Filming Final Shots- Quick Thinking

     This one's about the day I was able to go downtown with my family and record my little sister's part.

    We went down to the city, where I could get a lot of buildings and lights within my shots, and as we were walking, we came across a little metro. Immediately, inspiration struck. Yes, yet another change. I collected my shots of the city as well as the final pieces starring my sister.

    The moment I saw the train and heard the automated announcements that came with it, I knew this would be the perfect fit for the film. This is because I had been struggling this whole time to attain an environment that could adhere well to both the genre of my film and its plot, but having the final sequence revolve around the main character boarding the train is the perfect puzzle piece of a solution. 

    As for genre, not only would the train obviously suggest an urban environment, but this specific station was dimly lit, not very occupied, and complete with flickering overhead lights (needless to say, we did not stay there very long). On top of that, this specific platform at this specific stop on the route had a greenish tinge to the lighting that screamed cyberpunk almost as audibly as I did after excitedly getting my last shot of a train pulling out.

    As for the story, my original plan was to have our main character in a busy cityscape, to better establish the setting and vibe of the film within the opening, but it didn't make much sense plot-wise to cut to my character in a seemingly random or unrecognizable place. I wanted viewers to be able to understand that she was leaving, but just having her walk out of frame in the middle of a city made that less likely to be understood. Instead, I thought I'd find somewhere where she could do her part in front of a hotel, since her father clearly tells her to go to a hotel earlier in the opening, and have her leave from there so there's a better sense of continuity. However, this was proving a difficult task as I didn't know of any hotels around me that I could take my sister to in a timely manner that were visually appealing enough and fit the urban vibe. This metro was a clear, in-your-face way to show that the character is setting out on her journey while keeping the aesthetic in tact.

    To make matters even better, the sounds in the metro station would make my opening's overall sound flow seamlessly with the music. I had always been a little worried about the cut off point in the song I am using, since it isn't at a very neat part of the music, but since I'll be using the train, I'll be able to fade out from the music while the ambiance of the station goes on, leaving only the announcement that the train is leaving, and completing the soundscape in a satisfying manner.

    Pretty great how that worked out so quickly.

What Even Is Color Grading

     Recently I've looked at many, many, many, many YouTube videos on the coloring process. 

    I feel like I have the color correction part of things down, but the grading? I'm still sorta winging it. At this point I have a much better understanding of things like color curves, histograms, and how the tools at my disposal work, but it's still tough to know exactly how to manipulate them to get the results I want.

    Below are a few screenshots from when I was messing around with different settings on the first clip. They don't look all that different but I was trying out different methods and tools to get to the same vibe.

    Through this process I also learned about an effect I can use called "glow." I knew that would definitely come in handy for my cityscapes later on. 

Shot Two?

     You may have noticed that shot two of my storyboard is blank. It's not exactly meant to be that way. What I wanted to do there was a slow zooming shot of the city in a bad state, I just wasn't sure how I'd do it or if it would make it into the final film.

    I could have found a location in real life to shoot, but I didn't know of any that would look dystopic enough,

    I could have made it in miniature like I had seen many other low budget cyberpunk films do throughout my research, but that would tale a lot of time out of my project timeline for a two second clip.

    Funnily enough, another solution came to me while I was at a virtual computer science fair this weekend. A friend who was also attending the event had told me that she was currently in a workshop about 3d modeling software, and I was bored in my own workshop, so I left to join her and thought:

"YOOOOOO. i could make a city with this"

    It was then that I opened my eyes to blender, which I had kind of heard of before, but I knew nothing of it other than the fact that it was something the real deal film kids used and it was probably a painful amount of work to operate. It turns out neither of those assumptions were wrong, BUT this YouTube video lays out a pretty quick and painless way for me to create a simple cityscape I can use for shot two, and I can probably add a bit more detail in parts and make multiple shots out of it (which might be nice in case I want to add a cutaway during any iffy moments in my dad's Grammy deserving performance).

    All I need to hope is that my computer can handle the software.

Technical Difficulties

     So a few days ago my personal computer ran out of battery. Okay, no big deal, until I went to plug it in.

    You see, I was well aware that my charger was on its last leg of life; it had been that way for a decent while, but it wasn't too bad, and those things are ridiculously expensive for me to buy on my own so I had been settling with the all too familiar it-only-works-at-a-certain-angle situation. 

    Finally, it had given out on me. I know it sounds like I should have been expecting this, but I was not. It hadn't even gotten to the point where I had to give it a few taps to get started yet, it was gone much too soon. I tried (for the second time) messing with the magnets on the inside and taping it back up, but still no light. Ok.

    

    After going through the stages of grief in record time, I ordered a new charger on Amazon.

    Anyway, all this to say that I couldn't work on any editing for the better part of the week. Truly tragic, but I'll try to catch up over the break.

Changes

     This week, we had our second group meetings, and I ended up making a change to my plans after mine. 

    I still haven't filmed my last few shots featuring my sister, because I realized that the location I had set, although dystopic-looking enough, didn't bring in a whole lot of the cyber element to the film since it was kind of in the middle of nowhere. Since then, I've looked around at hotels, and even got the chance to see a really creepy abandoned house that I would've loved to film something in, but nothing yet had really peaked my interest in being something that would work well for this movie. After all, a setting or cityscape with a certain vibe is almost always a huge part of a cyberpunk film. In the end, I decided instead to shoot my little sisters parts in a more downtown area to where I am, which meant having to wait a bit longer to get the footage, but I think it'll be worth it.

Day One of Editing

     Today was my first day editing my film. 

    I spent a lot of time mostly just syncing up the sound of the song and my fathers voice correctly and making sure they matched up with the video. I also learned a good way to transfer fies from my phone to my computer, which sounds very entry level, but it made a big difference. In all honesty, up until this point, I had always just emailed files to myself if I had to, but since these videos were of much higher quality than usual, they were too big to send over like that. I realized that I could transfer the videos directly from my phone to my computer by using iTunes on my laptop, and I will probably never go back. Another day, another valuable lesson learned.

Copyright

 

 

   I am in fact *married* to the idea of using this song in my film, so I did some research on copyright law.

I read this article, and watched this YouTube video, to get an idea of what the process of acquiring permission would be and how it all works. 

Then, I went to ascap.com to search for the song's owners in the database.

For good measure, I will also be including the head of Film and TV at Glassnote Entertainment Group in my list of people to contact. After some digging, I found that all but Grumpy Beard Music, which had an email provided, are under the Universal Music Publishing group, so I looked for a coordinator of Film and TV there as well (it was harder than I expected). 

Now knowing where to go, I gathered contact information and drafted some messages to send that would properly request the appropriate permissions per the article I had read previously. I also read this to know exactly what to put in my request.

(example of one of the emails I drafted)

Then, it was time to send them out and wait for a response, keeping in mind that I may have to follow up later on to make sure that my request was received.

Overall, although copyright is a daunting thing that many people tend to overlook, I learned today that it isn't as scary as it seems, and this was a valuable learning experience for future pursuits.

P.S. If anyone I emailed is here reading this, hi! 

Second day of filming

     

    On the second day of filming, I got shot 1 of my dad as well as a few angles on the flashback shot. I think the most important part of this experience was the set-up I used for my dad's monologue, since I've never put much thought into my equipment while filming something other than my phone and its built-in mic until recently.

    I once again made-do with what I had as best as I could, so it went like this:

• Dad was sitting in his chair at the head of the table
• I dimmed the overhead light from the chandelier for a better vibe
• I used my school computer on full brightness with a YouTube video of a bright blue screen playing as lighting from below
• In my Dad's lap, out of frame, he held my old USB microphone
• That microphone was connected to my personal computer, which sat on another chair out of frame to record his audio.
• Sidenote: I learned how to record voice-over straight into my editing software for this and saved it as a separate file to edit and add into the project file later on. I did this because I didn't have any designated audio software, but maybe I'll look into some later if I need more editing features
• 
  
• 
  
  

• I was in front of the computer, leaning over the table with my phone in hand to capture video from the angle I needed.

    It was cool to do something all on my own with a more "professional" set up, just with what I had. I hope to get more legitimate equipment some day in the future.

Costume Design

     In this post, I'm going to explain my costume choices.

    First off: my dad's character. This was the first one I came up with. I put him in reading glasses because it would make sense for his character to need them to look at screens and documents, etc. I chose to have him wear a white undershirt and have his black uniform visibly hanging from a coat rack in the background to show that he has quite literally been stripped of his power, the white of his tank top representing his humanity and the black of the jacket symbolizing his bastardized government position.

    For the government agent, I was going to do a fully black outfit to show that she's been fully consumed by her power, nothing left but an agent of corruption. Then, I thought to myself that some of the best stories I've seen haven't been the ones to depersonalize their antagonist so completely. I realized that I didn't want her to be so one-dimensional. I gave her a white shirt and black suit, just like my dad, so that the only difference between these two people was their choice to keep the jacket on.

   

    I placed my little sister in shorts a knee brace, and sneakers, because those were most practical for the activities her character would be doing on the run. I gave her a white tank top again as a symbol of her humanity, but I specifically used a tank top to reflect her father character and show the apple not falling far from the tree, since she'll be continuing his legacy. The bag and jacket are what really bring in the genre, as cyberpunk characters often dress in techwear, a faction of fashion that values efficiency and functionality above all else. That means pockets, pockets, zippers, holsters, and more pockets. I didn't have any giant cargo items or chest rigs, so I opted for a big messenger bag and jacket with plenty of storage space. I'm quite satisfied with how it turned out. It creates a distinguishable silhouette and a cartoon-character-esque recognizability for her.

First Day of Filming

   A few days ago I completed my first day of filming. I got together with my older sister to complete shots 4 through 9. 

    In preparation, I watched this YouTube video to make sure I was using my camera software to its full potential. I also thought up some back-up alterations to the shot list incase anything didn't work out while filming.

    

    We started  off with shot 4, which I changed a bit to minimize the possibility of shaky movement and get a more emphasized focus pull. Instead of doing a backwards moving shot of my sister that would continue until she left the room, I opted for something I thought would look cleaner and probably more visually appealing. I began filming from the beginning and pulled out to reveal her at the desk. Then, I switched angles to where she was distinctly in the background and the important props were much closer in the foreground. I filmed her leaving the room, then achieved a more pronounced focus pull to the props after she had left the frame.

    Shots 5-9 would also have to be slightly altered because the situation had changed and I figured it wouldn't be a good idea for us to try to light a controlled fire unsupervised, so I improvised to create an *implication* of fire.

    

    I split shot 5 into separate shots because the steps into my backyard made it almost impossible to get smooth handheld movement all the way through. Instead, I did a tracking shot of my sister walking to the backyard door, inserted shot 8 to be from her walking out the door and beginning to light the lighter, then going into the closeup that would have been the end of shot 5.

    Shot 6 was omitted. To create the lighting in shot 7, I at first opted to play a fireplace YouTube video on my computer and hold it out of frame. However, while it was bright and pretty realistic-looking, it wasn't realistic enough for me. We ended up lighting a piece of paper on fire and holding it out of frame. Shot 9 remained the same.

    Overall, I was super happy with how this day turned out. We finished so quickly and every issue that arose met a swift fix because I had planned for several contingencies.

Final Storyboard

 

    Here's the final storyboard for my project. Later on I'll be going through my shot list and making sure I know how I'm going to get every shot before I start getting the real things with my actors. Until then, stay tuned.