Portfolio Project: Shooting is complete!

Yesterday night, Bailey and I finished all of the shooting necessary for our project. At around 9:30 Bailey had arrived at my house and we began filming with the "outside the bar" sequence, utilizing the tripod shown in the previous blog post. I was wearing a clean white shirt, not the bloody one from yesterday's post, as I have yet to be beaten up. Since it was only Bailey and I, we had to use tiny pieces of cardboard to mark where to stand in order to get the framing right. We would position ourselves while one other person monitors the camera, and once the best place was determined, we put the piece of cardboard down to know where to stop. We did this for both Bailey and me. 

After that, we filmed the scene of me inside the trunk, giving the illusion that a body was being placed inside it. This was done by me, inside the trunk, put all my weight and jumped as Bailey did a motion of heaving a heavy body within his trunk. From the camera's perspective, it seems as tho there is a body being thrown in the trunk. The video of this is below.

After those two parts, it was time for the lamppost. This was a terrifying event. Unfortunately, due to our strong desire to leave, we did not have the idea to take any pictures for the blog. We parked the car on a grass/rock path on the side of the road. We began filming with the scenes of me escaping Bailey's trunk and then me running away while Bailey chases me. During this time, a number of cars were passing through and interfered with the shot. However, one car specifically drove by right next to Bailey and I and honked his modified car horn that sounded like a train honk. The volume was extremely loud and felt near deafening. This was due to a man just feeling like being a terrible person. We know this as he drove back 10 minutes later, asking if we had a video of him scaring us. We told him no and he drove off. 

From then on, we had an extremely strong desire to leave. I then switched into my bloody shirt, which Bailey and I suspected would be an issue in public as people may think it is real and call authorities. Thankfully this did not happen but it instilled great fear in us and made us work diligently. Eventually, we finished filming and ran to the car, sighing with great relief as we made our way back to my house. 

There were doubts of the lamppost not being ominous and creepy enough, but I can ensure that it definitely was.

Portfolio Project: Shooting preparation

Yesterday night, Bailey and I were dedicated to finish the filming for the project. The first thing we did was film the "outside the bar" scene which was just in my parking lot. We had a good amount of cars parked there so it fit the setting quite well. The lighting also worked well due to the late time and the warm hued lights of my house. When we began to film, we needed a tall tripod, so we resorted to what we did in the past shooting by using a ladder and stacking things atop it. What it looked like without the phone atop it is below:

Additionally, we made fake blood by mixing together 1 teaspoon of flour, 1 teaspoon of red food coloring, 1 drop of blue food coloring, and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch. We made way too much for what we needed, but that is just because we blindly followed this video: 

We also prepared the shirt that I will be wearing in the film opening with all the blood. Here is a photo of the finished product of that:

Tonight we plan to film with the assets we prepared yesterday and finish all of our shooting! 

Project Portfolio: Font Finalization

Today, Bailey and I settled on a specific font to use. The font is titled Mistral and can be seen below

We chose this font because we enjoyed clear legibility of it when compared the other fonts we were in decision about.

We found that the first font on the list captured the creepy aesthetic perfectly, but we also found that it was too illegible for a title and would not suffice.

We found the second font to be too simplistic, not really capturing the creepy feel that we need.

The third and fourth font suffered the same fate as the second, being too simplistic for our desires.

The fifth font, the one we chose, had the perfect combination of simplicity, yet getting the creepy feel across, as well as being clearly legible. Bailey and I both agreed it was a great candidate for our title font, so we kept it in consideration as we continued down the list.

The sixth font, we felt, did not have a creepy feel to it as we would like, thus not fitting the film.

The last font was too a strong choice due to its extremely creepy vibes paired with decent legibility. However, we found that although this font is creepier in comparison to the fifth font, we wouldn't want to sacrifice the legibility of the font to gain more creepiness. And so, we settled on the fifth font, believing it best captured the creepiness of the film while still retaining the cleanness and legibility.

Portfolio Project: Spring Break

In the following days, Bailey and I plan to finish filming the project and have a good portion of it edited. We will try to take advantage of Spring Break and film when we are available, but Bailey is going away for the first couple days, limiting our opportunities to film. And again, I still work on the weekend so we will likely still be crunched for time. Most likely on a Saturday night or Thursday night we will have the best chances to film, but it will be difficult considering the conflicts betweens our schedules. Editing, however, can be done independently for the most part, so we will try to film only during our meetups to maximize time, and then editing our respective portions on our own.

On a different note that I forgot to mention in prior postings, getting the violent shots out in public will be difficult considering the time and the place. Having a "beat up" near a road could raise questions from near passerbys, so we will have to find a way to notify people nearby that it is a film. Additionally, we could inform the police that are stationed near in order to avoid any future confrontation. When the date of our filming approaches, we will figure out the logistics of the plan. But until then, likely next Thursday due to the unavailability of both Bailey and I over the break, we will just edit the footage that we have recorded and make a general plan to be as prepared as possible.

Portfolio Project: First Successful Day of Shooting!

Yesterday Bailey and I got the first couple of shots for our film! However, many problems arose when we decided to film it. To begin, we initially thought of using a spot within my house for the bar as we were able to manipulate the lighting a lot, but we couldn't get the invisionment we wanted. So we took to other parts of the house, which is when we found the lighting of the garage being just what we needed. That is when we began to have ideas as to how we would make a bar within the garage. Bailey had been able to receive a black cart that was originally intended to be our makeshift dolly, but it was not able to stabilize the shot well enough when coupled with movement. We, in turn, used the cart as the bar. We put a piece of wood I had laying around atop the "dolly", providing us with the ability to move it where we needed it with ease. I then grabbed a ladder and used that as the tripod for our shot.

The next issue to resolve was the background. It looked like a garage more so than a bar, so we grabbed a sheet and taped the corners to certain pinpoints, making a scene that resembled a bar on camera. The final product is seen in the photo below.

We had a couple difficulties such as the sheet falling off repeatedly and framing the shot to include everything while not showing the actual garage, but the result of what we made, I believe, turned out fairly well!

Portfolio Project: Rain

Yesterday night, Bailey and I decided to start our filming. We had to film at night as all of our shots take place at nighttime. As the night approached, however, we expected little to no rain since it had rained for the entirety of the day, but we were mistaken. When we began to film, there was light drizzling which we thought wouldn't be too big of an issue. So we began setting up for the shots we were about to take. While we were setting up the equipment, the drizzling became heavy rain and was very visible in the camera. Due to this, we had to cease our filming attempts momentarily while the rain died down. While we waited, Bailey's phone that we were going to use for filming ran out of battery, and so we just decided to stop filming for the day. We went inside and instead just deliberately planned out what we would do and what materials we needed to buy (ingredients to make fake blood) in the following days. 

We also tested an editing technique that we planned to implement to ensure that it would work as planned. The editing technique would have a tilt up with the camera and the title of the film, "Aberration", come down into frame. The test worked well and can be seen in the attached video below.

Bailey and I also plan to film today and get most of the filming done as there is no expected rain. The weather for the day is shown below and the minimal expectation of precipitation. 

Portfolio Project: Instructor Meeting

Recently in class Bailey and I met with our instructor in order to iron out any major issues that arose. One of the major issues that she mentioned to us was where we would be filming. Bailey and I originally had thought to make our own bar with wooden planks and low key lighting, but our teacher suggested that we just go to an actual bar and request access to film in their location. She mentioned a specific location that we could go to that in the past, has helped students by allowing them to film there.

Additionally, we were questioned on our title and how we could make it as fluid as possible. Our original idea was to show Homer and Peter at the lamppost, the tilt upward towards the black sky. As the tilt up was occuring, the title of the film, "Aberration",  would come into frame and just be on a black background. Afterwards, we would tilt back down to connect with another scene of similar coloration. Due to the emptiness of the background, it would be easy to tie it together with another dark, black scene.

Our instructor also mentioned the importance of adding another scene in order to ensure the film did not seem too trailer-like and more like a movie introduction. As to what the scene is, we are unsure. We may try to show what happens immediately after or possibly a couple nights after the event with Homer and Peter.

Portfolio Project: Group Critiques #2

Today in class I had my second Group Critiques. They were very helpful, with each person trying to help out the other people in the group to get the best out of the project. Unfortunately, I ended up talking last so I was not able to get as much information as I wanted out there, but I feel I did end up getting good feedback regardless.

I was told that in order to best capture the mental problems with Homer, Bailey and I should research medical diseases in order to see how to portray a person like that best. The illness that Homer has is not yet determined, but I explained to my group that it would be in the realm of Schizophrenia or another mental illness that would cause difficulty in being a normally cognitive individual. Perhaps we can portray OCD as it is referred to often by people and there is quite a lot of data to work off of. I will recommend this idea to Bailey and see what he says.

Additionally, I was also told that we will need to be great actors in order to pull off what we want well. My group members were concerned about how we would do the punches that Homer gives to Peter, offering the suggestion to look into stage punches and how to best present one on screen without any contact. I also told my group about the shots being tied together and coming full circle in the end and they seemed to really enjoy that idea, so I believe we will continue to try to produce it.

Portfolio Project: Storyboard #2

Bailey and I last class had decided to work some more on the storyboard. We made a couple more slides that captured more of the actual plot of the story. Within the storyboard, we covered Homer getting agitated enough to punch Peter. He gets knocked unconscious near Homer's car. Homer, however, is shocked that something came over him to do such a thing, and in a string of panic, he puts Peter in his trunk and drives him away. During all of this, there is constant reference back to the original shot being zoomed out more and more. Towards the end of the storyboard, Bailey and I have planned to have Peter jump out of the car when arriving at the lamppost in the first shot. This will eventually wrap back around full circle so that the past events will tie into the lamppost shot that is constantly zooming out.

I elaborated a little past what we storyboarded, but everything up until Peter escapes the car is shown in the pictures below:

We plan to either finalize or get extremely near completion of our storyboard next class opportunity.

Portfolio Project: Fonts

Today Bailey and I decided on what font we would use for our film opening. We first narrowed the options that we would choose from by going onto Microsoft Word, writing the title of the film, and scrolling through every font option, writing down the ones we felt were possible options. After scrolling through, we narrowed the options down to the following fonts: Chiller, Gloucester MT, Eras Demi ITC, Maiandra GD, Mistral, Niagara Engraved, Viner Hand ITC. In order to see the fonts best, we put them side by side, along with the Maroon like color that will likely be used in the final product. An image of the comparison can be seen below.

All of the options depicted have been chosen for their visually assertive and thriller-like qualities which best match our intended film-opening with a suspense/thriller genre. We are still deciding on the fonts chosen as they are all special in their own way, each with their own reasons to choose them. For example, the Chiller and Mistral fonts are appealing as they have a creepy aesthetic which fits the murderous intent of Homer. The fonts Gloucester MT and Maiandra GD both offer an off-balance (an idea presented by Bailey), yet creepy style which presents the off-balance mental state Homer is in.

Portfolio Project: Bar and Car

In order to create the Bar that makes up a good portion of the intended shots, we plan to use either my or Bailey's garage and create a fake bar table. We could either build a quick table with wooden planks that we could purchase at Home Depot, or if we could acquire or move a desk into the garage to act as a bar table, that would be optimal. The only problem with the second option is that both Bailey and I don't have spare desks so we will likely go with the first option, even though it is more costly than the second option. Additionally, we will be using low and warm lighting in order to both capture a more realistic bar scene, as well as provide less visuals of the surroundings to make it easier to capture a bar on camera.

In addition to the bar, we plan to use one of our cars' trunks to film a small amount of shots. My car's trunk has much more room than Bailey's car's trunk, so we will likely use his car to capture a more claustrophobic feel. If we would use my car, it would be much more open and not create a sense of being captured and held against one's will when compared to Bailey's car's trunk. We will have a few shots of Peter being placed in the trunk and the a few shots from within the trunk in order to give the illusion that someone is in the trunk while the car is in motion, when we will not actually film from within the trunk during the car's movement. We have even thought about filming some shots within the trunk and then adding muffled car sounds to really capture from within the trunk and provide an illusion to the audience.

Portfolio Project: Lamp Post

One of the shooting locations that Bailey and I discussed was a lamppost that I know of. The only problem with this lamppost is that it is slightly near a neighborhood and we may cause a disturbance considering we will have to shoot at night time. Thus, Bailey and I will have to put forth an effort to film in a quiet manner as to not disturb residents. I don't believe it will be too big of an issue since it is not directly adjacent to any houses, but if we are loud, we may be a nuisance to some people. Another issue with the lamppost is that it has a large road in front of it that may be hard to film in since cars will be coming every so often, leading us to mess up our shot. However, if we go late enough in the night, there will be an extremely small amount of cars that would pass by, allowing us to get the shot that we need. This detail is important as we plan to dolly backwards from a close-up on Homer's face. If cars are at a minimum, we can go slightly into the street to capture the shot that we need. In order to better understand the layout of this lamppost where a lot of the film will be taking place, I attached a Google Maps photo of the location below.



Google maps' photos are slightly outdated so at this point in time, there are more houses along the path depicted here.

Portfolio Project: Plan Revisions

Bailey and I were talking about the plot for the story and how we will tie it to the beginning and ensure that everything makes sense, even if we are not producing a fully fledged film. We encountered an issue with the intro of the story being the climax as it is not providing enough room for more interesting story to develop. The intro is revealing a major plot point and so we had to decide between reworking the intro, or changing the main plot. So we tried both, thinking of what to change of the intro first. We both felt satisfied with our intro thus far and didn't want to change it, so we went to thinking about possible plot elements to help make the intro much less important than it seems.

After the revisions, our plan is as follows: We are going to have a man with mental instability (due to causes that we will determine later) named Homer who is approached by a man named Peter, who is his friend or some sort of acquaintance to Homer. Peter begins talking to Homer to the point where Homer becomes aggravated, so he manages to forcefully put Peter in his trunk and drive away until Peter manages to escape the trunk. Once out, Peter begins to limp away at a slow speed, allowing Homer to catch up to him and beat him to a point near death. That would conclude the introduction that Bailey and I would film.

Peter is then planned to be extremely immobile and unable to speak, but his family and friends will try to bring justice to Homer, even though what occured is a result of mental issues. Bailey and I feel this will be a strong plot and provides a lot of flexibility in case of future revisions.

We also brainstormed a couple of different titles for the film, settling on the title "Aberration". The notes paper that we used can be seen below.

Portfolio Project: Storyboard

Bailey and I last class worked on the first page of the storyboard and decided to stray away from using "Breakfast in America". We were slightly hooked on the idea, but Bailey and I both thought it best to just pick a different idea so we are not wasting time waiting for the Universal Music Group to contact us back with the rights (of which we may not even obtain). So we decided to do a different plot for the intro. I offered Bailey the idea of shooting near a ominous lamppost that I know of, in which the idea spurred to create a mysterious, vague, and ominous opening. We aim to create a sense of confusion for the viewer by providing a part of the climax of the film, as well as scenes intended to be from the past.

We started the planning by "spitballing" different overall plots for the film, thinking about how we will make a larger story out of an intro to ensure that we don't create a short film as opposed to a movie opening. We started with a man that does not have his life sorted out for one reason or another (we plan to create a more in depth personality for him later) in a bar (we plan to make a set to look like a bar) being talked to by his friend, Peter, and the main gloomy character is not in the mood to talk. Peter, on the other hand, is energetic and trying to get conversation out of the main character. During the entire sequence, there will be cuts from current time and the bar scene (intended to be in the past). In the scenes meant to be in the present tense, there will be a constant zooming out at the lamppost mentioned earlier. Eventually, the body of Peter will be revealed with bloody hands of the main character.

We hope to make confusion and ambiguity of the plot with this idea in order to best present a movie introduction, providing viewers more of a reason to watch the remainder of the film.

The storyboard's first page that we created is posted below.

Portfolio Project: Group Critiques

Yesterday, I had gotten into a group of four with my classmates that are not within my group. I gave then feedback on their project ideas, while they also gave me feedback on mine. Their critiques of Bailey and my idea was, first and foremost, the reliance of the song use. They asked about what we would do if we could not get the rights to the song, to which I replied, as stated in past blog entries, that we would either get different royalty free music that would suffice, or we would scrap the idea and create a new one. They seemed to be on board with that plan and so I think we will stay with it, still thinking about new ideas just in case.

Additionally, they stated that it would be good to establish some more tension. So with that suggestion, I made reference to the film Scream and the part of the film with the popcorn about to burst. The scene is below and the part I am referring to can be found within.

Since the theme of our film opening will pertain to breakfast, I proposed an idea of having an egg that begins to bubble after being cooked for too long, building tension similar to the Scream film opening.  We would constantly cut to the eggs during moments of high intensity and keep the tension very high. We could accomplish a similar goal with a tea kettle or other breakfast foods or utilities if the egg idea does not suffice. My group seemed to really enjoy that idea. I will ask Bailey of his opinion and see if we can implement it into our film opening.

My group's critiques mostly ended there as I did not have too much to elaborate on due to the early stages of the project. I will likely get back into groups when there is much more material to divulge into, leading to more detailed and helpful criticism.

Portfolio Project: Scheduling

Bailey and I were discussing on what days we would be filming our project considering we have conflicting schedules. I work Friday-Sunday whilst he has his Saturday open and cannot work Sunday mornings, the time in which I would be available. Additionally, another possible actor for our film would only be available on Saturday, so I had to agree to open some of my Saturdays to satisfy their schedules. Since I also have activities to tend to on Saturday nights, it was decided that on Saturday mornings we would all meet. We plan to do this every weekend possible until the end of the project's shooting and possibly on more days during our upcoming Spring Break. This also worked best for Bailey as he already has his Saturdays open and has no issues with working during the morning. Now that we have a plan in place, I just have to inform my work of the temporary schedule change, one that may not go in effect, however, for another two weeks.