Starting to Get Somewhere - Part 4

     I just saw Fargo and I thought it was great. It is a black comedy that tells the story and a messy crime gone wrong.

    Going into the first thing that stood out to me was the cinematography, the film is in color but it still goes back and has homages to the colors of the classic noir films. The film itself is a very loose example of a film in the neo noir genre, at least in terms of the way that I see it, but the influence is definitely still present. Anyway, going back to the cinematography, the majority of the film has an incredibly white background that almost feels oppressive at times due to how much of the screen it takes up and the context of it sometimes being heavily snowing in scenes.

The scenes most closely related to the crime seem to have this the most, at least that is what I noticed. There is also the scene that is the complete opposite where three people are killed, that scene specifically because of the dark nature of the actions and morality of the characters involved.

This is something I will definitely be keeping in mind while filming my piece, since the piece is much more self aware now I have scenes that are both in and out of color, so we will see where that goes but even if I choose only one or the other, having these oppressive backgrounds is still a great touch.

    Another aspect of the film I thought was great were the characters, the way they bounce off of each other is great and was always engaging. Their exchanges also led to a lot of comedic moments simply in how they say the lines or with what they talk about. The film is definitely a black comedy and most of it comes from the dialogue. The opening scene of the film in a bar I say is a pretty good part that kind of represents the whole movie in terms of the type of comedy present and how frequently it occurs. That being said, there are moments, especially towards the end when the film leaves the comedy in order to create a more sinister tone that speaks about the messiness of the situation the characters find themselves in. I don't know why but I loved Steve Buscemi's character, I just thought he was really funny and his way of going about things added a lot to the scenes he was in. He kind of just yells a bunch at everyone and is constantly rude but I feel it is great to include that considering what he does later on and what it means for the story. His character is where I ended up feeling the most comedy as well.

    The last thing I liked was more towards the story's portrayal and how realistic it felt. The criminals are rude and incompetent in some areas, Jerry is an idiotic moron that isn't used to any stressful situation and Marge is a police that, even though she does catch a criminal while seven months pregnant, spends most of her time talking to people instead of going out guns blazing. The film itself does take its time, which is something I appreciated and it made the areas where the film started going places fast all the more exciting. This is another reason why it feels so realistic, the story is slow and people often wait for things to happen and when they do it almost comes as a surprise.

    

Even though I saw the events that happen in this scene coming I still was surprised, but more about how nonchalant Steve Buscemi's character was.

    There are a few things I will be able to take from for my piece, the one I am most excited for is the cinematography, I think it adds a lot to the film and can be used a foreshadowing device if done correctly. Another thing I think about is more about how the characters act as a whole, I can't really describe why the character's reactions to things works so well but I will take the time to figure it out for my piece.

Starting to Get Somewhere - Part 3

    This is just gonna be another post discussing other aspects of the noir genre I need to keep in mind.

    First thing that is really easy and I can get out of the way pretty fast, costumes. The costumes in noir and neo noirs are basically just almost all suits. The women do where dresses and stuff but in terms of guys, suits all around its not even an argument. 

Obviously I am exaggerating a little bit but at least in terms of the crime side of the genre, it is literally suits for everyone. Now I am not going to go that far as to bring in the blazer and the fedora but what I can do very easily is have the actors wear dress pants and a button down with a tie. That will very easily hint at the genre I am portraying in the piece.

    Another thing is props and set design. I have a few things in my house that I can use to my advantage but right now the two or three places I have in mind are a place where the body is, the car they drive on the way to the house and the outside of the place of where the body is. I may add a forth one for where the two character initially get the phone call but I think I can use one location twice for that. For the place that the characters go to for the body I am probably going to use my house, this is because I just so happen to have a torn apart kitchen, literally. 

Why is this useful information? Because I can use this part of the house mainly for where the whole cleaning the body thing can take place, within the world of the story I can mention that the place is under construction so that is why nobody is walking in and screaming, AND I can use the rest of the house as a different location because it looks nothing like this. That last part may be a bit of a stretch but it still something to keep in mind. Another reason I chose my house is because I already know the layout and can easily access it while making storyboards or pre-vises later. The other big problem is the car scene, but I think I know where I can go, there was this road that used to be used quite often to get onto Alligator Alley, it is in front of the neighborhood next to Manatee Bay Elementary, but if I remember correctly the city put a gate or something and now nobody uses it at all. I am going to go double check later on and see if I can go over there but for now I think its a great place to film that scene.

    Then there are the props. The body does seem like a big thing but I can easily get around it with just using myself in close ups or out of focus in shots. Then I can just stuff a big bag and have the actors act like it is what they say it is. I do have a gag where the body falls out of the car in my mind but I think I can still do that easily using the same methods. I will get back to this later but for now I think its a good start.

    Now there is the casting, so far my thoughts have been I'll get to it when I get to it.... and they still remain the same see you next post.

Starting to Get Somewhere - Part 2

     So this post is more going to be a mess of a bunch of different things that I have to think about going forward.

    Ok so the first thing is that I happened to see one of my friends that is part of a band called Groove Therapy, it is a jazz band that I actually think is pretty good. He has told me about awards they have won and stuff, in other words perfect for my piece. I went up to him asking what he thought of my idea and if he would want to mess around with it and he said he would love to. Now this is kind of a tall order for my project and I realize it can complicate a lot of things in terms of the time that I have but I don't know, I kind of just want to see where this goes and if something cool comes out of it, awesome, if not, its fine I can still work with that. The thing is that this means I have to research a bit into scores for films, obviously with characters of the noir genre.

    The good thing is that noir films often use instruments found in jazz even if it isn't necessarily jazz. Trumpets, tenor saxophones, and pianos are all instruments found in there, there are more but I mention these because the band my friend is in have play these instruments and I have another friend that messes around with music theory quite often. Another thing the scores for noir films commonly do is have a diegetic soundtrack, this isn't always the case but it is something to note. This idea gives me more versality in the soundtrack if I wanted to have it. For example, say I decide to make a section overly serious for comedic effect, this means the tone would also have to be overly serious. However, if I have a diegetic sound I can put in music that will create a different effect like irony to possibly create a more impactful comedic punch. Another thing to note is the fact that the songs in noir films have both slow and fast songs. It isn't a huge revelation or anything I just wanted to type it down for later reference. Here are two examples.

   

    Now, film scoring in general. There is the basic stuff that a film score does and is which is to essentially emphasize or heighten the impact or feel of a scene. There many positions in the area of film scoring but the ones I am going to focus on are the music editor and the music supervisor. This is because the editor kind of warps the score slightly to better suit the film, such as cutting out a song short to let the dialogue be focused on. The supervisor basically just makes sure there are no copyright issues. I am mentioning this because who knows, I might find some song online that is royalty free and I would totally love to use.

    However, the part I have to focus heavily on is how significant a part the score will play in the piece. Even if I don't end up collaborating with my friend's band for this the knowledge of the part the score plays is still something that is very important and that I need to know about. How do you go about deciding this? Well, you need to make sure the music fits with the film narratively, essentially that it fits the vibe of what is being shown. There are sound palettes that can be used to help in this, which is something I already figured about beforehand coincidently, using instruments commonly found in jazz. I also have to keep in mind that I need to be as open as possible, a piece of music may not be what was originally intended for the scene but it could just so happen that is works way better.

Websites:

https://www.sonokinetic.net/products/instruments/noir/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/30137702

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/crimejazz-the-sound-of-noir-by-skip-heller

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-score-a-film#5-tips-for-writing-a-film-score

Starting to Get Somewhere - Part 1

    I saw one of the movies from my blog posts earlier and...... it could have been better definitely. I got a bit context from my friend who told me that the movie, Sin City, was actually based off a comic run by the same name. The comic came out in the 90s which explains why the film is in black and white with certain colors popping out. If I am being completely honest, the movie is not very good. The comic isn't a new breach in the genre of noir as I am told, that it was more a very stereotypical noir comic run that was simply done incredibly well. 

    So what ends up happening is that the movie tries to keep some style that is transitioned into film so that ends up being completely computer generated settings and weird choices in cinematography, as seen above. I understand that they are trying to replicate certain images from the comic but it just doesn't work. On top of that the dialogue is just so poorly done. I understand what they are doing in relation to the comics but again it just doesn't work. HOWEVER, the dialogue was unintentionally funny and I was laughing a bit at the beginning before I got bored.

This scene at the beginning of the movie was particularly funny for me.

    The positives of this movie is more in relation to my project. The black and white mixed in with the overly serious dialogue is a great way in my opinion to add more comedy to the piece. I also forgot to mention this but I did have some changes to my piece and it became more self aware and more about poking fun at the noir/neo noir genre. One character is going to be a very stereotypical character that you would find in one of these films while the other is incredibly self aware but still nervous about what they are doing. He is still going to really freaked out by the body and I even had a recurring joke about a black and white filter on the camera that he gets rid of because it annoys him.

    So yeah to kind of recap this jumbled mess of a post, I saw Sin City and even though I didn't like it, I can still take elements of it into my piece, which has also changed and just so happens to nicely align with what I took from this movie.

A Level Portfolio Project: Initial Thoughts - Part 4

Character Background

    Script writing and dialogue is something I struggle with a lot, I realized recently it was because the characters literally only existed to me in what was happening in the film, this led to a lot of very basic and cliché exchanges because I had nothing else going for it. I believe diving more into a character before hand will help with this issue.

    Parts of a character background include occupation, location, time period and cultural background. I assume things like age also play a factor into this thing even though it is not explicitly stated. Here I am more going to be looking at the cultural background and occupation. 

    The way the cultural background comes in is more about ethnic and education side. Including bit of mannerisms from a Hispanic culture I feel would add a little more to the film. The education side is more about which character is in what stage of their education, the nervous character being in high school so all the more reason as to why they are incredibly uncomfortable in the situation that takes place during the film. The other is not receiving any education, hinting at the opposite thing. I am not commenting on anything I just think it would characterize them more and give a more clear picture. I am not even sure whether it will be mentioned in the piece itself but it paints a clearer picture for me.

    Then there are the more storyline centric aspects of the character background like motivation, internal or external conflict and growth. I kind of have an idea of where I want this to go, at least for one character, but since it is planning to be part comedy I would say that one of them at least should remain static since it is a pretty short runtime.

Websites:

http://www.filmscriptwriting.com/character-background/

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/judd-apatows-6-tips-on-developing-and-writing-dynamic-characters#how-to-write-a-believable-character-in-5-steps

A Level Portfolio Project: Initial Thoughts - Part 3

How To Develop Lighting Schemes

    Well I literally spoke about this in the last post so I might as well continue with that. LIGHTING, this is actually really helpful anyway because I pReFeR to use all natural lighting, I believe it captures the essence of reality, what I am saying is I am normally too lazy to deal with that, but this is different. 

    Well first I have to figure out why the lighting is doing its thing and how. There seem to be three main reasons as to why it is used, to tell people where to look, to give insight into the characters in some way, and to help establish and retain the genre and mood of a piece. Simple.

    That is the reason but then we get into the technique, there are a bunch of different types of light so time to list off some of them.

    

Key Lighting

Main light source in a scene mainly used to show the main character prominently.

Fill Lighting

Helps with how the person wants to shadows to be.

Backlighting

Helps to make the characters or item pop out in the shot.

Practical Lighting

Lighting coming from within the scene itself. Usually are not the main source of light and more used to present a more visually interesting scene or convey more of the tone.

Motivated Lighting

Works as a way of recreating natural sources of light for a certain effect.

    There are a lot of other techniques and ways lighting is used but these I feel will work the most or simply be most prevalent in my piece, to me these give off the neo noir style. The examples for the most part are high contrast and the one that isn't, the fill lighting, I feel I can use in some way to contrast the other types of lighting and perhaps make them pop out in some way.

    The high contrast images mainly taken up by darker colors I feel very closely show the genre and is representative of what the characters are doing in the film. As I am writing this I am realizing that the two characters themselves are kind of opposite, will definitely keep that in mind for the lighting as well.

    I think I will aim for a lighter look for the lighting since I am planning, at least for now, for it to be partially a comedy. Then I will use one character to gradually darken the piece as he starts to take more control of the narrative.

Websites:

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/film-101-understanding-film-lighting#12-film-lighting-techniques-everyone-on-set-should-know

https://www.dandolighting.com/blogs/battery-blog/the-importance-of-lighting-in-film-production

https://nofilmschool.com/film-lighting-techniques-and-examples

A Level Portfolio Project: Initial Thoughts - Part 2

    SCREW IT!! I am going back to one of my other ideas from awhile ago that never saw any development outside of me thinking, "oH mAn I ThInK ThIs IdeA CooL." The idea is essentially about these two people hired to clean up bodies and one of them, he is very new to this, got into some trouble and now he is forced to do this. Thing is he doesn't handle these kinds of things well at all. The second guy is more just mellow and some-what annoyed with the first character. The main parts consist of their conversation in the car ride on the way to the cleaning spot and the actual spot where they are cleaning up the body. I figured it to be a comedy noir type film. I personally think that is an interesting combination so I am going to roll with it. 

    What does this mean? Means I can FINALLY DO SOME RESEARCH THAT CAN HELP ME THAT I AM NOT GOING TO BE STINGY ABOUT. So what is this then? Genre research thank god.

Neo Noir Films

I am going to start off with some examples of some well known neo noir films. I am putting these down because  I want to watch these movies they seem interesting, but more appropriately to this project I can watch them and look at their techniques and attitudes compared to other films so I can see how to more closely follow aspects of the genre I like.

    While there are many more kinds of neo-noir films I chose the ones I haven't seen that I think will most closely be like my piece. Anyway, the neo-noir genre, I actually had a surprisingly hard time trying to decide which movies to put down in this post because the neo noir genre is a little hard to pin down definitively, however there are some things that do remain consist and I going to talk about the aspects I think I will end up having in my piece.

    One of the most, if not the most important being how the main character or characters are. These characters are always heavily flawed, most notably in their morality and by extension the questionable reason behind many of their actions. Some of the neo-noir movies I have seen where this is especially prevalent is Leonard in Memento, the Protagonist in Drive, and the main character of Shutter Island who's name I forgot. A lot of the time we are unsure whether we can trust them or not. It can be different every time, for Leonard it was more about the story itself and with the Protagonist of Drive it was with other characters that were often with him.

    Another thing the genre does is a contrast between the light and dark stuff. I am being vague because I mean that thematically, for actions in the story and for the actual lighting and look of the film. I mean just look at the poster and the majority of Sin City, I haven't seen it yet but I know what it looks like. Actually, look at all the posters I put there, they all fit somehow into this idea.

    The other things that are included are the femme fatal and super complex plot, neither of which I believe I am going to contain so I won't touch on them to much.

Websites:

https://www.filminquiry.com/beginners-guide-neo-noir/

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/neo-noir-guide

A Level Portfolio Project: Initial Thoughts - Part 1

     So I am going to be one hundred percent honest right now, I have been drawing a blank this entire weekend. I even had an extra day to think about it and I still just wasn't sure what to do. My process of thinking when it comes to a project like this is usually just having the idea pop into my head and go from there. But the thing is when that happens I get hung up on it so I have been stuck going back to my poker idea (which I realize I can use the game itself as a metaphor for the unpredictability and unreliability of life) when I know it most likely won't work in the time I have, at least I don't think so. This means I have to go backwards and be more I think put in more specifications because my random ideas are a variety of genres, one of them of a noir comedy, one was a sci-fi thriller, and one was a drama.

    I realize I'm going to have to work backwards in a way, at least from the way I normally think. I also have to remember that being simple is ok and it can be done well, that is something I struggle with a lot. Let's start simple, what do I like and what do I not? I like strong characters, I like things that are well shot (like I have probably too much importance on it), I like things that don't mind being slow, I like films with introspection. Funnily enough as I'm writing this another piece of information popped into my head about the poker story, I am actually going insane.

    My teacher told me to start thinking of something more personal... it seems like a good idea, I'm just not sure how I am going to go about with this idea.

    Ok this section of the blog is actually coming a few hours later and I realized that I do like the loss of purpose thing. I want to work with that and try and make a simpler story that speaks about it in a different way. That last part is probably adding too much to do but I don't know, I really like that storyline and I still want to do it. Plus I feel like this loss of purpose or sense of doing has some real Truman Show existential vibes, not to that extent but still.

Let's Do This One Last Time: Back with A Level - Pt.3

     I'm doing another blog this week on top of the two others that were mandatory as a final transition into the A level class. The first blog did have one paragraph talking about the fact that I have transitioned but nothing more. This post I guess is more focused on looking back at my AS level and seeing from there what I want to achieve this year with my portfolio project.

    I think looking back at my old project from last year is a good place to start, since I already covered other projects from this year. I think looking back at that project is especially important because it is a short film, which is what I want to do this year as well. For anyone curious it can be found in an earlier post. After watching it again I personally think the weakest aspects was kind of everything in the camera itself, I do remember struggling once again on how to direct the actors. I also remember having to shorten the script a lot and because of that much of it felt unclear or unstable in a way I am not really sure how to describe it. The bottom line is, script was not the greatest. These are the two things that I take away the most from my past project and what I need to keep in mind while I am doing the new project. 

    I think a good way to keep track of this is to simply spend more time in the pre-production stage. Take more time on the dialogue, which was the weakest aspect of the script and I am confident that I am not confident in my writing abilities there. Spending more time there I can also add a few notes on how I want things to be delivered ahead of time. Having those thoughts in my head early on will allow me to refine them while filming. Essentially it is just a lot more looking forward into the project kind of like how this is blog is doing in a way.

    Now with that out of the way I think a good way to finalize to transition is to start talking about my thoughts for the new project. Now with that topic at the forefront, I have no idea what the hell I am going to do for this project. I have ideas but I feel that they are too much. 

    One of my ideas was like this A plot and B plot piece about a few poker players that have lost their touch and are now losing or have already lost their popularity, whether that be awhile ago or recently. They are in this blank room in this kind of piece of reality outside the normal. (Well not blank I was thinking more light blue and it is poker players because I like watching poker and already know a bit about it.) These character basically just talk about their experiences in their heights playing the game and where they are now and how they are dealing with it. The other plot being some of the games they are describing, I imagined these very stylized sections emulating to the audience why they like it so much. The whole piece is kind of just a discussion on loss of purpose and something else I do not know how to describe but that doesn't matter because I don't think I would be able to tell it properly in seven minutes. 

    But honestly who knows what will happen, maybe I should remain cautiously optimistic , we'll see. For now I just have to keep thinking about ideas and concepts, I'll get there eventually.

Let's Do This One Last Time: Back with A Level - Pt.2

     So this is the second post about an A level project. This time the post is going to focus on my Distribution Project. This was a project where we worked in unison with the Creative Writing Class, taking one of their scripts and then making a distribution plan as if it were an actual film. I remember when we got our choices we honestly had a tough time because my group, consisting of Sophia, Paola, and I, weren't too excited about any of the stories. However we did end up choosing a slice of life story... initially. 

    The originally chose a story about a teenage high school couple, one of them being pregnant. It basically checked off all of the boxes you would expect from a story like this. They don't know how to go forward with the news, the parents are giving them a hard time, and they are trying to balance all parts of their lives. I remember thinking that it was the choice that made the most sense at the time, it wouldn't be too difficult to film and part of it could be done in class, saving us a lot of time. The thing was, we just weren't into the story at all. There was another story that was a psychological horror, but it was a little to hard of a concept. As we began researching drama films I made the decision to try to persuade the other group member because I felt we would have had a better time making something a little more challenging and with something we enjoyed more than the first story. We eventually decided on the horror story, Rot, instead.

    

This story focused on two characters and one of them trying to get away from the other. It was a much simpler premise story-wise, but we gravitated to it more. Once we finalized our decision came what we actually wanted to do with the story. Our goals ended up becoming make a plan that works for the film and one we can learn from for our own projects, make an interesting trailer that adheres to our personal opinions on how horror trailers should be, and simply to get a good grade haha. I ended up doing the editing for the trailer in the project so my added goal became to try and get a good pace for the trailer, this is because that was something I usually struggled with in my opinion. My pieces normally have had pacing I wasn't happy with.

    Now planning, our planning basically had us be done with the basic research a few days in. Then we would finish our presentation in class before the weekend was over and then film everything Friday night. Then that would give me two days to edit. Easy right? Oh no it did not go that smoothly. The first two parts actually did keep with the schedule, the research and presentation were done in class. The filming however, that is where things started to go, lets put it nicely and say not so great. Guess what that means, we are in the production part of the project now.

    The actual filming of the scenes didn't go as smoothly as we anticipated. One of our biggest problems was not being able to direct the actors properly, they would frequently ask questions like "how do you want me to say this?" or "what does this mean?" That is when we realized, we have no idea what we want because we don't know what we can get away with. I gonna try to see if I can find one of the clips of us struggling to explain what we wanted. Well I actually found two videos, one of them about how the characters are supposed to be and the other more about the technical aspect of the piece.

They are humorous but the point is that we did not have good directing skills. This issue caused us to slow down and we had to shoot more Saturday night. The editing itself honestly was not that bad. I paced myself much better and the work was split more evenly, I did once again slow down a little but it wasn't nearly as bad as with the documentary project. Here is my biggest contribution to the project for anyone interested, the trailer.

    I think the biggest take away from this project is to work on my direction. I am actually just now realizing that it also was a weak part of my project in the documentary so that is something I definitely need to keep note of. Get better, alright got it. In all seriousness I was able to walk away from this project with a better understanding of distribution plans and some of my weaknesses in the production aspect of projects. That I will definitely be going over in the transition post.

Let's Do This One Last Time: Back with A Level - Pt.1

     Hey everyone I'm back! I remember saying something about maybe doing this regularly outside of school all the way back in my very first post and this is probably just wishful thinking or something but I kind of now want to do that again going into college and beyond. So lets see if I end up sticking to that. That doesn't really matter right now though because this post is primarily about one of two projects I'm going to be talking about that I did in my A level AICE Media Studies class. This post is going to talk about the Documentary Project I did so lets just start before I ramble for too long about stuff that doesn't relate to this.

    My documentary project titled, "Con-crastination," was something I did in a group a three, comprising of Mel, Larissa and I. Our goals for this project were to inform people about procrastination and hopefully give them more insight into a topic that most people just brushed off as a normality in life. We wanted people to see this and more or less go away with either new information or at least a thought of learning more about procrastination in general. From that goal we then obviously had to figure out how we were actually going to, you know, DO IT.

    Cue the planning part of the project. This is where we spent a few hours -(minus the lost period where we couldn't decide on a topic)- trying to see the best way to go about making the documentary itself. I actually do have a very crude and, in hindsight, very naïve schedule made early on. 

Even thought the timeline is off this is actually how we ended up splitting the work for the documentary trying to work to everyone's strengths. I did the editing because I was already familiar with Premiere Pro and After Effects. Mel and Larissa did the filming for the interviews because they had found friends very quickly and knew how to direct them when they asked the questions. I myself actually need to working on directing people because I usually can't express my thoughts correctly so they kind of saved me in the interviews not gonna lie. I did do one interview but I didn't really say anything because the interviewee I feel did a good job already, just adding that because I know my voice is heard in the documentary at some point for an interview. Anyway, the picture above as I said before is how we split it up. Then after all that comes the actual creation process, production and post-production.

    Here is where everything went down the drain. I'm exaggerating obviously but I do feel that, ironically, my procrastination hurt the final project. The production itself was perfectly fine, we got the interviews we needed and they were pretty good. The answers for the most part were satisfactory, we had even gotten an extra interview we didn't use just to have more options. Here is actually an example of one the shots we had as b-roll which ended up in the documentary.

Then when it came to the editing it actually started off good. I was on schedule and was trying to get through all of the footage. What ended up getting to me was all the minute details I started putting in. Once I got past all the basic footage I had to start adding things like text and graphics which is what caused me to slow down and start to waste some time. This was probably expected because it has happened a few times before but my take away from this is to simply give myself more time to edit or to get done with a huge chunk very early on. Essentially I just have to make sure the workload is spread more evenly. Also, for anyone who is curious here is the link to the finalized documentary. :)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IRu6bZGiRS8Qbvf23nVS9sdxzA4h5BMR/view?usp=sharing