Prep and a Crazy Night of Filming

Coming back from my vacation, Jonathan and I used the remainder of our spring break to finish shooting for our film opening. On Friday night, I went over to his house and we set up everything that we would need to shoot and on Saturday night we shot all of the footage.

On that Friday night we no longer had the rolling cart that we used for the bar scene because I had to return it but we did have the step ladder and a couple other items laying around in Jonathan's garage that allowed us to get the right height level for both Jonathan and I. We ended up placing an old toaster oven, an empty crate, and a box of wipes on top of the step ladder which we also used for the bar scene to place the tripod on top of. This can be seen in the picture below.

We also wanted to use fake blood for the scene at the lamp post where Homer beats up Peter so Jonathan went out an purchased the ingredients we needed ahead of time and found a YouTube video that allowed us to make the blog. Below is the video along with a picture of the blood that we ended up creating.

We also spread blood on a white shirt that Jonathan had at his house so that we could have it ready ahead of time for the beat up scene at the lamp post.

On Saturday we then shot our project. The primary location was outside of Jon's house for the outside of the bar scene that we were created. To do this we placed the phone on the stepping ladder shown above and we used my car and darkness to create the scenery.

A few of the shots that I particularly liked were the ones where had Jonathan pressing his body weight down in the trunk of my car to show it bumping down while I was in front of him to indicate the action of me putting a body in my trunk. Along with this shot, I liked the shot I filmed of Jonathan limping past a light into darkness.

While we were filming by the lamp post and the bridge we had a few issues when cars kept passing by obstructing the shot so we had to take some of them multiple times.

Another event that happened was at some point past midnight when we were filming the shot of Jonathan running past the bridge a man drove past us in his truck with a modification on his horn that made it the sound and intensity of a train horn. I was about a foot away from the car and I jumped up and screamed at the top of my lungs.

After this event for the remainder of our shoot, Jonathan and I were both startled by the cars passing by, specifically trucks, and concerned with passing cars seeing a person on the ground near a lamp post in a bloody shirt.

We surprisingly lucked out and sprinted back to my car the second we finished shooting and never looked back.

While there were serious doubts that our lamp post location was not eerie and creepy coming from our classmates and instructor, I can emphatically guarantee you that after I literally got the life scared out of me, that there should be no doubts in anybody's mind.

Challenging Conventions and Representation

The typical conventions used when dealing with people who have a type of mental illness is done in various ways. From my viewpoint, they can be split into two sections being a normal and impaired representation.

The normal representation is when you have the character who is dealing with an illness and the viewer is basically unaware that there is anything wrong until a later point in the story. This can be seen in Mr. Robot and Fight Club. Both of these pieces have a main character who is telling a story but it doesn't become clear until later that what the audience was watching was entirely warped towards that character's illness and it completely changes the meaning of the entire piece. This only works for longer and more drawn out pieces which is why Jonathan and I did not go for this approach.

On the other hand, there is the impaired representation and this is when you have the character and it is clear what they are doing is wrong or different from a typical action. Along with this the characters around them are affected and it is obvious to the audience that something is wrong with the impaired character. This can be seen in pieces such as BoJack Horseman and Jessica Jones where each respective character deals with depression and PTSD. This is the approach that we took in our opening.

The social group that our opening revolves around are people who suffer from mental illness and it is similar to the conventions that I just spoke about. The way that we chose to represent our mentally ill character is by having them do actions that they wouldn't regularly do but then realize immediately after that he has done something wrong. In order to move our opening and the story of our supposed film along we started it off by clearly illustrating this character who is a little disoriented and then exposing the big event that has lead them to be acting in such a way.

The event where he harms and possibly kills a person he has never seen before due to events that he couldn't even entirely control is the story we are going for. We are going for this impaired representation where the character is more than aware that what happened is wrong but he has already gone through with it. The story that follows after this opening is him calling the police because he regrets his actions but he then leaves immediately after due to his fear in himself for what he could do again.

The Font is Set!

Due to the fact that spring break is approaching, Jonathan and I need to have everything ready before we shoot towards the end of that week. One of the last decisions we had to make was the font that we are going to use for the credits and the title of for the tilt that we are using. In my previous post on 3/11/19, I discussed the intention behind why we were considering each font and what each of them represented to me.

To refresh your memory the fonts that we were choosing from were Chiller, Gloucester MT, Eras Demi ITC, Maiandra GD, Mistral, Niagara Engraved, and Viner Hand ITC. All of the fonts are displayed below in the respective order.

We decided to go font by font and discuss the possible issues with each font and how well they worked with our representation of the characters and the message of the opening. The first font, Chiller, for starters felt as if it could be too illegible and our goal is also to represent a slightly crooked and deranged mental state for our character and this was too crooked and off-putting to us.

For the second through fourth fonts, Gloucester MT, Eras Demi ITC and Maiandra GD, as I just mentioned we are going for this slightly crooked aspect in our character and title but these fonts all use straight letters and don't provide any sort of cracked elements in them. The spacing feels too perfect and in our eyes just couldn't work.

The fifth font, Mistral, stood out the most as it was clear to see and what we liked the most was the letters not being perfect strokes in the sense that the tip of the 'A' was mvoing a little further and this followed with the other letters.

For the sixth and seventh font, Niagara Engraved and Viner Hand ITC, we ran into the same issues again where Niagara was too straight and perfect with its spacing and Viner was too illegible along with the aspect that the letters were too crooked.

After all of our deliberation we have decided on Mistral as it made the most sense considering all of our problems with the other fonts.

We Ran into More Problems (Bar Scene)

To our luck, on Wednesday night as I arrived at Jonathan's house it started raining AGAIN. We contemplated shooting in the rain but the fear of damaging my phone as it is recording and obstructing the shot as the water dripped in front of the camera made us realize it wasn't a possibility.

To once again make sure our time wasn't put to waste we constructed a makeshift bar that we could use for one of the three major scenes within our opening. To create this we used a dark blue bed sheet that we hung up in Jon's garage and then had a rolling cart that we placed a white wooden board on top of to make it seem like a bar top. To create the idea that my character, Homer, is actually drinking, we placed a shot glass next to me in the shot along with a vodka bottle to my side. In the glass itself, we used water which made vodka the easiest choice of alcohol for us to fabricate.

The way that we allowed ourselves to get the shots was by using a stepping ladder and placing it in front of our makeshift bar. The angling and framing was also a difficulty that we ran into because we weren't provided with a lot of space so we had to deal a lot with closer shots and Jon and I both had to be on our knees so it would seem that our bodies were the right size with the bar top. 

Since we have spring break coming up we plan to shoot the rest of the project later during that week as I will be out of town for a few days.

Shooting Schedule Outline

On the Tuesday night mentioned in my previous blog where Jon and I couldnt film due to the rain, we decided to also create a basic shooting schedule overview along with our practice title scroll. The purpose of this concise schedulde was so that on Wednesday shooting would be easier for us to get through.

This is the schedule we created: 

Shooting Scedule Outline

Purchase:

-corn starch
-red food coloring
-blue food coloring

Shots

Inside Bar:

-Bailey drinking Jon comes to say hi
-close up of Jon face (credit)
-pushing off Jon
-bailey leaves

Outside Bar:

-Bailey walking out (approached right third into focus) and Jon in soft focus (left third)
-Jon tries to consult Bailey and touches him
-Bailey decks him in his shit

-dumping body in car (back shot of bailey , car bumps down)
-POV from Jon looking at Bailey in trunk
-POV from Bailey struggling to close trunk looking at you

-car driving shot (iffy)

Lamp Post:

-Jon on ground crawling back from high angle
-beating up scene
-on Jon's body tilt up


Post Title:
-possible reverse zoom shot
-full shot of original zoom out

The first section ismt directly related to shooting but it is for essentisl items that we need to purchase in order to make the fake blood for our project.

The following section showcases our opening broken up into 4 main parts: Inside Bar, Outside Bar, Lamp Post, and Post Title. Every name is self-explanatory and in each are the key parts that are within that section.

The Inside and Outside Bar sections are relaying the story amd shots showcasing where we will use our credits and the specifc angle or position of the camera that we want. Both of these sections carry the story up to the point where the parallel editing is about to come to an end.

The Lamp Post amd Post Title sections have the importamt aspects for the tilt up that we want to use for the title scroll down and the Post Title revolves around the continuation of the next scene to have the feel of the opening stray away from a trailer feeling.

Testing Our Title Scroll

On Tuesday night Jonathan and I met up so that we could shoot our project and have some footage to edit with after the fact. We had everything ready with our camera and the shots that we wanted to gather but once we began, it started raining. We tried to wait it out and get some footage but it didn't let up for the entire night.

In order to make sure that we didn't waste all of our time, we wanted to try and create an idea of what our opening title sequence would look like. Our title, Aberration, comes down onto the screen when the camera tilts up from Peter's body in the story. The font, as discussed my post on 3/11/19 shows the red color and one of the crooked/contorted fonts that we liked. In this video we went with the Chiller font just to test it out.

The tilt-up done here was from my car into the night sky because the tilt in our actual video will be up into a dark sky as well. Along with that, I edited this in Adobe Premiere (seen above) and it allowed me to create the drag and opacity change that I used.

The scroll down is done quite simply as you can click on a text box, ours saying "Aberration", that you want to use and then it is now mobile. You can drag the text box anywhere you want from the start of the scene to the end and to create the movement you simply set a primary location and a final location for the text box to move along.

The opacity was also not hard as it is the same concept as the text scroll I had just done. I simply set a primary amount of opacity at a specific time and then a final level at a specifc time as well. My goal was to have the background become darker as the text reaches the end of the screen.

I am well versed in Premiere so doing this didn't take me long and I think that for the base of the editing in the project I will be able to handle it in an efficient manner.

Group Meeting Numero Dos

A few weeks ago I made a post about a group meeting where I met with other students in my class who are doing different projects for their exam (magazine/film opening). The premise of the meeting that took place this past class was to show the development that everybody has made in their project since the previous meeting. My focus during this meeting was to relay the major transition that Jonathan and I made from moving past the idea of wanting to use the song ‘Breakfast in America’ by Supertramp and explain the new eerie idea we have for the suspenseful demented character in Homer. I explained how we want to have him stand by a lamp post and create two parallel events that will link at the end. I also explained the idea behind our title 'Aberration' and how we landed on our title and the font that corresponds with it.

The major takeaway that I gathered from this meeting is that there is a high chance that we might have to abandon some of the story or shots that we have in mind for the sake of the timing allowed in the two minutes of the opening. This might cause a shortage in our story ark or in our events. Taking this information Jonathan and I have addressed some ideas that we might try to cut but we want to have footage before we make a final decision.

Another major takeaway that I gathered is the amount of time that the editing is going to take. The majority of this is going to come from the sense of parallel scenes that we will be trying to create through the editing, the voiceover matching the movement of Homer's mouth in the zoom out scenes, and the title scroll down being in sync with the tilt up of the camera. To make sure that there is enough time I will be editing as much of the project as I can during spring break which begins next weekend. I have set out multiple time slots with a multitude of hours in each of them where I can edit and if I need consultation I will easily be able to contact Jonathan.

Overall, I now have a clear idea of how much time I am going to need to allocate for each part of my project and what was liked/dislike in my project. From the reception, I gathered people like the title and all the ideas that we have but a heavy dislike or concern was to ensure we are not steering towards a trailer feeling with such a quick paced opening. 

This week Jonathan and I will hopefully finish all of the shooting that we need and then the editing will start immediately after that. I feel as if we are on a good pace and that there is no need to stress or worry about any constraints that we have for the project.

Continuation in Our Storyboard

Now that about every part is ready for our project enabling us to film our project, Jonathan and I wanted to push through more of our storyboard. As seen in my previous post "Storyboard" it showed the first eight shots that we had and the idea that we had for each of them. Building off of that we created the next fifteen shots as seen below:

In order to continue the progression of our story, we had to focus more on the event that takes place between Homer and Peter at the bar. The first picture is the second page of our storyboard and it is the event where Homer snaps due to his mental state. The shots that have text and say they are in reference to shot 3 are in reference to the idea that we are going to use to juxtapose the event with Homer and Peter. This is where Homer is at the lamp post and we have the continuation of the zoom out that wil eventually link later in the opening. The remaining shots in this first-page display Homer hitting Peter and then due to his frantic mindset he puts him in the trunk of his car because he doesn't know what else he can do.

The next page shows the next six shots that we have which are depicting Peter when he is in the trunk of Homer's car. In this sequence, he will manage to kick the trunk open and he will roll/jump out of the car to be set free. Then from this, he will be at the lamp post where Homer has been giving the voiceover/monologue this whole time. This will then allow the parallel editing to link up and the two different scenes will come into one. 

Project Meeting and Analysis

In class this past Wednesday we met with our teacher in order to discuss the progress in our project and what she thinks about our overall idea. The main aspects focused upon were the filming locations and the continuation of the storylinre after the title comes onto the screen.

The first area that was of major discussion with her was the locations that we were planning on shooting the bar scene with Peter and Homer. Her idea was instead of trying to create a setting in one of our garages we should rather try to go to a local bar and ask for permission to shoot there. In doing this it would make the setting look more realistic and give off a better aura. It would also be hard to get the vibe of the bar correct if we were creating it from scratch and it wouldn't be the best use of our time if we could just shoot at an already existing location. Some suggestions for possible locations were local sports or cigar bars (I could not provide photos here as they were subject to copyright).

The second area that we focused on was the continuation of the storyline after the title. Our idea is to show Peter in his injured stated in the opening and then to tilt the camera upward toward the sky and then have the title 'Aberration' come down onto the screen. The way that we want to continue after this is to show the beginning of the next scene that would follow in the film to make sure there is nothing that would make the opening feel like a trailer. We want to ensure that there is a clear cut differentiation between what a trailer might feel and look like and our film opening. To do this, we discussed that we could have a whole new location where we begin the next scene with the camera still pointed at the sky, which will hopefully look identical to the previous shot. With this initial position, we will tilt the camera down and continue with a scene that can be at a later time. We could also have the next scene be on a different day or another entirely unrelated event to what just occurred. The goal with this is to continue the story and ensure that we are steering away from a trailer. We are still discussing what that event will be.

Title Font Selection

With a working title that we both agree on and an idea that will flow with it, in class we worked on fonts that are going to create the essence of our story. As I talked about in prior posts, the opening is going to involve a death of a character named Peter and then the camera is going to tile up and the title will appear. The idea that we have is that as the camera is tilting up the name will come down onto the screen. We haven't settled on where we want the title stop stop or the exact location of it but that will be decided when we are editing the film and incorporating the animation for the title.

In class today Jon and I used Microsoft Word and went through every font that it on it and came up with a short list so that we could visualize them all side by side. The picture below shows all the different fonts that we are considering and we are still discussing which of the following works best for us. 

In order of appearance the fonts present are: 

Chiller

Gloucester MT

Eras Demi ITC

Maiandra GD

Mistral

Niagara Engraved

Viner Hand ITC

The reasons that we decided on fonts like this is because we know that there is a sense of mental illness which would demonstrate a broken or crooked sense of the character, Homer. With having these different curves, slants, and slashes it makes everything seem more out of place and different than what would be considered "normal". I really felt that the Gloucester, Eras, and Maiandra provided a sense of off-balance that adds to our character and what drives his actions along in the opening and the remainder of the story. The Chiller, Misral, and Viner fonts are a more clear, present, and obvious idea of being broken and disturbed that would also work for Homer. 

We will have decided on which font we are going to use by the following class.

Establishing Filming Locations

Building off my last few blog posts, in order for Jonathan and I to incorporate all the ideas that we want in our opening it was necessary to have every location that we want to shoot our planned ahead of time. In the opening itself, I talked about a light post which will be used to create suspense and mystery. The light post will be used for the beginning shots of Homer next to it which not only begins our film opening but is also used as the constant zoom out shot. The picture below found on Google Maps shows exactly what it will look like. The only difference with our opening and this picture is that it is going to be at night time and the light post will be the only lighting in the area.
 

The next location that we talked about is a bar that will be used for the scene which introduces Peter and shows his relationship with Homer at this point in the story. We aren’t legally of age to be in any bar so we are going to create one in a garage. To do this we will use different lighting schemes, primarily focusing on low lighting, which will create the aesthetic that we are looking for. To go along with creating this bar setting we will be using a wooden table to create the countertop that will represent the bar itself.

We aren't entirely sure how both of these locations are going to work out so this week we are going to begin shooting after school. If it turns out that we need to tweak anything or find a new location that will be the next step for us. If things do work out we will prioritize getting done the majority of the shooting this week and the following and then begin the shift towards editing.

Our Finalized Story

The story that we are working with currently, and what we believe is the final draft, deals almost entirely around our main character. He currently doesn’t have a name but we put Homer as a filler so we could outline how the story will flow. The opening and overall story deal with Homer and his mental illness.

In our notes, seen below, is our rough outline of the general topics that we wanted to expand upon in class but spent the majority of the time on the title.

To build off the notes, the opening itself will have two ongoing events that are not synchronous but tie in towards the end. The first event is going to be Homer at a light post who will start the voiceover that we will use to push both events forward. It will start by being diegetic and then move towards a nondiegetic sound as it will be playing through the next event. This event will then be subsided and the second event will start which will involve our other character whose placer holder name is Peter. This event will be in a different setting which we have right now as a bar and it will show the relationship and interaction between Homer and Peter. Peter is Homer’s friend but at this point, Homer will be depressed and want to be left alone so he will get annoyed with Peter and push him off although he is just trying to help. This event will constantly be interrupted by a flashback to the first event of Homer at the light post where the camera is zoomed out more and more upon each transition back.

To conclude the opening the camera will move back to Homer at the light post one more time and it will pan to the left/right where it will show Peter’s dead body. This will tie in the two events that were not synchronized and allow for the viewing to establish the timeline in their head. This will then follow by a tilt up and bring down the name of our film, Aberration.

The goal is to have these events not make entire sense and tie into Homer's mental illness which would be explained and shown through much greater detail in the film itself. Our goal is just to establish that mystery and have it allow for a story that would be based on Homer and his struggles along with Peter and how all of these events unfolded to get to this part in the opening.

Aberration

In class on Thursday, the story and title were finalized after a period of discourse as to what aspects of the story would be shown in the opening and how it would tie into the name we would use. Below is the drafting we had for the outline of the opening and the names that we thought could work for the film.

The names (picture one, located in the center right) that we came up with at first revolved around the light post and the major event that would take place there at the end of the opening. This idea was to have the death of one of the characters in the opening and not explain why it happened. Later throughout the story, this would get explained more and various events would be linked to it. We decided to lean off those names as we felt the entire film would be dependent on light or a light post which we didn’t want.

Having shifted off of that we both liked the idea of the character having some sense of mental illness or deficiency to have reasoning behind the killing in the beginning. We want to follow an idea where the character doesn't have complete control over himself and his actions which would create suspense and mystery. This is how we landed on ‘Hysteria’, 'Unstable', and ‘Aberration’.

When selecting between these three names we didn't want it to be plain nor to outright go with one that felt familiar to audiences in regard to something such as Psycho or Zodiac which ultimately made us go with Aberration. The definition found here, works on a bunch of levels for our story. There is an idea of deviating from a "normal path" and a tie into mental illness and irregularity while at the same time not being entirely clear as to what this illness is. This uncertainty is what stood out the most to us as it would add this element of suspense and mystery to the film that we both think fits perfectly.

Storyboard

Yesterday in class my group and I began our storyboarding process and the first day that we are planning to shoot is this upcoming Sunday after we both get off work. 

In order to be prepared to storyboard with him, I did some research ahead of time of different storyboarding techniques and ways that people have created them. I wanted to understand how many of the shots needed to be shown and how much camera movement is shown. On the following website, it shows 10 famous storyboards ranging from Star Wars to Psycho. I thought this was particularly interesting as it showed different techniques that popular and critically acclaimed films took.

Along with this, I found a video on YouTube which explained the use and practicality of storyboards. What I found much more important was the actual comparison of the storyboard and the idea behind them paired with the scenes from the movie. This was done with Mission Impossible and the Indian Jones and not only translated really well but looked quite cool. (Video below).

In class today we reworked some major themes and ideas for our project. We are still keeping it character centered but we will be dealing with darker lighting in most shots now and we will be changing the actors to two males, Jonathan and I, so it is easier to control the conditions of the project and everything that we need to do.

Above is the beginning of our storyboard and it begins with an establishing long shot of the character and a prominent dark environment to the left of a lamp that will be used repeatedly in the opening. The shots that follow use close-ups of objects and people that keep the motion but are displaying the name of that person. We will use the names of the people shown in order (when I'm on camera my name is shown next when Jonathan is on camera his name is shown after). Besides that, we are also defining another prominent environment that will be used to show a disagreement between the two characters and we are establishing that a voiceover will be used to move the opening along and this will be done by the initial character shown.

Moving forward from this we will continue to work on the storyboard next class and continue the establishment of the story along with it.

Possible Shooting Day Ideas

This weekend after consulting with Jonathan we both realized we have heavily conflicting schedules when it comes to our jobs and upcoming vacations that we will both be taking. Since we both work almost the entirety of our weekends amd go to school throughout the week it made it much harded to set something up for the both of us.

Since we couldn't manage to specifically pinpoimt a day for us to shoot we decided that on days that we have a less intensive amount of homework that we will meet up after school. To go along with this we will also both be slating off Saturdays at our respective jobs since that managed to work for both of us.

We are hoping that this will be enough time so that we can get all of the shots on a multitude of days ans going back and posibly reshooting any needed footage. Due to the fact that we have encountered multiple problems already in terms of formulating this schedule, if any more changes needed to be made at a future date, we will do so.

Idea Consultation

In class today we were placed into groups with different students where we discussed each of our projects and the rough ideas that we have for them. This consisted of our possible shooting schedules, story ideas/ desired scenes, and anything else that we felt prevalent to our respective projects.

After hearing what every other group was doing I felt that it was extremely necessary to undergo the necessary schedule for the shooting days and to make sure that my project doesn't lean towards being a trailer with the juxtaposition that I want to use for the project.

Moving forward from this I will discuss with Jonathan what we want our schedule to look like and what days are going to work for both of us to shoot the project on. Also when looking at the script and in our layout for the storyboard we are starting to construct we will ensure that it doesn't lean more towards and trailer and each scene is given its due time to establish the purpose and setting.

Sound Request Sent

To follow up with my groups' idea for the opening it was necessary to request the song Breakfast in America by Supertramp that I talked about in the previous post. This song is owned by the Universal Music Group so in order to ask for licensing to use it I had to go to their website.

After scrolling through their website I was redirected a few times and found where you can go take make a licensing request to them. To do this you need to input information about the budget and the location and the song.

Seen above is a portion of the form that I filled out to send to UMG for a license request.