The Final Blog (Blog #12)

I think it’s safe to say that I never want to make another documentary after this class. I feel very comfortable with making narrative films. I know quite a few students in my Intro to Film Production class are interested in going into the documentary field. They can go do that, but I’m going to stay in my own field. Sure, documentaries are very interesting to watch, but now that I’ve had experience making one, I feel more comfortable with narrative films.

What did I learn about myself as a filmmaker? I had a good idea before I took this class, but this class just made me realized that my original assumption of myself was right. I thought that I was a little controlling, but open for collaboration if the idea wasn’t bad. I knew I wanted to be a director and a cinematographer before this class. After taking this class, I am really excited about becoming a cinematographer, but I could use a little more experience as a director before I direct a feature film of any kind. Cinematography seems to come natural to me. I like working with cameras and making things look good. Directing is a whole other story. It takes a lot to become a director. I’m positive that I am doing fine a director, but I feel like there’s a lot that I’m forgetting to do as the head honcho on set.

What did I learn about filmmaking in general? Making a film is HARD. Of course, I wouldn’t need to take this class to find that out. I had never made a documentary or an experimental film before this class. It was interesting to learn what it took to make those kinds of films. When making the documentary, I was concerned about editing it. I asked myself “How do I edit this to get the point across?” and eventually I just pushed through it and it ended up doing fairly well. The experimental project, I didn’t know what direction to take this, and I just randomly placed clips onto the timeline in Adobe Premiere. I finally knew what to do when I saw the rough-cut play through. So to sum it up, I learned that almost every film you work on will have its problems that will make you ask yourself “What am I going to do? And how am I going to do it?” Eventually you’ll have those projects that are so controlled that your work is cut out for you.

Visions Film Festival - Film Blocks 1 & 2

In the first film block, the short film Caught was undoubtedly my favorite from that block. The film was really relatable for anyone who had their toys taken away from them during elementary school. I remember getting Pokémon cards, Yu-Gi-Oh cards, footballs, and other things taken away from me by teachers, during recess. Caught was pretty accurate when it came to visually displaying my plot to get back what the teachers took from me. However, I was always a good kid and never went through with it, and the teachers always gave back playing cards at the end of the day. But still, I thought about it, and I’m sure everyone else thought about ways to get their playing cards back. 

In the second block, I was a big fan of the film Straight Down Low. It had to be my favorite that was played at Visions this year. It had that cop-drama vibe to it that I really dug since I'm into that genre. It was like the main character was portraying a Sherlock Holmes-ish kind of character. 

The film definitely went in places that I wasn't expecting. I think, as a movie-goer, that makes the whole film ten times better when then film finds a way to carry the viewer into places they wouldn't expect. I knew the main character was going to get to the bottom of the situation before the cops did, but every time I thought he would go one way, he went the other. I'm not sure about everybody else, but I liked the plot twist where it was just a suicide covered up as a gang killing. Plot twists are always favored, at least in my opinion. Most would disagree with me because plot twists aren't done right most of the time, or because it's hard to get a clever and/or mind-blowing twist. Most films can't reproduce a plot twist as good as The Empire Strikes Back or Memento. But Straight Down Low definitely excelled.

The cinematography of SDL was definitely my style as well. As an aspiring cinematographer, I want to establish my style early so I can excel at making it look good on the big screen. I'm a big fan of punchy coloring and contrast. Just watch Taxi Driver and you'll know what I mean, that film is the epitome of my style of cinematography. The camera movements weren't too special, at least I don't remember them to be, but the performances on screen kept me involved. Overall, the look of the film was great for their specific film style they were going for.

Wild Card, the light at the end of the tunnel is visible (Blog #11)

The final project of Intro to Film Production. I kind of wished I had a director or, preferably, a DP position. But no, I'm the producer on this one. Which is not a bad thing. Producers have a lot of input into the making the film. And I think I can offer my help to my fellow crew members in their general areas.

I hope to do some screenwriting for this project. I know the director will have the final say on what the 5-minute film will be about. But I at least want to help solidify the script and make it good. My group has already begun working on the next drafts of the script. Our director, Anthony, wrote the base script, and I went through it with a fine-tooth comb and fixed the grammatical errors, and then went and fixed/added dialogue and actions that would be beneficial to the script. The film will be a mockumentary/comedy of making a student film. What's great about this is that our group will be inserting a lot of our own stories that we had while making films for our Intro to Film Production class.

I've never been a producer by myself, but when it comes to film, I'm always willing to try new things. I hope to accomplish getting everything that my group needs to make this project, gets us the perfect location to shoot, and make sure everything is in place from start to the finish of this project. I hope to be the best producer I could possibly be. I like treating every film related project seriously. I think it will improve the turn out of the film.

Editing an Experimental (Blog #10)

"I'm beginning to get a little embarrassed by all this because other people are starting to come in"

That was the sentence, out of a book, that my group had to center our final experimental soundscape around. My first initial thought was "How the hell are we going to do this?"I had no experience making experimental films, and I had never made a soundscape before. The only thing I knew about experimental was that there should be no logical connection between each shot, in other words, it should make no sense. That was kind of a saving grace for novice experimental filmmakers. 

I laid down the base soundscape on my computer with some ambient noises and figured that my group and myself will build from that. We went to the editing lab and we went through the footage that we had acquired. I wanted a slow start to the film, then pick up the pace all of the sudden. By this, we had longer shots in the first half of the film, then had a rapid-fire sequence of images. The concept behind the visual portion of this project is to "paint with light" along with "paint with sound." I felt all of the shots had very different lighting and that we would be essentially creating rapid lighting changes throughout the two-minute film. Mike had this technique of taking one of the clips and randomly cutting it into pieces and dropping them into the two-minute work area in Adobe Premiere. That worked out well for the rapid fire sequence.

I came into the project thinking "How the hell are we going to do this?", then while going through the sound files I thought "I kind of know what to do, but still, how the hell are we going to do this?" It wasn't until we sat back and watched the rough cut of the film from beginning to end, then I thought "Now we have something, and I'm liking it." I just wanted to do more and add more images to make the flow of them seem more and more random. 

The final product had a soundscape made mostly of ambient tracks. There were a few sound effects, but there were no voice-based sounds in our final soundscape project.

Sound Recording (Blog #9)

The overall experience of recording sound was interesting. Since we weren't getting very specific sounds, us students had the creative freedom to record whatever we wanted to. I know the official assignment guidelines said for the groups to record sound together as a group, but my group was a bit tricky this time around. First, our DP had dropped the class, so our group was narrowed down to just Chic, Michael, and myself. Which wasn't overly a problem, since a DP wouldn't exactly be doing the normal job of a DP.

As director, I wasn't exactly sure how to approach this project. I thought that we should all assist with the sound recording, as in, each group member getting their own time with the H4n and record sounds. I figured with all of us putting in input, we would be getting plenty of sounds to choose from. And luckily, we didn't break the 30 minute limit, but the combination of 25 sound effects, 10 voice-based, and 5 ambient sounds didn't quite meet the 10-minute mark.  First, Mike and I went to Sharky's Game Room in the Fischer Union and recorded some sounds of billiards. The next day, Chic took the sound recorder and got some noises from his work place, a copy shop. Then Mike took the H4n and recorded a few voice-based sound effects. And finally, I had the H4n last and recorded some sound effects and voice based ones.

But I feel our groups sound library was very diverse. We didn't have 25 sound effects from one general place. And after listening to the other sound libraries, I felt, for the most part, every group did that. But some had a majority of similar sounds.

Editing the Master Shot Sequence (Blog #8)

On the previous Sunday, my group and I filmed for our current Master Shot narrative project. The next step in the project is to edit everything together. While I, the sound editor, am syncing up all the audio, the director and DP made a rough cut to see the sequence play out. While we did match our storyboards, perfectly, the sequence played out oddly. After swapping out a few shots, the video started fitting together. 

We decided that the final cut of our project will not need any color correction done. Not even saturating the colors to make the image 'pop'. During the filming, we got the lighting just right and the raw image looks good as is. 

For sound, right now I just have to finish syncing the audio. Then my group and I will be getting some extra noises. Mostly ADR of people talking to make the environment of the scene seem like a restaurant. Then some foley sound effects to add in later. Finally, Jacob, the director, found a great soundtrack to play over the sequence. 

The editing process has gone smoothly, so far. Aside from a few shots that are a little out of focus, everything else is fitting together nicely.

Pre-visualization (Blog #7)

So on Monday, my group and I got together to decide on an idea for our master shot sequence. After that, we knocked out all of the previsualization. Since I'm doing sound for the project, there's not much I could do to pre-visualize for it. So I offered my help to the Director and the Director of Photography. Megan, our DP, drew up the storyboards. Jacob, the director, was making the shotlist. Luqi, the producer, made the budget. And I, the sound guy, offered my help to them since most of my job takes place during filming and in post production. I've gone through the process of making shotlists, storyboards, and overheads many times in recent months. So Jacob asked if I could make the overheads from the storyboards, which I did. So now that we have all of the previsualization done, we just have to find a suitable location, shoot, then edit.

I think the previsualization materials (shotlist, storyboards, overheads, and budget) are very helpful in the pre-production stage of filmmaking. Even for something short, like our project, it will help out in a huge way. Now we will film our project with a plan, and we're not just improvising shots on set. Everyone will be on the same page. I've been in quite a few productions (like I mentioned earlier), and having a very detailed plan before shooting is definitely the way to go. I don't even think just a shotlist is enough, at least overheads or storyboard sketches should accompany the shotlist. I've had many past experiences where he camera crew spent too much time trying to figure out where to set up  each shot. But that's just my personal opinion.

The Master Shot Sequence: Ideas (Blog #6)

The second, technically third, project in our Intro to Film Production class is shooting a narrative master shot sequence. For this, we were assigned new groups and new positions. I am the sound guy for this particular project. A little less ideal for me, as my favorite positions are DP and Director, but since I was DP on the last project, I won't be able to do that. But maybe get director for the next project. But I'm very good with sound. I've got plenty of experience with it.

So our professor posted a script, online, that we have to use for the master shot sequence. There aren't any stage directions, it's just dialogue. So the groups must come up with an interesting concept and come up with the visual style of the sequence. As we saw in class, there are many ways this script has been done. I suggested a few ideas to my group. Including:

• Two surgeons having a conversation while operating on someone (hard to do with no budget)
• The scene from Batman Begins where Bruce holds a stapler up to Gordon's head (not exactly creative, but would have been interesting)
• And Sherlock Holmes talking to his brother, Mycroft (wouldn't fit their characters). 

Ultimately, our group came to the decision of doing a speed-dating sequence. We had some good ideas about making the sequence visually interesting. We're mostly basing the sequence off of a dinner scene from the movie American Beauty. But we are adding our own shots so that we are not copying the famous scene. 

Documentary Reflections (Blog #5)

Overall, I think the interview shoot was a great success. My group and I interviewed Lori Erwin, who runs the haunted tours down at the Cotton Exchange. Lori had a lot to say about the Cotton Exchange and had even more to say about the history of the Cotton Exchange and all of it's ghost stories. She knows her history about Wilmington very well, especially for someone who wasn't originally from North Carolina.

As the Director of Photography/Camera Operator, I liked having Lori as an interview subject. She didn't move around a whole lot, she stayed in the same area of the frame most of the time. Which makes my job, as a camera operator, much easier. I don't have to keep following her with the camera, I was able to let the camera sit on the tripod and not worry a whole lot.

The Vox Pop interviews also went very well. We interviewed a total of four people. Two of them were shop owners at the Cotton Exchange, and the other two are citizens of Wilmington that frequently visit the Exchange. They were able to tell us about the Cotton Exchange and what they liked about it. They gave us some good shop recommendations and had some really good things to say about the place.

I shot all the vox pops handheld with a shoulder rig that I own. So I was able to have a very steady shot while our director, Sam, interviewed them.

Like I said earlier, the shooting was a great success. Now it's all a matter of going through the footage and editing it so we can hand it in on Thursday.

Documentary Production Schedule (Blog #4)

Luckily we were able to lock down an interview with someone at the Cotton Exchange. Especially since the Black Cat Shoppe was unresponsive to our group about setting one up.  So the production schedule for my group's documentary project all takes place within this week:

Wednesday:
3:30 PM : Pick up gear from Equipment Room
4:00 PM : Go downtown, to the Cotton Exchange, and film Vox pop interviews and some more B-roll footage. Talk to about 4 to 5 people about the Cotton Exchange (It's history, the shops, the ghost tours, etc.) Finish shooting around 5:30 to 6:00 PM.

Thursday:
Start editing vox pops and b-roll footage either in or after 201 class.

Saturday:
11:00 AM: Prep gear for A-roll interview
12:00 PM: Go downtown to the Cotton Exchange to film interview with the owner of the Cotton Exchange store. The interview, along with set up and take down, shouldn't take more than an hour to do. So plan to finish by 1:00 PM, 2 PM at the latest.

Sunday:
Start editing the A-roll interview in with the Vox pops and the b-roll footage. Finish a first cut, then compress the video down to 2 minutes (If I have to). Hopefully get most of it done. Plan to finish it by Monday night.

Thursday (2/27):
Due date for the documentary.

The Black Cat Plan (Blog #3)

Currently, our group (Victoria, Melanie, Sam, and I) has decided to interview an employee from the Black Cat Shoppe in downtown Wilmington. As of right now, we plan to shoot our A-roll interview in the shop, but we still need to work that out with the employee and the shop owner. I would like to shoot in the shop and not just in some office in the back of the shop. I think it would be nice to see some of the interior of the shop in the background of our main interview.

The shop is known for hosting the ghost tours around the downtown area. So that and some details about the history of the shop might be what the short documentary will be about. We might ask questions like:

1. How long has the shop been open?
2. When did the Black Cat Shoppe start doing the tours, and did you expect them to become an attraction for the Wilmington area?
3. How many different tour guides are there? 
4. Are there several different routes that the tour guides take tourists on? Or is there only one route?
5. The tour guides talk a lot about the history behind each location they take the tourists to. How did they learn about all of the history?
6. Who is the fortune teller? And how do they go about predicting people's future's?
7. What should we know about the Wizard on Saturday? And what is the wizard?
8. Is there a personal favorite tour guide of yours? If so, why?
9. Do you lead any of the tours around Wilmington?
10. What are the long term goals for the Black Cat Shoppe?

Our vox-pop interviews will take place in/around the shop. We took our pictures for the Documentary portrait assignment outside on the Waterfront, and that area tends to have the most people walking around, so we will try to get a few people to talk to us. Some possible questions we might ask them:

1. What can you tell us about the tours around the downtown area? Specifically, the Black Cat Shoppe tours.
2. What are two locations that the tour guides take you to?
3. What do you know about the Black Cat Shoppe?

Lighting Observations (Blog #2)

I'm sitting on my couch, in my apartment, and I'm noticing my room and how it's lit. In my peripheral vision, I can see three sources of light: Two ceiling lights and a lamp in the corner. The lamp has a bendable arm and is pointed towards the back of the TV, which is in front of me. It's creating this edge lighting around the corner of the TV. The DVD's and Game cases, that are to the left of the TV, have a gradient light pattern. The tops of the games are well lit, but the light fades away along the sides of each DVD case. The armchair on the far left side of the room is also getting a gradient pattern from the lamp as well. From the ceiling lights on the right side of the room, they tend to light the entire rooms. The kitchen light is lighting the entire kitchen, except for underneath the cabinets. The hallway light is lighting the entire wall and carpet, but the wall on the far end of the hall is covered in shadow, but I can still see the details on my roommate's door.

It recently snowed outside, so I went outside to take some pictures of  the scenery since the outdoors look really spectacular with snow on the ground. As you can see, it's dark outside, but there are many light sources in the background. A few of the lamps were close enough that the camera lens was able to pick up a lens flare, which covers a small portion of the trees. The lamps close by were able to light up the snow on the ground. The trees in the background have very little light touching them, but they have plenty of light behind them, so the trees are entirely in silhouette. The trees in the foreground too have silhouettes, but the details on the trees are visible due to smaller portions of light touching them. There's one tree in the center of that is half lit and half in shadow since the street-lamp is positioned far to the left of it.

Filmmakers Statement (Blog #1)

Taking my first step into learning Film production as a film major. I think Spring 2014 will be my semester!

My Past Experience As A Filmmaker: I've actually worked on quite a number of film sets/projects. My first step into making movies was as a kid and using my dad's camera. Years progressed and I found myself editing videos of me playing guitar or pictures synced with songs. I also used to go to concerts with my camera and film concerts. I got a lot of concert footage, most of the footage is elsewhere or probably long gone. I had to train my hand to be it's own camera stabilizer since I couldn't take any tripods or monopods into concert venues. Soon, I just stopped taking my camera into concerts, but I started using my camera for more productive film/video work. In my first semester of college, I worked on a TV show (which was a practicum course, so I didn't get paid). But I was able to practice each job on a TV set (like Director, switcher, sound, camera, etc.) But just last year, I wrote and directed a small project called Handoff which had quite a number of people involved (most of them didn't stick around to the end of the project, they must have lost interest). Anyway, I put it up online over a year ago and it got mostly good feedback, but since I had to compromise a lot, it didn't end up the way I wanted it to. Perhaps in the future I can get a chance to make it the way I intended. I made 2 films last year (Handoff and a film called the Last Man On Campus, a little homage to 28 Days Later, just without infected people). When I transferred to UNC Wilmington, the film opportunities arose for me. Mostly because I joined Flicker Film Society right away. And I wanted to get on board as soon as possible. So in my first month at the new school, I scored a camera operating position on a sketch called No More Wishes, which was made by Flicker Film Society. About a month after that, I acquired a directing job on a short film called Okay. I'm co-directing it with a friend, and we're almost done with it. At the same time as becoming a director for one short film, I also became a Cinematographer for another short film entitled Ticket. With that project, I learned about getting film permits and shooting on location. Whereas Okay, I'm learning how to direct a movie with people I've never worked with before. Last October, my friend and I were production assistants on a FST-495 project called Centipede, where I got to observe how a film set can function with experienced people. And just recently, I worked for about 20 hours on a weekend as a boom operator. The film was called Writing Wrong, a film that Flicker president, Aaron Barnett, wrote with a friend. I'm assuming because of my involvement in Flicker, and because I've worked in all areas on a film set, is why Aaron asked me to be apart of it. And now, I'm currently finishing up Okay, and a visual effects/special effects supervisor on a short film called The Doppelgänger. Later in the semester, I hope to direct a short film that I wrote about two months ago, entitled White Masks. 

What do I want to learn in my first production class? Like I said at the top, I am taking my first step into learning film production. I'm currently in the intro-level production class, so I get to work with my peers, but we won't get the luxury of using the high-end equipment that the Film Studies department has. But I do work in the equipment room, so I do get to inspect and test out the gear. But in this class, I want to learn how to make a good movie. I know how to make a movie, and I know what goes into the process of making a film. But I want to know what I can do during film production that can help give my films a boost. How can I successfully tell a story through filmmaking? I think that's what my film, Handoff, suffered from. Some people were a bit baffled with the story since I wasn't able to have any exposition in the story. Granted, most of my actors jumped ship halfway through and some didn't show up, so I had to compromise and improvise on set and during the post production stage. 

In 10 years, where will I be? In 10 years from now, I hope to be working on feature films. It's definitely a long shot, but it doesn't mean that I'm going to cancel it from my goals. That IS my goal. I know I'm a bit cliché by saying that I want to be up there with Nolan, Scorsese, Spielberg, etc. But I don't want to lose sight of that dream. I need something to strive for. 

Something that most people don't know about me: Aside from filmmaking, people probably don't know that I've played the guitar for 10 years. I'm able to learn a song on the guitar just by listening to it. One of my favorite bands, Rush, made a song called 2112. The song is 20 minutes and 34 seconds long. I learned it in an hour. I just stood by my stereo and played along with it the best I could. And I kept doing it until I could hit every not at the right time. By the time I learned the song in its entirety, an hour hadn't even passed. A long time ago, I wanted to be this kick-ass guitar player in a world famous band, but the more I was drawn to filmmaking, the more that dream faded away. Probably for the better, too. I just enjoy playing guitar, but I have a real strong passion with filmmaking. Within the last few years, I branched out and learned drums and bass guitar. Bass came naturally since I played guitar. Drums weren't too hard, I just had to get loosened up and play what I feel is right. I think I may be playing my favorite songs wrong, but it sounds very close.