Portfolio Blog Post WK3 - 2/28 (Storyboard)

 Storyboard:

I've completed the storyboard, and have all if not nearly all the shots I want to get on it. 

This is the very beginning. I needed to start off with that radio. I want to try to get a lot of wides to isolate the character, but also close-ups at important parts. I'll use a shallow depth of field with the close-ups to isolate the subject.

I go from a close-up of his face to a wide shot of an open area, to show a transition in time and place. 

I didn't want to show a lot of the action or gun action just to keep it as clean as possible. Yellow can symbolize insanity, hence the mask being yellow. (To be honest though, I was just lucky that the mask I bought happened to be yellow)

I want to keep these shots quick to match the nervous and scared emotion and the frantic movement of the character. Maybe just go handheld. 

This is just a moment for a breather because a lot was happening in this opening. And the character is traveling back to his bunker/base/camp (still deciding on that). I want to get good shots in this part, mostly just for my own enjoyment but also for the film opening. 

This part doesn't need a lot of thought, it can be done quick and simply because that's all it needs to get the message across. Plus I want to save time. 

Portfolio Blog Post WK3 - 2/26 (Locations)

 Locations:

Finding abandoned and isolated-looking areas has proven to be a difficult task. Broward County isn't what you would call "abandoned". However I have two spots that work well, but I may need to look more because I have not found my bunker/camp/base for The Broken Boy. I have a worn-down house and a very isolated road. But no proper place for my character's "home". 

The two spots:

Worn down farmhouse on Shotgun road: Gray Shovel Ranches, Davie, FL 33331

Lake spot off of US-27: 

These locations may change or completely scrapped. But these are two of the main spots we'll be filming

Portfolio Blog Post WK3 - 2/24 (Script)

 Script:

Mitchell and I finished the script and I really liked the way it ended up. For now, the name of the story is Chimera. The significance of the title is that it is a synonym of hallucination, but it also is the name of a mythical creature made up of a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail. The absurd and mix of creatures are not unlike the mix of emotions and problems that my character has, one of them being addiction. The other definition of Chimera is described as "a thing that is hoped or wished for but in fact, is illusory or impossible to achieve." To my character, this is sobriety and sanity, and to him a friend. But in the story, he gains one of those. I think all definitions work well to describe and symbolize my character. I like the title and want to keep it, but I may change my mind later. 

 I was surprised how small the script felt, but I know two minutes may not seem like a lot, especially on a page. It is a quick opening and quite a bit happens, but I needed that because of the 2-minute time limit. I wanted to make sure enough was in the opening, so it alone could stand as its own film but also hint at a larger story. that's the point of a film opening. I'm a little worried it may be too much. But as I work on the storyboard and get closer to filming I can figure that out.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/159cB7OMVC6UPxYlqoTYHgG8juxtD8jLk-Phhi9DFOZQ/edit?usp=sharing

Portfolio Blog Post WK3 - 2/22 (Schedule)

 Shooting Schedule:

So first I wanted to get a certain date and time for shooting. And I figured as many would, spring break would be the optimum time to film this project. I have a full week of opportunities to shoot what I want when I want. 

This was the first printout of my schedule. I've started to print out a calendar for each month I'm in to keep track of what I'm doing and what I plan to do. I started in January and I'm almost fully adjusted to this new habit. But this month I lined out my days to film. But I didn't have specific times. As I get closer to the date I can schedule specific times. But that is the outline for now.

Portfolio Blog Post WK2 - 2/21 (Plot)

Plot:

Another piece of research I did into the apocalypse genre was The Road. I wanted to make a dark story like that one. It's about a boy and his father surviving in an apocalypse, and it's a slow burn but they eventually have to survive cannibals. It's a really good apocalypse film. 

I liked the cinematography, there's a lot of wide shots. I wanted to take that aspect from the plot of this movie. They have a journey to go to sea, and hopefully other peaceful people. 

In my character's story, he needs to get to a pharmacy for drugs at first. But gets turned onto a different path by someone who needs help and offers the protagonist what he wants. 

The supporting character will play a role in helping the

protagonist as he slowly goes insane. But I think I'll have the protagonist will die in the end and embrace his insanity. But as a final act saves this newfound friend. That is the basic outline of the plot that I want. I want to steal a similar aspect of the story, and capture a similar atmosphere the film projects.

Portfolio Blog Post WK2 - 2/19 (Technical Stuff/Atmosphere/Ambience)

Some Technical Stuff:

Drawing inspiration from Fallout, the first mature video game I've played.  That game was perfect to me, it had its flaws in performance and the story had its own as well. But unlike many others who played, I played for the story, I always wanted to know what was going to happen next. And my dad got a kick out of it because of the 50s music that I sometimes played through the in-game radio.

I talked about Fallout in a previous blog post, but I think the main thing I want to capture is the music. I would play sometimes and it would be dark in the game, or there were monsters nearby or both, and I had the radio on, and some old 50s song would play. The Ink Spots impacted me the most because the combination of that sound and the in-game mechanics putting me in danger made me feel very uneasy and it was so eerie and disturbing. It was good though, like when you're watching a suspenseful movie, and you're on the edge of your seat. 

I want to at least be able to capture the disturbance. Because the idea for this film is getting a little darker, but that's okay. 

So the idea is to open the film with a shot of an old radio, The Ink Spots will be playing, and the camera moves backward. I only have so much time to show what I want so I only want this part to be slightly quicker. Then there will be a close-up of the protagonist, or maybe just part of his face, I don't want to reveal it right away because he's going to be a very isolated character. The only things that are close to him are the drugs he takes, his gun, and his memories. 

But one of the main things I want in this opening is the music playing, and a dirty, rusted, and grunge-like look. That is the one thing if any, I wanted to capture in this project

Portfolio Blog Post WK2 - 2/17 (Character)

Character:

A character I wanted to look into is Mad Max, but specifically, the recent one played by Tom Hardy in 2015. I liked that his character had very little dialogue, and I wanted to do something similar. 

Max is also partly insane. He sees things and already has somewhat lost them by the time we see him in Mad Max: Fury Road. In my story, I just wanted to make my character slowly going insane and starting off in an intense way too maybe. 

Mad Max: Fury Road is an amazing story and can be interpreted in many different ways, especially Max's story. What happens to him and his actions is the movie's symbol of redemption, and the film presents him as a bird of prey, and later reveals him to be the phoenix. Or it can be seen as a retelling of the book of revelations. 

However, making a two-minute film opening with that amount set up with no experience would be nearly impossible. But I can take bits and pieces from it and use it in my own creation.

For example, I want to use very little dialogue like Max and have the story drive my character more insane. In a way, it could be the beginning of Max's insanity. But obviously, it will be for my own character. I have yet to name him, but I may not focus on that. I have seen many cases where directors and writers don't give the protagonist a special name, which makes things easy and could work in telling the story. That's one major part I want to get right with my character in this film.

Week two 2/15 (Genre)

 I did most of the research into the genre and Mitchell helped more with the story. I already have a huge lineup of post-apocalyptic movies in my memory. When first thinking about the idea for the film, the video game Fallout came to mind. Fallout is set in an alternate universe set during a futuristic 50s-60s, were after the U.S. bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, instead of using nuclear power for war, we humans learned to harness it for power. Think, The Jetsons, in regards to the technology use. They created things from robots to fusion-powered cars. But eventually, there was an energy crisis, and a second Cold War occurred between China and the U.S., leading to an all-out nuclear war. Fallout takes place after that war in the nuclear wasteland. Now one of the big appeals of fallout is the old 50s-60s music, wandering through a barren wasteland hearing those songs could be eerie or nostalgic. And that is the feeling I want to capture in this film.

I also want to capture the loneliness that the game gave you. The whole point of it was that you were playing as a lone wanderer, traveling and empty and desolate wasteland. It did that through sound and atmosphere. It was all-natural, wind blowing, grass crunching, trees and their leaves swaying in the wind. That and the sight of just nature and not a single living thing near. That or roaming through a worn and abandoned town, buildings broken down, falling apart, vegetation growing in between cracks. This is something I will do with my film, and plan to capture through the locations I choose and the sound editing I put together, along with the cinematography.

Film Opening Post #2

 Mitchell and I on this day wanted to really focus on the story, and finish developing it. We exchanged some ideas of where to go or take it. We went from the Western genre to action thriller. The action thriller was going to be more of a military kind of film, based off of true events possibly. However, I soon came to realize after some thought, that the Western and army film would be difficult to pull off. Mitchell and I scrapped those ideas and went back to the drawing board. I memory came into my head, I don't remember what triggered this memory but when it did It made me think of a 50s song that I listened to a few times before. The song was "Maybe" by The Ink Spots, and it gave me a very melancholic feeling, and the old recording made it sound rustic and worn down. That is when the idea to create a story on the apocalypse, came into my head. I imagined an old 50s radio on an empty street, the song "Maybe" starts playing, the sky is grey, and the radio gets further and further from view. That was the baseline of our idea. When I told Mitchell, he liked it and we agreed that this is gonna be the one we work on.  

Film Opening blog post #1

Mitchell and I discussed what we should film. We definitely wanted to make sure that we only had a minimum of 2 characters in the film opening. 3 characters would be too much going on in such a short amount of time. I also wanted to try to show as much character as possible, so I can get as much depth to it as possible. It will prove challenging because of the time limit, but with the right ideas and execution, it will work.

I didn't want to film in the city, but if I were to do that. I'd want to do some kind of night scene in Town Center, the lighting there would look beautiful. But I wanted to shoot in isolated areas, mostly. I knew of a few spots that are very isolated. There's an old broken-down house surrounded by barbed wire next to a farm. But I wanted to do some kind of action film, maybe a Western. But this day we focused on what genre, and what kind of places would be good for filming. 

Portfolio Blog Post WK4 - 3/7 (Changes)

 Changes:

The schedule: 

I'm going to try to shoot the film on 3/20, 2/21, 3/22, 3/23.

Those are the dates I want to get a lot of the filming done. If I can't I can use the rest of spring break. But I'd like the rest of the break just to edit, and take my time.

Shots:

I may have to cut out some shots like The Broken Boy sitting down on the floor leaning against the wall.

Or cut down the killing scene some more.