Nah Bruh - Part 1

     Update Post

So I have done a few things for the project. I have edited a second draft for the project and cut done a lot of the scene in the car. As I suspected a lot of the jokes and stuff were cut and the outburst that happens in the scene feels like it comes out of nowhere. 

    I also went back into the script and rewrote it while also shortening it. I am realizing now that some of the jokes are going to gone again but its fine at this point because the main joke still remains in the project. I am also seeing now that it is going to be very disjointed in the final cut because of how fast it goes through the events.

    Last update with the music. It has all been written so that is a relief. That is something I can still look forward to, they just need to record it and send and it is all good after that. 

Having Trouble On How To Continue - Part 4

 CARDS. I have not touched the cards at all in this project except for one time at the very beginning of the project but it was so miniscule that there was no need or reason to mention it in any previous post. The most I did was essentially just take on picture and make a layout on a card of a possible way to have the card look. I literally lost the card so I can't even show that in the post. Anyway, so right now I am thinking of a few ideas of how I am going to do the little card for film festivals. I honestly am not entirely sure what will best fit the tone of the film but I think I at least know where to start taking things out.

First thing is that I will not include the set pieces, I know that seems like an obvious thing to say but, hey, you have to start somewhere. I am not including them because, seeing as we got kicked out of like five different places trying to film the opening scene, we didn't film that first scene in an area that gave off a lot of neo-noir vibes. The same goes for the other scenes, most of the recognizable neo-noir/noir elements in my piece come from the characters and the objects. Now I am thinking that is where to start. I think I have to include the characters somehow because they are literally the entirety of the piece. There isn't a single spot of film where they are on screen or any theme of something that can be represented by an object. However, I think I can get a little creative with it. Since one of the characters hardly speaks for basically the entirety of the piece I can put that character in shadow or at least make him less recognizable and/or more mysterious in the card. That will fit well with  how the film opens. It also does help establish the tone a little, there is still some kind of morbidity to be found, I mean they are literally carrying a body to a car for part of the film.

That is my idea for the front of the card but I am not entirely sure for the back. Maybe the body bag they use in the film. OH, maybe I can use that as another poll in the social media page. That could be fun and if people actually respond I might end up taking one of the ideas. That is about it for this post, I am going to be doing a lot more work tomorrow.

Having Trouble On How To Continue - Part 3

    Surprise! It is another research post like 80% into the project. This time it is on the advertisement postcards.

    Side note I just saw Inglorious Basterds and yeah it was good. It had issues but there are certain sections that are like having a chef's kiss. I don't know that is about it. The movie in its entirety is just good.

    Alright, so, advertisement postcards, what are they? Why should we need them? Why are they so small? 

    I am going to start with answering the last question first. They are small because it makes them easy to carry around at place like film festivals and stuff. They are able to give a lot of information in such a small space so many argue that they are the easiest way of advertising more independent productions. 

    Another thing to note is that the card itself  is usually the first way people hear or see anything having to do with the production so whatever is on the card is incredibly important because if it is done well, than it will tell the person important aspects about the film.

Websites:

https://www.unifiedmanufacturing.com/blog/film-postcards-festival/

https://kavyamediastudiesa2.wordpress.com/2017/02/20/postcard-advertisements-research/

    Here are a few of the examples that I like:

Having Trouble On How To Continue - Part 2

 What's up I'm back. Guys ignore that last post. I AM A CHANGED MAN I THINK MY PROJECT IS A WORK OF PURE ART. Nah I'm just playing but if that were true that would be so weird and funny at the same time.

This is more just a social media post where I am just going to talk about different aspects of my social media that I should continue to work on and grow. I started the page pretty late in the project to be honest but I still feel like I can do something decent with it. I have already made a few posts on the page.

The thing is the page needs a lot more work and, quite frankly, these blog posts help me figure out how I have wanted to do certain things throughout the project, they end up showing most of my thought process and that is why a lot of them feel very disjointed sometimes. Anyway, there are a few aspects of the project I need to work on. The first one being the type of posts I create. Right now I think all of the posts are behind the scenes stuff and I need to create more variety in it. I need to add more advertisement elements. 

A few of the ideas that are in my head right now are different kinds of posters for the film, like posters that aren't used as the main poster. Another thing is simply just objects from the film in a picture, I think that could be a way to create some intrigue. My best idea I think is a pretend but kind of also real poll from which I can create at least two posts. It is a post asking what the name of the film should be, I have an incredibly hard time coming up with titles and names for things, its honestly ridiculous sometimes but I digress. I think that idea is a great way of bringing in parts of the community into unity. If nobody comments, oh well, the title will be "Noir+Funny+Dead+L+Bozo."

I also plan to do a small photoshoot for the characters in the film, I think that will add some variety. Another benefit is that doing that kind of thing might help me in deciding what the card should be for the film festival part of the project. Last thing to note is that I do want to add some videos into the posts but I am not exactly sure what to do there, maybe a few more behind the scenes posts. OH maybe a before and after for a shot in the film. I think that is a good idea for now but I will come back to it if I need to.

Having Trouble On How To Continue - Part 1

 This post is going to act as just an update on the project; The research ones will come a bit later.

So anyway, this project has had a few more, lets call them road bumps, over the course of this week. I have the editing done for what I already filmed so that isn't really an issue. The issue lies in the fact that the scenes I have filmed so far are too long, right now the first draft of the first two thirds of the piece are roughly five and a half minutes. WHO KNEW? This is just perfect because it means that I have to shorten both the opening scene and the car scene. The thing is that the car scene kind of has an emotional outburst at the end of it, which made sense in the script and in my head but not so much once done for real. In the first draft this outburst already kind of comes out of nowhere, I mean it is established that the character is already nervous in the beginning but I have no way of knowing if its enough. So this means shortening the scene will add to this feeling of the outburst coming out of nowhere, some jokes will also be lost in the process.

I am going to lose part of the tone and focus way more on the characters which I am not sure will help because there are jokes that are self aware and now with the cuts it might feel out of place.

Another thing this does is that it forces me to shorten the last scene of the script. The ending already is the weakest part but now, OH BOY, this is going to be some weird ass scene I know for a FACT people are going to confused on, even with the punchline at the end explaining why it still won't fit with the film because the cuts I feel might lose the tone. I don't know, maybe I am just getting too worked up and the tone was already lost to begin with. HA, wouldn't that be a cruel trick? So right now I just have to figure out how to make the scene as tight as possible and what I can afford to lose in it. I think I will be ok for the most part, the ending being an exception but we will get to it when we get to it I guess. I feel like I am talking in circles, sorry moving on.

One more thing to add to this list of annoyance is the music. My friend was so excited for this and I was geniunely excited to this week BUT, and this is a huge ass but, he got COVID. This means he can't record any of the songs at his friends house who has all the recording equipment and I won't be able to hear the songs for like a week or more WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. This is perfect, you love to hear it. I was really hoping the music was going to be a strong part of the piece but I am not so sure anymore. I can't read the stuff he sent me because I only know tabs. Honestly, I think my biggest problem in this project is that I went too far. I mean there is still positives to take from this experience and I found out that you can record a scene way faster if you have someone that can remember their lines. Little positive to not at all balance out the rest of the negative I just threw onto the screen haha.

Also side note, I know groups in the past have asked for their piece to be a little over seven minutes, I am not going to do that because I don't think my piece deserves to be that long. That may not be the right way of saying but I mean, just making under seven minutes seems like less of a hassle. See you in the next shitpost :D!!!

It Is Kind Of Working Out - Part 3

 FILMING IS DONE.... at least the filming that I did today. I leave for break tomorrow morning so that means I needed to get something done. Anything. Good thing is I got the vast majority of the filming for the film done today. I got both the intro and the car scene done, the one that is both the hardest and longest to film. This leaves me with the final scene which I literally am going to film in my own house that shouldn't be an issue. It also is not as long as the car scene. 

    This means a lot for the project and I honestly was so close to calling it quits and simply creating a new project to film over break. I had a whole premise and everything. Some kid has an accident and he can no longer snowboard. He goes back up to Canada thinking that he will finally be able to do it again now that his injury has been healed, however, he finds out that the accident gave him a mental block as well and the film just goes through how he handles this. Easy to shoot because I was going to spend like four hours on a plane and in an airport for that stuff. I can use my siblings and my parents because it literally is a story that involves a family trip. On top of that it doesn't require any crazy things like A BODY in the script. On top of that my brother sucks at snowboarding so that footage would be pretty easy to get. Honestly I kind of wish I had thought of this idea sooner. BUT NEVERTHELESS, I persevere poorly with my current premise. I realize I kind of went on a tangent but I swear this is actually substance to this blog. 

    There were a few changes made while filming. The first one being the car scene since that is what we filmed first. We changed some of the shots and focused a lot more the character of John, not only because he was saying almost everything in the scene but mainly because it turns out my brother, who played Doe in the scene last second was not very confident in driving. He has driven before but I guess I overestimated it. He went pretty slow most of the time so the illusion of genuinely driving would be broken if I focused on him too much. So most of the time I ended up doing shots like this so it wouldn't be a problem.

    Another issue we ran into while filming was the opening scene location. I had a place to film, thanks to the groups we had in class. We got there after filming the car scene but the room was taken up by another group already filming, but that wasn't really an issue. The issue came up in the fact that we needed someone to be over 18 to shoot inside the room. My friend was 18 but he didn't have a driver's license however he did have a passport at home. For some reason the lady at the library didn't want to hear it. She said we just needed a physical piece of document in front of her but when we said we can get the passport she said we needed a license which doesn't make any sense whatsoever because both prove age and are official documents. This meant we were not able to film there because of stupid ignorant people. We also tried to go upstairs because they also had offices but were once again turned away because we were not Broward College students. 

    We finally decided last second to film at my friends club house in a room with nobody in it. It wasn't a conference room so we had to change some of the shots from the storyboard but I think it worked for the most part. We filmed most of the scene but part of it is not filmed because we were kicked out even though nobody was in the room besides us. The reason: there was a pool table in the room and we can only use the room to play pool. Why? Just Why? Whatever. I filmed the part of the scene that was outside and there is a small portion cut from the scene, luckily it was shot slightly out of order so before they kicked us out I got the transition from the inside to the outside. 

    That doesn't matter now. What I have to focus on is editing, which I believe is where most of my strengths will come in. I will likely edit on Saturday because I have to keep in mind the music people for the project. He is adamant so I will send a first draft as soon as possible. Having done most of the filming also gives me time to revise the last scene if I need to just so I can make sure it is better. Side note, sending a first draft to the music guy will help him with the tone so most of my work over the break will be about the music and the production card. I also have to start a social media page I keep forgetting I am going to do it right now.

It Is Kind Of Working Out - Part 2

     I finished the script yesterday so now comes the storyboard. I am currently doing this while writing this blog but I already have much of it done. 

This is the first scene of the storyboard and it has the most visual storytelling so far. I'm currently halfway through the second scene but it has a lot less of this kind of visual narrative going for it. I am struggling a bit because of the limited space inside the car. So this post is kind of just a reminder of how I should continue to make my storyboard. 

    What should I focus on to make the storyboard better?

Going back to my last post about the storyboard it turns out I need a lot more physical stuff. More character actions that provide transitions for the camera to be placed or simply to look at what is happening in the scene and use certain angles to accentuate that. I don't think I will be able to create meaning, scratch that, I know I won't be able to create meaning out of every meticulous angle because for me, at least at my level right now, I would only be able to do that by holding shots for a long time or then suddenly having a bunch of cuts. This would result in absolutely atrocious pacing and that is my main focus right now. I am already conscious of the fact that my pacing I think gets worse as the piece continues so I don't want it to be a constant issue in the piece.

    However I can still improve on the redundant camera or meaningless camera by adding more character movement, it will create a smoother experience that will keep the pace up. This is my main focus of the piece. 

    The other thing I have to focus on is how I am going to transition into the shots I already have in my head for certain parts of the scene, but honestly the most I can do is speculate on how that will work, you never know for sure until you do it so I guess that is just more down to luck for now. 

    Bottom line, keep up the pace well and add more visual storytelling into the scenes that have a lot of dialogue.