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Oh, I Guess I Finished the Script Already. Anyway...

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 I had begun writing on Monday, thinking that the process of making this film would be a long and difficult one. I anticipated that because of other classes and activities I would have very little time to work and that the script would go through numerous rewrites. I was wrong. I ended up with a lot of time to write the screenplay, and although it went through a fair amount of changes in the beginning of it, the basic idea always stayed the same and I reached a point for I solidified what the plot itself would be and it was a lot of smooth sailing from there. I should back up. What even is the plot of my film? Before the week we formally began the project, I was already brainstorming ideas. I was thinking a lot about themes and aesthetic choices and trying to use them to work outside-in to find what the actual story. I also went on to my Letterboxd to make an inspiration list, where I selected random movies I've seen that could serve as inspiration what I would make, trying to do i...
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The Plan

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This is the type of project where I really need to manage my time well if I want to succeed. I already have an idea for what my film's story will be (more on that in my next post), and my schedule was written with the intent of making sure that all of my time is being used efficiently as well as having certain tasks listed as taking longer than they may actually take, giving me room to catch up if I fall behind.  For the first three weeks I'm prioritizing writing. The script if one of the most, if not the most, important aspects of a film and I need to take my time to get it right. I'm also making sure that I have time to recruit actors and make sure that their schedules line up with mine. I need good performances for this film and actors who have good chemistry with each other as my idea involves characters who have been friends for a long time and I want that friendship to really shine through. I plan to host at least one online or in person table read with the actors, no...
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It's Time...

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I'm officially starting the AICE Media Studies A Level Portfolio Project. Saying that feels so natural and yet it still gives me shivers. I've decided that I'll be making a short film, which was a very easy choice. For years I've known that I've wanted to be a filmmaker, and now it feels like I've solidified that.  As I think about this project, all I can hear is this quote: Well, do I? I don't want to get too much into the sentimental stuff this early, but it's impossible to talk about this project without thinking about the culmination of everything my high school experience has been. The short film that I'm going to make will be the grand finale for these four years, everything I've learned is going to applied, and everything I've wanted to say will be said. I'm going to go all out. I'm making the type of movie that I myself would pay money to see, something that speaks to all of my interests and feelings. Like I said, it's the...
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Documentary Critical Reflection

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 The goal of my documentary Scrapped  was to show what unfinished art projects reveal about their creators, specifically when those creators are young. I think that I succeeded in accomplishing this goal while creating an engaging piece, although there are some areas for improvement.  When it came to research, it was mainly research through other documentaries as opposed to research of the subject. The subject of unfinished art projects didn't have any facts or history I needed to mention, and I wanted the film to be all about the personal opinions and emotions of the subjects. This is why there are no statistics or facts mentioned in the film, which illustrates the emphasis on personal feelings and attachment. Of the documentaries that I viewed in class, Exit Through the Gift Shop was the biggest inspiration, as I took a lot from it's chaotic and raw aesthetic when it came my editing choices and b-roll. Above is a shot from that film, where the unpolished nature of it's ...
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Documentary Production (Part 2)

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  Editing the documentary took two days. Day one, November 13th, was all about making a line edit, which is an edit that just contains the interview without any b-roll. This part was harder than I thought it would be. I had to intercut Jaden and Sawyer's interview together and make it coherent, like it's a continuous speech being given by both voices. I tried my best to alternate between the two subjects, but in some places I had to show two responses by one person back to back, as it just flowed better. This is also where I did the color correction of the interview clips. Jaden's raw footage looked fine, I didn't really need to do much. Sawyer, on the other hand, had some lighting in their house that didn't look the best on camera. The main correction I made to it was giving it a white balance, which made it match more with Jaden's footage and improved it noticeably. Before After  The next day was the day the project was due, meaning I had to add all of the b-r...
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Documentary Production (Part 1)

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   Right before the weekend where I was scheduled to film, I ran into a problem. Two of my four subjects had conflicts and wouldn't be able to participate, meaning I was down to two. Then after that, I learned that of those two, one of them was out of town on a family trip (one they didn't know about until now) and wouldn't be returning until after the weekend, meaning I was now down to one. With the availability of my interviewees out of my control, I set off on Monday, November 11th (a day off from school) to make the best of what I could get. I figured that I would make myself my own second subject, knowing that the structure of the film wouldn't feel the same if there was only one.  That one subject was Jaden, a fellow student filmmaker. Jaden has been my best friend for years and I knew that if there was anyone I could rely on, it was him. I arrived at his place in the afternoon and we set up the interview in his bedroom. He had a shelf containing his desktop and a...
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Documentary Planning

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  From the beginning I wanted my documentary to stand out. When it came time to pick a subject, I realized that given the time frame of two weeks, I had to pick interviewees who were people I already knew and lived close by. I wanted to be efficient, I didn't want to waste time and energy making phone calls to people I've never met who may or may not be willing to be filmed or available when I needed them to be. My best bet was to center it around people from my summer theater program, as they're basically my inner circle who I feature in a lot of my projects, and they all have something interesting to talk about. Working backwards from there, I now needed to decide what these people would be interviewed about.    One of my first ideas was to make it about fans of obscure and independent music, which could've been interesting, but I knew there was something else I could think of that was more... I guess the one word I can think of is special. I thought about the demogra...
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Documentary Viewings and Research

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 The first big production project we had this year to create a documentary. Obviously, to do that we had to watch some documentaries to learn what one should look like. One of the big take-aways was that documentaries can come in various forms, and while there are conventions of the genre, there are no written rules as to how it should look or feel. Take the first feature documentary we viewed in class, American Promise from 2013. This film showcases the lives of two black boys living in New York City and attending the prestigious Dalton Prep School. It highlights the stress put on students in high pressure school environments and the experience of growing up black in New York. A very interesting aspect of this film is how it is filmed by the parents of one of the boys, and thus the entire thing can be seen as a really long home movie. Describing it like that may be an exaggeration, but there is something very raw about the handheld footage from average cameras that makes the movi...
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Been a While

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 I'M BACK! Yes, you heard that right, I have returned to this blog, this time to document my journey through AICE Media Studies A Level. This time the blog is gonna be bigger, it's gonna be better, and it's gonna show all the amazing things I'll do in this high level course. Get ready and strap in, because from this point on it's full speed ahead with no turning back.
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Film Opening

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 It's done. It's finally done. After however many weeks it's been I finally finished the film opening. Here it is! Really proud of what I was able to accomplish with this.  The Summer of the Swarm !
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Creative Critical Reflection

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Here are my CCRs, where you here me talk about my creative process and other stuff relating to the film opening. Hopefully you find these very insightful.
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Goodbye

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  Well, it's over. Unlike the films I intend to make there is no last minute twist or a guy popping out to scare you at the end, this is the end of my journey through AICE Media Studies AS and the film opening project. It's been real fun making this project, as well as all the others I've made throughout the curriculum. It's also been really challenging, and there are certainly things I would've done differently with hindsight. That's not the type of thing to dwell on though, as this has been an amazing experience for me. I've learned a lot about film technique and production, and I feel a lot more confident in my abilities. I'm really happy with how my final project turned out, and I'm really happy that I took this class. I'm so excited to continue my filmmaking journey and to share my creations with the world.  Thank you, and goodbye.
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Yes, I Did Film the CCR

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  Good news and bad news, which I notice has been a bit of a theme. So I DID film the CCR, using this old greenscreen that I've had for like four years. It's old, but it works well enough. The problem, as you might be able to tell, is that I don't have it on my computer yet. It was some kind of storage issue, so I deleted a bunch of files that I don't need, and right now I have the videos uploading from my phone. It's not giving me any kind of prompt saying that I don't have enough storage, so hopefully I'm fine. I'll try to get this whole thing edited by tomorrow night.
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CCR Approach

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  For the CCR, I'll need to make two videos for two different approaches. The idea I've came up with to the two videos represent a kind of "old versus new". The first video will take on a very modern aesthetic, capturing the look of celebrity interview videos posted by publications like Variety and Wired. These videos tend to have sterile, white backgrounds, and feel very formal. For the second video, I'm going to take inspiration for vintage late night TV shows, specifically the ones that would play horror movies with a host that introduces them. For this video, I plan to play the parts of both myself and the host who is interviewing me. I'm excited to film both because I have a lot of things that I want to say about the project and I think this will be a fun exercise in expressing them.
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CCR Prep

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  Now that the actual film opening is done, it's time to make the creative critical reflection, or CCR. For this I'll need to make two videos that each use a different approach to answer each of these four questions: How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text? How did your production skills develop throughout this project? How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project? I've given it some thought and I've came up with basic ideas ideas for how I want to answer them. This is of course not exactly how I'll express these thoughts in the videos themselves, but it is the core of it. Question:  How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? Answer: The Summer of the Swarm uses a variety of horror and thriller genre conventions,...
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