Portfolio Project 15 Location And Set

 #15 Location And Set

    I notice that I've filmed a lot of things in my house, makes sense it's shaped kinda strangely, it has a garage that kinda looks like a shed, and there's usually not a lot of people in the house. For the opening we did eventually decide to use my house again, like we did in the music marketing project, but there's a few problems. For one the front door that is going to take up a lot of space is placed at an inconvenient angle that is going to be hard to film it in the way we want it to look. The door is also right in front of the living room so seeing a nice couch and big TV is really gonna worsen the idea that this character is some junkie. My room is also a problem since I have all these posters and pictures on the wall, of course those can come down but they are a slight inconvenience to me personally. However the biggest issue with my room is the massive window that looms over my bed. No blinds meaning we're going to have to scrap a shot we really wanted to do, and the curtains are bright yellow with cool geometric shapes.

This just doesn't work for what we're going for, this character is a junkie who's life is dark and gritty. This window barely works for my own personal living, let alone a movie!

    However a stroke of genius stroke me and I had an idea on how to film this, we can film at my old house, it's been a year since I moved but it still hasn't been sold and it's entirely empty. We can get a mattress and a little coffee table and if anything that could work better for showing how far gone this guy is. Plus the front door is below a staircase, way less appealing and the doors are placed in a more convenient spot for filming. I'm not sure if we're gonna use this other house, my biggest fear is that we show up to film and a realtor is there giving a tour to a family, plus other than the poster and the window I do think my bedroom works for what we are showing. At the end of the day it's nice having more options and we'll probably use a mix of both houses. 

Portfolio Project 14 Mise-En-Scene Lighting

#14 Mise-En-Scene Lighting 

    The very opening takes place in Ollie's bedroom as he stares into his lights that give his whole room a tint of yellow, they are almost like fluorescent lights that you would see in an office, these yellow lights are not only repetitive, they make you feel as if you are going insane, casting your world in this color that feels unnatural to anywhere you have ever been on, yellow lighting doesn't give of the warm feeling that red light does and it doesn't give the cool feeling that blue light does, if anything when combined with the rest of the setting the yellow lights feel disgusting like if he whole room has been infested by mold. Yellow is a color that usually represents happiness or joy, however the visuals being displayed are contradicting this idea, and that plays into the point of the story, Ollie has surrounded himself with fake joys such as cocaine or being ignorant of the people around him, and this reflects that. Ollie is also a recovering coke addict, a common sign of being addicted to coke is having yellow eyes and while Ollie is having withdrawals and is struggling to stay off coke, his eyes would be fairly white, however the light acts as a reminder, almost as if his addiction is a part of who he is. The room would have heavy shadows making it feel as if we witnessing a scary and dangerous location.

    After he steps out his whole house has a light blue tint, nothing crazy but it shows how cold the world around him is. When his friend, Chris appears the tint vanishes as if he was showing him a slice of the real world.

Portfolio Project 13 Mise-En-Scene For Set Design

 #13 Mise-En-Scene For Set Design

    I don't know how many times through out all these blogs I'm going to repeat this but the main character, Ollie, is a junkie who's whole house is a mess. He has lost all care for himself or for cleanliness so his room is a disgusting mess. There is clothing piled everywhere, fast food bags and drinks lined up, random wet spots, crumpled up tissues, broken glass, and spots with residue of cocaine. His mattress covers are grey not only showing a lack of color in his life, but also that he doesn't have anything exciting in his life, to the point that his mattress covers are a median grey, not leaning either way of black nor white, however his bed sheets are white in reference to the white powder that is controlling his life. Other than that his bed is going to be wet from sweat and full of crumbs and imperfections. Once again bringing the Breaking Bad inspiration, this set of the aftermath of a giant rave is partly what we are going for:

    The outside of his room is going to eerily empty, like you couldn't guess someone lived in that house if you didn't see his bedroom. The front doors obviously lead to the outside of his home, something that he has been avoiding and ignoring despite going outside being healthy, so they are both white, giving them an angelic feel.

Portfolio Project 12 Audio

#12 Audio

    The film's opening's opening is a black screen with only two things, the TITLE CARD! and rising audio. This sound will be that of three things: music, a dog's barking, and loud knocking. Now the music sounds very clear and clean, it's clearly non-diegetic however the black screen cuts to the main character's room and not only do all of the sounds become slightly muffled and less loud than they were before, the music now sounds as if it's coming from a radio, as we have switched from non-diegetic to diegetic. The story takes place in the 2000's and the radio that the music is coming from is owned by a depressed and aimless man who was probably quite careless with the machine, the music is going to come out very gargled. We are using music by the artist Elliot Fullam who's music fits perfectly into that classic 2000's aesthetic (even if it was made today).

    

    Sound is an important part for this opening since it displays his lack of awareness of what's going on around him. He clearly doesn't care about or know whats happening around him and hears everything through a muffled or quiet filter. However his life doesn't have any tranquility and he is constantly berated by loud sounds that he can not seem to control and only ever drag him down lower and lower through his spiraling sanity.

Portfolio Project 11 Character

 #11 Character

    Now I think I've made it pretty obvious that the main character I'm writing is a junkie, however me and my team have been making certain changes lately and changing the plot to better fit our vision. The version of the main character, who is named Ollie, is a recovering Junkie who's girlfriend left him as he wasn't able to quit for her, now he has been avoiding his NA (Narcotics Anonymous) meetings as he slowly rots in his house. He can't stand up for himself, he is horrified of making lasting connections, and he can't take anything too seriously. I think so far I've made it pretty obvious that Breaking Bad, my favorite show, is a huge inspiration for this opening, and the character of Ollie is majorly inspired by Jesse Pinkman. Now Pinkman is not identical to Ollie, however we are mostly basing it off the many scenes of him struggling with drug abuse, I won't go too deep into spoilers but there are many scenes were visually he looks like a moving corpse with no emotion and is unable to connect to people in a deep level, that's mostly what we are going for here.

    The friend character, Chris, shows up to as Ollie about him missing on his NA meeting and try to bring him back into reality from this nasty bubble he has put himself in. Chris tries to be nice about Ollie's problem but ends up having to yell at him to see how miserable his life is after Ollie refuses to collaborate, he wants to see his friend get his life back but knows that he doesn't see it that, and wants to force him to change. Chris isn't directly inspired by anyone, he is just meant to play a guardian angel like role except from afar, keeping an eye on Ollie and trying to push him to be better.

Portfolio Project 10 Summary

#10 Summary

     So far we have finally decided on our project idea, it was actually our very first idea, all the way up here now. I hate giving myself credit, but I'm the one who came up with the original idea, not to say that the rest of the team hasn't played equally in the pre production of this project. Me and Nina started working on an outline for the story but didn't get around to finish it:

    It was mostly just planning things out and whatnot but it's pretty detailed, and we will definitely finish it when time comes. My last blog had the script so I'll just give you an outline of the story:

Ollie is in his dark room, disgusting room, full of clothing and with dim lights, he is a coke addict and starts his day off by grabbing a baggie of coke and snorting it. All through out a loud knocking can be heard and his dog is barking non stop. He checks on the door and finds his friend, Chris, there, he excitedly invites him in but he's just there to comfort him about his girlfriend who recently broke up with him, while Ollie wanted to do drugs. Ollie plays her off, acting like she doesn't matter Chris sees right through this and tells him he need's to stop before walking away. Ollie is left in his house with a barking dog and after yelling at it to shut up, which it doesn't, he breaks down into tears.

    One of my biggest inspirations for this was the tv show, Breaking Bad, as I've been rewatching it lately. The character of Jesse Pinkman inspired Ollie greatly. These characters are very different but they have a similar struggle with drug addiction.

    

    I don't fully remember if I've mentioned this in any blog before but I wanted to use artificial sweetener for the coke, however Nina told me that flour looks way more accurate than coke. I have really dumb reason for wanting to originally use sweetener and it's because of the Starsky and Hutch movie. Not a great movie but there's a scene where Ben Stiller confuses coke with artificial sweetener and for some reason that inspired me to use cocaine for this, so thank that movie for this opening's existence.

Portfolio Project 9 Script

#9 Script

    I've written a few scripts before, I've at least started some and given up since the screenplay format is confusing so getting to do this felt somewhat refreshening. I wrote the script myself, even though the entire group threw around ideas and contributed equally:

I wrote it using screenarist, a free to use software that is really helpful for formatting things like this. I couldn't figure out how to download the script so I had to take screenshots. One issue that has been pressing me so far is the problem of length, the software has a built in estimate for the the video's length but it kept changing randomly and I don't really trust it. I do think we can make it within the 5 second grace period of 2 minutes and there are some stuff here that I think can be reasonably cut out. I think in the editing room this will all work out.

Portfolio Project 8 Film Theory

#8 Film Theory

    I like being critical of the media I consume, I don't write a review or massive three page essay on every movie I watch, but to some extent I like knowing that there is a reason why I like the art I like, and with that said I have come to realize that there are a lot of ways to judge art's quality. Media theories fascinate me since their focus is less on weighing if a movie has good cinematography or if its funny or what not but how it relates to society as a whole and how it effects the viewer. Theres a great video series by youtuber Lindsay Ellis where she discusses media theory in the Michael Bay Transformers movies because of how notably terrible they are, I'll link it here. I want to use Semantic Code, using signs or symbols that represent more than their literal self. In the Great Gatsby the glowing green light over the lake in Gatsby's backyard represents his longing for what's on the other side, which I won't say in the 1% chance you haven't read the Great Gatsby, but it also represents Gatsby being enticed and obsessed with it as it blinks 

 Gatsby knows that everything he wants is right in front of him and that its just calling him, being clear and bright as day, but he can't get to it as there is a lake covering his way there.

    In my opening I want to use the dog in a similar way, he will represent the main character being unable to do anything about his life that is only getting worse because of his own doing. His tiny little dog barks at him loudly and doesn't stop no matter what, all through out he sits there and doesn't do anything about this problem, acting like if it doesn't exist, but at his lowest point he finally snaps and yells at the dog, which does nothing and he cries and cries but doesn't bother to do anything. The dog being small shows his lack of power, a weak creature having this kind of control on him shows him as being weak and unable as he gets overpowered by this tiny little dog. The fact that dog barks loudly represents that he has issues that he is working through and can't seem to control.

Portfolio Project 7 The First Group Meeting

#7 The First Group Meeting

    This group meeting was pretty eye opening since it feels like I'm sharing my idea beyond the pretty closed group of people who had time to process everything I threw at them and think about it. Here are all of the points we made:

    

And for closer detail, here is mine:

I also took my own notes on what me and my team should improve on:

    

    My biggest fear so far is that movie doesn't feel like if it is going anywhere after this opening however Alejandro has given us a big idea, what if the main character owed someone money or was a drug dealer who was being targeted by some sort of gang. Another idea I had was him trying to get over or together with his ex again. The big problem is that I don't know how I'd show this very well, for the first idea maybe his phone could be full of messages asking for drugs or for money but for the second one I don't really know.

Portfolio Project 6 It's A Setup!

#6 It's A Setup!

    I am not an expert on film history, but I know that you must have left an influence if every middle schooler with a growing interest in film copies your style when making a film opening. Tarantino has made some of the most iconic film openings in history. Whether it's hitmen talking about Madonna or a father being broken down to tears by a terrifying Nazi, he knows how to interest an audience, but nothing can ever beat the most iconic, Pulp Fiction.

    As of recent I've been obsessed with the youtube essays of Lancelloti, in particular his essay on what makes Pulp Fiction's opening so iconic, listed here. One thing he talks about in the video is how the two main characters, Vince and Jules are set up and characterized. He talks about how most directors would start with them busting the door down and killing the people who have what they want but Tarantino did the opposite of that, showing the characters as relatable day to day people who have work gossip, and complaints about their job. I wanna characterize my main character immediately, so I think before you see him snorting cocaine and being annoying about his ex you should see him as a loser. Now I still am working out every detail and I'm gonna work with my team on this but what I want is for the audience to see themselves in him, I think that is something I was missing with my early idea, so just to spitball ideas maybe it can start with him being annoyed at waking up way too late, a clear sign of irresponsibility but also something that the audience can relate to as it's a common mistake you can make, obviously not meaning that the audience are all losers but still giving a hint at what kind of character this guy is.

Portfolio Project 5 credits

    #5 credits 

    Openings credits are gonna be tricky cause it's gonna lead to the team arguing at least a little bit on who is which role, how do three people working on a project were they were all assigned decided on who is say the project's director? I don't know, it's tricky to judge and I'm sure we will decide on who gets what when the time comes. For now I just wanna figure out how to actually write these credits, which I'm realizing is harder than I expected since a lot has to go into them for them to make sense. I'll be looking at three opening credits in my genre and analyzing them.

Get Out (2017)

Get Out is basically the first movie that comes to my mind when the term 'psychological' is said so this was an obvious one. The credits notably start after the film's opening which is something that we obviously won't get to do but is notable nonetheless. Alright, the order of the credits are: production and distribution companies, these make sense to include first however I don't think we really gotta worry about them, don't really have much of a distribution company behind me. Then, director, kinda. Jordan Peele's name isn't listed as director, they just say this is "a Jordan Peele film" something which we are OBVIOUSLY not gonna do because that would really rude, I guess we all will be listed as directors but I don't know. The film then cuts to the big TITLE CARD! With the background being an endless forest that the camera zooms past. This forest location only lists the TITLE CARD that I just mentioned and all the film's actors, who are notably not listed with "starring" over them, good to know, I guess actors are the most obvious things that your mind auto-fills when you just see names listed like that, but since my opening is only gonna have like two people I think I'm safer just listing them under "starring" or something similar. As soon as they list all the actors we cut to the interior of a home where the rest of the credits are shown. One thing notable is that producers are listed last, going Co-producers, executive producers, and then producers. After that they list Jordan Peele as writer and director, interesting to consider how that role is listed twice but with different names, I'll keep it in mind when making the opening.

A little fact that I noticed about this opening is that the blue text might be in reference to....

  

The Shining (1980)

Now that I'm getting a good look at them, I'm realizing that The Shining has strange opening credits, they don't ever stop scrolling up, they start about half way through the opening, and they don't slow down for the film's TITLE CARD which is written with no capitalization. If I had to guess I'd say this was done to really make you feel like you just walked into a bizarre and uncomfortable place, and also to make you feel lonely and desolate by not putting a lot of emphasis or attention on the TITLE CARD, making the audience feel what the family must have felt while in this desolate hotel. Listing wise some things are different: the two main leads are listed before the TITLE CARD is shown, before going back to listing cast member, the production and distribution companies show up after the actors instead of at the very start, and screenplay writers are listed before producers. Notably directors and producers are still listed last and are now bundled, I'll keep that in mind too.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)

This movie doesn't even have opening credits, it has 20-minutes-into-the-movie credits, made it annoying when looking up youtube videos for this, made me have to go rewatch the opening with the film it self. I didn't mention it while talking about The Shining, but just like Get Out, it has the director's name listed as "a _ film" and this movie notably doesn't. These opening credits are a lot more hidden than the other two, while they had the credits in the middle of the screen, this one has them at the bottom left corner. The Shining basically wanted to have your focus on the credits, Get Out wanted you to focus on both them and what was going on behind them, but this movie really wants your attention on the montage in the screen of Jim Carrey walking driving around and being all depressed. 

Portfolio Project 4 big openings

    #4 big openings 

    Film openings are scary, because they can NOT be bad. I know that this project isn't trying to literally interest an audience into a 2 hour film experience, but if anything that makes it scarier, like there is no movie to carry this, THIS IS IT. So to calm my nerves i'm gonna take the chance and go over three iconic film openings with the same genre as ours. Me and my team have been struggling to pin down one real genre, so i'm gonna say this really falls under psychological drama/dark comedy.

Blue Velvet (1986)   

Blue Velvet is a mystery film were a regular suburban guy unravels a dark mystery hidden right in his hometown that reveals a dark truth about it, I obviously won't go into spoilers but this opening scene perfectly establishes the tone and setting.
   

    The first thing we are shown is a clear blue sky with a white picket fence and red roses up front. Not only does this set up the idea of "a suburban location with a bloody red secret" it also establishes setting, a suburban town, showing us two iconic suburbanite pieces of imager, a white picket fence, and a garden of flowers. 

The film keeps establishing how innocent this town is, we see children crossing the street, a fireman waving at a man, and that same man watering his flowers.

    However as the scene continues the tone shifts into being uncomfortable. Close ups of the hose the man is using being snagged by a branch and of the faucet gushing out water make the scene feel claustrophobic even though we are outside. The film's audio also changes as instead of only focusing on what's directly on screen, the loud sound of the faucet keeps playing along with the hose which also becomes louder. The branch and the faucet feel as if they are about to break or are under immense pressure, the branch snapping from being tugged and the hose falling off the faucet from the amount of water that is leaking out of it, putting the audience on edge, which pays off when neither happen and instead the man holding the hose has a heart attack and falls over, the sounds of the hose and faucet still loudly blasting, this is all juxtaposed by the calming music that is playing along the scene. Off of this we establish the setting as being a charming yet delirious town and the tone as being dark and uncomfortable.

    Another thing I get from this opening is to not be afraid to establish things that won't make sense immediately. I gotta remember that this is mostly a set up NOT A SHORT FILM. 

   
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Another classic, Eyes Wide Shut, follows Tom Cruise as he discovers a mysterious group of sex cultist.

    The first thing we're show is a woman in a wealthy apartment, shown by the small white pillars used for decoration, and fancy red curtains, as she takes off her thin black dress and exposes her nude body for the camera. The next scene has a man who we can assume is her husband walk into a bathroom were she is preparing herself at and ignore her when she asks him if she looks nice. This establishes the films themes: sex, wealth, and the upperclass being apathetic to the people around them. Establishing theme early on like this gives the audience an early taste about what the film will be centered on as the rest of the film focuses on these themes more (also after really thinking about it, I've decided NOT to put a helpful image, like I did on the blue velvet example, of Nicole Kidman naked, just decided it's too vulgar and off putting, same reason I'm not putting up an image of a fully clothed Tom Cruise)

    This is an issue that really clicked with me while researching for this blog, there is no real theme in what I'm writing. I will definitely work on that and I think it can be added to what I had previously.

Silence Of The Lambs 

A third classic, and the only best picture winner (or nominee). Silence Of The Lambs uses its opening to establish it's main character, Clarice Starling played by Jodie Foster. Off the bat the film needs to establish that she is: a training FBI agent who is very qualified, that she is smart, that she is an oddball in her line of work, and that she has a dark secret that is deep in her mind.

    The film immediately establishes her profession by showing her running through a training camp (and doing really well at it) and of course by the proceeding discussion of her being at the top of her class. The film establishes her intelligence as she has small talk with an old professor who claims he gave her an A in an assignment, claiming she "grilled him pretty hard". The film shows how she is out of her league visually by showing her walk inside of an elevator in which she is surrounded by far taller people who are notably all men (as shown in the picture below) Showing her as short already makes her feel weaker but having her be the only woman also shows a struggle she might have later on, not being appreciated because of her gender. The red men all having red shirts, which is a dominant and powerful color, while she wears a gray shirt, a very boring and powerless color, further show her as not only not fitting in but also being weaker. Finally the last scene has the professor she is talking to bring up Hannibal Lecter, a man that he warns shouldn't get into her head. This warning alerts the audience that there might be some dark secret that Clarice is hiding that she wouldn't want to be let out.  

A big part of the opening I'm making is depicting how much of a loser the main character is, I've been struggling to make this work so I am glad to get a bit more info on the topic.
 

 

Portfolio Project 3 Schedule

#3 Schedule

    My team and I have finished our schedule. I have it right down here:

    Had to make the images really big for any detail to show but I think it's pretty readable

    I'll briefly go over what we have planned for the project. For this week we are finishing brainstorming and deciding on one concrete idea. We're probably going to switch from drama to psychological horror, however both drama and comedy aren't off the table.

    For week three we will have some pre production stuff sorted out, mainly actors, storyboarding, and scripts.

    For week four we are developing on previous ideas, deciding the specifics of the mice-en-scene. We are also deciding in a viable date to film.

    For week five and six we will be filming and begin editing.

    For week seven and eight we will be editing. We wanna have close communication between the team so we can iron out our ideas and figure out everything.

    We want to better plan out how we are gonna make this since in every single project that at least I've ever worked on I have had issues from a lack of scheduling. It's always an actor canceling last second, or the whole video being messy from a lack of awareness about what the shots look. I really do want this to turn out good so to me this really does feel important.

Portfolio Project 2 Genre

 #2 genre

    Time to make a decision, what genre will the video be. Me and my team are slowly settling in our previous idea for the video but nothing is official yet. However we have decided on two possible genres, drama, or dark comedy. These genres feel very opposite but I do think these are both very effective for telling such a mean spirited story. 

 Now drama feels the most obvious for this story, it is tackling a character who is putting on a facade to hide his insecurity, drama is perfect for showing the depths of a character without making what the story is trying to tell you super in your face. A big problem, however, is that for a good character drama, you need good actors. The opening would end with the main character having a breakdown and shouting at his dog to shut up which doesn't work and he is left there with his drugs crying, something like that isn't impossible to get out of people with no real acting experience (unless we go out of our way to hire good actors) but it is near impossible. 

    Our alternative for drama is dark comedy. One of my biggest inspirations, really to anything I make in general, is the video game Cruelty Squad (2021), it's a disgusting nightmare of a game that I adore. It notably has a very in-your-face style of humor, take the line "I've been getting really into 'Hell', both as a mindset and as something to strive for, in an organizational sense" this line is very on the nose but it works because of it's inherit irony, using something as dark as, the concept of Hell it self, as an inspirational corporate mindset. I want this kind of writing to be through out the whole opening. Comedy can help iron out your themes, at times because of how unsubtle it is and I think that can really work in a story as dark as this one.