To Do List for Presentation/Premier

Premier:

1. Secure Date (Monday the 13th at 7 PM in the library)
2. Making sure all the critical people can show up (Mr. Heurich my mentor, Ms. Gergely my WISE teacher, John Nord who is a student evaluator, Avalon Bunge, who is another student evaluator, and the community advisor for my presentation who I have yet to know who it is.)
3. Burn DVD's for all my actors and the critical people who will be grading my presentation
4. Do Package design. 
5. Buy Jewel Cases for DVD's 
6. Make poster/flyers 
7. Securing food and goodies for people to munch on during the premier
8. Make a playlist for when people are walking in and out of the premier
9. Script my comments for my short speech at the beginning of the premier before the movie plays

Presentation

• Unexpected learning from this project
• Scheduling 
• Being at the mercy of other peoples flakiness (sometimes)
• Spending more time on things that weren't part of the movie but part of the project
• Care and feeding of my crew
• Unexpected challenges that cropped up during the course of the project
• Time Management/Balancing real life with my project
• Personal Growth 
• The Creative Process/The Spontaneity of Creation (Put this near the beginning of my presentation) 
• Journaling (How my view on journaling changed depending on different phases of my project)

One of my favorite things of filming.

One of my favorite parts of filming is the spontaneity of film making. For instance even though I had a script and I knew how I wanted the story to progress there were a lot of things still not hammered out such as choreography of fight scenes, changes to dialogue to make it better, and blocking of scenes. Its so much fun to work with a bunch of people and come up with cool and interesting ideas and twists to scenes for things. For instance. On Saturday we had a little bit of time left and I was going to say ok guys that's it for today thanks for coming we got a lot done. But, one of my friends had a cool/funny idea for a scene and so we wanted to film it. So even though people could go home and the scene wouldnt actually end up in my movie we filmed it anyways and then we came up with even more ideas and filmed those even though we didn't have to. I love this part of filming where you come up with a cool idea completely spontaneous and then film it and it ends up working really well and looking great.

Shenanigans of Filming 4

This weekend went awesome!!!!!!!! I got pretty much everything done this weekend and I am so relieved that I got it done for I was really starting to freak out. On Friday we filmed my big fight scene and even though I didn't have a crowd and the fading light was a problem things ended up working out very well and I got all the scenes I needed to do. On Saturday was where the real fun began. We started at 10 in the morning and ended at 5 but got all the scenes done. Even though the weather wasn't the greatest it didn't end up being a problem and we even had some extra time which we decided to make some "deleted" scenes or "alternate" endings from
cool/funny ideas that we all had. Sunday the weather was even worse and it was pouring rain outside. However, it ended up that the scenes I was doing were interrogation scenes and it worked perfectly with the mood I was trying to portray for the scenes. So while we got pretty wet we got it done and it looks good! I am
so much more relaxed now that I got all the work I did over the weekend done and my project is back on track!!!

Character Profile: Dante

The character Dante was actually a collaborative effort between myself and the actor who plays him James Eaglesham. During my script writing process one day during calculus (yes I know tsk tsk for not doing calc) he and I were talking about his character because I knew I wanted James to play my bad guy in the movie. I had already wanted to have my bad guy be an arms dealer (for I had already written a good chunk of my script) but he was lacking in both a name and character quirks that would really make his character interesting. We tossed around a lot of ideas and while not coming up with his name we came up with some really good quirks. The name for Dante was originally supposed to be for Jordan Mathew's character but I decided it was just such a cooler name for a bad guy than a good (well sorta) guy thus the name switch and Jordan's character name becoming Diego

Character Bio: Dante first and foremost is an arms dealer. But one with bigger plans than most. He is not content with just selling guns and ammo to people who are already fighting. He purposely starts wars between people and then will sell guns to both sides along with medical supplies to keep the war going for as long as possible. As you can see. Not a very nice guy. He however, in public puts on a very good face and even gives money to charity so is considered a good guy by people in his community. He also is a raving psychopath who's underlying madness sometimes breaks out and can be seen from his otherwise cool and collected manor. He also is a coke addict who's addiction possibly contributes to his madness. He also is a huge Stravinsky fan which is fitting because Stravinsky himself was also mad. Dante also has a very quick and large temper that is displayed especially when O'reilly (Zack Bend) brings him some bad news.

The unintended learning experience of WISE

So I started this project thinking I was going to learn how to 1. Write a script 2. How to film a movie and 3. How to edit a movie. I figured it would be pretty time intensive and I'd be spending most of my time on aspects relating to my project. But to be honest the one thing I have spent the most time on for my entire project is scheduling. Because my project depends on other people and other people have tons of stuff to do for their own lives scheduling is honestly a nightmare but at the same time probably one of the best learning experiences of my project so far. At first I tried to send a questionnaire to people to see when they would be available and while that allowed me to get an initial film schedule set up people got busy and things they didn't know about came up and so I would have to frantically schedule things last minute. I realized, hey clearly the way I'm scheduling things is not working very well and so I went to a weekly based schedule where I would email everyone at the beginning of the week telling who to come, where and how to dress and at what time which worked better. But things still came up last minute that caused to me have to again frantically re-arrange things. I have now changed to a new system while still not yet perfect has been pretty effective. In addition to and email at the beginning of the week I ask everyone that I'll be needing what days their free and then make the schedule from that for the weekend. In addition I become an absolute pest and constantly harass them for the entire week reminding them where to come and etc. I'm still learning but I have gotten better at learning how to schedule things which will definitely help me not just for the rest of this project but life in general

Some dissapointment

So I didn't get any filming done last weekend because people are studying for AP's which i understand but I'm kinda freaking out. I have way to much left to film and I physically can't extend my filming anymore. Like I just can't. To be honest I'm starting to get really bedraggled. I love filming and I love editing but because of the constant scheduling issues it's feeling more like a hassle than something I'm enjoying to do. I'm honestly just tired. I'm constantly running around trying to get everything and everyone set and ready for filming. In addition to helping to prepare my ultimate team for states and my own work outs which adds physical exhaustion to the mix and also having to do all my other school work, tons of college forms and things I have to sign up for, and preparing for two concerts I'm playing in. There's just too much stuff to do and I basically have less than a week. This is probably the lowest point in terms or my morale for my project so far. But I just need to push through it. If I can just get through this week and do all the filming this weekend then everything will be ok. Easier said than done though.

Shenanigans of filming Part 3

Wow so a successful weekend of filming. Boy am I exhausted. So unfortunately one of my actors canceled on me last minute for Saturday but after a quick re-arranging of scenes I could still film the same amount of stuff. Unfortunately because of time issues we only ended up being able to film one scene but that wasn't that big of an issue. The next day Sunday was great however. I got all of the end scenes done except for a small part which can easily be done later. I was really happy with all the people who showed up and even with a small mis-communication on about props (we were short a sniper rifle and an M16 but it ended up not being a problem) We got a ton of stuff done and the movie is really starting to take shape I'm so excited!!! Although I have to say it is exhausting to manage that many actors and block that much stuff even though its fun. Also I edited another promo video together but I wanted to wait till I have some more footage from a different scene to add to it before I release it so be prepared for that!

Mentor Meeting 4/29

We first talked about what my overall feelings are for the project which to be honest I am starting to freak out a little. Because of scheduling problems I am finding it really difficult to get everyone to filming shoots and so I have had to push scenes back. The problem now is that I can't push things back anymore. So it's now or never really and so its pretty scary. This weekend could pretty much make or break my project depending on how it goes and so I am really trying to get everyone there so it can be successful and I can actually get some really important scenes done. We also talked about the worse case scenario in case I don't get any filming done this weekend and in that case while I would freak out even more I would still probably be able to get the footage but I would have to start filming during the week which makes scheduling even more difficult.

Here are some things Mr. Heurich thinks I should be blogging about:

• Include an excerpt from my film asking for feedback
• Write about what I am learning about organization and scheduling. The unintended learning experience from WISE. 
• What have I learned about myself through this project and have I learned things of what to do with filming, like what do I feel about doing the parts of my project and how does it effect my view of making a film. What would I do next time? Punctuality? 
• Favorite things about making the movie 

Behind The Scenes: Make up

Some Setbacks

So after haranguing people for the past week about showing up for 'the big fight scene' which was going to have 20 extras and tons of choreography my two most important actors of the scene tell me the day before that they wont be able to make it.......... great. With Easter being on Sunday and people telling me they are unavailable because of it also this weekend was basically a complete wash. This has probably been the biggest setback to my project so far and really destroyed my film schedule. In response however, I have decided to change my schedule around a bit. I have decided to extend filming two weeks into May and instead of doing all the editing at the end, I have decided to do editing during the week to make up for the lost time in May. On a positive note this will allow me to post more previews and sneak peaks of the film!!!

Shenanigans of filming part 2

Wow ok so another weekend of filming gone by with of course its ups and downs. The first day Saturday we filmed at night which turned out to be extremely annoying. While we were inside the scene still had to be dark with only a computer for light (it was part of the script) so lighting was extremely difficult. But I got some pretty good shots so it ended up working in the end. The next day was a pretty big day with another three scenes being filmed this time during the day which only made things slightly easier. Filming went pretty well for the first two scenes. Jordan even put realistic black eye make up on me for one scene! Both the scenes were inside and while they took longer than expected they went well and we got good footage. We then took a short break for lunch (subway ftw) and then came back. At this point we got distracted by the awesomeness of the spring powered airsoft sniper rifle that my friend had lent me and didn't start filming again for about half an hour. (although officially we were just testing the wind conditions of course. Strictly business) We then got back to filming but decided to call it a day because the wind conditions were so bad that sound would have been horrible. So while this time we didn't have people yelling at us to not film we did have some setbacks but were able to overcome them pretty well! Overall a great weekend of filming! Also stay tuned for some behind the scenes footage of Jordan putting the black eye make up on and another preview coming soon! So stay tuned!!! 

WISE Mentor Meeting 4/15

Some blog entries we talked about me writing are the audio syncing process and include portions of my script and analyzing it. Another subject I need to blog about is the time crunch associated with filming. We then talked about what my plans for filming were over break and what I would be needing. I needed some lighting for two scenes over the second weekend of break and I was ecstatic to find out Mr. Heurich had some that I could borrow! Also I need to do a post on my community contact with Sahara Byrne.

Some More Reasearch

So I have been looking into how to make my effects more realistic and I found this great tutorial on how to do that. Even though he uses adobe aftereffects he says at the end that you can still do the same thing with final cut express as well. In addition I also contacted the maker of the video with some questions and hopefully he will get back to me soon on some tips. His videos look amazing and really professional so anything I can learn from this guy would help immensely. Also I am thinking of buying a really good effects package from this site http://www.videocopilot.net/products/action2/ It has tons of effects that look really great and would improve my movie immensely. Plus it would mean I wouldn't have to keep scrawling through the internet and a bunch of useless effects that I can't use for hours on end haha.

Tutorial Video






Action short that is amazing. By the guy who did the tutorial

Shenanigans of filming Part 1

So I get to the location where we are going to be filming which is on the commons and meet Jimmy and John there. They start setting up while I go off and meet up with the rest of the actors to show them where we are filming. So finally, we get there, have everything set up and I start running through some things. At this point I realize it is 2:30. And Jimmy one of my important actors has to leave at 2:45 for a soccer game. Great. Well. We decided to scrap his stuff that day and just keep plugging along with everything else doing his stuff later. Then, I quickly realized. I was missing a magic 8 ball. (A very important prop which once you watch the movie you will understand haha) So John and I had to leave the site and go buy one at K-mart. Ok so that's over with. I'm finally back at the site and while we were gone some of our scenery (cars) had moved. Great haha. So we decided to switch locations which ended up being a better location than the one I had originally picked out and we really started plugging a long. Filming was great, there was good lighting, we were starting to work out all the kinks and get a real system down and work together. Should have known that wouldn't last. After we blocked and then filmed several parts of the scene a women drives up in her car right in front of our film spot completely ruining our location, gets out and tells us we aren't allowed to film there. Now first of all. We had talked to the owners of the building whose back of their building we were filming against and they were fine with it and told us to tell them if they were disturbing our film making. (Really nice of them.) Second after talking to this women we were accused of graffitiing (spelling?) the back of the building she didn't actually own because apparently all high school students go around doing that. Who knew. Finally she left and we would have kept filming there but her car was parked right in front of our location which basically ruined all our previous work....... thanks lady. By this time we had filmed a good chunk of the scene and it was getting to be about 4:15 and people would have to leave soon. To top it off, my camera was starting to run out of battery. (It had 19 minutes of life left) So we quickly ran around trying to find another location. We finally found one and then started re-filming everything as fast as we could in an order that corresponded with when people had to leave. (Can you tell things were starting to get hectic?) We were able to re-film most of our footage minus a few parts that we could easily do later and my actors and crew (who are amazing I might add) really saved things when it got down to crunch time. Now by now it was about 5:30 and I get a call from Jimmy saying that he was on his way down again after his game. By this time most of my actors and crew had gone save John and we had decided to call it a day and get some dinner at shortstop. I quickly called as many people as I could and somehow managed to rope my friend Kyle and Andre to come down and be crew members for me while we filmed the end part of the scene which only has John, Jimmy, and myself as actors. (By this point my camera had 5 minutes of life left in it) We ended up finishing the last angle of the scene just as my camera and my audio recorder ran out of battery. Can you say cutting it close or what? I finally called it a wrap at around 7:30 (2 and a half hours past our end time) and we still were missing a few shots from the scene but we literally filmed until we couldn't any longer. Despite all the set backs and chaos of the first day I am still counting it a success. We worked out a lot of the kinks and got a system going that works really well. Also at one point I really was considering just calling it quits (after we had to change locations to the third one, half an hour before everyone was supposed to leave) but I with the help of my awesome actors and crew persevered and ended up getting pretty much everything done except a few minor shots which can be done later. I learned a lot from this and I am ever so thankful to my friends for taking extra time out of their schedules to help me with this project. Thank you guys so much. I could never have done it without you!

Promo Video 1

Mentor Meeting 4/6/11

So after I updated Mr. Heurich on my progress so far. He showed me how to use the audio recorder that I am going to be using this weekend for my first shooting day! I learned how to record, deal with sound levels, and delete tracks once I am done.

My film schedule for the month of April

Ok so I also decided I wanted to post my film schedule for April. I also plan to post excerpts from my script of scenes to be filmed that weekend to wet your appetite a little bit. As well as post a bi-weekly character feature describing the character and so forth. So here's my schedule.

April 9th
Scene 11

April 10th
Scene 1

April 16th
Scene 12

April 17th
Scene 4
Scene 5

April 23rd
Scene 2
Scene 3

April 24th
Scene 7
Scene 8

April 30th
Scene 14
Scene 15
Scene 16

May 1st
Scene 9
Scene 10
Scene 13

Some Research

Ok so I quickly realized while playing around with final cut, that video clips were linked to their audio. Now, since I am using a mic boom to record all of my audio and a camera that is not connected to my mic boom for the video, this presented a huge problem. So I first tried trusty google. 30 minutes later still no answer. So then I tried YouTube. I looked at many a video but yet again. Still no answer. So finally I decided to just go to final cut and press random buttons until something work. After a few minutes I saw a tab to a users manual. I looked at the table of contents and found exactly what I needed in about 2 minutes........ so lesson learned? Always read the owners manual haha. However, despite my stupidity I am overjoyed to have learned how to split the video clips from audio which turns out to be just pressing one button. Also some other things I have learned how to do with video editing. I learned how to add in effects such as blood and muzzle flash today thanks to this youtube video. I found this video while searching for how to split the audio from video so I guess it wasn't a complete waste of time haha.

Ok this scheduling thing is probably going to kill me.

When I first set out to do my shooting schedule I thought, Oh it wont be too bad. People are busy but It wont be too bad. Well. I was wrong! After finally finishing a rough idea of a shoot schedule I looked at the scene that was required to do this weekend. For this scene I need to get 7 actors together, in on location, make some fake blood, choreograph a large fight scene, get all of the costumes ready and somehow not go insane during the week scrambling to get everything ready. Oh and did I mention that's JUST for Saturday. No Sunday has a whole new set of problems. I'm sorry to sound like I'm whining but I really thought I would get somewhat of a break during the week from WISE. How silly of me haha. Oh well. I'll get through it somehow.

This one is short

I'M DONE WITH MY SCRIPT!!!!!!!!!!!

So, why do I like character driven drama?

My film is all about the characters. While I do develop the plot and I make the story interesting it is really all about the characters. Especially the three main ones, Michael, Jimmy, and Paulie. The reason I am doing this is for several reasons. One I just like character driven drama haha. Two I think its more interesting when it's all about the interaction between the characters. You grow attached to the characters and it almost feels like you are going through the story and experiences with them. Also lets just face it, really well done and enriched characters are just so much cooler than generic archetypes that just fill a hole in a plot line. I like to spice things up a bit and so sometimes you don't really know if someone is good or bad. It's just so much more interesting and makes for a better story in my opinion. So if your looking for a movie that's all about the plot then sorry you're out of luck. But if you like cool and interesting characters than stay tuned!

A call for help

Unfortunately one of my actors had to drop out (due to a hectic schedule) and will not be able to participate in the film. If anyone that is reading this would possibly be willing to fill in? It is a fairly small part so you wouldn't have to commit too much time. If you are at all interested please contact me.

Mentor Meeting 3/30/11

First we just started with a change to my blog design because all those comments at the top of the blog were driving us nuts. Then after I filled Mr. Heurich in on my progress so far we talked about what I need to do more of in my blog to both make it better and more interesting.

• More research entries are needed where I talk about what I have learned from my sources and from my community contact
• Write at least 1 or more entires about why I like character driven drama/ why I am making this movie
• Talk about what aspects of film making I'm doing ie. special effects, special shots, playing around with sound and lighting. 
• Character profile of the week. Me talking about my inspiration for the characters and their backstory
• Specifics of what I am learning about final cut express  

We then moved on to Mr. Heurich showing me how to use the audio recording device that I will be connecting to my mic boom in order to get some good sound. We realized that I need to learn how to extract audio from my video clips so I can overlay the sound from my audio recorder (which is much better quality sound) onto the clip. Finally we scheduled our next meeting for wednesday next week. 

Some Reflection

So now that the first phase of my project is beginning to come to a close I wanted to do an entry on reflection on what I have done. First I'll start with some good things, Script writing went faster and better than I had originally thought and while I had thought at the beginning that it would be the worst part of the project I ended up really liking it! It was a lot of fun to develop characters and my story. Also I am happy to say that I am probably going to finish the script by the end of the week!!!! Some not so great things are that now I have to re do my survey because I forgot to put a required name field so even though everyone was great in responding quickly to my email that I sent I cant actually see who responded with what which is a pain but everything else seems to be moving fairly well so I am overall pretty happy with things. Now if only I could find a way to get sleep in addition to working on my project haha

WISE Class Meeting 3/28/11

1.     Money?

2.     Self Assessment

3.     Friends Help Friends research

4.     Show and tell

So WISE has about $500 that we as WISE students can submit a grant for yet, the other class (Ms. Lords) thinks we need more money. Thus, our WISE class is thinking of holding a fundraiser to help raise money for people, such as like a talent show or a show of WISE projects.

Then we did a lap around the building. No I’m not kidding.

After we were done with that we did some show and tell. Miriam showed us some tape and wrap used for preventing injury. Paul brought in a jazz improvisation book that he is using to further his knowledge with chords. Alexi brought in his skit idea journal that has all his ideas for his skits and things he finds funny. David brought in a book called “the Tao of physics” which relates physics and eastern mysticism. Erin brought in the first picture of her children’s book which is about a girl with an over active imagination. Marley brought in two magazines that have really good project ideas and ads for tools that she could need. Gabe brought in a mouthpiece of his saxophone and talked about his experiences learning the instrument. Marcel presented his journal and talked about his notes from watching a movie about how cheap food is hurting our health. Gabe then showed us what he had learned on his saxophone. Jenny showed us some really cool pictures from her project which is equine photography.

My questionaire

First off I would just like to apologize for not posting for a long time. Things have been absolutely crazy and so I have really fallen behind on my posts. In the future I will make sure that I keep myself up to date for its really crunch time for me now and this next week could really make or break my project. I plan to be doing several posts this weekend and also to try and post an entry in my blog every day of next week.

Now on too business. Below is a copy of the questionnaire that I made and have sent out to all of my actors. Hopefully soon they will get back to me and I can post a full film schedule later this week.

Filming Questionaire

Hey guys please fill out this questionnaire as quickly as possible so i can start making my shoot schedule for the month of April. We have roughly 9 weekend days + break to film EVERYTHING!!!! So time is of the essence thank you guys for helping me out. you are all life savers

---

* Required

What weekend dates out of the following are you most likely available? *

• Sat April 2nd
• Sun April 3rd
• Sat April 9th
• Sun April 10th
• Sat April 16th
• Sun April 17th
• Sat April 23rd
• Sun April 24th
• Sat April 30th

Are you available during the week? If so generally which days? (This is less important than weekends and will be used in emergencys or if people can all show up) *

• Monday
• Tuesday
• Wednesday
• Thursday
• Friday
• I am not available during the week

Will you be here over April break? And If so are you available to film over April break? *

• Yes I will be here and are available to film
• Yes I will be here and not available to film
• No I will not be here

On film days what kind of time commitment do you think you can spend generally? * As an fyi to all of you film days will probably take a while with a probable minimum of 3 hours. If you cant come for that long its fine. We will schedule your scene later or when you can come

• Several Hours (5-6)
• A few hours (3-4)
• A couple hours (1-2)
• Less than an hour

Do you have easy access to transportion to locations? (have a car or access to a car or can easily get a ride) * If your answer is no pleace contact me so I can try and find you transportion too the filming location

• Yes
• No

Are you willing to help with production elements such as holding the mic boom or helping film when needed? * This would require you to be able to stay pretty much the entire film time on certain days

• Yes I am
• Yes I am but time commitment could be tricky
• No I am not

Medieval Maury Show

Here is a Movie that some friends and I made for Medieval History. It gave me some great experience on learning how to use final cut express and I appreciate and comments and constructive criticism anyone has. Thanks!

Some inspiration and some scheduling

So now I would like to take the time to say a few of the things that inspired me to both choose this as my project and also shape. For starters I would have to say that English Media which was a class I took last year as a junior inspired me to both take WISE and to decide to make a movie as my project. The show Burn Notice gave me lots of ideas on how to frame my 'bad guy' and shape his character and back story of starting wars for profit. Not to mention the coolest sunglasses in the world and how to film fight scenes haha. Also the game Mass Effect 2, who's story line helped inspire the character Dante, who is the leader of the fixers and also the organization called 'the fixers' themselves. Finally last but not least the show Chuck which helped show me how to put some comic relief into an otherwise action setting. 

I also wanted to give a full character list and who possibly would be their actors. The actors are all tentative as I will be able to better distribute parts based on how much time they can commit to the project. Character bio's will also be added later to give you a more in depth look into who the characters all are. There are also some very minor characters without names who will also be in the film that are not listed here.


Main characters: (the 3 man team)

Michael: Me
Jimmy 'the butcher': Jimmy Todhunter
Paulie: Paul Westin

Secondary Characters:

The Fixers Organization: (aka the good guys... well sorta)

Dante: Jordan Mathews

Andrews: John Nord

THE Organization: (it has no name aka the bad people.)

Diego: James Eaglesham
O'Reilly: Zack Bend

Other Secondary Characters:

C.J.: Matt Mcgill
Brian: Kevin Hilgartner

Plot Outline

I wanted to take this time to outline the plot of my film now that my script is getting closer to completion. Although I will be leaving some surprises for the actual showing of the film.

The movie starts out with a set up scene where you are introduced to two people from an organization called the fixers. They are discussing how the world is tearing itself apart and how they need to find someone to lead a team of people to stop the people responsible. Enter Michael who while at first reluctant to join eventually turns the other cheek and decides to help. He then forms a team of two others Jimmy 'the butcher' and Paulie. After the team is formed the three of them go after the organization that's causing all these wars, and conflicts for their own personal gain and goes after the head of the organization who's name is Diego. They meet an informant named C.J. and after "extracting" the information about Diego from him find Diego and then go and try and take him out in order to cut of the head of the organization. You'll have to watch the movie to find out what exactly happens at the end

The Makings of a Mic Boom

Here is a list of the materials we used plus some pictures.

1. Long painters roller
2. Small piece of PVC pipe
3. Foam noodle
4. 1 Zip tie
5. 4 Very small bungee cords
6. Microphone

Our first step was to put the piece of PVC pipe into a vice grip and then drill a large hole in opposite sides and then sanded down any rough edges.

After we sanded it all down we drilled a larger hole in the foam tube and put the paint roller through it. We then took the whole thing and stuck it through the hole we had drilled into the PVC pipe.

After that was complete, we measured the length of PVC pipe we would need for the Mic and then cut it to our desired size

Once it was to size we removed the copper wiring around the small bungee cords and then drilled small holes close together and threaded the bungee cord through the holes to create a web where the mic could rest without having to touch the PVC pipe at all!

 

 

After we finished threading the cords through we drilled some more holes in the PVC to make it lighter and then put the Mic into the PVC and boom we had created our very own home made Mic Boom!

Mentor Meeting 3/15/11

We are brainstorming topics for Blog entries for this week and beyond.

• Research entries, what research I have done and what I have learned from it how i'm applying it in my project 
• Script: What's the story about? Why is it important? Why do I want to tell the story? What unique characteristics of film making am I employing? Who are my characters? Ups and Downs of writing the script. Any random ideas I have for my script. Sample dialogue/excerpts from my script. 
• Summary of my interview with Sahara Byrne -community contact
• Inspirations for my script, filming, and editing. 
• Production prep 
• Scheduling check in
• Cast and Crew list

My immediate goal is to identify my cast and crew and work out a shooting schedule based on people's availability. 

Vlog 6

Vlog 5

Vlog 4

Vlog 3

WISE Meeting March 14th 2011

So we are back in WISE class for our weekly meeting, and we talked about how many of us were falling behind on our journal entries and so I would like to apologize again for my late posting of all my videos.

We also talked about research entries so I’ve decided to from now on do a weekly research entry/what’s going on my head entry. In these entries I will be talking about the research that I have done that week/what I liked or learned and what I didn’t. Then I will also do a weekly vlog entry where I will talk about what I’m feeling, problems that are coming up, and really any ideas or thoughts I am having. These will be in addition to my weekly WISE and Mentor posts, and my project posts of what I I’ve been doing.

Then we talked about getting out of our comfort zone and deciding exactly what we want to do with our projects. To make community contacts and trying things within our project that get us out of our comfort zone and so we can grow and learn from it.

I will also be doing a blog response later too two articles/poems called “practicing” and “two tramps in mud time”, how they relate to each other and how they relate too my project etc.

Vlog 2

Vlog 1

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!!!!

Ok so I have decided to just continue with text posts until all my vlogs are uploaded to youtube (as we speak the first on is uploading and is only 2% uploaded grrr) anyways I once those are finished uploading (there are 7) you should see a large post of videos to this blog so be watching for that! However, In the mean time I wanted to give you guys an update on my thought process so far, what I've learned etc. I'm not going to go into detail about how much I have completed because you'll just be able to see for yourself once my vlogs are done uploading. Also I have made a YouTube account called RJPProductions1 you should all go check it out, subscribe comment ect.

Mentor Meeting 3/4/2011

Provided update to Mr. Heurich about what I have been doing so far:

• Reading books about script writing
• creating an outline for my first few scenes 
• creating vlogs of my progress
• writing the script for my first few scenes

Made possible plans to go to Lowes this weekend with Mr. Heurich

Movie Film Clapper Board

This will be the clapper that I will be purchasing for my movie 

WISE class meeting 3/1/11

So its the second semester and I DONT HAVE TO GO TO WISE CLASS ANYMORE. or so we thought. we actually have weekly meetings that we attend to help us along with our projects.

Today we talked about the WISE semester check in after the next three weeks where we have community members or mentors take a look at our journals or blogs and review and grade them. oh joy haha.

gleaning from the past- me reading a journal and all the paper work at the end of the year of a former WISE project

watched a documentary called Barnsong, I liked how he took a documentary what you thought was just going to be about Austin building a barn and made it more personal by talking about Austin's relationship with his dad too and how the project was more than just a barn it was about what Austin learned during the project. The music choice and placement also fit perfectly.

Mentor Meeting 2/10/2011 The First One!

For my first meeting with Mr Heurich my mentor the first thing we talked about was script writing books. He gave me two great books listed below on helpful hints with script writing.

Script Writing books:
Making A Good Script Great by Linda Seger
How to Write a Selling Screenplay

We then hashed out a rough calendar for mostly long term goals that I can work towards.
Overall Plan for the project:

Long term project goals:

Pre-Production Complete: March 13th
Production Complete: April 30th
Post-Production Complete May 29th

Short term project goals:
Going to Lowes and OHM for Sounds Boom equipment: Hopefully this weekend. Watch videos on how to make home made sound booms. Go to Lowes, buy the pole and rummage around to see if anything looks good for the sound boom. Go to OHM electronics for the Mic Clip.

In order for my film to have good sound since my camera's sound isn't the greatest. Mr. Heurich and myself are making our own home made sound boom!!! Below are some of the materials that we will being getting in order to make the boom and be sure to check out a post in the near future full of diagrams, video, and an explanation on how we made the boom.


Mic Boom:

Wooster Extension Pole, its used for painting however, we will be using it as the pole for  our mic boom 

This is an example of the mic clip that we will be using to attach to the end of the pole

Two Week Plan

For the first two weeks of work on my project I first want to lay out a clear calendar for my project so I have some long term goals to work towards. Then I want to fully hash out the basic plot line for my movie and then just jump right into script writing. My goal at the end of the first two weeks is to have around 20 pages or so finished of my script. I am shooting for around a 45 minute movie in total and going by the industry standard of 1 minute per page I would be about half way done with my script. Now I realize that is somewhat of a lofty goal but I want to shoot high to really push myself. In doing this www.screenwriting.info will be extremely helpful to me for it breaks down script writing into sections and is a great learning tool for those who are just starting out. Also I am planning on making contact again with Professor Sahara Byrne who used to work in Hollywood with script writers all the time. Look for a post within the next couple of days for my calendar and for my first mentor meeting.

First Post!!!!!

Well for my first post I wanted to tell those who are reading this a little about me and this project that I am undertaking. My name is Robbie and I am a High School senior in the WISE program. WISE is an english program where you have a semester of English and then for the second semester you work on a project of your choosing. For my project I have decided to make a movie. I am going to write the script, film and then edit the movie myself. I am really excited for this project for I absolutely love movies and have always dreamed of making my own film one day.