Preproduction: Film Going to state

Pre production

Aim: To show the struggles of being a runner, injuries, and daily training.

Contact: Aaron Jones (Aka: super runner) Is going to state to compete after making it through CCS.

Interview questions: How has running shaped your lifestyle and your experiences as an individual?
What have you accomplished as a runner, that you are proud of.?
What experiences have made you desire to go into cross country? Family lineage perhaps?
How do you prepare for a race?
What do you clear in your mind or what do you do mentally to prepare for the race?
When you run how do you feel, does it relieve stress, what do you feel?
This is the last race of your senior year how do you feel?

General flow:

The beginning we will build Aaron’s character as being a relaxed individual, sort of the average joe, yet when it comes to running he does things that make him unique. Show the change in persona of Aaron on race day. Also show the injury that he has been coping with and the precautions that he has to deal with. Then we will show him after the race and show his emotions and how he feels he did?

Shot list:

Close ups of Aaron along with background to show his environment . I will get shots of him training for the race practicing. Photos from the year’s cross country program along with times. B-roll of running will be used. use voice over the piece. on pictures.

script:

Basically the entire piece will Aaron talking and the only text will be used to establish context on Aaron , like general things like his age and location (San Bruno) . Also where the race will be held.
Opening: motion opener, Establishing Aaron as the main focus of our topic and the central theme of our film as documenting Aaron’s life as a runner.

Closing:

Will finish with Aaron’s final words on how he felt he did this year and his opinion on that race being his last, or just the beginning.

Short documentary blog post: True life I'm rehabing my injury

1. Narrative theme

The narrative theme of True life: I'm rehabbing my injury, focuses on the build up and characterization of the individuals being focused on in the Topic selected. It also focuses upon the different individuals dilemas presented to them, from the typical way of life. The narration in this show is limited to that of the individuals themselves and text giving a little background (etc location). Also the series focuses on this idea of experiencing the problems of another individual and essentially the experience that comes with seeing anothers way of life. Narrative themes are usually incorporated throughout the show and some themes being Fallin

2. Camera work

The camera work is all handheld, which allows more versality on the shots that encompass the short film. Also camera shots are used to portray the actions and also character emotions. Emotions by the snapshot to the left showing Mason rehabbing from a torn ligament and the use of such a low camera shot to me conveyed the emotion he was feeling, depicting him as reaching an all time low in accomplishing his dream and his career as a basketball player. Also the camera work is used to depict the struggles of the individuals being focused on in the film.

3. Editing and sound design

Throughout the film, it seems as though the camera man or director asks questions to the individuals to give an in depth view of the person and then the question is edited out of the film

it creates the illlusion of the people talking about themselves. This tactic also provides good commentary on the part of the individuals and flows well. Also in the editing the inclusion of photos allow background for the people being followed. Most of the photos used in this episode of true life, characterize the individuals as being "dedicated" by which their lives revolve around sports even when they were little. This also provides a certain atmosphere by including photos in the edit creating tension and an "all or nothing" mentality from these people, that is seen only in a minute of film. Also there was no sound design well at least throughout the entire show. This creates tension and also allows the individuals to create the mood for the audience rather than the music which is played in the background. This concept of having no music allows a very biographical mood in the show rather than a cheesy reality T.V. show. Looking back at the idea of Music being almost nonexistent gives great insight into the production and conveying of messages feelings to the audience.

Baraka Film blog

The film Baraka was awe inspiring in the shots alone and the symbolic interpretations that I saw in numerous shots taken. With pun intended, the first shot of this film was better than anything I had ever done in film class, either that symbolizes my work ethic or the extremely high level of shot execution and geographic exhibition of nature that this film displayed. I think it is the extremely difficult shots that supposedly took 13 months to take and traveling to 24 countries. The idea of nature being awe inspiring has always had that effect upon me, however the scale of this films awe registered an 11 out of 10. 12 out of 10 is awarded if i actually get to go to any of these places displayed in the film. This concept of Awe inspiring to me is different to relatively every person. The indigenous of these places who are used to such cultural environments would see our civilization and be completely awe struck as i am merely witnessing their own cultures and environments. So, alien their "world's" seem that I have been inspired to travel, to my hearts content until witnessing with my own eyes, these places of beauty. (opinion).

This mountain shot alone is something for the beginning of a mythical movie,...ahem (lord of the rings) perhaps or maybe something in a nature magazine never known to exist to the typical suburban kid. These shots have meaning in their brilliance and shot difficulty, yet the story line of this movie is still unclear. A possible reason is that we did not watch the entire film, thus an interweaved idea in the film from the beginning to the end could not have been percieved. However,

I can see the prevalence of the idea of cultural experience and diversity in differing countries around the world. Thus, I have concluded that the idea of this film was to inform the individual of such differing cultural experiences, so as to shock the individual watching the film as well as opening their minds to the possibilities. From most of these shots a feeling of detachement can be felt as though you are an omniscient being observing the people of these countries and these cultures as though you are supposed to pass judgement upon the orthodox or the ordain objects and methods from our own society.

This is a rock garden in kyoto Japan, intriguing to me in its shape and its paterns as well as its methods of creating such "art" or cultural distinction. This film shows views being shattered through out the world. The shots are often wide mixed with close ups, but there is no shot displaying something insignificant. Shots often have foreground, midground and background giving such depth to shots that it's ability to make your jaw drop unprecedented in society today.
these shots also have music associated with them, though my memory is enriched by the depth of each shots beauty. The sense I felt when listening to the music was that of natural connotations of music in such environments, which enable the feeling of being apart of something much more than yourself. This idea of peace and unorthodox ways of using natural music in my suburban lifestyle suprised me. Though the suprise is associated with the beauty of the shots and the atmosphere surrounding the cultures and natural music that enhances them.

Epic failure Film Critique

A) Rationale: The Film that we made was about a basketball player that took the game a little to far by falling in love with the ball that he played with. Inevitably the Character, sees the ball as his way of defeating anyone who plays against him in the sport, treating the ball with human human qualities trying to seduce the ball into letting him win against the opposing character in the film. We tried to make the film comedic but the execution on one of the versions was not as coherent in the plot and design as another. (And pretty harsh criticism, though it was deserved in a way)

B) Commentary

1. Some of my areas of responsibility involved me being the cinematographer of the piece. Also I did a lot of the work on the setting up of the beginning scenes where Zafir and Vince are playing each other on the basketball court. The rest of the shots I am not proud of because the locations that were chosen were based on whims and on the issue of time which plagued our 2 man team since the beginning. However, I enjoyed some of the background that I was able to capture in my piece especially with foreground, midground, background in the basketball court shot, setting the scene as being urban, instead of rural. Also I was responsible for the initial story and script design though we changed the approved script and story line throughout shooting, due to the issue of timing.
2. Some factors that arose while being the cinematographer involved the lighting at specific scenes. This was due to scheduling difficulties on all members who had matters to attend to on days where scheduling was originally set. This led to dim shots that were off balance in color and lighting difficulties due to the time on different days. Also the locations of certain shots were used in the spontaneous developement of ideas that could (improve) the plot and that would make our film better, but obviously that backfired and sent us and our film crashing down like a world war 2 fighter. Anyways, being the cinematographer I tried to use lots of establishing shots and zoom shots in the piece as well as having long shots that establish the character and then the scene as in Amelie. Some other problems that I encountered being a writer of the script was the idea of not having a set plan of dialogue yet because we were unsure on whether we wanted the ball to have a voice for itself and Zafir speaking to the ball as a person.
3.Since we did not get shots that were perfect in color temperature or in setting as well, I tried to place filters over some of the parts. However, looking back at the significant differences in color, we were pressed for time due to our poor planning, from excessive fooling around since my partners were my friends and the organization of shots was not the best. Therefore, fixing this problem in the future, I will not use Zafir or Vince bolla as any of my casting or partners because I really enjoy this class and I dislike having such a terrible grade when I know I can make better films than this and be proud of my work instead of hiding under my jacket when viewing the film. Another problem of the film that I had to address in my role as the cinemetogropher was the issue of lighting in the piece, obviously most of the lighting shots were not perfect, but they could have been much worse, given the time our group had in developing and shooting the scenes. Also, I acted as a mediator in the group when things started to get out of hand or when individuals were getting bored and wanted to do something else. Basically, I had to force some people at times to continue on with the film so we could get it done as the light gradually faded, my desire to be apart of the group faded as well.
4.Some problems that arose from the film as a whole was the acting choice. We thought that having (vince) as our actor would make our film Funny yet he stole the show and our film died a horrible uncomedic death. Also looking back at the day of showing our film, there was a lot of tension being that the Western Baptist church came to our school to protest the Laramie project and since Zafir's edit had some, "outtakes" which I am not proud of, we deserved a lot of the criticism that we got. Also the audio was off for all of our shots making editing strenuous which, I remebered was probably the inconsistent use of the same cameras in the shooting of individual scenes as well as the mics that we used. Also when we were shooting at Allen there was apparently an afterschool daycare that was playing on the courts the same time that we were shooting our scenes which made us, have to void a lot of shots and audio. Also, on a major day of shooting the camera died on us and we were forced to resume the following day which resulted in a different color temperature and thus, a film which looks a lot worse than it could have been. However, it was our fault, so we can't really say anything.
5.We were not able to fix our problems because we were pressed for time. One being our acting choice which was terrible beyond belief, yet available whenever we needed him. yet he did not take any of our shots seriously and the performance as seen in the edit was all that I could muster from him (vince). Some problems that I tried to address in our piece was the lighting because a lot of our shots were taken at different times making the effect of viewing a clean cut or action less realistic. So I tried to use color correction to make some of the scenes seem as flawless as they were going to get for the amount of time that we had and the quality of the shots that we had taken. When dealing with the children on the playground as stated earlier we had to void a lot of our audio and some shots where kids got in the way of our footage. However, we tried to wait for the children to go inside to resume shooting, yet the color temperature was a little off, thus, filters. Also we had Viince bolla as an actor and I tried to get realistic shots from him however, when he was able to give me a shot that seemed like it deserved to be in the film Zafir couldn't stop laughing because it seemed so unusual, for VINCE to be trying.
6. I am not going to lie, but this film was absolutely terrible in every aspect and individual that I worked with. I am not going to work with the same individuals again because my grade has fallen and when making such films it is wise to not do it with your friends because everything seems to take longer and becomes more of a joke. We found ourselves in disarray at multiple points during the shooting which made my work and our project a lot harder to receive a grade worthy of our original desired outlook. Some aspects of the film that I enjoyed were, some of the shots that I did with the zooming in and out on the individuals face to give background to the scene and to me added another element to the film playing with the zoom. Some things that I thought were quite fun to play around with was the magical appearance of the ball in the places, which was funny to us in the initial ideas behind the film. Some shots could have been edit and cut better to preserve continuity and make our film seem much more fluid. Also some of our acting was just terrible and we need to have better actors because we were not cutting it when it came to some of our expression. Also there was rarely a scene where we were not joking around and we had to put a lot of those scenes in our film, because there were no other scenes that could encapuslate specific ideas that we wanted to portray.

Words: 1615