Final thoughts before releasing the film opening and CCR pt 1

This whole project was a journey, and at least in my part, I can say that I learned a lot. My partner and I have experienced a lot of challenges along the way (editing and recording wise). But we easily solved each issue thanks to Youtube. Our editing and production (and even filming) skills improved a lot. The coursework also enhanced our filming abilities. Reviewing the shots and angles we studied came in handy, and made it easy to make our project look the way we wanted.

One thing I learned was better time management. To be honest with you, I approached this project not really knowing when and where to organize my time. I procrastinate a lot but this project sort of forced me to stick to a schedule which included the blog posts. We had no problems with communication, all was clear. 

Song production + Film Opening Updates

One of the major programs I used to create the beat was FL Studio. Since I already have experience with music production and audio engineering, creating an original soundtrack/score wasn't a difficult task for me. However, finding the right objects and sounds to record was trickier.

One of the major issues was fitting the sounds and melodies in the right place of the recording, so that the sound was synchronous. This, for me was the hardest part about producing the beat. I set my phone next to my computer with the soundless film opening playing while I worked on the song, since I didnt think of a different way to do it. I would have to click on both the film and the song's play button at the same time to figure out where the sounds would sound best and most logical.

UPDATES:

• We decided to get rid of a guitar track since it didnt fit the end product of the song. 
• We cut the kitchen scene because there was no space for it to fit in
• We cut the girlfriend's house scene because it was irrelevant and would not fit in

Filming pt. 2: Studio Scene

 Me and my partner met up at my house to finish recording the studio scene. Fortunately, we were able to finish filming by Wednesday. The filming went very well, and it also looked great thanks to the special lighting we bought. During the studio scene, we had some issues with technology: FL studio wasn't working, and it took  me about 30 minutes to get it running again. This was important since it was the main element that made that scene look good. Additionally, Santiago's phone camera was glitching, but it was quickly fixed after he powered it off and turned it back on.

Anyways, here's a sneak peak of the scene.

Video of Dave falling asleep, before the title queues

Video of Dave playing guitar

I changed the color for each layer of sound in the project, which would contrast with the other simple textured scenes of the movie. Our idea was that it would be representative of Dave Walker's creative mind, while the other scenes (the office, the morning scene) are representative of Dave's deteriorating mental health.

All in all, the studio scene was the hardest to make, since we had to set up many lights, props and equipment to make it look like that. Despite this, it was also the most fun to create. 

The importance of color in film

Everyone knows color influences the way we see things, perhaps even enhance them, which is why I have empathy for those who are colorblind. But what if color also influences how a message is conveyed? Well, thats certainly what film does. Colors aren't accidental, they are placed in movies for a reason. They're a fundamental part of a film. In fact, I could go as far as saying color patterns direct all scenography, objects and costumes (mise-en-scene) in any scene. Color makes a big difference in a film. The same thing goes for the lack of color.

Different colors mean different things depending on the genre/type of film they're being placed in. Colors aren't assigned to a single genre. Every film, is different from one another, and each one needs their own color palettes to highlight or enhance the ideas they want to convey.

Examples of color palettes from two famous movies:

AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999)

If you watched this movie, you already know why this color scheme is so important, and if you havent, you can probably tell: Love, Sex, and heat are all represented by the color red, or different saturations of it. It is also a big theme in the movie American Beauty. And if the flowers were green, and the woman was blue, the scene wouldn't have the same effect on the viewer. Perhaps we'd feel sick, or maybe disturbed and awkward. Nevertheless, this scene clearly demonstrates color being used right.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2 (2011)

Blue, green, black, etc, usually relate to death, sickness, sadness, mystery, memory, nostalgia, and similar emotions. Harry potter largely revolves around this color palette. 

Honestly, finding the perfect color palette for your film requires a lot of research, time, and money, so directors invest in people who are specialized with this kind of work, which makes their job a lot easier. All in all, its important to know how colors help enhance a film's message, and also how color influences and manipulates our decision making and emotions.

SOURCES:

How to use color in film

Using color in film

Color Theory for Designers

The history of Lighting in the Cinema Industry

HISTORY OF LIGHTNG IN THE CINEMA INDUSTRY

 It is basically impossible talk about film production without mentioning the history and importance of light, which in reality, is the essence of cinema. Without it, there are no films, no exhibitions, no projections, not one inch of illumination in a dark room. Movies without music, actors and sound all exist, but we've never seen one without lighting, and for good reason. Light is the main form from which cinematographic visions are shown.

At first, film producers worked with daylight; then natural sources like candles, mirrors, fire, etc, and finally, artificial lighting. Matter of fact, Hollywood moved its main headquarters from New York to Los Angeles, mainly because on the west coast of the USA there was a stronger, clearer and more present light.

David Wark Griffith (film director) was the first use artificial lighting in his films, says Richard Blank. Cecil B. DeMille, a colleague of Griffith's, was then the one who determined the lighting rules that would be followed in Hollywood in the following decades. Additionally, DeMille created a completely new kind  of light. This happened in the 1920s, when the big studios started to have their shares traded on the stock exchange and began to be part of the establishment. At that moment, a set of rules was created to be followed in cinema, which in turn became a business. One of the rules was not to irritate the public, so that the films would be successful from a commercial point of view. Anything that was experimental was considered risky and therefore "forbidden", which makes Cecil B. DeMille a legend.

Cecil B. DeMille

I appreciate you stopping by to read this post, there will be more to come this week.

Top 10 movies to get inspired from for your next Drama Film Creation

1. Touch of Evil

This Orson Welles classic will give you a new taste of creativity.

2. Hidden Figures

Civil rights and humanist ideals all boiled in one movie -- For those interested in that.

3. Uncut Gems

If you enjoy movies set in New York, you'll like this one.

4. The Hurt Locker

The best US-Invasion-Of-Iraq/War movie ever created.

5. Creed

If you enjoyed Rocky, you'll like this one. And if you enjoy boxing, you'll love this one.

6. The Godfather

Do I really need to expand? Enough has been said about this cult-classic.

7. The Wolf of Wall Street

This Drama-Comedy isn't a rags to riches story, its a rags to riches to richer and richer and richer and richer and richer story that gives you an insight in what millions can do to a man.

8. Gravity

Newton motivated tons of these space movies, but this one was probably the most spiritually impacting.

9. Casablanca

America's default movie. A Must watch.

10. The Shape of Water

A cleaning lady working for a giant government research facility falls in love with a Sea Creature who is trapped in that lab. All you need in a Drama movie.

New Schedule for Filming

The week before spring break went great for us. We had all the appropriate equipment and locations to start filming. Unfortunately, filming is harder than it seems, so we postponed the rest of the film opening to be recorded the week during spring break. We have 40% of the opening left to film, so me and my partner have set up a new schedule to finish it on time. The important thing is, both my partner and I have it clear that, if anything happens in the week, we also have a backup plan, which is a fixed schedule and more extra shots. For now, we are very positive we'll be able to finish recording before friday. After that, we'll get to editing the project, and recording more sounds (+ making the second half of the beat we are missing) to get it 100% done and ready for upload.

Schedule 2:

DAY 1: Monday 3/21

Finish recording the studio scene (3-4 hours)

DAY 2: Wednesday 3/23

Record the girlfriend scene (1-2 hours)

DAY 3: Thursday 3/24

Record the Office Scene and Reshoot morning shots (2-3 Hours)

Final Thought: This new schedule is more lenient on our time, which allows us to plan and finish our other course work/extracurricular activities. It will also allow us to finish editing and producing the beat on time.

The Making of a Film Opening: Recording (Pt. 1)

The Making of a Film Opening: Recording (Pt. 1)

Beginning with the Conclusion

At last we made it to the final step: recording our project. We followed our shooting schedule and everything followed smoothly. After school, my partner and I drove back home to record the first minute or so of our film opening, and all I can say is: I'm more than happy with what we got so far. Not only were we able to set up all the lights, props, costume/set design under an hour, but I also recorded multiple shots for each scene so that we could choose which ones were best for use. My partner Santiago played the main character Dave Walker, so I did all the filming. His acting was good; he did a great job depicting the emotion/feeling of each scene as Dave. 

-- How we set up the lighting

 I grabbed my bedside lamp and placed it in one corner of my room, and since the neck of the lamp was bendable, I pointed it in the direction of the bed, but in an upwards position (so it was really pointing to the ceiling). This allowed the camera to pick up on the dimmer light so that we were able to capture everything on screen clearly, and make Dave's Bedroom darker. For the kitchen scene, we used natural light (which worked really well with the phone's camera). 

-- Costume design

Dave walker works in a 5-9 job in the city, he's a briefcase man that doesn't do much. So, my partner brought a plain white button shirt, dark pants, and nice shoes to portray the look. For his natural, at-home look, he wore a hoodie, t-shirt and basketball shorts.

Ending with a Concluding Thought

If we follow our shooting schedule and make sure we get back to work as soon as spring break ends, we will be able to finish recording and editing the film before the due date. The light at the end of the tunnel gets brighter as we plan the week. 

Inspiration for the Film

At the beginning of this project, me and my partner were so caught up with building the plot of the story that we would totally forget to write about movies and documentaries that inspired us to write it. This is mainly because we were very focused on getting the important stuff down on the other blog posts, and didn't think writing about the inspirations was crucial at the beginning. But in reality, it is. One movie that we thought about at the end of our plot was the movie Beats-  directed by Chris Robinson. Once we finished writing the story, I told him “Hey, this idea sounds similar to the plot for the movie Beats” and my partner nodded his head agreeing with me. Funny thing is, while we wrote the plot we were not aware the plot of Beats was in the back of our minds. Both of us enjoy documentaries and movies about music and musicians, so we stuck with what we knew and wrote the plot for our drama.

Another movie that I thought about at the beginning was the movie 21.For those of you reading that have never watched this movie, its about a young brilliant college student who is in need of money to pay his college tuition. He joins a group of people under an unorthodox college professor who teaches them how to count cards to win money at casinos. The money made the protagonist greedy, selfish and narcissistic, who made his life worse ever since he became full of himself. On top of that, he loses everything thanks to his vengeful professor  – who steals most of that money after the protagonist disrespects him.

What grabbed my attention was the protagonist’s negative traits becoming more apparent as the movie progressed. It was this kind of behavior I wanted to highlight in our film. The arrogant, narcissistic character someone can turn into after they gain enough money and fame. 21’s protagonist heavily inspired our’s.

Target Audience for our Film

 For this post, I'll be focusing on the target audience of the Drama genre and also relating it to the target audience for our film. 

A drama film usually has a in depth depiction and development of a realistic occurrence, story and character that deals with emotional themes. Some of these themes are drug addiction, alcoholism, psychological dilemmas, relationships, discrimination, social issues, class divisions, sexuality, crime, and other kinds of conflicts that a character or characters may deal with. 

Link to full presentation

To find the right target audience for a drama film, its important to also define what kind of drama film we're dealing with. For example, Romantic drama films might be more targeted to women, usually between the ages of 21 and 41, while crime dramas are more targeted to men, between the ages of 18-30. 

Since this film's content is relatively dark and difficult to digest, our film will be targeted to a more mature audience. Our film could be classified in the psychological drama genre, given its heavily focused on the main character's life, highlighting how he deals with situations/his coping mechanisms, etc. Our target audience is mainly made up of music lovers, entrepreneurs, teens and young adults since these are the folks that would best relate with out main character. Many entrepreneurs can relate to the struggles of starting a business, or at least getting your product seen, which is what our main character struggles with. Music lovers will enjoy watching this movie to get a glimpse in the life of a musician and producer trying to make a name for himself. It could also serve to outline the downsides of becoming so rich and famous in the industry, which is something the media does not like showing often. Our target audience will be found in websites like instagram and youtube, since they're predominantly used by young adults and teens. As for gender, we want this film to be targeted for both men and women, but I also believe that the numbers will skew more male since our protagonist is male and will do things that are more relatable with men. 

Thanks for tuning in once again, i'll keep the blog posted and updated on the next few weeks.

Scheduling

For the last post, I talked about the struggles of coming up with the right name. To be totally honest, coming up with a name wasn't the hardest decision we had to make, but instead, it was setting up a schedule for filming. We will begin filming on Tuesday, March 15th and we are hopeful about getting it done by the 19th. Our plan is to edit the videos together on a Friday or Saturday, and have the final opening completed before spring break. 

This is how our schedule is split up.

Day 1: The daily routine

Get necessary props and clothes to begin filming. Confirm with cast their availability for filming during the week. We begin filming our main character's daily routine. This will be done on the same location.

Day 2: The office scene

Filming will occur in a different location. This is where an actor for Dave Walker's Boss will come in. 

Day 3: Driving and Girlfriend Scene

Filming will be in main character's girlfriend's house and when main character is driving to the different locations.

Day 4: Studio and Bedroom Scenes

Filming will occur in a different location. We predict that this scene will take longer than the rest.

Our schedule is set up in blocks. Each day is carefully planned with enough time to film and take breaks. We will be traveling to a different location for the office scene, which will be about 30 minutes driving from our city, so time management is important to get things done before spring break. Our goal is to not film for more than 4 days, so we can also focus on writing more on our blogs and update past posts to make them look better.

Coming up with a Title and a Font

 In this post, i'll be drawing on some issues we were faced with during the making of the project, what we did to fix them and any other changes we made. 

One of the first things we thought about was to make the opening aesthetically pleasing, and this was more easily done with congruent font, and especially when it came to the opening title. We wanted something simple, yet not one-worded. We thought about sound/music and how sound is a shape, it has its ups and downs, and so we matched that to our protagonist's life. As an upcoming musician, he would rise to the top but could also easily fall back down (in this case, his life was torn to shreds). Although we aren't producing the entire film in the meantime, the title can very well describe the entire plot. 

Dynamics in sound waves

Anyways, we came up with the title "It Comes In Waves". I scoured for many websites and found one called 1001 fonts and filtered 344 free fonts out of the 1001. We found some very nice fonts, and some very trashy ones as well. But thats expected when there's so many FREE options to choose from. 

I found one that I thought would look good in our film opening. It's called "Kona". This is what the font looks like before a black canvas.

 Some other fonts I looked at were mainly action and horror oriented, and it was difficult to find a style that fit the drama genre that screamed grandiosity and vulnerability at the same time. There might be changes made in the future, but i'll make sure to update the blog if said changes occur. For now, we think this simplistic, narrow and sharp font style will do its job.

The Story Board

We finally have a fully developed version of the storyboard. At first, we weren't exactly sure how to write the storyboard in a way that would be 100% clear to us about what we had to do for each scene without bumping heads. Me and my partner threw in a couple ideas here and there during the making of the storyboard. While we were writing the storyboard, one idea we came up with was the use of colored light bulbs to create the mood for some scenes in the opening. I will talk about this process, as well as the rest of the mise-en-scene creation in two weeks.

This are pictures of the storyboard:

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The Making of a Drama Film Opening: Location Scouting

This film opening wouldn't look good if we picked the wrong locations. Matter of fact, the opening relies on different locations to showcase the character's personality, and to contrast it with whatever his environment manifests. We did not take very long to find good locations. This was relatively easy compared to the other stuff we had to take care of for the film opening. 

We thought about the place Dave works in. We were able to get my group partner's father's office room for a few hours to record Dave Walker's scene in his 9-5 job. The boring office room we picked for this scene is a direct manifestation of Dave's worst nightmare. After all, he wishes to escape that scenario and become a professional artist/producer. Then, we had to find Dave's room. I proposed to use my room for Dave's studio since it literally is a studio in itself. There were a couple of things I moved around to make sure it looked like our drawing of Dave's room (moved the guitar and the amplifier to fit next to the piano and desk). We used my partner's room's bathroom to record the scene where Dave is brushing his teeth. 

The Making of a Drama Film Opening: Soundtrack for Film Opening

The core of our film is music. My partner and I have brainstormed ways to incorporate office, kitchen, and house objects to create the soundtrack. Since I already produce music for a living, I thought this job would be a piece of cake. Granted, working on the song's production was not very difficult, but actually recording the objects (like the pen, salt shaker, vitamin bottle, chair, etc) was what I struggled with. 

I recorded each sound on an Audio-Technica Microphone (AT2020), which went through to a Focusrite audio interface that was directly connected to my computer. My room isn't soundproof, unfortunately, so there were a lot of post-recording effects that I needed to use in order for the sounds to sound crisp and clean. I included a delay effect for the first clap (A pen), an equalizer for the Kick (I increased the low ends/120-130 Hz), a reverb effect to add depth to the snares, and an automated stereo in the shaker (iron bottle) which would make the sound shift from left to right.

some of the FL Studio Plugins I used for drums

For the Melody, I recorded an acoustic guitar (layer 1 - Rythmn) and an electric guitar (layer 2 - Lead). I thought about 90s hip hop songs and was inspired by Ice Cube's "It was a good day" 's guitar track, (which was sampled from the Isley Brother's "Footsteps in the dark")

The drum track was meant to sound a little more modern and was inspired by Plantrae's "Flood/Thrive", which is a mix between modern alt-hip hop and electronic music. TO CLARIFY: The drum's kick is the recording of my studio's chair legs being slammed on the floor. The snare is a Salt Shaker. The clap is a pen. The actual top/shaker is a vitamin/iron bottle. I kept in mind the objects our Main Character (Dave Walker) would use to create the song and mirrored it in the soundtrack.