Filmmaker Reflection

From this class, I've learned about both my strengths and my weaknesses of being a filmmaker. Pre-production aspects seem to be what I am weakest in. I often had trouble creating storyboards for the narrative projects I worked on for it was difficult to imagine the scene. That may have been mostly due to not visiting locations beforehand but, I really struggled during pre-production. Post-production, however, seemed to be my strength. I have always loved editing since I got into filmmaking back in high school, but this semester, when editing projects I would really get into the zone and lose complete track of time just trying to create the absolute, perfect edit.

For filmmaking, in general, I learned that it takes a lot of patience. It takes a lot of patience to work with others and collaborate and agree on ideas. But in the end, we were all working for the same outcome and I was really proud of each project I was a part of this semester. This class has gotten me, not only prepared, but excited for my future production classes and I could not have asked for a better class of talented peers and one awesome teacher! :D

Visions 4

Video Race Screening Block: 
     I didn't realize beforehand that the people who participated were allowed to use their cellphone so when I did find out, moments before the screening, I didn't expect the videos to be all that great. Once they started playing though, the creativity of some of them took me by surprise. I loved the different techniques of covering over the lens to create "takes" and the imagination that went into such a time-constrained project.

     Seeing these videos, surprisingly, inspired me as they showed me just how easy it was to not only make a video but to create a piece of art, despite the limited equipment you may have. They went by so quickly but the ones I remember the most, and remember enjoying the most was the one where the narration was all in French, the one where Spiderman had a cameo, and the one that had something to do with fireballs (the candy) being dumped onto a table. All of the videos were so humorously and uniquely put together that it was hard to vote for just one at the end.

Film Block 1:
     I knew I was in for some really inspiring films after watching what my peers could create with just their phones. I was most struck by the documentaries that played, most especially, "Win or Lose." It was interesting to see a student documentary that went through so much effort to record every event along the way, especially when the outcome was unknown before he began recording. The animation (that I have forgotten the title of) of the bird and old woman was extremely impressive since I know how much work goes into just a single facial expression of a character when working with 3D computer animation.

     All of the films in general inspired me in different ways to begin thinking of my own ideas that I could potentially turn into short films of my own. The Q&A afterwards asked the director of the Alice animation about the difficulties that went into his claymation - from him I learned the problems I could face if I ever was to make my own claymation (which I really, really want to), but after seeing his film, I know that it would be a lot more work than I initially anticipated.

Wild Card Assignment

In our Wild Card assignment, we have chosen to recreate a song sequence from the musical, "Little Shop of Horrors." I am the cinematographer for this assignment and am pretty excited to finally get to be right behind the camera. Some of the shots we have planned are going to be pretty interesting ones, including close ups/extreme close up, tracking shots of our main character's feet as she runs. I'm rather excited to see how we will pull that off. We have a couple of other tracking shots that should be pretty interesting to pull off as well; most likely we'll be using a chair with wheels, haha. I also plan to use this opportunity to get more aquatinted with the camera as I have had very little experience with the ones we are able to check out. Overall this should be a fun project to shoot and I can't wait to see how it all turns out.

Experience Editing 3b

Editing 3b was, in my opinion, the funnest editing we've had to do yet. Just the fact that the visual and sound didn't need to make sense, not even the slightest sense for this experimental project made the entire editing process that much easier and funner.  As a group we sat at the computer, listening to our two soundscapes. Every now and then one of us would chime in and suggest adding a certain image in one part of the scape or place a still image over a moving one. In all, I think this project turned out the best because the possibilities were endless.

Even though we were all in the editing lab until 3 in the morning, I really enjoyed the process. Perhaps because we were all so delirious, we were able to compile an even better project than we would have been able to had we not been sleep deprived. Regardless, it was fun and really got me interested in the possibility of making more experimental films like it.

My Experience Sound Recording

Recording sounds for our sound library was a lot easier than I had originally anticipated. Our director for the project brought a bunch of props with him and we stepped into the cramped whisper booth to record the sounds of dice rolling, the top of a pill bottle being twisted, and tissues being pulled from a box, just to name a few. I then took the sound equipment home to get the sounds of my cat purring and meowing. And every time I realized there was a sound occurring (like the dishwasher running) that I usually paid no attention to, I rushed to retrieve the H4N and start recording. Just listening to the sounds without seeing the source of them helped me to realize the way in which sounds can be deceitful. We saw in class how a bottle cap could be used to make the sound of a skateboard but I really didn't start thinking about how sounds of one object could be manipulated into sounding like other objects until I experienced it hands-on. And I love the idea of having to use one's imagination to create a sound or see what the source of the sound is.

Editing Experience on Master Shot Project

At first, editing was a little difficult because we had a lot of footage, a lot of takes and bloopers, and we actually forgot to record sound on the whole first half of the shoot. Mike and Alex worked diligently to get the sound all synced up though and did a great job. Editing became easier and easier as we just sat down and concentrated on what shots we needed, what take looked best, and where we needed to add sounds for clarification. On the whole, I didn't personally do any editing but I helped to choose what looked best when we had multiple takes. We had two endings to our short as well: in the alternative version, the "serial killer" looks to the camera right before putting on her mask and makes sure the person behind the camera is ready to film...in the end, however, it didn't look good at all. So we decided on the ending that is seen in our final cut. It's funny how good ideas seem at 4 in the morning!  I am so thankful though that we took the time to do as many takes as we did so that we would have plenty to chose from when things went wrong.

Previsualization Materials for the Master Shot Sequence

My job was to create the overhead for our group's master shot sequence. I've never made an overhead before so I was a little confused at first, but with the help of the group (and the textbook), it became really simple to figure out. The storyboards helped me out a lot as they conveyed angles that I could group together into different camera setups. The most difficult part was showing movement of one of the character's. In our sequence, one character (the victim) doesn't move at all while the other (the serial killer) is constantly moving around. I was afraid the arrows I was drawing would be confusing to others, so I tried to make sure the arrows were as straight-forward as possible. And hopefully I succeeded with that?

This is actually an outdated version of the final overhead, but just to show the confusion of arrows I was working with...

These previsualization materials definitely helped me to get a better idea of what my group and I will be filming and how we will set up and prepare for the shoot. And now I can't wait to start!

Ideas for my Role in the Master Shot Sequence

My group and I decided to make our Master Shot Sequence a conversation between a serial killer and his victim. Some of the ideas we had before deciding on this were:

-A speed-dating setup
-A prostitute and client
-A box of Raisin Bran sitting in a park (taking this one to the literal extreme)

We plan to have the victim laying on a table and strapped down, or being strapped down when the scene begins. The serial killer will be well-versed in what he/she is doing though probably younger than the victim. And the victim will be the one initiating conversation.

As director, I plan on making this sequence comical, but also a bit suspenseful as the viewer will be unaware of whether or not the victim will survive.

Reflection on Vox Pops & Expert Interview

Shooting the vox pops, first off, were a lot easier than expected. I expected my group and I to have a rather difficult time finding people to ask questions about our location (The Cotton Exchange). When I arrived, however, there were a ton of people out and about, enjoying the beautiful and sunny day. Right off the bat, we found a friendly group willing to spare a little time answering questions about the Cotton Exchange. I anticipated focusing more on the "haunted" aspect of Wilmington and T.C.E. but no one we asked had been on the tour that our expert gives, so we decided to focus more on the general history of T.C.E. itself. The shop owners at T.C.E. turned out to be extremely friendly and more than willing to answer our vox pop questions.

Shooting the expert interview turned out to be very informative. I was afraid our expert would speak too heavily on the haunted aspect of T.C.E. and therefore clash with the vox pops, but she was very knowledgable about the history of Wilmington and it worked great with our vox pops. Our expert doesn't have her own office or shop where we could film indoors so I was really worried about filming it outside at first. Thankfully we found a nice, low-traffic place where the Cotton Exchange could act as a backdrop and it turned out beautifully, in my opinion.

Production Schedule

After many unreturned phone calls from our original location, my group and I decided to focus our attention on The Cotton Exchange in downtown Wilmington. We didn't know how interesting it actually was until we all visited for the first time while shooting b-roll and vox pops.

Wednesday (2/19): We went downtown & shot b-roll at The Cotton Exchange. We then searched around for vox pop subjects; we found two customers & two shop owners willing to participate.

Saturday (2/22): At noon, we will interview our expert on the ghost tours that go through The Cotton Exchange.

Documentary Interview Plan

My group plans on interviewing either the owner of the Black Cat Shoppe or one of the tour guides who works there. Most likely, we will shoot in the shop if not right outside of it. The tone we would like to set is an informative one to let our audience know about the history of the shop and also possibly the "supernatural history" of Wilmington as well. Questions we might ask:

1. What is the story behind the Black Cat Shoppe?
2. How long has the Black Cat Shoppe been around?
3. Why did you/the owner choose to open this business in Wilmington?
4. How did you go about researching the stories you tell during the ghost tours?
5. Do you get more tourists going on the tours or more locals?
6. Why do you think ghost tours and ghost tales are so appealing to people?
7. Have you ever personally experienced a "ghostly encounter"?
8. Which "haunted location" is your favorite one to visit?
9. What is the most popular tour provided by the shop?
10. What is one story that is told on the ghost tour that moves/gets to you the most?


As for our vox pops, we plan to do those by the Black Cat Shoppe, possibly after a group gets back from a tour so we can ask them,

1. How did you enjoy the tour?
2. Was this your first tour with the Black Cat Shoppe?
3. What was your favorite part of the tour?

Light Observations

Inside my apartment: with snow and ice blanketing the parking lot and clouds covering the sky, the little light that seeps through the open window is soft; a luminescent glow fills the living room before fading into darkness in the kitchen. Because the glow is so soft, there does not seem to be much patterning, though the light tries to softly illuminate through the cracks of the window blinds. Also, the contrast is very low. My cat sits upon on the table by the window, staring out at the snowy abyss; her back is facing me and full of shadows, while her front is softly illuminated. It is almost as if the front of her body is glowing.

Outside my apartment, on the balcony: Still filled with clouds, the only source of light is tucked behind the overcast sky. There is very low contrast, no patterned light, and no pools of light. The lighting is very diffuse and only dully illuminating the snow and ice-covered parking lot. As it is late afternoon, there is no darkness, only lightness thanks to the white sky and ground. The light is bouncing off of each patch of snow, filling the entire space with just light and no shadows.

I included pictures of both situations but they actually don't do justice to the actual lighting of the scenes...

Filmmakers Statement

     In this course, I hope to learn the skills I need to create well-put-together films and further prepare myself to become the filmmaker I aspire to be.

     A lot of the film related experiences that I have had, have all been at school. Most recently, I took the Computer Animation course last semester and was involved in the making of two short animations. Both shorts were thought up by students in the class who then went on to direct and oversee the various shots being put together. I animated a shot in one of the shorts where a shooting star is seen falling through the main character's eye; it was probably the most challenging shot since I had to figure out how to make the eyes reflective enough and then position the star in such a way that it was both visible and appearing to be falling.

Starry Night Shot 5a  (this shot is sped up in the actual animation so it looks smoother & goes by a lot faster)

     Working with animation is a lot more work than it seems. I learned just how much work goes into it during this class and also during a class I took over the summer with Andre. 6x1 was my first film class at UNCW and it was also the best class - it was lots of fun learning hands on how to make different experimental types of films. The funnest I had was making the stop-motion animation. My group used Harry Potter legos as we created a far off sequel to an incredible book/film series. We ended up taking a million photos just to create only a mere minute of an animation, spending hours on hours editing and adding sound later on, but it was still my favorite assignment and the most fun. 

Harry Potter vs. The Pinecone

     Outside of school, I've put together my own little shorts here and there. Most of them were just for fun with my sister when we were in high school. I used to bring a camera with me everywhere and just record my "adventures" and then edit them to put onto YouTube, but it's been a while since I've posted anything on YouTube, not to mention recorded anything just for the fun of it.

     Something unique about me, would probably be that I play guitar...and sing. Recently I've been doing mostly only covers of songs but I used to write my own songs and put them on YouTube. It's a hobby that I love and lost but would love to find again when I find the time and motivation.

   I honestly have no idea where I want to be in 10 years, not to mention, where I want to be as a filmmaker; but I definitely know I want to be making my own feature films and working on set of a movie, either as a cinematographer, editor, or script supervisor - it doesn't matter to me! As long as I'm on a set, working towards someone's (or even my own) dream and enjoying it, I will be happy.