Tagged: PB3

5 – A SAFE & CREATIVE SPACE

We presented our Pitch & Proposals today in class for our PB3 and it was interesting to see how different all our ideas were. The many people that we have decided to focus on have been a vast cast of diverse and interesting areas to explore. For our group we have finally come with a working title “Confessions of a Confectioner” which focuses on the life of Terri and her work at Lolly Lovers Candy Shop. We want to highlight the joy and happiness she has in her life and that she spreads to others when they visit the store. Most importantly we want to just get to know her sweet soul and personality, and to spread positivity with our documentary.

Some of the main concerns we have going on is our limited time to interview her. At the moment we only have Friday’s to film her working at the store, and a half an hour window to interview her before she opens the store in the morning. So this means we have to streamline our interview session and hope that we get everything we need in the first sit-down session. To compensate for this I had an idea of doing some rolling interview with her mic’d up with a wireless lapel and us recording throughout her work day. At this stage it’s only a floating idea, but a back-up in case we need any more back-up footage.

Overall our pitch was a group success, and I am excited to see what we can create in the end. Next step actually filming the damn thing.

THE BARGAIN

To make a film most likely you need a few critical things. You need a cast, a crew and you need equipment to record the film. Right now we have a crew, with our group and the post apocalyptic group joining forces for this one. We have our main cast ready, because really we only need Jon for all our shots at least. But to breakdown what equipment we need is hard. Of course we need a camera, which I assume would be Tan’s DSLR, and audio equipment, which will have to be a boom mic borrowed from uni. But I’ve been analysing the script a bit more, and with such little dialogue the sound design will need to have more within it to keep people intrigued. I think this is where we will need to employ some hard work with the sound design, which would mean spending a lot of time in post to create the perfect soundscape. So that means we need to shoot principal photography as soon as possible, and that means scheduling things fast. So I have made a poll for the group to suggest times for shooting.

doodle poll TIM

I’ve been previously using the website Doodle, because it is amazing with its simplicity and capabilities. It’s an amazing tool for me to use as a producer, but also to just plan things in general. I actually was introduced to the site through a friend who is currently producing a lot of shows through RMITV. As part of my own personal journey and growth in this class I asked a lot of the people I knew who had previously produced things to give me some tips and advice on all things producing. I also searched up some producers, because I didn’t realise that producing was such an under appreciated role to have in a film. I also saw that in line with the trend of under-representation in Hollywood today women don’t feature as much as men do, and especially no Asian representation was existent in my research. It’s concerning that this role can be so crucial to the creation of a project, and yet receive very little mainstream praise. But it is a job that I am willing to learn and to take on, and right now it’s definitely been eye opening. There is so much to consider, and after browsing through the links that James gave us, I have made a mini budgeting/scheduling plan sheet for the project. It still needs some fleshing out, but essentially I broke it down to 3 parts and then what goes within those individual processes.

This is just a quick breakdown of my Pre-Production:

-Script > Storyboard > Shotlist

-Casting > Costuming + Media Releases

-Location > Permits

 

References

https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/successful-female-producers-hollywood/

https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/filmmaking/Budgeting/a_z.aspx

BUILDING THE BARRICADE

Okay so I’m currently lost on how to approach the scouting. My first instinct when I read the gig scene was to shoot it in a dark secluded room, with minimal background and the only requirements we needed were a stage and lights. Now I feel like we need more than that, and luckily enough The John Curtain on the corner right next to building 57 has a pretty good relationship with the uni. It’s actually about to host a lot of Monday night gigs, and one of my friends has confirmed that it is part of their course to organize these weekly gigs. I think I have just found my solution to the band problem we were facing when discussing casting. If he is to be wrangling the night, then it will be easy for me to gain permission from not just the venue but actual bands playing that night for permission to film during their show. It would require a lot of planning, especially with which shots we will need and definitely need to be executed very fast as to not ruin the show, but otherwise I do believe that we have a set plan and venue. I’m probably going to ask James for his opinion on this, and if he has any tips for us to be shooting in such a public heavy scenario. It may just be a case of me carrying around a lot of location and media release forms.

Here’s too a hopeful start. Oh and by the way, my friends gig is scheduled May 23rd, so maybe it may be one of the last shots we take in our timeline. Right now I think we can definitely fit the bulk of shooting with week 10, but you never know with casting still technically unconfirmed. I guess this makes me a bad producer, but hey, this class is all about trying things out and learning the process, and so far I am definitely learning a few things I didn’t expect.

NIGHT OF ANGUISH

File_000

So I can’t draw. As you can see from above my artistic technique isn’t up to industry standards, but you can sure as hell know I tried. I haven’t actually done a lot of storyboarding myself, so to do this part I went on a rampage of scouring the internet for good storyboards and came across “Visionary Director” Zack Snyder’s work. He brings a certain amount of life into his work, and using Watchmen as an example we can all see he can make a scene look visually dynamic. I particular enjoy the fact that he stayed very true to the original source material in the comics, which in my head also means he gets an advantage with having pictures already there as guidelines, but still it’s super cool.

Now as we were discussing in class the other day, storyboards play a fundamental part in any production. It allows for us to visualize what we have in our heads and show everyone else what you want to create. The images obviously allow the director to show everyone else involved, especially the cinematographer, what they have envisioned and acts as a great starting point for where to start shot composition. Now in our case, our storyboards are going to be very flexible, because I honestly can’t draw even if my life depended on it. This took me at least an hour of trial and error to create. So my night was definitely eventful. But one thing I did find that I was very good at was writing notes, specifically commenting on the individual shots and their significance within the film. Since we have very little dialogue at all in the film, I wanted to make sure that the visuals were able convey enough of the story to make sense. It’s one thing to have words there describing the significance of each scene, but with my extra notes I made sure that the reasons behind each camera and diagetic movement had a purpose. It definitely adds more time to the storyboard process, so as a group we split up key scenes within the script so that the person who envisioned it first or most clearly would be able to do that scene justice to what they initially pictured.

So far it is going okay, I do feel like I’m the black-sheep here dragging everyone down with this component. But just you wait till we have to organize people and stuff, I’m going to produce the shit out of this project.

 

References

http://www.slashfilm.com/zack-snyder-reveals-watchmen-storyboards/

DRINK WITH ME

young jon

This is Jon Miranda. He is the Leonardo DiCaprio to my Martin Scorsese because he has literally been in all of my current student works. He is also one of my best friends and is very much going to be one for as long as possible. He is also going to play our Tim for the project and I am also very pleased to be able to continue on our tradition of using him in everything I’ve made for uni. No like seriously go back through this blog and you will see this face.

Now with the casting process we haven’t made much head-way aside from having a great man portraying our confused Tim. However it isn’t going to be too hard to find some extras and girls to play small roles in our film. I’ve already contacted the RMIT Troupe for some potential people, and our group all have friends that are happy to play small characters such as the girls that bully him from the sidelines. The main focus of the film is Tim, so it’s no big deal that we don’t really cast anyone else permanently for a role yet. The only thing I am worried about right now is the band. Yeah, THE Band. As in the one that Tim has been obsessed with and is currently becoming more and more attached to. We at first didn’t want to showcase the band at all, or even let them appear on screen, but after a few comment from James in class, we have revised this and have opened up to the possibility of featuring a band, a very real public band. It’s just going to be hard to first find one that is willing to be on camera, and also a venue that is willing to let us shoot with the band for a fake gig. I’m probably going to have to hit up some contacts I made through my Music Video class this summer and hopefully find someone soon to be our band, but until then just enjoy this quick profile of Jon below.

 

sad jon

Name: Jon Miranda

Age: 20

Background: Musician, actor, competent chef, Awesome Dungeon Master

Experience: 3 (poorly executed) student films (but don’t worry he was great), a music video

Ability to grow facial hair for the role: Yes

Eagerness to play a depressing character: Mildly Intrigued

Cost: Probably lunch, a few drinks, and a new dice set

What does he bring to the character of Tim: With his small stature and very melancholy facial expressions, I believe he can do a great Tim. He is also familiar with the ideas behind Tim’s motivations, since he comes from a media and music background. Jon is also available anyday of the week, so scheduling his scenes will be easy as pie.

 

 

LITTLE PEOPLE

Reasons & Research

If you’ve read my blogs you would know that I love KPOP. Like I seriously love KPOP. Just to prove a point I’m going to link one of my favourite songs right now so that I can just share how amazing and diverse KPOP can be.

Now that you’ve seen the awesomeness that is KPOP, you can understand why I love it so much. It’s more than flashy effects, beautiful idols and dance moves. It’s also the focus point of a growing international community. It draws in millions of fans worldwide, and just by YouTube views alone it is one of the leading music industries in the world right now. But with any fandom there are negatives, and KPOP fan-culture has a lot of them. This is my obsession, and whenever I try to think about what Tim would do for his band, I just think what I would do for KPOP. It’s scarily not too hard, and that’s the reason why I want to make this film.

It’s also because I’ve been surrounded by obsessive cultures my whole life as well. Growing up I watched anime and read Japanese manga for almost 6 hours a day. I would come home from school and consume this entertainment mindlessly. And I’m not alone with this destructive behaviour. There is now a growing otaku population in Japan and Western cultures, who’s only purpose in life is to consume and dedicate time towards fictional worlds and characters. This area has been studied before, with people hypothesizing that with the growing number of products and their availability that this behaviour was going to rise anyway, but I believe it is also because social media and the internet has made it all so much more accessible that we have this issue today. I mean looking back over the last century we had the Beatles with their fangirls, and now it’s no different. The only difference is that it is so much easier today to stalk you idol by hacking into their persona accounts or to use advanced surveillance hardware and software to monitor their every move. To become a celebrity today is to make your life a public spectacle apparently, and I want to see why people go into this space of no privacy anymore.

Below are a few readings I’ve found that comment on Japanese fandom culture, which could be translated to both Korean sasaengs and Western fanboys.

References

Stevens, C. (2010) You Are What You Buy: Postmodern Consumption and Fandom of Japanese Popular Culture Japanese Studies pp199-214

Cubbison, L. (2005) Anime Fans, DVDs, and the Authentic Text The Velvet Light Trap – A Critical Journal of Film and Television pp45-57

 

CASTLE ON A CLOUD

So what’s been going on since I uploaded all those assessments for this class. Well I think it is safe to say that I am definitely enjoying this class. It’s fun, enriching and currently I’m able to just work freely on a project that I am becoming more and more invested in. I haven’t truly made my own project in a while and now it feels like I get to express my artistic creativity and ideas like I wanted to do with this course. Now this post is a part of my journey through the class, or at least that what I interpret project brief 3 as. It’s a way for James to see my work ethic, and the processes I’ve been going through to get to the finished project, and I think I too want to know what’s going on as well. It’s difficult for me to just make so many things on the spot, especially a complete short film with actors, location, shotlists and a script. So I think this will be my starting post for this part of the class.

So in this installment I just want to outline my personal timeline with this project, or at least have my checklist outlined clearly for myself. We’ve already got the character breakdown perfect, and Tim is coming across great in all of the members heads, but now we have to figure out exactly what needs to be done to get to that final project.

checklist

This is my official breakdown of what I hopefully will be writing about. Not obviously in that order, because we all know we need a script before we do a shotlist, but its a good guide for me. But the first thing I want to do is go more into the research behind this project, specifically why the concept of Tim intrigues me so much. So in the next issue(?) blog piece thing I will be going through my reasons and research behind the fan culture aspect of this film.