Friday, March 29, 2024

I filmed! Yaaaaaaay!

So I think overall filming went well. There were a few hiccups (which I'll get into), but for the most part I'm happy with how it came out. I will also be calling the Sams by their last names for now on. 

For equipment I used my dad's camera, a Sony A6000, and my own tripod. For audio, I used voice memos. 






Chapter 1: What's Up Studs?
I picked up Pombo and took him to the location, where we met up with Armesto. Nicole came pretty late, so we filmed all of the scenes without her first. As we started of filming, an employee of a nearby store walked over a said to us and said "What's up studs? My servers are wondering what you're filming since we can see you through the window." That was a teeny bit awkward, but once we explained what we were doing and that they weren't on camera they let us keep filming. 




Chapter 2: FLORIDA
I would like to imagine you have two questions right now: What is the first problem you came across? Why are you putting parts of this blog into chapters? The answer to the second question is I have no clue. The first question can easily be answered by this short clip. 
As you can see from the clip, the lighting changed SO MUCH. The clouds kept moving and I had to adjust the iso and f-stop constantly. This normally isn't a problem, but when a shot takes multiple takes it really interrupted flow to have to stop and change my camera settings. Speaking of my camera, you may see this an ask, "Is your lens dirty?". The answer to that question is: it's a mise-en-scene element. 

Chapter 3: STILL FLORIDA
It started raining. Who would have guessed? Luckily it never really rained hard, and all of my equipment was safe, but it once again changed the lighting which was really annoying. 

Chapter 4: We are in public
I never really considered how filming this would look from an outside perspective until someone walked up on us while filming this part: 
The UPS worker seemed mildly concerned...



Chapter 5: Pizza
I realized that I had kind of begged my friends to help me with this, and I was taking up their time during spring break, so I felt kind of bad. So I decided to pay them by buying them lunch.


Look how happy they look!


Chapter 6: Finished!
Filming took about 4 hours in total including time for the lunch break, which isn't terrible considered how much I managed to film. I was very happy with how filming went, and after reviewing the footage at home I was satisfied with most of the shots. This is really the first time I've been able to take control of a project like this, and I'm really excited to see how the final thing turns out. 
Us after we finished.



Monday, March 25, 2024

Filming in the Morning

 Yeah yeah it's 12:07, I should be asleep. This is just a little update for what's going on. So the original plan was to film with my friends Sam, Diana, and Bryan. Well, Bryan told me he had a doctor's appointment that his mom never told him about today, so he can no longer do it. Also Diana had something come up, so she can't do it either. Faaaaaantastic. So I've been scrambling these past two days and I now have two new actors. Lily will now be played by my good friend Nicole, and Elvis will now be played by another friend named Sam. So two Sams and a Nicole. We are filming in 10 hours so if anyone cancels I'm canceling my friendship with them.

Bryan breaking my heart


Diana crushing my soul

Sam V.2 had just gotten a new fancy suit, so hopefully he looks absolutely dapper tomorrow. 

That's it from me. Wish me luck filming.



Friday, March 22, 2024

The Current Plan for Filming

 I have a current date scheduled to film the opening, along with the people that will act in it. The current plan is as follows: 

We will meet up at the filming location on the 25th of this month. Jimmy will be played by my good friend Sam, and Elvis will be played by my friend Bryan. Both have a lot of experience in acting, and they have good chemistry from acting together in the past, which is why I decided to seek them out. Here is a film they acted together in, so you can see their talent. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ruAioQCDs2_7i9edO8h6lR__8WlepGCO/view?usp=sharing




Sam(left) and Bryan(Right)


I then recruited my friend Diana to play the roll of Lily. She is in drama and has a good amount of experience acting as well. 

The plan is to meet up at the town center and film the main opening scene. Then, we will try to film the alley scene in a place there. If that doesn't work, we will drive to another location to film the alley scene there.

Thursday, March 21, 2024

The Most Stressful Filmmaking Experience (and what I've learned from it)

    So, as I've mentioned in a previous post, I competed in a competition called Student Television Network. In one of my competitions, we are given six hours to make a short film that goes along to a specific prompt, as well as using a line of dialogue that we are also provided. 

    The prompt we were given was "Off the grid", and the line of dialogue we had to use was "What are you looking at?". I'm going to be honest, I really liked this prompt, there were so many different routes we could take when it came to making a story. 

    Here is the plot we decided on: A guy and girl are on their first date together, and you can tell they really hit it off. As they are together in the park, the guy, Andrew, tries showing the girl something to impress her. Instead, he fails miserably. Even worse for poor Andrew is that a live streamer happens to catch his mistake on video. Andrew is so embarrassed that he decides he has to run away and get off the grid. 

    In the competition, you must write and finish filming all within the first three hours, then only two people can edit in the second three hours. So we finish writing within the first 45 minutes, and leave the hotel to go film. We started off at the park, where the embarrassing incident takes place. That's where we had two major technical issues. The first was with the boom mic, which wasn't working with the micro sd card we were using. We figured we could just use voice memos on our phones, because it's surprisingly good at picking up dialogue. That's when the second problem took place. Hayden, our cinematographer, has a really good camera that he bought. However, it only takes a particular type of sd card, which he couldn't find. After a while, he figured out how to lower the quality of the video in order to take a standard sd. At this point, we now only had 90 minutes to film the entire thing. This led to us not being able to film the last scene as we had intended.

    At this point, we had to run to the convention center where the editing room is to make it in time. We just barely make it, so two of our group members start editing (only two are allowed). So, me and Hayden go with our friends to a nearby mall to go grab lunch, since there was nothing else we could do with the video. And then I get a call. "We don't have any of the audio, it didn't download. We need you to download it onto a flashdrive and give it to us". So here's the problem. I need a computer to download the audio. I also need a flashdrive, which is in a van that I don't know where it is. So, running time. I'm going to spare the details, but I had to run over a mile as fast as possible to get the audio to them in time. I then had to get back because I had just ordered food before I needed to leave, so I had to pay for that. When I got back, I then got another call. "We're still missing audio". You see, we were sending the audio through Whatsapp, which needs wifi to send. This meant there was still some clips that never got sent. So basically, I had to run all of that AGAIN.

    Luckily, even adter all of that, my friends were able to submit on time. A lot went wrong with the project, but it turned out alright. Here it is: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eWPfwe6fJCtDRdlpiaS04xuVcS6XVvU7/view?usp=sharing


Although I was happy with how it turned out considering the circumstances, I didn't have high hopes for placing in the top five. It didn't really meet our expectations, and we had some of the plot we couldn't put in. However, the experience was really great, and I',m glad we did it. 


Okay so we got first. In the nation. Holy shit.


What I've Learned From This

First off, I've learned that a lot of the time, things won't go according to plan. I've also learned that it's okay if it doesn't, as long as you one, do your best to fix any mistakes, and two, make sure you learn from them. 

I've also realized that even if something doesn't reach your original vision, it doesn't mean it isn't still well made. 

I am going to make sure I use what I've learned and learn from my mistakes when filming my film opening.

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

A True Behind the Scenes

 This last week I went on a field trip for a tv production competition. There first day there, we got to go on a studio tour of paramount studios, which was a really awesome experience. We got a behind the scenes look at the place where so many of the most famous movies were made. We also got to learn many different things about the production of movies.


EVERYTHING IS FAKE

Okay we all already knew that everything about Hollywood is fake. However it can be surprising the extend of just how fake some things are. 

Do you know what Star Trek, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and The Truman Show have in common? 





They were all filmed in a PARKING LOT


This the Paramount's B Tank, and it is literally used as a parking lot when it isn't full of water. Another fun fact we learned is that they only added a fake sky because California's actual sky looks too perfect.

I love this fact about many movies, it shows how much of movies are faked, and how nothing you see on the big screen is real. 


Here's another example: soundstages




If there is a movie scene that takes place indoors, there's a 99 percent chance it was made in one of these. These massive rooms are almost completely silent because of it's insulation on the walls, and the construct entire rooms in here for movies. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the soundstages from the outside due to confidential unreleased film stuff (Marvel was supposedly filming in one), but you can kind of see the outside in this photo where I tried to recreate the Pink Floyd cover art.





I'd say we did a decent job recreating the picture.



Sunday, March 10, 2024

How Long Can Filming Two Minutes Possibly Take?

When it comes to getting this project done, I've realized there's only one thing that truly concerns me about finishing it. The filming. I mean I guess that seems obvious, because if you don't film, you don't have a... film. In all seriousness, I'm very stressed out about the day I'm going to have to film. I'm going to have to go to different locations around town, with three of my friends, and I really really really don't want to have to reshoot anything. It's hard enough convincing my friends to act once. If I get them to act again they may not like me anymore. 


Luckily, I've recently come across the realization that I am more than capable of filming this thing relatively quickly. I know I am because I've done it before. In fact, I've done something much harder. 


A short film. How long do people generally take to make one. A couple weeks? Months? Well recently I've had to make one in SIX HOURS. May I introduce to you: STN Individuals! The premise is simple: Six hours, a prompt to follow, a line of dialogue to include, and a prop. You have three hours to plan, write, and film an entire short film, then three hours to edit. This can be REALLY HARD. However, it's something that I've done, and I know that if I can accomplish something like that in six hours, I can make a two minute film opening with the planning already done. Granted, I had three other people working with me on that short film, however, I have time to actually plan in advanced for this project.


You may be wondering: how good can a short film made in six hours be? Well, I'll show you the latest one my team has made. 

Maximum time allotted: 2 minutes

Prompt: Never again

Line of Dialogue: "Don't cross me"

Prop: A cone

I want you to think of what you would make given that information. Now, watch ours and see if it looks similar.

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Yj3okej5Z_TGMExM0vzkfZd946K9GTTq/view?usp=sharing









Friday, March 8, 2024

The Struggles of Writing

 So this is my first attempt at scriptwriting so far. I posted a picture all of portion of what I've typed. I'm utilizing a program called Celtx, which has been working very well. Although I've done some writing before, this is my first time writing complete dialogue in this form. It's kind of weird, how I can imagine a scene a million times in my head, but as soon as I try to put words on paper (or a screen), it feels so much harder. 

I've found that what helps me best with writing is saying everything out loud. If you saw me in class the other day, you would have probably thought I was talking to myself. Before I wrote anything, I would say it like my character would, making sure what they said both made sense, was useful information, but also felt natural. 

After a good amount of time writing, I finished the first scene in my opening. (I posted a portion of it above). This has been really helpful, as I now have a good idea of how to write my script, as well as how much time I will need to spend. Celtx has this really cool, but also stressful, feature that shows your writing time compared to thinking time. I'm not sure if fifteen minutes writing vs fifty minutes thinking is a good ratio, but I'm happy with my pace so far.

Sunday, March 3, 2024

The Ending to the Beginning

I have finally figured out how the opening is going to end, which means I finally have the full plan for my opening, which means I can fully commit to my script. So here is what is going to happen after Lily escapes from Jimmy and Elvis.

The next scene will take place in a sort of office, where the illegal business Lily works for takes place. As she walks in, she places the briefcase the two men were after on the table and says to her boss that she doesn't get paid enough for this job, and asking who the two men who went after her were. The boss will reply something along the lines of that she seems perfectly okay, which she is, and that he's sure that whoever sent the men will have gotten the message that they aren't to be messed with. 

The bosses face will also not be shown in this scene, to add a little bit of mystery to the character. It will look not too different from Marsellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction. 



The Characters

 Jimmy Romero

Jimmy is one of the two main characters that we follow at the start of the film. He is part of the mafia and works with (insert second character). He is more responsible and put together of the two. He is always on time, and is most concerned with getting the job done. Jimmy has a lot of experience in the field of crime, and he has learned from his past mistakes, and takes all of his jobs seriously. 


Elvis Hernandez

Elvis is Jimmy's partner in crime( as in they are literally criminals). Elvis is a lot more laid back than Jimmy. While Jimmy is more focused on getting the job done and making a living, Elvis enjoys living life, picking up girls, and never seems to worry about things he should. He has a bit more self confidence than he should, which can sometimes affect the choices he makes.


Lily Rose

Lily is also part of the life of crime, however she is not in the mafia like Jimmy and Elvis. She works for an illegal business, but they are completely separate from the mafia. Lily is extremely competent at her job, and her boss knows it. Many people often underestimate her because of her being a girl, as well as not looking very intimidating, which she uses to her advantage. She is more similar to Jimmy, but is also more daring in her actions. 


This what the Jimmy and Elvis wear normally: 




I'm not yet sure what Lily's character will wear, because it depends on who I choose to act for her and what clothes they have.

CCR (not the band)

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