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!!!!!!!!!!!