IndexFilm Production: Reflective EssayStoryboardScript OneScript TwoShootingEditingWhat I LearnedWorks CitedFilm Production: Reflective EssayOverall, I thought the course showed me that there is a cinematic world, this industry that exists outside of everything else. This world is made up of festivals, comedians who attack movie studios, television shows that go through different writing processes than others, and shoots that require little education. I learned that to be a director you just need to know some fundamental things. However, I found the tasks challenging and forced me to look at things from a more technical aspect. Even though it is an English writing course, I felt like the purpose of the course revolved around technology and the perspective students needed to take as the next generation of filmmakers. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Storyboard The most challenging part of the course was the storyboarding. This is probably contradictory to every other student, but actually creating my own shots on paper was extremely difficult. I found myself facing the classic problem of visually expressing every idea I had in my head. It was difficult for a number of reasons. First, I had never heard of storyboarding before. I didn't understand how necessary it was for certain projects to be completed. Therefore, I had to learn completely new skills beyond writing. I'm also not very familiar with comics, so the very idea of ​​the panels was foreign to me. It was hard to find images that really showed what I was thinking. If I had been a good designer, I'm sure it would have been easier. I think Noah's storyboard was excellent, simply for the fact that it was drawn, simple, and only showed the essential parts of the shot. Finally, I didn't know the technical aspects of storyboarding. Could you include the dialogue? Do you show or explain the shots? How much detail do storyboards usually have? How long do they last? These questions aren't really answered, perhaps because they don't have a specific answer (similar to the scripts). Script OneThe time to write the first script had passed, and I looked through my story idea documents to see if I could write one. I finally chose an idea I had jotted down a long time ago about a dream I had about a really tense poker game. I ended up writing it as a dark, agonizing screenplay. It was full of angst and stiffness, which is usually what I write about. I wrote with a lot of dramatic pauses, sounds of people dying in the background. That said, it wasn't a very exploratory process; I wrote this in an hour on a lazy Saturday. Not to say it was easy, because no real writing is without even a little effort, but I definitely didn't try to get inspiration from anything. Script TwoWhen I discovered that there were two short films for a year, I knew I had to write one with the aim of translating it directly to the screen. The first screenplay I wrote couldn't be made into a film due to numerous constraints, so I knew the second one would be my choice. When it came time to write this, I thought about the many directors who have inspired me in recent years. Woody Allen was the director/writer who really stuck with me; I had seen five of his films by March, while I was writing the screenplay. The style and tone of his films seemed doable, and the naturalness and lighthearted comedy seemeda direction that would have been fun for everyone involved. That night I dreamed that one of my friends found a big bag full of money and didn't know what to do with it. I thought about the dream for a long time and finally decided that it should be central to the plot. The next night, on the way home, I noticed that my street was dimly lit, perfect for a moody noire-type scene. I wanted people to walk in the middle of the street and I knew that had to be somewhere in my script. After a lot of effort and pulling my hair, I put the idea down and wrote the screenplay. The first draft was terrible, but I knew I had a passable idea. Before I even knew about this course, during the fall semester, I had thought about making a Woody Allen-style movie about a college couple. As the lesson developed and I incorporated my ideas for an independent film into this script, I asked a girl I knew to be my actress. She accepted. Then I started rewriting the script, making small changes to the characters to make them a little more powerful. I found my actress and I wanted to be the lead actor. I was trying to mirror Woody Allen, and he plays the lead role in a lot of his films. The supporting actor was hard to find since I don't know many athletes off the top of my head. Then I remembered Sean, a boy I had slept with for two days during summer orientation before attending St. Edward's as a student. I sent him the script and he was very excited. In mid-March I realized that my personality does not portray shyness or neurosis. Even though I consider myself passive, I knew that wouldn't translate to the screen. Then I thought about Mitch, a friend of mine whose personality naturally matches that of the main character. Even though I wanted to act, for the sake of the film, I knew it would be better suited to the role if I went natural. He agreed immediately, not really knowing what he was getting himself into. At the end of March, while I was putting together a shooting schedule and planning our first meeting together, my lead actress dropped out. I was frantic as I searched relentlessly for my actress. After three or four rejections, I got a resounding “maybe” from a friend named Alexandra. She was flattered that I asked her (she didn't know she was Plan F). However, he will graduate in May and told me he will have a lot to prepare for in the coming months. Therefore, its opening was extremely limited. In desperation, I agreed that we would work on his time. This ultimately became the root of all my problems, verbally signing a contract that gave her the power to decide when and how we would shoot the film. Therefore, putting together a shooting schedule became increasingly difficult. The two boys were pretty much free whenever I asked, but Alexandra, being a senior and an RA, was never available. I eventually found specific times when everyone was available and set those dates in stone. Filming One of the first scenes in the film was a scene in a restaurant with the couple talking to each other nonchalantly. I was naive about the whole process of shooting on public property. I thought that since the film was not for commercial use, it would be easy to convince the managers to allow me to film in their domain. I was easily proven wrong and the restaurant made it almost impossible for me to turn in their place (I had to talk to the owners and it would take weeks to make a decision). For this reason I decided to shoot half of the film first. I rented photography equipment and quickly realized that I knew nothing about cameras. Before shooting, I spentthree or four hours learning the basics of both the camera and audio equipment. It wasn't difficult to understand, but I still had to go through some sort of learning process. I thank the class for forcing me to become familiar with the filming equipment, because I am sure that this tool will prove useful later. The first scenes I shot were Dean and his friend finding the money bag. I was having a blast and my friends who were with me watching my films told me that I was totally in my element. While there are many issues within the shots themselves, I enjoyed the entire process. The next night I shot the opening montage. It was exciting, because I was able to get out of a car with an expensive camera and film everything I love about this city. My good friend drove me around and her obsession with Austin fueled the excitement all night. He also suggested some sites that made it into the final cut. It was the first time I shot something for artistic purposes and I discovered that it was a new way to get excited. A week passed and another filming date was approaching. First I tried to repeat the lines with my lead actor and actress, but as expected, the actress was not available. So I sat down with Mitch and told him how I wanted to direct: I would give them artistic freedom and that as long as he got the ideas down, he wouldn't need to read the lines word for word. After about an hour of reading the same paragraph to each other, he finally recognized what I was looking for. I assured him that doing it in front of a camera would be totally different, but he reacted by saying that it would be no problem. The date was approaching and I told Mitch and Alexandra to print a few proofs so we could have plenty. Alexandra arrived with the wrong script (I had given her a report a few months earlier in which I had written that she exclaimed that she wanted to read). She later admitted that she never opened the script attached to the message I sent her. I had to stay positive, so I explained the plot, went over the lines with her, and acted out the scene five or six times in front of her before she felt comfortable doing it. Overall the scene went very well, she was very upset and felt indebted to me. That night, Mitch entered the scene. Then I realized how absolutely horrible his acting was. His line reading a few days earlier was perfect, so I had no reason to abandon him and take up the role of lead actor again. But now that he was on set, he was nervous, kept forgetting his lines, and had no idea what I wanted. It was as if he had completely forgotten everything we went through while rehearsing the script. It was getting late and we still had two scenes planned for that night. I decided to settle for its mediocrity and move on to the next scenes. The next scenes were where Mitch almost collides with Dean on the street. At this point, Alexandra has taken on the personality of an off-screen Hollywood actress. Although he had agreed to reserve this night for me weeks in advance, he complained, among other things, about the late hour. The filming involving Sean went well. We did a quick test without rolling, made a few small changes and then rolled. It was easy and took me back to the week before when I was legitimately having fun as a director. The shooting involving Mitch and Alexandra was heartbreaking. Even though Alexandra complained about the time, it was her fault that we were still filming. He had no idea what his lines were and theMitch's mess of words didn't help her remember. Mitch couldn't shake the idea of ​​naturalness, and I told him several times to watch a Woody Allen movie with him as the lead actor and to pay attention to the conversations to give him a good idea. He has yet to see a Woody Allen film with him as the lead actor. I was getting angry, so I decided that the first take of them completely saying their lines was the one I would keep and use. My standards had obviously lowered. Also, my SIM card was full, so I had to keep the shots. We finished around midnight. That week was particularly hard for me. As I took the class, I was slowly realizing that my film was not going to be what I had imagined. The shots were unnatural; the actors didn't really understand the message or purpose of the film. There are underlying ideas that are complete and pure, but if you don't read the script in its entirety as intended, the ideas won't come to life. This was hard for me to understand, and as artistic and cliché as it is to say it, I felt average for the first time in a while. I don't get emotionally invested in many projects, but I did in this one. Seeing him come up substantially short was a tough pill to swallow. But I had to finish, and the good times with Sean and the memory of having fun at the beginning of filming kept me optimistic. The next scenes were the picnic scene and the ice cream scene. I was very assertive with Alexandra and Mitch first, telling them they needed to have their lines ready as it was a twilight scene, which meant we would have about twenty minutes to get the setting we wanted. To my surprise, Mitch and Alexandra actually got together independently and read their lines a couple of times. I told them to get to the park at 5:30 to get set up and to walk it a few times before shooting. They only arrived at 6.40am. The sun was setting and we had to act quickly. As I was about to turn on the camera, the boom microphone turned out to be non-functional, so we had to use the recording device's stereo microphone which picked up every sound in the area, including the wind. Filming started and I only did two takes of those scenes, even though I wanted at least four. The sun set and we moved on to the ice cream scene. We went through the ice cream scene several times and they later told me that they had already worked on the picnic scene and didn't know their lines for the ice cream scene. It was basically a repeat of the driving scene from a week earlier: Alexandra complaining about everything there was to complain about and Mitch acting in the most unnatural way possible. Once again, I went for disturbingly mediocre acting and sound. After that night, all the scenes were done and I was excited to work without Mitch or Alexandra. Sean wanted to be kept up to date on my filming and editing, so I was in contact with him. Editing The editing process began and I knew I wanted to edit from home and not from computers on campus. Therefore, since I have a PC, I downloaded Sony Vegas Pro 12 instead of Final Cut Pro. I started editing scenes and found myself mastering all the tools and processes quite easily. It still took hours, but I expected this. It wasn't as distressing as I thought it would be. This being my first time editing something, I was proud of myself for using text supports, splits, fades in and out, sound frequency, and all the other factors that go into producing a film. This was the most exploratory process I went through, because.