How this class has affected me as a filmmaker.

This class has affected how I learn in a myriad of ways. I'm not used to learning just by going out and doing it with only little guidance to get me started. I appreciated that type of teaching, even if it would make me feel a little inadequate at points because some of my peers have had more training and practice with filmmaking and what the assignments wanted entailed. I have known that making films is a tiring and strenuous effort and this class has given me a better perspective on how much filmakers go through and not just the director, editor, cinematographer, but also the gaffer, the sound recordist, and the producer go through with organizing, which I have realized is not really my speciality. Also the limitations are off putting at times since we dream of making fantastic movies, but we can't afford to do it, nor have the resources to get the perfect vision. It is also invigorating to work with so many people that share the same passions. I've learned that I still have a long way to go with film making and that theres always room for improvement. And I have found that I am better with film history than film production, and I want to improve more in film production and take more film production classes to compensate. 

My Plans for next Semester

For next semester, I'm taking the approach the graduate student who worked in the props department of Iron Man 3 did and I've signed up for my senior seminar for my junior year so I can have more time during senior year to finish up and most likely find a good internship along the way I can devote more time to. I signed up for Ana Olenina's Soviet Avant-Garde seminar class. I have already taken her Soviet Cinema class last semester  so I know her teaching skills, and its also a subject I'm interested in. The only other film class I could sign up for next semester was Dr. Bose's Bollywood cinema class, which I may change due to the fact that I want to learn a bit more about other forms of world cinema. I'm hoping some more spots open up for Terry Linehan's Screenwriting course, since I really want to improve my writing. I've signed up for Andre Silva's Modes of Production in Animation to dip my feet into it. That's basically all I'm planning on doing next semester.

Story boards for Wild Card

Wild Card Script

Premise: A young girl has found herself in a different place and must protect a box that carries all her hopes and desires from the people in gas masks that wish to put her in one as well.  Black and White. A French New Wave look.  Natural lighting for outdoor shots. Music A-Tisket, A-Tasket, and Danse Macabre.

Locations: Ft. Fisher, and a dilapidated bedroom for the final scene.

(Title comes up on a black screen with radio static)

(Scene fade into the back up of a young girl.)

(The camera shifts to the girls side and we follow her with handheld camera)

A young girl is walking along the road at Fort Fisher. The day is sunny.  She is trying to find a place to be alone. We can’t see her full profile. The only sound we can hear is the steps of her shoes on the gravel.  She lifts her head up and we finally see her full profile in a medium shot.  She places her hand over her face to block the sunlight.

(Camera shifts to eye line match low angle) 

(We Jump cut to the top of the hill and see her emerging from the side. We then jumpcut into a medium shot to get her fully into the shot on the hill. She looks into the distance to see the construction ships on the other side. We cut back to see her lightly smiling. She slides the backpack off.

(We go into a high angle close up of her arm opening the bag and see her rummaging.)

She picks up a box and holds it for a few seconds. She moves her finger along the side, like she is contemplating opening it.  She puts it back and then finds what she is looking for a radio. She fiddles with the dials and a song comes on.

(Play a-tisket, a-tasket by Ella Fitzgerald)

A-Tisket, A-tasket

A green and yellow Basket

I wrote a letter to my love

And on the way I dropped it

I dropped it

I dropped it

And on the way I dropped it

A little boy picked it up and put it in his pocket

The song continues and the girl lays down. She turns her head towards the camera and closes her eyes. The music fades into the Danse Macabre which starts out slow.

She moves her head and the camera is facing her in a slightly high angle and she opens her eye to see a giant eye. The giant eye stares at her and shuts and dissolves into the moon.  She wakes up.

(The background is darker with a more sepia-tone)

(She looks around the camera  in her view point. We circle the camera)

She picks her bag up. She coughs almost unnoticeably. The radio has disappeared. She moves the sand away, trying to find it, and spots something poking out. She removes the sand and pulls it out to reveal a gas mask. She stands up on and the camera follows her. She inspects it and turns around to put it in her backpack.

(Cut to a person wearing a gas mask on the hill staring at her)

She gasps and drops the mask and the begins to run down the other side. The images become blurred. We have still photograph of her running through the trees much like La Jette. The Danse Macabre plays again. 

We go back into regular film and follow her towards a door. She bangs on it. The bangs reverberate. She looks over her shoulder. A different person with a gas mask on is walking towards her. She coughs again and finally heaves her full weight on the door and opens it. She shuts it closed and looks around the room.

(The camera is in full pov ) Everything is covered in sheets. Abandoned . The people in gas masks are outside. Seemingly not willing to come inside.

She takes her box out and puts it on the sheet covered table in the center and stares at it. The camera shifts past the 180 degree rule, like time has passed. Like a dream.  She stands up and looks under the covers and finds a radio. She turns it on, and A-Tisket, A-Tasket starts playing. She holds the box close to her side, but a bang from the door startles her and it drops. The top falls off revealing…nothing. She kneels down and looks into the box.  The box contained her self-worth and not it was gone.

(The camera zooms into the darkness until the screen goes black.)

Fades in to the girl in a medium close-up as the light brightens on her, her eyes slowly open. A-Tisket, A-Tasket is still playing. She raises herself from the couch and walks towards the door and opens it

The two people in gas mask are there waiting.  An extreme close-up one of the gas mask’s eyes. She walks backward. The films becomes still photography again and the music keeps playing. A low angle is given to the people in gas masks as they lift up the gas mask they wanted to put on her face. Two still photographs. The first one is her looking up in fear. Second one is closing her eyes in acceptance. The last shot is of the inside of the mask and the screen goes black on the lyric.

My little Yellow Basket

And if she doesn’t bring it back, I think that I will die

End Credits

My duties for the Wild Card Project

For my duties as the Director of the wild card project, I have already emailed the theater club of UNCW STAGE to ask if anybody would be interested in being a part of a part of the film. I have done auditions for two people and have already written a script for the premise that Mike came up with. I hope to help with the storyboards and overheads for the shots and what I want it to look like. I have also taken suggestions from the group for what they felt would make the movie better and have overlooked the possibilites we have all come up with. For the actual shooting, I plan to help the actors in how I want them to act and what I want them to do for the film. I also plan to help the Ben, our DP with how I want the shots to look like. I also will help with the sound recording as I have decided that since this will be a silent picture, we will record music and sound effects after filming. I also plan to help Ben in editing and Mike with the sound editing of the film.

Editing for Sound Project

My partner Kayla and I were trying to find a poetic sound pattern for our title Simotaneously Towards the Sound of this Old Woman's Voice. We first picked up the recording of Thomasina singing hush little baby to give what we felt old women were like for our experiences. It than began to become difficult as we couldn't fully agree on what sounds reminded us of an old woman and how it could fit into the edit to make it sound like it fits much like a puzzle. We both agreed on the leaves and stepping sounds like the sound itself is going towards an old woman's voice. We than decided to make it a repetitive motif for the hush little baby lullaby to play and the foot steps to come in as the sounds kept going. We decided on water dropping to give a very natural sound to the piece. We also had to figure out if frying an egg would work, as I believed that fit, while Kayla wasn't so sure about the length of the frying and how long it should last. I also wanted the snoring to represent sleep and old people's sleeping habits, while she felt that it was too distracting for the piece, but we ended up agreeing that it would work at the end. A major problem was length, as we couldn't make it long enough and finding sounds to fit into the piece without it becoming too distracting. It seemed like it took forever to reach two minutes for the sound. But we finished and it was amazing to see how sound can create a picture.

Sound Recording Experience

The experience for sound recording was hard at first when I thought about it. What sounds could I make? I thought about sounds that could be made through different objects and ourselves. Our group was split into two days to record sound and I was the only one who could help out for both days and help the group keep track of what was recorded on the first day and the second day. Making sounds was interesting and hard. Some things you record sound nothing like you expect at all, and some things sound exactly like you expect them to sound. At first it was difficult to record sound as we had found out that both the boom and our sound recording device was almost out of battery. We had to record sound using only our sound recording device instead of using a boom, which actually worked to our advantage because the areas we used to record sound would have not permitted us to have a big boom in the area and would have been too distracting. We also had a little trouble finding how many seconds we recorded sound on the sound recording device. I learned about open areas vs. closed areas of recording and what sounds the device can record and what it doesn't pick up.