I'm an Asian with an Orange Mohawk. I really enjoy making films and production in general. Hopefully I'll move out to LA some day and try to make a name of myself.
Although I have not gone out to see this movie yet, on rottentomatoes.com, where they take critics from all around the country and give a percentage of how many of them rate a movie as good or bad, Drag Me to Hell is given a 94% with 134 positive reviews and only 9 negative reviews. I thought that this movie had no chance and was going to be terrible, based on the trailers and the overall premise of the movie. However, with this many critics rating it as positive, this has given me the incentive to actually go out and pay $10 to see this movie. Furthermore, with director Sam Raimi at the helm, I should've thought again considering he has done good work in the past such as the Spiderman trilogy and For Love of the Game. With how high the price is of tickets nowadays, you really have to pick and choose which movies to go out and see. So, I would say, based on the tomatometer go out and see this movie. I'll post a review once I see the movie. Also, I'll be posting a top 5 movies to see this summer.
So, my next up and coming short film production is called Doors of Life. It's a project for T351, the drama/storytelling project. The film is about a man named Frank that is a lazy and unmotivated man. He gets thrown into an alternate universe of a hallway of doors. A god-like man in a suit walks towards him and tells him that these doors are the paths that he could have taken. He ends up going into a number of these doors. Tune in later to see what happens.
My partner and I started writing the script today and it sounds like its going to turn out really good. We have some good ideas of interesting shots that we want, as well as the overall feel of the film. However, there are a lot of things that have to be thought out still. We may need some music, so if anyone composes music and can do it fast, then let me know. I'll tell you what we're looking for. Also, we're going to need some sound effects, so if anyone can help us with that, that would be great. More updates to come...
Here's a brand new video of mine. I made this for my T351 class for the art project. Pretty much the guidelines were... there weren't any. So, I decided to do a music video. The song is by a friend of mine who is the husband of the person that does my roommate's dreads (yeah, weird connection). His name is Luke Jones and is a professional musician. Check out his music over at his myspace... Dreamers of the Ghetto and Luke Jones Music.
The music video took roughly 8-9 hours to shoot and another 8-9 hours to edit. Overall the shoot went really well except for the first thing that happens on the set... Jesse breaks one of the props before we even had anything set up, but thankfully we fixed it and it looked fine. All in all I'm extremely happy with the way that the project turned out and I think that people are enjoying the video.
What I loved about this project is the different ideas that were put into the video. It all branched from the one idea of peoples' reasons for getting up in the morning. From here ideas were exploding through our minds of different shots and storylines to be used. One of my favorite shots is the close up (CU) of the face then the zoom out revealing the pillow falling and the main character is actually standing. This idea was thought of by Luke and further developed before we started shooting. I came up with the idea to go backwards instead of forwards because it gives the shot a different look and feel. This was also one of the hardest shots to get because of the complex blocking and camera movements. Because this shot ended up in reverse in the end, we had to shoot the shot backwards. We started with where Jesse was going to end up and then he would walk to the pillow. While this blocking is occuring, I'm controlling the camera where I have to pan and follow while zoom into his face. Furthermore, there is another person holding the pillow, getting ready to lift it up so it rests behind Jesse's head, while trying not to get in the shot. For each of the times that this type of shot happens, we had to shot about 7-10 takes.
Another shot that I LOVED was the final shot with Molly, the girlfriend, in the doorway surrounded by a white glow. I envisioned this ending from the start. But figuring out how to do it was the hard part. But, with a little thinking, it was actually quite simple. We set up a white sheet behind Molly (one end attached to a ceiling fan and someone holding the other end). Then we shined two omni lights onto the sheet. With the background fully lit, I opened the iris all the way to let in the most light possible. This allowed me to get the background to be all white and still have Molly lit and in focus.
Other than the production itself, pre-production was a MAJOR PAIN IN THE ASS!! I spent 6 hours running around Bloomington trying to gather props and scope locations. I went to Kroger, Bloomington Cat Vet, Chase Bank, IU Credit Union, Target, Telecom Building, Avatar's house, and some other places. The syringe and prop money were the toughest of all of the props to get a hold of. Thankfully the Bloomington Cat Vet supplied the syringe without a needle. So I mocked up a face syringe with plugging gum in the hole and sticking a paper clip into it so Jesse could actually put it against his skin without hurting himself. As for the prop money, let me just say... it is a lot harder to find prop money than you would think. Because I dont have hundreds of dollars just lying around in my bank account, another solution was needed. The first thought that came through my mind was, "Oh, I'll just print off a bunch of bills after scanning them into the computer." Yeah... this was another bump in the road. Apparently in Photoshop, you cant print off copied money because an error message comes up saying something like, your printer does not have authorization to print this. Seriously, this is crazy, but understandable. I wont say how I ended up doing it, because I might get arrested or something. Haha.
But with all projects, no matter how much shit happens, it's always worth it in the end to see a finished product the way that you imagined it.
Lastly, I have trouble knowing if people understand what the story is about or if it was clearly conveyed, so if you have any comments, please leave them here or message me sometime.
If you were wondering, the equipment that I used for the project was the Sony HVR-Z7U. This camera is GORGEOUS and is roughly $5000. I'll probably do a review of some sort of my reactions to the camera later on, so stay tuned.
So, I'm going to try this again. I've found that blogging is really hard to get started and keep up with and I've failed 2 times now. But, PERSISTENCE is KEY. So, if anyone reading this is interested with what I'm doing with my life, mainly in film and videos, then keep up with my blog. I'll also be posting about equipment, short films, reviews, top lists, movie news, etc. I'm going to attempt to post close to daily, but we'll see how that ends up going. Hope you all enjoy.
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