everything, except nothing

I think a good idea at analyzing short films is to look at which ones are the most popular. So let's take a look at "nothing, except everything", by Wesley Wang. I have some opinions...

I first came across this short film last year. My friend had just watched it, and was begging me to go take a look. And honestly, I just didn't think it was that good. To the point where he had to force me to finish it. I was surprised at how so many the comments were touting it as one of the best short films they have ever watched. 

A little while later, I saw that the creator of this film was given a directing role partnering with Darren Aronofsky. It's kind of a big a big deal when the director of Requiem for a Dream and The Whale hires you. I decided that I should probably give this film another chance, so I rewatched it from a fresh perspective... and still didn't like it. 

This actually kind of hurt a little, because I felt that I just couldn't understand what made some films good. Why couldn't I understand this masterpiece that is so highly praised? Okay a little dramatic sorry.

After a while, and a lot of analysis, I feel a lot more confident in my opinions about this film. After talking to a lot of friends, and seeing literal half-hour video essays now talking about this film, I think it's time to take a deep-dive into the biggest short film hit on Youtube.

I really like how the film starts. After flashing a chapter I title, we see the main character look directly at the camera, and ask us to think of a number between 1 and 10. Go think of a number. Go do it. Was it seven? For one in three people, that's the correct answer. But then the character asks, why one in three? Not one in ten? The character then goes around asking his schoolmates why they think that seven is by far the most common number to be chosen. 

I think this is a really cool way to open the film. The forth wall break is unexpected and it immediately draws the viewer in, which is really important in short films. The concept itself also feels very original, which I really appreciate.

The next scene is the main character explaining his findings to his family, who are very unamused. The main character explains how humans picking the number seven relates to the beginning of the universe and the meaning of life? I'm not kidding, he literally says "EVERYTHING. I mean think about it: we live in a world with so much uncertainty, with like climate change, civil unrest and-".

...

What? Literally where is this coming from? His dad then responds that the only thing uncertain is what college he is going to, and his mom literally says "Miles, it's really not that complicated. Get into a good college, get a job, and die". 

I'm sorry, but this is just not good dialogue. It's a conversation that really seems to come out of nowhere, and his parents response is just so strange. Now, it would be okay if a reasoning for this conversation was given later in the piece, but hint hint, it isn't. 

The next scene is the start of Chapter II and it features Miles on a date with this girl. They flirt for a bit, very cute. They then have a little awkward scene where neither know what to do next, so eventually they just decide to keep driving around and enjoying their date. Fun. This will prove to be an integral part of the story later on. I hope.

Now is Chapter III. All chapters so far have been quotes from famous figures, which is cool. The quote in this chapter is

"But if we all eventually die, what's the fucking point?"

    -someone, probably

Hey, cool title. Reflects what the main character is thinking. Miles is making a graduation speech, talking about the number 7, which does actually make sense that the who school knows what he's talking about, because I would imagine that everyone in the school knows Miles as the number seven guy. Miles then reveals that the age of seven is when he first encountered "The pinnacle of existence. Death." 

We then see a flashback to Miles walking with his mom down the street, her holding a seventh birthday cake. They then see a racoon get run over. Miles asks his mom why the racoon killed himself, and his mom says animals don't do that. And you want to know what this seven year old's response is? 

"But what if they have feelings? Just like us? Maybe his wife died and he went through months of existential grief and rehab."

Yes. I'm not excluding any details from the scene here, that's exactly what he says. So his mom understandably asks where this is coming from, and Miles asks if his Uncle Frank killed himself. 

We then see a flashback to young Miles playing chess with who we presume to be Uncle Frank. Uncle Frank then asks him to think of a number between 1 and 10, which then let's you presume that Frank picked the good ole "Was it seven?" trick. So this actually makes sense and is kind of cool. And maybe Frank's wife got into an accident and Uncle Frank went through months of sadness before killing himself? That's the only way I can call the dialogue anything besides utterly terrible, so let's just hope it is. 

Miles then continues his graduation speech, and starts shouting that all their grades and effort where meaningless and there is no reason to anything that they do. And I'm not going to type out what he says, but it is also just terribly written and sounds so unnatural. 

Now we reach Chapter IV, where Miles and his girlfriend lay in bed wondering if they will remember each other, or give a crap about each other. Then they talk some more and ask the question, "Would it be better to remember, or forget?"

Now a montage of current events in the news starts, with Miles talking about how life is so random. Then we see a bunch of clips of teenagers talking about enjoying life? I think they're interviews of Miles asking his classmates what they think about the future. Over the voiceovers, we see Miles finally move into his college dorm room. Then with a sudden cut, it switches to a shot of his girlfriend, and we hear Miles say "All of sudden, there's clarity".

And that's it! That's the most popular short film on Youtube. 

So, why didn't I enjoy this short film? Well the thing that stands out the most to me is the dialogue. It just feels so unnatural that it completely brought me out of the story. These are words that no seven year old would say, most parents wouldn't say, and I doubt a teenager would say in an actual conversation. I think some people would argue that the dialogue is meant to be this way. The words being so extreme aren't meant to be realistic, but instead get a point across. In my opinion, that is a terrible excuse for dialogue like this. You can get the exact same point across with much more subtle dialogue. If it's to the point where it brings you out of the story, I'm sorry, but it's not doing a good job. 

Next, I just don't think the story is great. I understand it, and it's cute. Miles experienced a death at a young age, and it causes him to believe that life has no meaning if we are all going to die anyway. Eventually, he accepts that life is just worth living because you should enjoy it. This is a fine plot to have, it's just that it tries to fit THE MEANING OF LIFE  into an 11 minute short. It both feels like way too much is happening, yet also doesn't feel like much happens in the film, and it ends up kind of feeling like a bunch of inspirational quotes being thrown at you. 

But I'm going to be completely honest, I am not hating on this film. I mean, the creator did the whole meaning of life thing way better than I ever could. The only thing is that I don't think that this deserves all of the attention that it has. There are some videos mentioning how Tiktok apparently helped make it popular, but I haven't watched them because I want all my ideas in this post to be my own. I just feel that there is no reason the creator of this film gets an instant directing job, meanwhile there are so many other creators that don't get the same recognition, who absolutely deserve it. So many aspects of this film feel so basic and cliche, that it doesn't feel like so much thought was put into it. Like that montage at the end feels like it was made with the intention of "people will eat this shit up", rather than "this has such a great meaning behind it".

I will give a few compliments to this film and the creator however, because I do not want to give the impression I have anything against him. I mean, the technicals are INCREDIBLE. Now, is this because the creator is actually rich? Yes. But that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve credit. The description "filmed throughout my last year of high school" really gives off the impression this was like a side passion project he and a few friends did during the year, and I think a lot of people think that. However, a quick scroll down shows that he hired dozens of professionals to work on this project. The special effects and camera work and editing is so good because he hired real life professionals for the job. I think people are a little misled, thinking this is a student film. Because let me tell you, although this was made by a student, this is NOT a student film. What I will say, and why I think the creator got a job, is that he is an incredible producer. This is what producers for films do: they hired the best people they can to execute their vision. If he, a high school student, managed as much of this as it appears he did, then he truly is an incredible producer and deserves so much respect for what he made. 

So yes, that is my overly yappy and unnecessarily long analysis of this one random short film that I don't really like.  

Tarantino Wannabe Syndrome

I was watching a video titled "The Secret Sauce for Writing Short Films" when I was brutally attacked. Look at this: 

Now, I would NEVER do such a thing as become a Tarantino wannabe. Wait...

So a quick look at my blog shows that I may in fact be a chronic sufferer of this illness.

Anyway, the last research post I did was dedicated towards comedies that I really enjoyed watching. If you can recall, comedy is the genre that I could probably do the best job with. However, it's not the genre I am most interested by. I'm not really sure how to describe the genre, maybe a drama/dark comedy. Trust me, that's very different from comedy, I promise. Look at films like Baby Driver, or maybe Pulp Fiction ironically. They kind of border on the lines of drama, thriller, and comedy. These can be pretty hard to make, but I found a few short films that kind of fit into it. 

Room 101

This definitely isn't the perfect short film, but I really like the vibe that is gives. It shows this girl check into a hotel, and just start really enjoying life. She's kicking back and relaxing, enjoying her magazines, jamming to music, and doesn't seem to have a care in the world. Which seems very concerning when the radio reveals there is a serial killer in the neighborhood. 

She walks out of the shower, seemingly oblivious to the man who has creeped into her hotel room. Until the man is right behind her. Then she smiles.

Bang. 

As the woman walks away covered in blood, you begin to realize that she was the killer all along. She goes back into enjoying her life, music blasting, merrily cleaning off the blood and hiding the body. And at the very end, she checks in to another hotel, asking for another hotel room for one.

What I love about this film is the twist. It perfectly sets up the expectation that she will fall victim to the a killer in her hotel room, just like the classic psycho scene, and then it completely subverts it. I do think that the film drags on afterwards a little bit longer than it should. Personally, I believe that the twist in a short film should happen more towards the end, but here it happens practically right in the middle. 

I once read somewhere that a good short film should be written like a joke. You spend most of the time building up to something, then the twist is the punchline. I think that is something that films in this weird genre I'm looking at are great for, and if I pursue this genre(which I really want to I just don't have an idea yet), then that is the main thing I am looking to achieve. 

Finishing up on Room 101, I really loved how stylistic this film was. I believe the creator definitely has at least a mild case of Tarantino Wannabe Syndrome(TWS), with the old music and aesthetic being very much from the 50s, much like Pulp Fiction, but they clearly were able to divert from that a decent amount, adding their own visual flare. The editing is very fast and well paced, and I really enjoyed all the visual aspects of the film. 

Schism

I FRICKING LOVE THIS FILM OH MY GOD

I think this creator may also suffer from TWS, however he's able to almost eliminate the W part from his condition. I think people try a lot to imitate his style of dialogue, which tends to include characters in the middle of what can pass for a normal conversation between friends. It's so satisfying to listen to because it feels like you're just hearing a these characters on a normal day. However, this kind of dialogue just doesn't work in short films. Look at the Pulp Fiction royale with cheese conversation. 

Yeah this is really funny to listen to, and it establishes the relationship between the characters, but this has almost nothing to do with the plot of the actual movie. It works in Pulp Fiction, because it has time for this, but in a short film with under ten minutes of run time, you're just taking up space. 

Now lets take a look at the dialogue in Schism. It still feels like a very normal conversation, and it's definitely something you could picture these two characters having. However, their conversation is about the event that we just witnessed. 

After the main character (Tripp) smiles so much for the waiter taking their order, his partner (Jay) asks him why he pretends to be all nice and jolly when he really isn't. Tripp argues that it doesn't hurt to act nice for people, but Jay thinks that putting on a fake face for people isn't good. 

Their conversation then mentions the job they are doing, which we don't know what it is, and how you have to accept what the job is and kill the part of yourself that denies it. This dialogue works so well, because it does a great job at being natural, while also not having a single word wasted. 

As the waitress returns with their milkshakes, a knocking sound starts coming from the trunk, causing them to speed off, while also hinting at the grotesque nature of what they are doing. As we see Tripp getting ready to finish the job, we see him look at the trunk in shock. He tells his partner to come check something out, but all he responds with is "just kill him already". Finally, we see that inside the trunk...

is himself. His partner was right, for this job, he really does have to kill that part of himself, so he does.

 

As the film ends, we get to see that empathetic version of him is now gone.

I think what I love about this film so much is that it's just such a well built story. It manages to build up to that ending perfectly without you even realizing everything was leading up to that point. The plot twist was really cool, and it becomes kind of philosophical without taking it too far. Amazing. 

These are the kinds of films I really really love, and it's what I really want to try to create. I think the real obstacle in doing that is that I just don't have an idea that could work with that yet... but if I manage to come up with something good then I absolutely will go for it. 

An eagle will turn me into a horse if I do not make a good short film

Despite the title of this post and the last post, I must reiterate that I do not smoke. This title will make sense eventually. Let's do some more film research, shall we? 

I decided that this post will be dedicated to comedies, because I would like to think of myself as effortlessly hilarious, and I'm sure I would make the greatest comedy of all time if I wanted to. If I wanted to.

One Minute Time Machine

One minute time machine keeps the trend of having a very simple story. The entire story takes place on a park bench. It shows this man trying to pick up a girl, but he isn't very good at it. Luckily, he has a one-minute time machine, so whenever he messes up, he sends himself back in time a minute and tries again. Damn, I want one of those. 

I think one of the highlights of this film is the writing. It is heavily dialogue driven, (which seems to be kind of rare in short films), and the writing is actually pretty good. The conversation feels very natural, and combined with the editing, the final film ended up being really really funny. It also has a very distinct beginning, middle, and end, which is impressive for something that takes place in one single location (and one minute technically), as well as some cool twists. 

This film also gives a lot of cool information in its description about the process of making the film. Something that really stood out to me is how long this film took to produce. The actual filming process was only eight hours, and the initial edit only took a few days. However, the creator felt the film was missing something, and he kept changing small things, trying to make something that would truly make it special. I have no clue what the original cuts included, but the creator said he cut out one of his favorite bits. 

"Eventually, in December 2013, editing on my laptop on a flight to New York, I tried removing a really funny reaction from Brian. It was probably my favourite joke in the whole film, but once it was removed, everything worked better. All of the comedy beats had a more natural rhythm. It just worked."

I think this is something I will really have to keep in mind when creating my short film. I may have to be willing to delete scenes or lines or shots that I really care about, but in the end it will better the final product.  

The Gunfighter

This is titled on Youtube as "The Gunfighter (Best Short Film Ever). That gives you some pretty high expectations. I'm going to be honest, it isn't. The true best short film ever will be unveiled later in this post. It's pretty damn good however, and really funny, so I'll let it slide. For now.

I've noticed that a lot of short films have what I guess I would call a "gimmick". The gimmick in One Minute Time Machine is the characters constantly setting the time back one minute. The gimmick in this one is that there is a narrator. That all the characters can hear. This obviously drives them crazy, especially when the narrator starts revealing their inner thoughts. The best part is that the voice actor for the narrator is the guy who plays Ron Swanson. 

This short film is genuinely hilarious. It is so unhinged that it just keeps getting better and better. Like look at the line: 

 "The gunfighter noticed for the first time that the bartender was black. This was still unusual in the West, but the Gunfighter decided he was okay with it"

The Bartender then goes "Ummmm, thanks?"

It's actual comedy gold. This short film also takes place in only one location, but still manages to have a good beginning, middle, and end.  I think the "gimmick" concept is something that could be a great tool to apply for my own short film, if I can come up with a good idea for one. However, it is very much not necessary, as you will see with a future example. (omg more foreshadowing)

Alternative Math

I hate math. Luckily for me, I just finished my very last math lesson in all of high school. And no, I do not understand how to take the integral of power series at the moment, but that's a later problem. Luckily for me as well, it seems the creators of this film hate math just as much. 

Basically, this film is about a kindergartener who thinks 2+2=22. However, when the teacher corrects him, he storms out, and his parents demand to know why she's pushing her extremist views on their children. Yes, it escalates that quickly. It's a pretty enjoyable watch, and definitely has a point it's trying to make. 

My absolute favorite part about the film is the comments and how people interpret it. There are people on both sides of the political spectrum saying this film is about the other side, and it's hysterical that neither side can see it's about both of them. 

I think that any parody that can insult everyone and make that many people angry is truly genius. 

This film is very technically sound, and while the cinematography isn't stunning, all the shots are well framed and look good. I feel like a majority of short films that fit into the comedy genre don't focus as much on the visuals as much as the story and dialogue. It makes me wonder why this might be. Is it because the makers of these comedy films would rather dedicate time to perfecting the humor? Or, would more unique and artistic cinematography distract from the main focus of the film? It's definitely something to keep in mind. 

Although doing research of these very high quality films is important, as I should be understanding what makes some of the better short films on Youtube so good, I also think I need to be cautious while taking inspiration from these. These are professionally made projects, ones that have VERY high budgets. The budget for The Gunfighter was 25,000 dollars. Which is a teeny bit outside the range of my price range. When these films are made, everyone who is working on it is hired to do a specialized job. The actors are professional actors. There are dedicated people just for coloring or sound. Many of them have sets designed specifically for the film. What I'm saying is that watching these films that are practically the same quality that you would see in a theater isn't the best for inspiration. So I think it's time to look at an amateur film that proves money isn't necessary to make something truly great. 

Okay, let's talk about the greatest short film that has ever been created in the history of the world. In fact, it's straight up the greatest piece of visual media ever. Masterminds such as Kubrick and Hitchcock and Spielberg and Nolan and Tarantino WISH they could have conceived the masterpiece that you are about to lay your eyes upon. Let's talk about...

Eagles are Turning People into Horses: The Movie

I'm being completely serious. Out of all the short films I watched for research, this is by far my favorite. Maybe that says something about me... anyway. 

This was the NYU Tisch thesis film for students Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher. They went on to create the Youtube channel BriTANick, which used to be a fairly popular skit channel. The description reads that this film garnered no support or money, and nearly got him kicked out of class. If that isn't proof that this is a work of genius, I don't know what is. The description also tells us that this was filmed over 48 hours with a budget of roughly $11, which is what I like to hear. 

So, what do I love so much about this film? I think the main thing is that it's just so creative. How the hell does one conjure up the sentence "eagles are turning people into horses"??? Either the creators are really creative people, or, they were extremely high. The story that they made out of this is actually so absurd, but it somehow works. I think it's a pretty impressive art to make something that verges on the line of too insane and absolutely hilarious. 

I also just want to point out that the cinematography and editing are both unironically really good.

I showed the film to my sister and her reactions went from:
-"I don't like this what"

-"Oh what the hell"

-"Zach how did you find this???"

-uncontrollable laugher and confusion

-lack of oxygen due to laughing

I believe that should be the reaction to any good comedy. 

What I think I should take from this is that creativity is everything. I hate short films that the I can guess what the plot twist is super easily. So many films are so predictable and I could tell you what is going to happen next, but not with this film. That really stands out, as someone who's been watching dozens of sub ten minute films for this project. 

That's also probably the hardest part about this project. Being creative is really hard. Being original is even harder. Coming up with a solid original idea is going to be my biggest challenge here, but it clearly pays off so well, as can be seen in both this short film, and most of the examples. 

I have a few different ideas for comedies, and I'm definitely considering making one. I have a few different possible plots in mind, and directions I know I could go, so there's a good chance I'll go with that route. 

Maybe... I should take up smoking...

 hi. funny title.

I think the best choice for my first genre research post is to analyze the first short film I watched when I started looking for inspiration. I first saw this film months ago, when thinking about making a short film over the summer (that unfortunately never came to fruition). I'm kidding about the title btw, don't smoke please.

This tiny little short film that doesn't even reach four minutes is honestly almost perfect in my eyes. Clearly, because I must have watched it a dozen times since I first viewed it. Lets look at what makes this short film so good:

Cinematography + Visuals

Oh my goodness this film is stunning. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that it's filmed on 16mm film, which gives it such a great vibe that I love. It seems to be filmed all during the early golden hour, which gives an almost nostalgic feel. Props to the person who colored these clips, because they all look great, and give it a vintage feel while still feeling technically up to date. 

Just look at dat glare

 

All of the shots also just look great, and they are edited flawlessly together. I think one of the biggest criticisms I have in most amateur films is that the shots almost always are too slow (shots are held too long, and don't have enough going on), or they are too fast (jarring, and not enough time to process), but this film doesn't have either problem. Shots are quick and snappy, but let you take in what is happening, and enjoy how well framed everything is. 

Sound Design

This film has no direct dialogue at all. All dialogue is in the form of being overheard by the two main characters, and it is leveled perfectly so you really do feel you are eavesdropping on the conversation with them. It's just so well done that as the man cries out that he lost his wallet and lighter, one of the main characters lights a cigarette with a very fancy lighter, implying everything you need to know. 

The music also fits the plot so well, and adds exactly what it needs to. I think good music is something really underrated in a lot of student made films I see, but it can really draw you away from the story when it doesn't fit. 

The Story

This is really the main reason I love this short film so much. The story is extremely straight forward: two criminals, one a first-time petty thief, and one a seasoned grand-theft pro, run into each other while hiding. As our thieves eavesdrop on the people chasing them, they share a smoke while appreciating each other's handywork. Of course, after they leave, the rookie gets taught a little lesson about honor amongst thieves. 

What I hate about this is that the plot is so damn simple. It doesn't even need any words to convey it, yet it's satisfying and enjoyable, which is what really matters when making a short film. That's why I think these 236 seconds of footage deserve their own post. What I need to take from this is that although I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself for this project, I need to know that I can write a great short film, without having the viewer question what the meaning of life is. That's a little jab at a short film I plan on dedicating a whole post to, which is coming soon so stick around. 

Whenever I stress myself out trying to add some insane plot twist or crazy moment, I'm just going to remind myself to come back here and remember that simplicity can be exciting, it just needs to be enjoyable to watch. 

The Schedule

The thing that I always like to do with a big project like this is schedule out my goals for each week. That way, I can see what I need to do each class, hold myself accountable to staying on task, then inevitably fall behind and rehash the schedule. Just kidding. Hopefully. 

So currently, I know that I want to make a short film. I also know... nothing else. I have a bunch of ideas for the storyline, but most of them aren't that strong, and half of them are just cool sounding titles. I'm going to need to dedicate a lot of time just for coming up with a plot, and then a bunch more time to actually writing the thing. Because I'm still pretty undecided with what I want to do,  I'm going to dedicate a good portion of the first few weeks to just writing. Hopefully I can decide what I want to do by the end of next week, then I can focus on just making sure the story is good. 

Week One:

-make a project schedule (woah so meta)

-choose genre

-cry

Week Two:

-genre research

-have an idea of the full plot

At this point, I really need to make sure I know what my story is - If I know the beginning of my story, how it ends, and a general idea of how it gets there, I can start working on the script.

Week Three:

-start writing script

-Student Television Network

Student Television Network (STN) is a national student competition, and it is my second year doing it. I may explain more when the time comes, but it's a five day trip that I need to dedicate all of my time to, so I won't get much of this project done during that time. 

Week Four:

-finish writing script

-create storyboard (actually do it this time)

-start pre production planning

Week Five:

-keep planning

-have actors confirmed

-film dates set

Week Six:

-FILM THE ACTUAL THING

Week Seven:

-finish filming

-start editing process

-refilm anything necessary (pray we don't need to)

Week Eight:

-finish editing

-work on advertisement/social media

Week Nine:

-finish advertising/social media

-write the CCR

-publish the thing

As Anakin Skywalker once said...

I'm pretty sure I've made that same reference in this blog already, but whatever. We don't have the time for that. 

So this is going to be the first post of many about the A Level Portfolio Project. I've actually been looking forward to this for a very long time, and I've given a lot of though into what project I want to do. In order to explain my choice in project, we are going use our good friend Abraham Maslow. 

You see, Maslow is most famous for the modestly titled Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. 

The basic idea of the pyramid (if I remember correctly from AP Psych two years ago) is that these five levels represent the needs that humans strive to fulfill. The lowest levels are basic needs such as food and water, while the highest level is self-actualization. The narrower the area on the pyramid is, the less people reach that point. 

That's kind of the way I see the different choices for the project. I may be extra motivated and make a graphic to represent what I'm explaining, but most likely I'll get lazy and just explain it with words. This project basically going to be my final big project in all of high school, and because of that, I really want it to be my best. I've been taking TV Production for four years, Media Studies for two, and I would love this to reflect everything that I've learned throughout the course of high school, to really reach what I have dubbed my "media self-actualization". 

 Let's take a look at the project choices:

The first one is the music promotion package. The main reason I don't want to do this is because you need to promote a real artist, and I don't know that many. However, I've also already made four different music videos in high school, so I feel as if I wouldn't be trying anything new with this. I'd put this at the lowest level of my theoretical media fulfillment pyramid. 

The second choice is the film promotion package. This is actually a really fun looking project, and I would love to create trailers for a theoretical full length film. The idea of having to come up with an entire two-hour movie plot would be a really fun challenge; it definitely reaches higher on my media fulfillment pyramid. However, knowing myself, I would probably get a little too attached to my story, and be upset I can't make the full thing. So, we're going to pass on this one.

The third choice is documentary. I'm going to be honest, at the beginning of this year I would have been very split among this choice and my ultimate one. A documentary requires so much effort in storytelling to properly deliver your "slice of life". However, I now know that the doc would only be a theoretical excerpt from a longer piece, I would have the same flaws as with the movie trailer. Now I do know that I could finish the rest of the doc on my own time, but not being able to share it in the same capacity keeps it on the second to third level of my media fulfillment pyramid. Besides, I don't think I could possibly ever top my documentary from the beginning of the year (which I may or may not still be finishing).

Which leaves the fourth and final choice. The point of the pyramid. The short film. For this, I would need to create an entire full story with a beginning, middle, and end, then actually see it all the way through. For as long as I've been making stuff in media, I've never really made a full film like this. So I've decided that in order to fulfill my little imaginary pyramid for media fulfillment, or in other words, just be happy with what I create, this is the project I should choose. 

Okay that was a probably a little convoluted for something I could have said with "I want to make a short film". And my analogy was terrible. But I feel that my reasons for wanting to make a short film will hopefully be reflected on the choices I make while making the story, so I wanted to explain that. Anyway, now that I know I want to make a short film, it's time to figure out what the short film will actually be about. 

CCR (not the band)

     Does This Make You Uncomfortable? is our documentary that was created to show how gen-z is made uncomfortable by feet, and what that shows about society. 

    The first step to learning about how to make a documentary was viewing some examples, and understanding some of the conventions that can be found. The first example we viewed in class was called I Think this is the Closest to How the Footage Looked. This short nine-minute piece was really vital in expanding our view of what a documentary can be. As was explained to us, a documentary is a “slice of life”, and this piece was a perfect way to show that. After this, we saw the piece Exit Through the Gift Shop. This was without a doubt the most influential piece we viewed when it came to the style of our own documentary. Due to our topic being out of the ordinary, we decided that a more lighthearted style, similar to the style of Exit Through the Gift Shop, would be important to get audiences to understand what we were showing. Something else we were inspired by from this doc was the use of interviewing the creators to progress through the piece, in order to explain to the audience what is happening, as well as using it to help maintain the structure. The final examples we watched in class were the New York Times Op Docs. These were extremely helpful for us, as they were really the only examples that were a similar runtime to what we were aiming for. 

The topic that we were covering is quite a specific one that most people likely wouldn’t understand. A lot of adults we talked to during this project had no clue that people in generation z even have a problem with feet. Due to this, the main target audience for this piece is other people in generation z, as they already understand the topic at hand. The topic seems to tailor towards all genders, as most people seem to have the same discomfort around feet. The documentary tailored towards our target audience by also starting out pretty fast paced, which is helpful towards gen z, who normally have a lower attention span. I think if we were able to add more of our own interviews, potentially explaining how we originally came up with this topic, and explaining that it is a generation-wide issue, we could have expanded the audience to a much larger level. 

This piece is something that most people in generation z can actually relate to. During the class viewing of our documentary, most of the class was laughing at so many of the moments, likely because they relate to it so much. Also, during a scene where a foot is shown, the entire class started freaking out, obviously pretty uncomfortable with what was shown on-screen, clearly proving that the topic does make them uncomfortable. 

One of the ways that we developed a brand in the piece was with the very title of the piece itself: Does This Make You Uncomfortable? That was the question that we asked all of our man on the streets interviewees, as well as the first question for all of our main interviewees. Because of this, we were able to use the title as a guiding question within the majority of the piece, and it stayed a recurring theme throughout the whole thing. Another way we developed the brand was by, for lack of better words, the way we kept things pretty out of pocket for most of the piece. This documentary is on an admittedly pretty strange topic, so going right out there and embracing it ended up being an effective choice. Right off the bat, we show a video of a foot up close, which most people in our target audience would never dream of doing. We then walked around town showing people pictures of feet. This is once again something our target audience would find absurd, proven by the fact that people who knew what we were doing beforehand were shocked we would even try such a thing. At a later point in the piece, one of our interviewees ripped off his shoes and socks, and we zoomed in to capture the absurdity that our audience would find. 

One of the main social issues that our documentary tackled was the trend for people in generation z to tend to cover up a lot more. Several of our interviewers were able to explain several other examples of younger people covering up, besides just with their feet. People in our target audience viewing the piece, who likely cover up their feet subconsciously, could question the reason for why they do so. I feel that we could have done this a bit more effectively if we were able to have our own interviews placed throughout the entire documentary, besides just the beginning. This way, we would be able to explain how what the interviewers are saying relate to the topic, as well as reaching a broader point of view of society itself. This piece most covers the group of gen-z, and it attempts to point out deeper reasons for some of their actions, ones that they may not expect. 

With Does This Make You Uncomfortable?, the main goal was to use a funny and humorous beginning to draw members of gen-z in, before switching to a more serious a reflective topic, one that viewers can use to reflect upon some aspects of society. 

editing

     So where did we leave off.. oh yes. Two days to edit. Now this definitely was not a good thing, although I wouldn't say we necessarily had a choice. We got out last interview the day before, and we wanted to have all the interviews gathered before we started constructing the line edit. In order to go through the interviews easier, we made a document with all of the interview transcriptions. 

    Here they are, it's a beaut ain't it?: transcript

    All the interviews together were just about two hours, and at font size 11 the transcripts took up 25 pages. Geez, this is a lot. Editing interviews for a documentary is very similar to editing for a news story, which I was used too. News stories generally have two interviews, so I was expecting our six to take three to four times as long. Ha. So it turns out the time to edit interviews together increases exponentially the more you have. 

    We decided that the best way to add structure to the story and move it along would be to use interviews of ourselves to talk about what is happening on screen, much in a similar way to Banksy's interviews in Exit Through the Gift Shop. 

    The big problem with this was finding time to film. We're seniors in high school. We're busy. First of all, Dani is a band kid. No offense, but "band kid" and "having lives" are not in the same sentence. Vic is a chorus and drama kid, which both had a bunch of stuff going on at this time. I'm a tv kid, which means I also had a bunch of stuff going on. Vic and I also both had a big calc test coming up. Basically, time was something we did not have. 

    

    The main goal was to watch the line edit, then fill in the spots with written out lines for our interview. However, since the line edit was not done, and we didn't have time to meet up, we recorded our own interviews, without seeing the footage we were adding it too. This was what I think ended up being the biggest flaw with out piece, as I think having our interviews scattered throughout the piece would have made audiences understand what was happening way better. 

    Either way, it was the afternoon the project was due, so there was no time to complain. I worked on putting together all of the interviews(with some help from Dani), while Vic worked on editing the mots and the intro. Vic was actually able to use her own interview a lot in the first part, and it was obvious that it works well, we just didn't have our own interviews that fit within the main interview section of the piece. 

    

Here is the timeline when I was done. The selected part was the final doc.

    Vic then took the interviews and added it to her section, which she somehow edited on her phone. The sun was very much in the sky by the time it was complete. 

    The final product was a little over 13 minutes long, which is longer than we initially intended, but we were all very proud of how it came out. This documentary is still very much not done in our eyes. We see so much potential that we can add to this project, and we plan on fixing all of our mistakes in the future. 

    Here is what we ended up submitting, Does This Make You Uncomfortable? , I will eventually post the new and improved doc here, but this is what we have for now.

    So yeah. That's how I ended up watching my English teacher show us his toes. Life is crazy.

This is Where the Fun Begins...

Berna's Interview

    

    The very first interview we got was Mr. Berna, my English teacher, who also has a degree in psych. I knew he was the right choice as soon as I asked him to do the interview. I happened to be filming when I asked him, take a look at this response: 

    He said right afterwards that he had noticed kids were weird with feet, and gave an anecdote about a time he wore sandals to class, and got some extreme reactions. I had him tell us the same story during our actual interview, which was the day after this. 

    Berna gave an amazing interview. He is what I would describe as a chronic yapper, because he can talk about a topic for literally an entire class period (we don't get much done in class), but that lead to him giving us some interesting perspectives and some interesting theories. He related gen-z and how they hide feet with how most kids don't go to the pool without a shirt on anymore, and a whole trend of covering up.    

    We made a little blog right after, and you can see we were pretty excited. This was really our first sign that this crazy idea may somehow actually work out..  

    

The Mots

    This is the thing we were most scared about. Mostly because it meant we would be walking around our city center, where we know a LOT of people, and going up to strangers to show them a picture of feet. We decided we would just ask them two questions: 

    -Does this make you uncomfortable? Why?(omg it's also the title isn't that cool)

    -Do you have any opinions on feet?

Here is the pic we used.

    To film the MOTS, I checked out some equipment from my tv club. I got a camera and a really cool wireless handheld mic. 

    Our MOTS interviews actually came out so well. Like we could not have asked for a better outcome. We were planning on editing it to show only adults who have no issues with feet, and only teens who had issues with feet. Creator bias? Maybe. Well we didn't have to do that. Because EVERY. SINGLE. INTERVIEW. WAS. PERFECT. Literally not a single adult had any issues with feet. In fact, a good portion of them thought if we were asking if the position the feet were in was an uncomfortable position. Then literally every gen-z we asked were genuinely so weirded out, and the pic did in fact make them uncomfortable. We ended up using every single interview in our mots (besides the people who answered in Spanish).  We are literally immune to creator bias (obviously a joke but still).

    It seemed too good to be true. Because it was. Obviously. Remember that fancy wireless mic we used? Well it connects to the camera with an aux cable. Aux cables are notorious for being glitchy, as well as anything wireless. So before we went shooting, I checked to make sure everything sounded fine. Of course, when we got to location, I used the other aux cable in the case that I didn't test by mistake. I got home to see the audio was literally unusable. Completely unsalvageable. Screw you murphy and your stupid law. And yes, I did use headphones. Sounded fine through them. 

    Luckily, when we filmed the MOTS, Dani also filmed with her camcorder. The reason was just because we thought it could be a cool aesthetic, and also two angles could be a good idea. For some reason, Dani's cheap and years old camcorder has literally the most amazing mic in the history of the planet. That may seem like hyperbole, but it literally picked up what people were saying from like 15 feet(haha feet) away. Of course there was a lot of background noise, but it was more than usable. If I ever win an Oscar or Emmy, I'm, thanking that camcorder in my acceptance speech. 

Kanno's Interview

    Mr. Kanno, the sociology teacher, was one of the more interesting points of view we got. He had no idea that people found feet weird, but after learning it was a gen-z thing, he related them to pimple patches that he sees a lot of students wearing. It was very interesting that both Kanno and Berna talked about other examples of covering up with gen-z, and it was a point we definitely wanted to include in the final piece. 

The Rest of the Interviews

    The rest of the interviews consisted of Vic's friend(who hates feet) and her younger sister, our friend Thalia, and a guy named Luke we know. All of those interviews went pretty smoothly, all giving their perspectives. We didn't end up using Ceci's sister, just because she wasn't the best interview (not her fault she was like 11). We never got to interview the AP Pysch teacher at our school, mostly due to a lack of time and none of us were really close with her, but we were pretty happy with all of the interviews we got.

    And just like that we were pretty much done filming. Small thing. Just a teeny little thing. Getting all of that took about 12 days. We had two weeks to work on the project. Which means we had two days to edit together all of that footage. Should be fun. 

planning

Hi. My name is Zach. That is my English teacher. Showing us his toes. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation. To understand how we got here, we must go to the very beginning...

How Did We Get Here?

    October 2nd, 2024. The time is somewhere between 9:17 and 10:57am on a peaceful Wednesday morning at Cypress Bay High School. Our AICE Media teacher, Mrs. Stoklosa, was giving us our first lesson on documentaries. Here we are, learning all of the basics about documentaries, when Stoklosa stops and says, "Hold on guys. This isn't related to anything but... do you guys have a problem with feet?". I'm roughly paraphrasing here, but our teacher definitely got her answer as the class literally erupted with a wave of grossed-out teenagers who most definitely had a problem with feet. 

    

    Stoklosa was utterly confounded about why pretty much all of her students had an issue with feet. Understandably so, because in the end feet are just body parts, and there's literally nothing explicit about them. As the members of our class tried explaining how feet are gross and weird looking, our teacher just couldn't seem to wrap her head around feet being such a, for lack of a better term, "taboo" thing for teenagers. 

    The very strange thing was that even us, the toe-hating teenagers, were unable to come up for any explanation for why we are so grossed out by our bottom-most body part. This lead to, without exaggeration, a very heated debate on possible explanations for this phenomenon. My friend Victoria was especially interested in this debate. She said that she found it so fascinating how an entire group of people can turn such an ordinary thing into something to avoid. I saw Vic was so obviously captivated by this, and me, being the naturally hilarious person that am I, said as joke "You should make a documentary on this." The class laughed at my vey funny and humorous comment. Expect for Vic. Who took me completely seriously. 

Her words, not mine.

    Vic literally took out her notebook and started writing down ideas for how she could possibly do this doc. I started suggesting some ideas of my own, and before we knew it we had a very rough plan for how it could possibly happen. Obviously we would never do that though, it's such a weird idea. I remember thinking to myself, "I wonder if Vic will actually do that idea. If she does, there's no way in hell I'm helping her". 

    Flash forward to the day the project is assigned. My friend Daniella and I are a little unsure of what we would want to make our documentary on. Then we make the mistake of locking eyes with Victoria. We looked back at the notes that were written down. The more we talked about it , the more ideas that were surprisingly good we came up with. Then Stoklosa literally said out loud, "I will be so sad if no one makes the foot documentary". Welp, since she was literally begging us, we really had no choice but to make it. (Stoklosa would later claim that she was joking, but I refuse to believe that. The look of excitement on her face when we decided our topic showed us everything).

Research on the Topic

    The first and arguably most important step of the pre-production is researching about your topic. It was in this stage, however, when I noticed that this documentary might be more interesting that I first thought. It was a pretty well-documented topic,(our teacher first discovered it in a John Oliver segment), and we were able to find plenty of articles explaining the weird phenomenon that was younger people's disgust towards feet. We found a variety of articles explaining that this is a widespread thing. From all of our research online (and independent studies, more on that later), it seemed that disgust towards feet was primarily a gen-z issue. 

    Some articles we used that gave us some interesting points of view. A HuffPost article said that many people in younger generations consciously avoid wearing open-toed shoes in public. It said that even younger brides getting married refuse to wear open-toed shoes, in fear of having their feet in photos. 

    A few of the articles that we found suggested that one of the possible reasons for gen-z's adversity to feet is our generation's awareness of the fairly new ability for anyone to sell their feet pics online. Believe it or not, people can make some genuinely good money online selling pictures of their feet on the internet. The theory is that gen-z is aware that people could fetishize their feet, and so teenagers prefer to hide their feet from that possibility. 

     A really interesting statistic we found was from an interesting website, FeetFinder. It's apparently one of the most popular websites to find pictures of feet. Their data shows that gen-z has the highest level of foot fetishes compared to every other generation, which is a little strange since it's the generation that appears to hate feet the most. 

    Here's the thing...

    That isn't a bad theory at all. We thought that that was going to be our conclusion for the documentary. That was until we started asking people in our class why they individually felt uncomfortable about feet, and not a single person stated that as being the cause. There were a variety of different reasons people told us, but it was still strange We realized that there is some different reason that was causing an entire generation to dislike feet, and there is absolutely no awareness of it...

Planning for the Doc

    We decided that the overall route that we wanted to take was to start with showcasing how gen-z's aversion to feet was in fact a big thing. We thought a really cool way to show this would be a Man On The Streets. By asking a bunch of different people, we could get a variety of ages that would hopefully showcase how it is only a gen-z issue. This would mean we would have to go around our town showing random people pictures of feet and getting their opinions on it, but the fact that that scared us so badly shows how weird gen-z is.

    After showcasing it was a thing, we would then transition to what gen-z's dislike of feet shows about society and societal norms, as we believed that is the real message people could take away from this. We made up a list of a few different people, ranging from teachers with degrees in sociology and psychology to tell us their theories about it, and members of g-zen to explain their disliking of feet.

    We decided that the piece should end off having the audience thinking about society and their own lives, possibly wondering what trends they might be unknowingly following. 

    Most importantly, we decided on the title: "Does This Make You Uncomfortable?". This I actually came up with on the very first day we joked about making this doc, because I think it would make such a good poster/title screen if shown with a picture of feet.

Here is our planning sheet:

    Now that we had a concrete plan and structure, it was time to see if we could actually pull it off...

    

Documentary Research

    Welcome to the first part in the trilogy + 1 of posts(which is apparently called a tetralogy) which I will be making about the documentary project we have recently finished working on. 

The Research

I Think This is the Closest to How the Footage Looked (2012)

    I Think This is the Closest to How the Footage Looked was first documentary we viewed in class as we started our unit on documentaries. This film completely changed my views on what documentaries could be. If you had showed this piece to me before, I wouldn't had even called it a documentary. Before I had the impression that all documentaries were long informative pieces with interviews that tell you about a topic, but that's obviously not true. As we were told in class, a documentary is something that illustrates a "slice of life". They can take on so many different shapes and forms, and it got me really excited for this project. 

    If you haven't watched this piece, stop reading right now and go watch it here.

    This short little nine minute documentary is absolutely soul crushing, and it perfectly shows how a documentary is just a "slice of life". 

American Promise (2013)

    American Promise was the first actual full length documentary we watched, with a runtime of almost two and a half hours compared to the nine minutes of the first one. This was much more of the typical kind of documentary you would expect, showing the life of two boys from the first grade all the way to college. That's right, the documentary spanned the entirety of their time at school and it took over 13 years to create. 

    

    This documentary is about the lives of two African American boys going to one of the most prestigious preparatory schools in the country. The New York school is predominantly white, and the two subjects were given scholarships, as long as they maintain their grades. 
    

    The piece does a masterful job on the aspect of editing, they had well over 800 hours of footage, and they needed to figure out how to turn 13 years of their own children's lives into just two and a half hours. I can't imagine how hard this must have been, as I struggled with cutting out footage with my documentary, and I only had about an hour and a half of interview footage. 

    This documentary did an amazing job of showing different aspects of the subjects' lives. The main focus was about the effect of being some of the only African Americans in the mostly white school, However, it went into a lot of the details of their lives at home, and I actually found myself relating to a lot of it. I thought one of the most interesting aspects shown in this piece was how strict the parents were in how much control they had over their kid's schoolwork. One family had so much involvement that they had literally scheduled out his life down to the minute. Another family was less involved, going with more of a "Go do your homework" approach. 

    

    Both kids struggled a lot while at the prep school, and one of the kids, the one who's parents were less strict, ending up dropping out and going to a public school. The kid that remained at the prep school was aiming for all these highly esteemed colleges such as Stanford, while the other was reaching for less prominent colleges. The kid who was aiming for Stanford only made it into his safety schools, while the other kid made it into his top options. I thought it was interesting how both kid made it into schools of relatively same level, despite the differences in how strict the parents were.

    

    In the end, both kids were happy with where they ended up, and it helped relieve a little stress about what I was currently going through, as I related to the struggle a lot.

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

    By far my favorite documentary we watched in class(and probably my favorite I've ever seen) was Exit Through the Gift Shop. This really surprised me, as it is about street art, a topic I've never really cared too much for, but I think it shows that the topic in a documentary isn't as important as what you do with it. Seriously, I went to go watch the first minute of the film just to remember how it started, and next thing I knew it was twenty minutes later and I was like "Oh wait I'm supposed to be blogging".

    

    It was directed by Banksy, one of the most famous street artists today, and it follows a man named Thierry Guetta, who carries a camera and films everything wherever he goes. He eventually starts becoming fascinated by the world of street art, so he starts devoting his time to filming that. 

    

    That's how the piece starts. The focus of the film completely shifts part of the way through, and takes you on a journey you would never expect. I not going to discuss much of the content here, mostly because this is the sort of thing that you just need to sit down and watch yourself. 

    

    After finishing this documentary in class, we spent about half an hour in what became an almost heated discussion on the question that the film poses, which is "What is art?". People may think that is an obvious kind of question to pose in the world of street art, but what the question is actually asking about is way different from what you're probably thinking. 

    I really fell in love with the style of this documentary, which I think is kind of clear once you view our own doc. It carries such a raw style, and you can tell that it ended off in a completely different way than it was first intended. We really loved the way that the story was told in this piece, and we adopted a similar style, which you will soon learn about. 

As I was writing this blog, I ran into this cat. I've decided to name it Thierry, in honor of Exit Through the Gift Shop.

Abstract: The Art of Design (2017)

    

    Abstract was the example we watched that was an episodic documentary. I'm going to be honest, I didn't love this piece. I'm not really knocking it in anyway, because I think it achieved what it was going for very well, I'm just not the biggest fan of the style. 

    

    I think it has a lot to do with the fact that this was pretty much a 40 minute human interest story each episode. As part of being a in TV Production, I already view and make quite a few of these, so it just didn't feel as unique or special to me. I really enjoyed how most of the other docs we viewed all seemed so unique, so this one didn't leave as much as a mark on me. 

    That being said, the episodes we watched were still very well made. My favorite was the episode on Ruth Carter, who is a costume designer of legendary status. I recognized so much of her work that they showed, and the fact that I had no idea it was all by the same person is honestly a crime. 

    

    Because the entire purpose of the series is on artists and designers, most of the b-roll needed to be staged. Our documentary's b-roll also needed to be staged, so this served as a very good example of how to stage b-roll, and looking back I think we should have taken some more inspiration. 

New York Times Op-Docs

    The New York Times has a place called Op-Docs, where independent filmmakers can submit their own short documentaries, and we each viewed two different ones in class. 

    

    The first one I viewed was called Pickle. It told the story of a couple that takes care of all sorts of animals. Many of the animals are, well, weird, and others have some disabilities that no one else would want to care for. 

    This was another piece that needed a lot of staged b-roll, since so many of the animals they talked about were no longer around. This doc was really creative with some of its b-roll, even using little animations to show how the animals passed away. 

    I thought this documentary was really sweet. It had such a lighthearted tone and I liked the message it had about life and helping animals. It also had two different interviews that it had react with each other, and I used this very technique in our own doc.

    The second one I watched was Roaches' Lullaby, and it was one of the coolest and definitely strangest doc I've ever seen. It interviews three different ordinary people in New York City as they talk about their roach infestations. Aside from just normal sit-downs, it follows the people around their homes as they explain their roach-killing routine. 

    The thing that makes this so cool is the fact that this was made in 1972. It feels like a little time capsule, taking us right back to 1970s New York City. You can tell people back then were... a little less sanitary, but really they were just the same as us: people who hate roaches. Honestly, this piece feels like something way weirder than you would expect from this time, and I think that's one of the reasons I really liked it. 

    The interviews in the documentary shift from talking about how they kill roaches, to how they hate roaches, to then asking the question, "Are humans the roaches of the universe?", which was a moment of existentiality I wasn't expecting. And yes, there is an actual lullaby about roaches included.

    I really did go on and on about these docs that I watched, to the point that people saw how much I had written and gave me really judging looks. I think that fact that these documentaries can drive people to have so many thoughts and opinions on different topics is what I found most interesting about this unit, and I think it was a driving factor on the topic we ended up choosing for our own doc, which I cannot wait to get into in the next post.