Ready and...ACTION!

This last Thursday in class, my group met once again to discuss the plot details for our short film. We have been throwing around several storylines, but none of them seemed to stick until this Thursday. We figured out a strong plot that will be simpler to film and manipulate into a horror story. As we each contributed our ideas, everyone seemed to get more and more excited about it. We wrote out a screenplay and the different shots we need to get with each major scene.

And at the end of the class, we were able to get the camera and a blank tape, allowing us to shoot our film over the weekend. In fact, we are shooting it tonight, and I am excited to see how smoothly things go! For my group, this has not been the simplest project; but I have a feeling that with a more organized plot to follow and our newfound enthusiasm, everything will fall into place.

During class on Thursday, I went and picked up several props for our film. I hope that they will add reality and a touch of detail to our major scenes, making them more believable and frightening for the audience. Although there is not much time left, we will get this project done; and in the end, I believe it will turn into quite the short film.

The Home Stretch

Well this blog is for the class of Thursday, April 15th. I am late in posting because the blogging completely slipped my mind with all of the tests and preparation for finals week! In this class period we came together and continued to brainstorm on possibilities for our film.

We have had several obstacles on our way to creating our short film. Scheduling conflicts, loss of our main actress, and unavailable resources have caused us to change our plot and screenplay numerous times. We figured out this week that the camera will be available to us next Tuesday or Wednesday. Hopefully we will be able to figure out the final details of our film and get our shooting done as soon as possible!

I have noticed throughout this experience that the planning in creating a short film is just as important as the filming. If the planning and scheduling is done incorrectly, other things can easily fall apart. Organization is definitely key. I feel like my group is very aware of this fact and that our film will show it!

Light at the End of the Tunnel..

So this week we met with our group and discussed different aspects of our film and the things that still need to get done. Although it was a relatively short meeting, I believe that we made some progress and are moving in a promising direction!

We had some trouble with filming in our assigned session due to scheduling, but we have decided that we are going to use the camera when it was available for pick-up shots in order to get the last amount of footage we need. Although it has been stressful trying to figure out when we can use the camera again, I am confident that everything will work out fine and we will be able to get the rest of the filming done. I am thankful that we have different positions for everyone in our group. This design evens out the work that needs to be done and allows each member to focus on their specific tasks; and come time to meet on Thursdays, it is easier to bring together everyone's progress and ideas concerning different elements of the film.

We also made some changes to our screenplay. We decided that the screenplay we had was good in its ideas, but it was not realistic to the time limit requirement and resources that were available to us. These last minute changes might put more stress on the group, but I think that in the end, it will prove to be better for the outcome of our project.

We also discussed some other last minute tasks that need to be taken care of, including the signing off on the production papers. I will go to our filming location this week and try to get the approval. I think these points just about cover what we accomplished in this past group meeting. Even though my group still has a ways to go before we can breathe sighs of relief, I think that the direction we are moving in is positive. We can only move forward from here!

Adaptation

After watching Adaptation, I can honestly say it was one of the most interesting and deep films I have ever seen. I do not want to fool you by saying this, though. Although the movie was interesting, I did not enjoy watching it in the least bit. Throughout most of it, I was disturbed and confused as to what was going on. Was his twin real or fake? What does this seemingly random scene mean? Is this or that symbolic of something? Luckily, the discussion at the end put some of these things into perspective for me.

First of all, I was surprised at how lonely and pathetic the filmmakers were able to make Nicholas Cage look. I have not seen many of his movies, but I am used to seeing him play confident and heroic roles, such as in National Treasure and The Family Man. I thought his acting was well done. I can imagine that this type of role would be difficult to play, especially since the character of Charlie Kaufman is so complex.

One of the major themes within the movie is that of adaptation (note the title). There are two meanings of adaptation expressed in the film: evolution and changing one artistic work into another. In order to better understand these definitions, it helps to know what was going on in the plot. Charlie Kaufman, a screenplay writer, is trying to write the screenplay for an award winning book. While reading the book, he loves the simplicity and reality that it expresses, but he has a difficult time making an interesting movie out of it. He does not want to change or adapt it to the screen because it would mean removing part of its truth. Although the book is a touching and realistic story, it does not have any events or happenings that would be called "exciting" by filmmakers. In other words, making the book into a film that will engage the audience is nearly impossible. Kaufman's job is to adapt the book into a screenplay, which is where the problem begins.

In the end of the film, many fast-paced events that included car chases, guns, murder, sex, and drugs plagued the screen. This last hour of jam-packed excitement paralleled to what Kaufman did when he adapted the book into a "suitable" screenplay. It shows that reality and simplicity are not always what make the best movies. Most movies are created with some sort of conflict, action, or corruption in order to keep the audience's attention. Yet the book expresses that life is not always exciting and filled with drugs, sex, and violence. Sometimes people do not act on their impulses, such as Meryl Streep's character did. Sometimes regret and disappointment are more common than having no regret or disappointment. Sometimes life is boring and unexciting. But do any of these things, although they may be true, make Blockbuster hits?

Gradually Gaining Insight...

This last class (which was about two weeks ago) is difficult for me to remember. It's always been hard for me to adjust to school and recall the things being discussed in my classes after a long break, but here it goes.

The first thing we did was watch a short film called, "The Last Summer," which was created by a graduate film student for his thesis. It was helpful to see all of the elements of the filmmaking industry we have been learning about being united on-screen. By watching this film, we were able to see how the setting, the actors, the screenplay, the script, etcetera are able to mesh and become an organized story. Each week, we do a different workshop that is focused on a different aspect of film. For example, we have done workshops on sound, editing, and cinematography. But it can sometimes be difficult to tie all of these elements together. This short film helped me to wrap my head around the fact that each part of film is intimately tied to the other parts of film. Yes, they each are constructed and work differently, but they are all vital to the end result and must fit together.

After watching and discussing this short film, we were also shown several videos. The "Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer" was very funny and emphasized how cliche and predictable many movies can be advertised in trailers. Another video was of Alfred Hitchcock discussing the importance of cinematic tension. He was telling viewers that the most important factor in film is determination; and when the plot calls for tension, it must be built up and then relieved. Otherwise, the audience will not be satisfied with the plot's delivery. After discussing these videos and answering questions, we then broke up into our individual film groups and discussed any last-minute details.

In my group, we made some important decisions on what type of lighting we should use in certain scenes. In addition, we decided where we were going to film and when our first time to film would be. We also decided to do a walkthrough of the different camera angles before filming. By walking through the set and camera angles beforehand, the actors' and other crew members' time wouldn't be wasted with a lot of standing around on film day. After making these decision, we were ready for the camera and have already begun shooting our scenes. I am excited to see what the final product will be!

A Twisted Ending

After watching The Player, I have to say that I was creeped out and unhappy with the ending. Although I am a sucker for the happy endings to prevail in movies, I was especially rooting against the anti-hero, Griffin Mill, in this particular film. In fact, this movie has a consistent theme of the movie-making business and happy versus unhappy endings. Oh, the irony.

As the movie came to a close, I found myself feeling irritated, confused, and disturbed. The discussion about the movie brought a lot of different things into perspective and gave me a little more understanding as to why the ending was how it was. The movie is focused on a movie executive whose job is to listen to an endless number of writers' pitches for possible movies. After getting several threatening postcards in the mail from an unknown writer, Griffin Mill tries to hunt down his attacker. He eventually tracks down a writer and kills him, but it turns out that the writer he kills was not his attacker; thus, the threats persist. To make this movie even more twisted, Mill falls in love with the dead writer's girlfriend. And in the end, he lives happily ever after by appeasing the angry writer and getting away with murder. The fact that he gets away with murder is what bothered me. Where is the justice? What did the innocent writer die for?

Well, maybe these questions can be answered by the director's intentions of the film and film's background. After discovering that the film fits into the genre of film noir, things began to gradually become pieced together. The music beats during the dark/disturbing parts of the movie along with the twisted ending allow this fact to make more sense. Robert Altman, the director, created a theme of the movie-making business in the film. He depicted this studio business as one that was averse to risk and shallow, screwed people over, and created empty, unrealistic movies. This last point about unreality points out another theme within this movie: the battle between reality and unreality.

One important instance in the middle of the film is when Griffin Mill hears a movie pitch from two writers who want to make a film with no big stars and an unhappy, depressing ending. The studio decides to try the movie; and at the end of the film, we see that the movie opened into theaters using Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis as main characters and instead of dying, Julia Roberts gets saved. Altman is sending the audience a message that in the movie-making business, it all comes down to the story film makers want to tell versus the story they believe that audiences will want to see. Most often, unreality is what dominates in movies. Yet the fact that Altman allowed Mill to get away with murder illustrates that in reality, unhappy endings can be just as common (if not more common) than happy ones.

Short Film Workshop

And so it begins. This past Thursday our class opened up with Eric showing a couple of short film examples. In these clips, he pointed out the importance of details that should be included in our films. From costumes to the background scenery, details should be added to a film in order to make the scenes seem more realistic. Other vital tips that Eric gave us include advertising for good actors. Actors can make or break a movie, so it is a good idea to advertise far enough in advance to cast the actors you are interested in. And probably the most important tip Eric told us is to have everything ready before shooting. By being organized with paperwork, knowing which shots go with each scene, and having your lighting and sound set up correctly, the time you spend on set will go smoothly and productively.

Although we do have a script and storyboard written, we still have a long way to go before we are ready to start filming. Our next step is to begin the production process. I thought that we already had our crew assembled, but we are missing one key member: the producer. The producer is vital to our short film project because they are responsible for getting the paperwork assembled and organizing the set. My group definitely needs to designate someone as producer as soon as possible due to the fact that we begin filming in 4 short weeks!

The second half of the class we broke up into our small groups and had a workshop, discussing ideas about our plot and the technical aspects of our film. Although we had created a storyboard and script, we decided that we needed to expand our ideas a little bit, allowing our short film to be longer in length to fit the assigned time. In addition, we decided that we needed more actors in order to expand our story. Although we have the framework of our script and storyboard, we still need to decide what to do about our lighting and the location of the film. We are gradually making progress, but I know we still have quite a ways to go before we can even think about filming. Having the genre of horror, I think that my group has a big challenge to overcome. It is hard enough to legitimately scare someone with a movie that even professional filmmakers create. And it will be that much harder for us rookies to do the same; but do not worry, we will find a way.