Ponderous Post Production - Portfolio Blog #17

Here are a few shots we took and what they mean, hence the pondering of their use to the story. 

Spacious Shot

Throughout our research of western film openings, I realized that a lot of shots have empty space. 

They are supposed to instill feelings of loneliness in the viewer. And like I said, most westerns movies emphasize the “wild” part of Wild West. The added space helps reinforce that, since there’s more focus on the landscape than our character.

Flower Power

This shot is the favorite of every one on the team. So because property damage is illegal, we couldn’t actually dig a hole. We had to create the illusion that Charolette was barring her boss without actually doing so. My plan, which is what we do in this shot, is having a pile of dirt really close to the camera and hide the potato bag behind the pile using perspective. It isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we came up with. The flower, which is the focus of the shot, symbolizes life and innocence. The purple and white of it reflects this, and it’s the introduction to this color combination. If we were to make an entire move, I’d plan to use these colors to symbolize life. The flower being placed on the dirt where the boss will be buried is supposed to signify how close life and death are to each other, a common theme in the rest of the movie.

Contrived for the Cross

This one was a weird one. Since Emi had painted nails and we needed a close up of her touching her cross, I became her hands. Pretty much, I put on her shirt and gloves and pretended to be her hands by standing behind her and awkwardly "hugging" her. It was a mildly discomforting experience, but nothing intolerable. I think it was worst for her because she had to take her shirt off. Zach, Nico, and I turned the other way while she was doing so, like respectful gentlemen. 

This shot was supposed to show that Charlette was religious, the fact that it's a necklace resembles how close the ideals of Christianity are to her heart. 

Post Production Problems - Portfolio Blog #16

 Hello Glorp!

Today I am traveling to STN! And tomorrow’s post will be in Tampa! I can’t wait!

Anyway, when we went to Vista View, for completely forgot that the fine people of our town enjoy running. The park was filled with joggers and bikers. We had to talk to the apex of the biggest hill in the park to find a place free of people. By then, it was already 10 am, we met at 8. From then we took all the necessary shots from the story board and did some improvisation. For example, one of the shots was a low angle with a flower in focus. That was something Zach came up with last minute, but I think it really added to the story. More on that in an oncoming blogpost.

Another problem we faced was Emi’s painted nails. They didn’t really have painted nails in the 1800s, and if they did, Charlotte wouldn’t wear them. At first I tried to chip them off, but her nail artist is too good at her job.

So instead, for the close up of her cross we had to replace her hands with mine. I’ll show how we did that in an upcoming blog too!

Aside from that, the rest of the shooting went smoothly! Three out of the four of us know a lot about video production, so we didn’t have many issues. That’s all for today, by Glorp!

Planning in Post - Portfolio Blog #15

Hello Glorp!

I have a looming fear that the project will fall to its doom when we are at STN, though that's unlikely to happen. We got 90% of the shooting done this weekend, which is amazing. All we are missing is the editing and to get the remaining 10%, which we have 31 days to complete. But I keep thinking the product isn't good enough, despite having an astonishing product from yesterday. I feel like we are missing something big, like we didn't research enough or our opening will be filled with continuity errors. I don't know. I shouldn't feel this unsure but I am. Let's hope to god this just paranoia and not instinct. 

(One of my favorite shots from yesterday)

In an attept to comfot myself, I'm going to make a plan for post. 

What if we need to reshoot?

What if Zach's computer explodes?

Well, not literlly. But adobe is well known for it's ability to crash computer. As someone who expirences a time crunch every week due to STN practice, I know that computers can sometimes just give in with no appaert reason.

What if the project crashed and we lose everything?

Audio - Portfolio Blog #14

Hi Glorp!

Audio does, in fact, make the world go round. Or at least, it benefits our existence as living beings. Think about it, if a bunny can't hear a fox, how will it prevent itself from being eaten? We are beings who evolved from animals such as these, and evidently find great importance in audio. Therefor, when a landscape sounds off, we will notice it and be pulled from the story. "Audio is more important than footage" as they say.

Westerns focus on how wild the west is. It's strongly locked onto the nature of a scene more than the human part. Humans also don't talk as much as in other movies because of this. This is prefect for us because we will have someone filming audio on set, likely Nico or I. That way we can get as much natural noises as possible. Also, it's so we don't have to record foley for everything, which is a huge annoyance. As someone whos made five foley projects over that past three years, I have a strong distaste for how tedious it is.

This blog is quick because I have to go out and film today. It's 7:14 am an I have to leave at 7:30, so I should really go and get ready to leave. I'll update! 

meme because I need a thumbnail

Planning Mise-en-scene (Colors!) - Portfolio Blog #13

Hello Glorp! 

If there's anything that I love most, it's color. Film, photos, or in real life, color is always just so mesmerizing. I'll be honest, I thought that they didn't have many colors in America 1800s. From my experience, tinting clothes with plants leaves a very faint color. Most of the time it washes out. Also, if I had to tint my clothes in the wilderness, I doubt I'd have my lovely blues and purples. But a quick google search made me remember that the 1800s where the start of the industrial age. Even those in the most rural areas had access to a store with products. Dyes where cheap to make, which made them available in rural areas. 

Costumes

Now that we can have colorful clothing, I thought I'd be fun to have Emi's character have something red. This would represent her strong personality, despite being a quiet character. She still stands her ground and equally as stubborn, despite not saying much. The white of the shirt under her vest is a representation of the pure intentions behind her actions, she is a woman of god and refuses to intentionally hurt or wrong people. Black shoes and hat demonstrate her need to not have her real personality shown to the world. She knows if it's shown that she's caring and kind, people won't take her as seriously as they would a man. So, she hides under a quiet and dark personality, intentionally not saying much to seem as confident and powerful as possible. 

The Set Colors

As for the set, Nico is mainly in charge of that, but I'll relay the message for you. The place we are shooting in will be a plain field of grass, meaning we don't have to care about set that much aside from colors. I wanted the grass to look brown, almost dead, which will be easy to do in post. This is the area we will be shooting in. I don't want to get any trees in the shot because I've never seen them in westerns. Also, we will be shooting at 8 am tomorrow, meaning that the sky will be out and blue. Not much we can do about that.

Update on progress:

Today, Zach Nico and I went to HomeDepot and PartyCity to buy props. We got a cowboy hat, the cheapest bag of dirt we chould find, and a rope. We took a photo of the rope, but Blogger is freaking out and not letting me post them. Also, we are going to film tomorrow!

Bye Glorp!

Planning Mise-en-scene (Set, Props, and Unrelated!) - Portfolio Blog #12

Hey Glorp!

This day has been an unnerving one. I've completely forgotten that STN, the national film compaction I'm going on, is in eight days. EIGHT! I'm prepared to miss almost every class, I finished some of the work I had for the week I'm going to miss. But, I forgot to plan a day to film this project! We had a schedule but it had to get scrapped since our teacher thought we needed more time to research. Now, we are going to film on Saturday but we still have so many things to do!

• Location scouting
• Last weekend Zach and I went to Vista View park and found the perfect place to film. We where in a rush though so sadly I didn't get to take photos.
• Getting props
• Body bag
• We need somewhere to keep the body without actually dragging a human body. I don't think Emi can carry all that weight. 
• Emi's character outfit (including hat, string, and pants)
• We need a way for Emi to hide her long beautiful hair until the end, where it is revealed she's a woman. A hat is the easiest way to do this. Note for Future Renn: Please look into the history of cowboy hats. 
• The string is to tie up the character's hair. Back during my research, I didn't see anything on hair ties, all the hairstyles I read about where put together with hairpins, hair gel, hairnets, and other such beauty products. Meaning that this cowgirl would have to get resourceful and tie up her hair with a string.
• We are trying to hold back the fact that Emi's character is a woman until the end. So, her having a skirt kind of gives it away. 
• Shovel
• Victorian shovels didn't have plastic pieces like the kind we have now a days. They where a solid piece of metal shaped into a shovel. However, since we have a budget of $0, we can't afford an authentic Victorian shovel. Sadly, we will have to use a modern shovel, which sucks. (Victorian shovel is on the right, modern shovel is on the left.)

• Dirt
• Used to create the illusion we are digging without getting finned for property destruction. Sadly, none of us own a field of grass. 
• Cross
• Emi's character is religious and we chose to symbolize this with a cross. It's going to be on a necklaces. Women in England during the Victorian era wore ball dresses adored with jewelry, so I doubt this is historically inaccurate.
• Final script
• I know, I know, we shouldn't be working on the script this late. But, I'm not sorry! Western films are very slow, so my group thought it would be best to adjust to this instead of having the film go by the speed we find natural.
• Final storyboard
• Emi is in charge of this, it should be done by today.

Wish me luck with the execution! I think this stress is going to trigger my male pattern baldness 3 decades too early.

I have read enough articles on the Victorian era to be able to know things without remembering where they are from, regardless, here is a list of resources I quickly scrambled together. I'm pretty sure everything I say is covered here.

• https://www.mimimatthews.com/2017/09/11/a-simple-coiffure-basic-hairstyles-for-victorian-women-of-moderate-means/
• https://www.mimimatthews.com/2017/06/26/the-victorian-passion-for-auburn-hair/
• https://www.mimimatthews.com/2015/10/05/the-beauty-rituals-of-19th-century-empress-elisabeth-of-austria/
• https://vintagedancer.com/victorian/victorian-fashion-colors-fabrics-1840s-1890s/

Character Development - Portfolio Blog #11

Hello Glorp! 

I still had to find our characters' actual names since the entire Monday was dedicated to practice for a competition. When I got home, I slept for twelve hours, from 6pm to 6am. Back on topic, I'm not sure how we created these characters. I think they manifested in the air after talking to my group. 

Emi's Character Development: 

Emi's character was decided to be female from the start because she is our only actor. So, we didn't really have a choice. However, we found a way to work around that by making the plot based on her gender and doing a lot of research on how people interpreted gender back in the day. I really wanted Emi's character to be an absolute "wizard" (english.stackexchange.com 2014) just like Mary Fields. Fields really drove Emi's character, but I wanted her to be calm and calculated to balance out the "wild" part of the wild west. 

Nico Development: 

Nico's character was really just manifested from thin air. I asked Nico and him. He wasn't really sure where it came from. I think we just needed a conflict in the story, and we developed Nico's character to have something happen. Aside from that, the personality and such was created in post #9, where I suggested to the group that Nico's character should have a bad relationship with his father but still love him. Never having told his father until his disappearance, making the decision to kill Emi's character even more conflicting. 

That's all for today folks! Sorry if this post is very disoriented, I'm next to an individual who won't stop talking about his rectal canal. It's pretty distracting.