids.) Maybe that was my worst scene.............

In the movie, A Friend Not A Bully I had many favorite scenes. But one of them is the one in the library. It was when Adeeba was being mean to us. She acted out Aisha. It was really funny because Adeeba is kind of the youngest out of all the older kids in the movie. It was weird to have Adeeba being mean to us. It was kind of annoying. But I still really liked that scene. In the middle of the scenes I kept laughing cause it was so weird. Also my worst scene is the one we kept on redoing. I mean we did that with every single scene. But one was really annoying. Ok, I forgot but I remember a real frustrating one. Anyways I can't wait to start filming our next episode! Just have to wait until Monday, 3 more whole days! I still  have more experiences and things to tell you but that will have to wait till later.

Episode 1 Planning and Behind the Scenes Pictures

Chains of Friendship is back!  That's right.  Hana's post last night speaks the truth.  The Chains of Friendship group is totally excited for Episode 2 and our planning is already finished.  Filming commences next week. :)

Beginning the planning stages for Episode 2 brought back memories of our first drama club meetings way back before our show didn't even exist.  Coming up with ideas for our first episode, developing a storyline, and connecting the actors with their parts was a big job.  Our handy notes were very helpful to keep us on track.  Check out some of the pictures below featuring our notes from the planning of Episode 1:

We have all our notes for Episode 2 ready, but you will have to wait until the episode comes out to find out what happens. :)

- Nur Kose

New Bloopers Video

Check out this video featuring some of the bloopers and mess-up scenes we had while filming Episode 1.  You can find more bloopers and behind the scenes stuff here.

Experiences

Experiences

We all had our fair share of experiences in the taking of the video. Some funnier than others. I had some so why not share them? If you didn't know I played Amina. The only nice sister that was nice throughout the whole video. Let's say there was a lot of improving on my part. I did certainly mess up and leading us to start over. Ya not good but mostly my fault. My main scene was the flashback scene where I had to look smaller. I was on my knees to look smaller in one of them. Anyways, I had to a voice over on them because my line were pretty long for me to remember any of them. Well I finished all my voice overs and next week they were gone. Which meant I had to do all over again which was annoying because I couldn't do it next week because this week was the last to film. I also had a sore throat which my voice was pretty weird. Scratchy and all I still did it and surprisingly it didn't sound real bad. If you notice at the end my voice did raise. Hmm... who's fault was it? Not mine, it was the other girls they started talking louder so I just raised my voice so you wouldn't hear them. If you didn't notice you probably want to check now.  That was my experiences for the flashback. (P.S the older girls don't know how to stay quiet some times but don't tell I said this. Shhhhh...)

                                                                                                                                 - Merve Kekik

A New Experience

The Drama Club was a very interesting, exciting, and new experience to me. I can't wait until we start filming the next scene. Actually, first we have to think of an idea then the script. But that's all the boring stuff, cause all we do is sit and write things down. When you film, you are in action which is so much more exciting. During my experience making the movie, I realized that not only the director but also I had to have patience. We had to keep redoing  the scenes over and over that I couldn't even keep track. Actually next time we should see how many takes it took to make the movie. That'd be interesting. Also my ears hurt after every meeting we had. All the little kids were making so much noise, like Adeeba said. Ok, ok, I am not saying the older girls didn't make noise but half of it was us trying to make the younger's be quiet. We hardly made any noise. (not including shouting at the young kids to make them quiet.) Well, for acting it was so fun because I could relate to myself with the movie. I have to admit, it was pretty easy acting what I did. But now I am actually getting the hang of keeping that promise for real. (kind of)So, we should have a good moral like this one. Then most of the actors will follow it.(like me, well I try)  Despite all the bad sides of making a movie, most of this experience as pretty great. All of our actors together I think make a pretty good team. (also of course, the director too)

ACTING IS FUN

One of my favorite scenes I acted in was where I had to act mean and rude although in reality it's not really nice to be mean and rude. I liked that scene because I had a chance to use different props.  It was funny when I kept messing up on my lines and I kept laughing.  After doing that scene several times we finally got it.
Something what I enjoy about acting is that we act like someone else and have different characters in ourselves.  The funniest thing I think when I am acting is that we laugh in the middle of scenes and we have to start over.
Acting is so much fun but sometimes in can be annoying also.  Especially when we have to do the scenes over and over again.  Also when the big kids are trying to film a scene and the small kids are making so much noise.  Then also we have to do the scenes over and over again.  But most of the time it is fun to act.  Can't wait to begin filming for episode two.

Behind the Scenes Pictures and Poses

We hope you guys are having a great Thanksgiving break!  Today we are posting some behind the scenes pictures and poses from the days when we were filming A Friend, Not a Bully.  Click on the pictures to see them larger.  Enjoy!

Chatting between scenes

Checking out notes to remember everyone's names

going over the flashback scene script

hanging out in the "little girls' room"

doing each other's hair between scenes

Trusty video camera

Squishing Organizing together for the group pictures

The Collapsing Group Arrangement

"Take your shoes off before standing on the sofa!"

Throwing the scarf at camera to ruin the picture

Throwing the scarf Take 2

The Final Pose

And now...for a long series of posed pictures...

"Everyone, make a sad face."

"Everyone, make an angry face."

"Everyone make a silly face."

Spotlight on Meryem

Spotlight on Merve

Spotlight on Adeeba

Spotlight on Anaum

Spotlight on Sanable

Spotlight on Sibal

Spotlight on Huda

Spotlight on Nur

"Everyone, do this."

Sanable's Pose

Woah, we definitely took a lot of pictures that day.  Here's the coolest part: everyone (except for Sibal) was wearing black and white even though no one planned to match that day.  It provided a great arrangement for the unplanned photo shoot!

- Nur Kose

The Moral of the Movie

Hana S. Hubert 11/26/14

As a member of the Drama club, I have learned a lot. It thought me about acting, performing, but most importantly, I internalized the moral of our movie, which was simply what the title stated: being a friend, not a bully. One of the main characters in the movie, Amina, was a kind older sister who had experienced being treated unfairly, and had improved her relationship with her older sister. After that, she was kind to her younger sister because of the lesson she had learned. I know now how important it is to be persistent in a goal, and preserve in persuading someone to change for the better like she did. I and my “sister” in the movie Zeyneb, had to over come our unfair, rude personality to become more kind, giving, and self-less.

Currently, the same conflict: younger kids vs older kids is taking place in my family. Adam and I have struggle in our relationship, and we both can learn from the movie. I loved being a part of the acting, and I hope to be a part of the sequel, Inshaallah.

Launch and First Public Viewing of our First Episode

The ZF Drama Club was excited to launch our first episode to the public yesterday during a short ceremony in which we showed A Friend, Not a Bully to an audience at the Zakat Foundation DE Community Center.  I also presented a surprise gift to each of the actors: a picture and small message from our drama club meetings.  Below are some pictures from yesterday:

After so many exhausting and fun weeks of working on this movie, we're all glad and super excited to finally have our finished product out.  We are looking forward to finding out your reactions to our movie and getting any suggestions or feedback for potential future productions.

The actors and members of the Chains of Friendship team will be taking turns writing about what it was like making the movie, interesting behind the scenes tid-bits, and maybe even some bloopers and deleted scenes.  Stay tuned to find out more!

- Nur Kose