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.