Group meeting ✌️

Today we met with a group for the second time to discuss how production went for our film opening.

da squad

 Here's where everyone stands:

Robbie-https://juliansblog2024-25.blogspot.com/

Robbie felt confident in his production. While he didn't have much to show us, he completed production and was nearly finished with post-production. For his CCR, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. He's going to answer questions in the form of an interrogation like in "Dexter"

How Robbie plans on answering questions

For his second set of questions, he plans on staging a robbery committed by CBTV (the tv club at our school that I'm a part of) where they'll ask him questions. I'm not really sure how that would work, but he seems confident in the idea, and that's all that matters.

Gigi-https://gigixcurr.blogspot.com/

Gigi and I were in the same group last time, so it was great to catch up and see how each other's projects were going. She mentioned how she was a bit hands-off in the editing process, but saw that for her group members, it was a pain to edit. I took a look at her blog, and saw they utilized color and lighting very well in their opening. She felt pretty confident about her film, and I showed her how to improve some techniques for future filming endeavors. 

Elke- https://elksnotes3172.blogspot.com/

Elke and I were also in the same group for the first meeting, and I was intrigued to see how her coming-of-age film was going. She showed us a video of it and the style was very unique. The main character broke the 4th wall and talked directly to the audience, something I felt was creative and hooked me into the story. Editing was rough for her group, and they had to do a bit of sound design to get the perfect feel. They were still debating on how long a couple of shots should last but overall, they felt good in their production.

Vicky-https://vzamos.blogspot.com/

Vicky didn't really talk much during our meeting, but she did mention an interesting idea for her CCR. She would take a nice scenic walk on the beach with the questions written on the sand. The group thought this would be logistically challenging, but she assured us she could do it. I'm excited to see how it turns out.

Julian- https://juliansblog2024-25.blogspot.com/

Julia didn't talk during our meeting and said he was still struggling to find ideas for his CCR. I wish him the best of luck on his production. 

See See Are

 Me on camera? Preposterous! 

(This joke is in reference to my history of on camera presence :) )

The CCR presents a pretty unique way of answering questions, one that I haven’t really explored. I’ll probably make a fairly dramatic video answering the question, with intense music and an overly edited style. Why not challenge myself. In preparation, let’s go over the first question I have to answer. 

"How does your product use or challenge conventions, and how does it represent social groups or issues?"

Our story is all about challenging societal norms. In the film, we follow a Cowgirl who disguises herself as a cowboy to be taken seriously amongst others. In our research, almost every Western we found starred a man. There were female cowboys in the old west, they just never got representation in media. 

A female Cowboy (Cowgirl)

Presenting a woman as the lead in our Western would provide a unique challenge to the genre. 

Using Judith Butler's Gender Performative theory, we showed our main characters' challenges in the Old West. She dresses in male-prominent clothing, wears a hat to cover her hair, and sports bandana to cover her face. This is all in an attempt to disguise herself, and show the audience the lengths she goes to in order to fit in.

It also helps provide a commentary on todays social climate. By presenting a woman in such a powerful, lead role, and having her hide away her femininity to be respected, it mirrors today’s contemporary society, one that sees femininity as a sign of weakness. We hope to challenge these standards, and show them as something outdated and dangerous. 

oh right... i actually have to do work

 hahahahahahhahahahaahaha

Its not funny. I am tired. 

I have so much make-up work from all the time I missed, but here I am, writing a blog for you, England. 

Let's go over editing. 

For the past week or so, I've been tinkering with the perfect sequence for the film opening. With the absence of a few shots, I think I've got it. However, color grading is a different beast.

Before 

After

Basic settings

Because the sun refused to go away, a lot of our shots were more blown out than Lincoln at Ford's theater (are Lincoln jokes cool now? idk). I had to contrast most of the shots to hell, and play with shadows and highlights until I got a pretty cool look. But these shots were the easier ones to color. 

Before

After

For these shots, I again had to contrast it a lot, but I also had to make the shadows blue because the red vest was making the shot look much more red than it should've been. It took me a while to get the look right, and I'm still trying to fix some of the aspects of it. 

The hardest part of the whole color grading process was matching the scenes as the lighting changed.

Still from the first half of the sequence

Still from the back half

The lighting changed a lot between these scenes, and it took a lot of curves and adjustments to make them look similar. While they don't perfectly match, they both have the same red hue that we're looking for. In other words, it gets the job done. 

I hear.... therefore I am Pt2

Music in my opening. 

Music... in my opening

Music in my... opening

(I couldn't think of a title)

The process of picking music for the opening was actually surprisingly easier than I thought. I went to one of my favorite websites for copyright free music called bulletproofbear.com, typed in "Western Music" and I listened to a couple tracks. One that stood out to me was "Gunfire at Sundown". I'm not sure exactly what made it so appealing to me. Maybe it was the harmonious strings in the background that many of my researched Western's incorporated. Maybe it was the slow start and quick ending, matching the vibe of our opening. Or, more likely, it was the cool ending note that really signified something big was bound to happen. 

After I downloaded it, I plugged it into my Premiere Pro timeline and it actually fit fairly well.

Video I took to send to my group immediately after I put it in premiere

The consensus around it was that it fit. And Renn, ever the researcher, confirmed that it did in fact align with many of the Westerns we scouted. 

I had to edit the song a bit because it was a bit shy of our runtime, so I spliced it where there were repeating notes, copied it, and overlayed it on itself to continue it. I stretched it out so we could have the final note I loved so much act as a closer for the video on screen. My words don't do it justice so here's what I'm talking about. 

Impressive, I know.

CALL THE CHIROPRACTER... im back :)

I'm back from Tampa with a trophy. I won first place directing Crazy 8 Vertical Short Film, and I broke down in tears. 

Me with my first-place trophy :)

After that insane high, I remembered I actually had work to do, so here I am writing my blog post on the bus ride home. 

For my last production post, let's talk about some of the stuff we forgot to film :(

Picture of Nico (so handsome)

When we filmed for the first time about 2 weeks ago, I forgot to print this out, so now there is a big gap in my beautiful line edit holding space (that's my line 💚) for a shot where Emi is holding this picture. 

I am not a religious person so perhaps it was my subconscious speaking to me when we forgot to get a shot of Emi twisting the cross around her neck. In the shot, Emi grabs the necklace and contemplates her own morals and ethics (because she just killed a guy). 

Another shot we forgot to get was Emi walking to plant the cross in the ground. As of now, it's a pretty rough cut from the making of the cross to the planting of it, so we need a shot of Emi actually walking to plant it. 

Maybe it's because I'm in the middle of nowhere Florida on a bus next to one of my besties Aneesa who is sound asleep, or because I just experienced one of the best moments of my life in directing the best vertical short film in the country, but I really want to go take a nap, so bye. 😘 

adapting a storyboard

 A storyboard can only take you so far. After all, it’s whole purpose is to be a stepping stone for a larger production, and that never to goes. So let’s take a look at some of the changes we made while filming.

First, the wide shots of Emi walking took up far too much time. Those were scenes we filmed but ultimately cut in post. It flows much better with just a couple seconds of walking rather than a whole minute and a half. 

Next, we changed the order of some of the shots. We had Emi take off her hate before she wiped the sweat instead of before. We felt it’d make more sense for her to take off her hate before digging, and it’d show more of a passage of time. 

Finally, we changed the shots where the body is seen. We made the mistake of not buying enough dirt, so we couldn’t cover the body bag at the park.

We had to shot around that and change up some shots to better fit what we had. This was done using force perspective. We put the camera right up against the dirt, and made it seems like there was depth to the pile. It  thought it cleverly masked our lack of dirt, and even looks better than what was on the storyboard.

Why is this public park filled with people

 During filming, another one of the problems we faced was the volume of people on a run that would interrupt our shot. As a stylistic western that does not include bystanders in the background, we waited a painstakingly long time for each runner to pass, filming in between the gaps in their runs.

Some of the runners we had to wait for

It took us a lot longer than we first planned to film for. We originally slotted 8-11 to film, but we finished around 1 because of how often we had to stop and wait for people to pass. I’m actually kind of glad we had to wait, because it forced us to think about some of the decisions we were making. It led to a better final product, and our film is better for it. 

problems during production

 I’m in Tampa, but let’s talk about one issue we had trying to be historically accurate while filming. 

Nowhere in our research did it say anything about old west cowboys having purple nails, so when Emi showed up to film with the brightest purple nails possible, we knew we have failed in that regard. We first tried scraping them off, but that got us nowhere.

We then had to resort to trying to get shots that worked around Emi’s nails. This included Renn acting as Emi’s hands for a shot. 

With some clever camera tricks and a few workarounds, we were able to successfully hide her nails, and keep the illusion of an old west woman alive. 

i am tired but here’s my plan

 Since I’m already finished filming, and I have to pack for Tampa, I’ll quickly go over my plans for post production.

I’ve already started on my like edit, and over the next week I’ll find the right type of music to go over the video. When my team and I get back from Tampa, we’ll do some reshoots and do our voiceovers to fully finish the filming process. 

My line edit flows well, and there’s only a few minor switches I have to make once I get  new footage. 

Video sped up so I can upload. 

I’m gonna go because ai have to pack. Sorry this has been so short. 

let this white boy and his camera shoot?

              BANGER SHOT ALERT!!! BANGER SHOT  ALERT!!! BANGER SHOT ALERT!!! 

(mise-en scene pt2: shots) 

We have a banger storyboard and we filmed

Said Banger Storyboard

With my very cool Sony A74 (thank u mom and dad), we filmed today. I'm genuinely very happy with how our shots turned out. In our research, we found that a lot of Westerns began very slowly, often with extreme longshots that faded into one another. We aimed to mimic that. The lighting was nothing short of heavenly, which gave us the opportunity for some insane shots that I am very proud of. 

Still from one of the long shots that

 begin our opening

Renn and I switched off filming (he filmed for the most part). I'll share some of the shots that I love. A lot of them are low angle shots we implemented to show a power imbalance of Emi character (now named Charlotte) over the man she killed. Some of the other ones I loved are shots where we had dirt or flowers in the foreground in focus, and the subejct (Charlotte) out of focus doing some sort of action. Keep in mind these are not color graded or edited so some of it might be a bit off.

                                                          Charlotte looks out over the horizon,       

                                                                      ready for what's next         

Charlotte plants a cross at the burial site

 

Charlotte ties the cross while standing over the dead body, projecting power

Charlotte buries the body. 

We focus on a flower in the foreground, contrasting life and death

Charlotte grits her teeth while digging

Shots are insane and so am I. I leave on Thursday for STN in Tampa. I will win. I will win. I do not like Christopher Columbus