With only a few days left I’ve been working non-stop. I’ve got a couple more shots to pick up and an entire scene left to film which I’ll be taking care of Friday. Then I’ll be editing for hours on end.
Sound mixing has turned out to be a pain in the butt. When a sound clip is ruined by a single noise in the background, it’s no easy task to clean everything up nicely. I’m finding that on top of picking up some more shots I need to also record some new audio to replace some of the old stuff. Not only that, but I need to find some good sound bytes online to make my film more layered. I’m also sensing the need for music during certain scenes, and finding that music is never easy. Thank God for Royalty Free sites.
Lastly, I just need to add some text in my film. Text for credits, text for titles, and text for the text messages that play an important role in the story. Text effects have never been my strong suit but I’ll figure it all out. Because I have to.
RIP my sleep schedule.
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I just finished a 10 hour over night edit in the 206 labs. Besides finding out how many goldfish I can eat in one sitting I also got a lot of my rough cut done.
It was pretty fun… I got to reformat my hard drive, learn the differences between FCPX 10.0 and FCPX 10.1 for two hours and even found some time to catch a few episodes of Parks & Rec while I was waiting for the damn thing to render.
Of course I have to wait until I get a few hours of sleep to find out if I can actually keep anything I did last night, I got a bit loopy during the final stretch (thank god no one in this class knows my snapchat account). And if you see me today just ignore the fact that I’m wearing the same clothes I did yesterday! It’ll make me feel better about myself. ( I didn’t have enough time for the lab rat walk of shame before class)
Also, does anyone know if we can use the Newhouse budget for music license fees? I only spent $150 of the budget so I was thinking about adding one 5 second clip of a Kanye West song to my short film to spend the other $850…
I Found a picture of the rig they used for the Ok Go Video. Pretty bad ass. must’ve been difficult to get the dolly out of the shot before the drone got airborne.
“The documentarist has a passion for what he finds in images and sounds – which always seem to him more meaningful than anything he can invent. It is in selecting and arranging his findings that he expresses himself. At the same time, if the film is to be documentary and not propaganda, this creative arrangement must result in work that adheres not only to standards of good storytelling, but also good journalism.” -Journalist/Author Erik Barnouw
In some of my past blog entries, I have addressed the notion that documentary films can change the way people see the world. This isn’t necessarily a particularly revolutionary idea, however, filmmakers can harness this medium to show an alternative perspective of reality, or make a historical/current event more understandable or manageable than can be shown in other mediums.
Similarly, documentaries are also forms of journalism, and can far more poignant and thought-provoking than some of their written counterparts. One particularly perception altering documentary I saw in the last year was called, “Fed Up.” This film was an introspective look into the obesity crisis. However, it approached it from an entirely different viewpoint than past films that have dealt with similar topics. The film placed the worldwide obesity academic into the context of sugar consumption. However, the film pointed fingers at the food industry and the government, rather than the consumers themselves.
This advocacy documentary stated that the food industry is responsible for our increased sugar consumption because it puts hidden sugar in processed foods, bombards us with advertising, favors profits over health, and lobbies against regulation. Sugar is an extremely addictive substance, and the food industry wanted to tap into this addictive substance to raise profits. Essentially, proving the theory that obesity is not the product of a lack of self-discipline, but rather of addiction.
This documentary garnered immense international attention, and quickly became one of the most talked about films to ever plague the nutrition industry. The documentary was mentioned in nearly every major media publication, and quickly became the focus of cookbooks, dieting talk shows and even potential government regulation. The new “sugar-free” diet has plagued the country, and will probably continue to do so in the years to come.
Essentially, documentaries can be looked at both as a type of journalism, and as a type of film. However, it is up to the documentarian to harness that power.
We were able to shoot on Friday and Sunday. We didn’t let Saturday go to waste and accomplished some pre production.
Friday we were able to shoot both Martin’s solo shots and knock out the final scene with Martin and Carole both in it. We got some great shots where Thomas was able to show his comedic side as Martin exiting Carole’s as fast as possible after learning that she’s stalking him.
On Saturday David went out and shot pictures of Thomas for the pictures that Martin finds in Carole’s house. They came out very well and instead of Martin doing a bunch of embarrassing things, he’s just caught in the middle of a yawn. Which works much better.
Last Sunday Thomas was the only one of our actors that was available and we did much of the Martin exterior solo shots. We also got a lot of the driving scenes out of the way. I attribute our productivity to Thomas’ delicious home made mocha scones that he brought to set.
So last weekend my DP who also happened to be my cameraman spontaneously left Syracuse for the weekend to visit his friend at another college. This obviously meant that I had to cancel most of my shooting for last weekend. Since then I have recruited another co-DP so that if one is busy I can still rely on the other.
I did still get some footage from last weekend: B-roll for the party sequence. While the B-roll amounts to no more than 30 seconds, it was important that I get it last weekend during my fraternity’s Halloween party, otherwise I would have had to get very creative. Luckily, I got the shots that I needed.
Moving forward, I’m filming Thursday through Sunday this weekend. I’ve talked to my cast and crew and everyone is onboard and available for at least one or two days this weekend. In an unfortunate coincidence, one of my best buddies from home is coming to visit Syracuse this weekend so I also need to entertain him. That being said, I warned him he’s going to have to watch me film for a few hours while he’s here. I think I should still be able to show him a good time while making progress on my film.
It has been a while since I have posted, but here is what is going on currently on with my film.
I have casted two male actors (Joe Podoley and Winston McCarty) and a female actress (Jacky Gold) for the parts of Joel, David, and Sarah, respectively.
Our schedule for the remaining of the semester is as followed. We are holding a rehearsal/run-through with the cast and crew tonight between 7 and 11 pm at our location of 700 Euclid. On Friday, November 7th, we will be picking up the equipment for our film shoot. We will be using a Sony AF-100, an Open Face 650 lighting kit (hot lights), a Chimera light diffusing kit, a Glide Cam, a video tripod, shoulder mounts, flag kits, C-stands, sandbags, a Tasc Cam Recorder, HLR Cables, boom mics, boom poles, two lavalier microphones, extension cords, and surge protectors. Also on Friday, we will be using the debit card given to us to pick up the remaining props needed for this film project.
We will be shooting at 700 Euclid this Saturday and Sunday, November 8th-9th. We will also be shooting at Hendricks Chapel on Monday, November 10th, to film the ending scene of our film. Once all of these scenes are filmed, I can begin on post-production.
Production has been difficult with the recent theft of my laptop and hard drive. However, after shooting this weekend, I will have no dilemmas getting the remainder of this project completed on time.
We’ve been getting our actors in as much as we can, shooting outdoor scenes right up until it’s no longer daylight. We’ve had to reshoot some scenes with equipment failures. But we’re getting a system down, we know what to rent, how to work with a two person crew (getting to set EARLY and setting up interior and exterior scenes so as to move easily indoors when we run out of light and immediately begin shooting). We know what we have left to film, but like every project, there are unforeseen events that can mean loosing a critical day or scene. As we move through November I’m starting to understand exactly what we need to do in order for this film to come together. Although winter has held off, due to actors and our schedules, it is only possible to shoot on the weekends. This means the landscape can change drastically and we’ll jus have to deal with it.
I think it might come down to rewriting some scenes to take place indoors. Once we began shooting I realized how many scenes and locations we had.
However, the more we shoot this film, the more it makes sense for me and the better we get at being efficient and effective with shooting. Our actors have applauded us with how professional we’ve been and how prepared we always are. They have acted in student projects before and they all say they’ve had to also work as crew or help out in some way or another. We also lucked out in that our actors know each other well and are quite good friends with one another, which makes down time when shots are being set up much easier for them. We all get along really well and there have been times where our actors realized that we’ve already wrapped but they’ve been hanging out with us for an hour or so.
This is definitely one of the more challenging projects I’ve had but I’m putting in everything I’ve learned from past projects and I think it will pay off in the end.
Whenever I have said that I want to go into documentary filmmaking, most people just look at me like I’m crazy.
However, in many ways, I think documentary filmmaking is sophisticated, beautiful, and a raw portrayal of humanity in a way that can’t be captured in a day-to-day interaction, or in a fictional setting.
I always have said that I wanted to create documentaries that changed minds and hearts. Although I still want to do that, I have found out how incredibly difficult it is to piece together a story in a way that is interesting and provocative, yet stays true to the subjects, and their stories.
At the moment, my Food Co-op Documentary has absolutely zero qualities I listed above. It is a mish-mash of bizarre farm footage, and now I am being faced with the task of finding a story and taking the time to figure out what I can do to make it more provocative or interesting than it is now.
I have learned a lot through this process already. Working with Bobby has been great, just because he really focuses on what story he is looking to tell, where I was just thinking the story would come to me. Obviously interesting subjects make the documentary, right? Wrong.
Regardless, this process has been incredible, and has given me ideas for the types of subjects, and stories, I want to pursue in the future.
Last week I was working on my third scene the jazz scene. It was going very successful because my members and I were working hard together.
I thought the most difficult part is how to guided my background people to act and how the lens moved in the bar.Since some reasons, this project lacks of lighting. But I still got the shot what I want.
To be a director is complex things: firstly you need to have a good communication skill that you can tell people what exactly you want your members to do in your scene and make it better and faster; secondly you need to believe that everything is could be fix that you can not work under the big pressure.
