Final Reflection.
A. This short scene was inspired by a conversation my brother and I would have often when we were growing up about what happens when we are older, graduate from high school and college, and eventually have to leave each other behind. Whenever we have a conversation, it’s always emotional because I have been with my brother for years, and the idea of leaving him behind or vice versa is tough. Writing the script was challenging because I wanted to make sure that the script would read out like how two brothers would talk to each other and not make it ‘robotic’ or ‘scripted’. We hope that the audience experiencing the short films can feel the emotion and obstacles of leaving a family member behind, someone whom you have been with for over a decade and spend every single day with.
B. My aim with this particular short scene is more on the cinematography side of things. The script was short because I was trying to show the emotions visually, not verbally. We had to cut a few scenes out to meet the time limit of the short films. The most successful part of shooting this short scene was working and acting with my brother. We collaborated and brainstormed ideas back and forth on ‘what to say or how we can make it more organic, not too robotic.’ on the other hand, the singular most problematic aspect of the process was cutting out some scenes and still making the story make sense.
C. If I were to keep working on this scene and expand it to make it longer, I would explore more of Raja’s past, his stuff with his athletic ventures. his injuries, etc. Give the audience the sense of why Raja was so hard on his brother to take the scholarship and make the ultimate sacrifice of leaving his family behind. can be done through the use of flashback scenes. On the other hand, it shows off Al’s talent through the use of his high school performance clips to back up why he was accepted and how talented he is.
D. Picking Directing Performance Studio has been a blast. Coming in, I had no expectations. I kind of knew what I was going in for, but it exceeded my expectations, especially when we had the chance to work with proper professional actors, breaking down scripts, which I had never done before this studio, giving them instructions, and seeing the actors perform what we had instructed.
E. For the major project, I worked with my brother, someone with whom I have always collaborated when creating media projects. It is always fun because we can be honest with one another and actually collaborate. He always gives me great ideas and sees things from a different angle. working on this short film was a family business; I had some help from my mother with the camera stuff, and she also chimed in with great ideas. I think for me, the one key takeaway about working collaboratively is all about listening to the people you are working with; you can have your own ideas or ways of doing certain things, but listening to others can be very beneficial and eye-opening especially when working on a film or a script like our final major project.
F. One of my favourite activities was in week 5 tutorials when we looked at character creation. We had to create a couple of characters that were born from answering a few questions. I think the adventure you end up going on when you start answering the questions is so interesting, and then you kind of keep expanding and expanding. Before you know it, you end up with a character with a history or a background that you might be able to relate to, or you get excited about and might want to explore more of the character you just created. ”When I write characters and situations and relationships, I try to sort of utilize what I know about the world, limited as it is, and what I hear from my friends and see with my relatives.” Charlie Kaufman. That is an interesting quote; when we try to create a new character, we tend to try to relate back to ourselves and what we know and experience. I feel like in every character we write, there’s a little bit of yourself in them.
We had to research a director, and I picked Martin Scorsese. He makes one of my favourite film genres, mafia/ mob films. Scorsese is one of the best directors who’s been in the game for decades, and doing research on him was an eye-opener. With the positive and safe environment he creates on set, the trust he has in his actors, and going back to collaborating topics, Scorsese is willing to listen to ideas. Of course, he has a script and an idea that he’s following, but when you hire talented actors like DeNiro and di Caprio, you have to have an open mind. someone like Alfred Hitchcock was the opposite of martin scorsese, he doesn’t like listening to anyone he wants to make movies the way he sees it in his head and that is it.