Wasted: Write Up

**This post should have been up much sooner, but I started it one day and never finished it until now**

Wasted is finally done after a week full of production and work. The finishing of Wasted signifies the end of my class. It really is a great feeling to be done of all projects and stress for a while. Although I haven't posted it on youtube yet, it will be up hopefully by tomorrow. I'm just trying to compress is to a decent size where the quality isn't hindered too much. Now on to my write up:

Wasted was a great project to work on. The idea for it is kind of based on a personal story, yes a little scary but not to the degree that Justin in the film went through. If you want to hear more about my story, come ask me sometime, I will just leave it at that. I was eagerly waiting to do this project from the start. It all started with an idea when I was sleeping. I woke up and thought, what if I made a film that had someone dreaming really boring things like waking up everyday and going to work, but his real life was insane and crazy. This then evolved to the addition of drugs into the mix. I then had to refine this idea with how I was going to tell the story. While in the car ride up to Chicago, Jesse and I discussed possibilities to how the story would be told and what would be seen. The bouncing back and forth from flashback to reality was the best idea we came up with.

Now, as for production... this was one HELL of a production considering the time I had to do it and the amount of work I needed to do. First off, I just got finished with Doors of Life on Monday the 8th and the project was due Wednesday the 17th. Although this may not look like a short period of time, I had to attend Poultry Days (an ultimate tournament) that weekend before it was due, so I was out of commission for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. But, during the production of Doors of Life, I had to write the script the week. So, immediately after, I have to scramble for actors and props and EVERYTHING! The child actor was the toughest person to find. I asked every person in Bloomington that I knew to ask their cousins, nephews, and just anyone if they knew a kid. Also, I didn't have a main actor until that Monday night. I convinced Luke to do it, even though he was helping my friend Alex to act in his project. Soooooo, on Tuesday the 9th, I had to start shooting a couple of scenes: The child flashback and teenager flashback. Thankfully, the teenagers that I used knew of a kid that was willing to do it, which was AWESOME. Everything during that shoot went really well, except that I forgot the shotgun mic and boom pole at the lab when I checked everything out. I go home, upload all of the footage and edit it until 4AM. This is when I decided that I wanted to have the film grainy look for the flashbacks and looked up a tutorial to do it. Here is what I used:

Creating that Old Film Look with Final Cut Studio 2

This article was EXTREMELY helpful and would recommend it to anyone that is wanting to do that look.

Next day, Wednesday the 10th. Another Party Scene... These are the scariest things to do when NOONE you know is in town. I contact people saying: Party scene, 10PM, then party afterwards. A total of 10 people showed up after calling people at 10PM. So, we don't shoot until 11-11:30ish. However, all of the shots went really fast and smoothly. The toughest part was trying to make the party seem like it was a party with 10 people. I think that it turned out pretty well considering the circumstances. So, another night up until 3AM editing.

Next day, Thursday the 11th. I scramble to get as many colorful things in my room such as the mushroom tapestry, all of the weird orange stuff I own (which if you know me is A LOT), the blue sequin jacket I wore for Halloween, etc. I had to shoot 5 scenes after 6:00 because thats when Luke got out of work. I told him that it would be around 3 hours to do. Boy was I wrong. It took a total of 5 hours shooting time with a 1 hour break for food. Again, this shoot went extremely smooth. No forgetting of the audio equipment. The toughest thing about these scenes was rearranging EVERY scene to look different. Thankfully the lighting helped with this. Also, doing this really helped me learn lighting scenes. Also, because of the little time I had to plan things out, I was thinking of shots on the fly. But oh well. I would just like to thank Luke at this time for putting on a GREAT show at the end of the movie with how CREEPY he was. Nick (the bunny) and I were amazed at how freaking CRAZY he looked and sounded. Yes, I go home, upload all 5 scenes and edit until 5AM.

Friday the 12th. This is when I went into the lab and recorded all of the Bunny voices for the movie. This was pretty fun considering I was in the lab by myself and tweaking all of the sounds.

So the weekend comes and nothing happens for the movie. But I have 8/10 of the movie done because of all of the work I put into the movie the previous week.

Monday the 15th. This day is the last day of shooting (or so I think). Because I was splitting my actor with Alex, I only had Luke from 3-6 because Luke had work at 6. I thought that this would be plenty of time, but I thought wrong. I was rushing around to 5 different locations for the graduation and tripping flashbacks. We went to a middle school, my house for 2 scenes, the arboretum, and a parking garage. Because I rushed through all of these scenes, I forgot that Luke had to change clothes for when he is on the phone because its supposed to be time passed, or else it would seem like he called Krysta right after the trip. Despite this, I edit again to 5AM. But I think the movie is completely done.

Tuesday the 16th. I bring my project into class and show Jim, my professor. He is blown away but has some very insightful comments. First, he suggests that the pacing in the graduation and party scenes were a little long. Second, the flashbacks should be gritty looking like in Saw. Third, he said the same thing that I was thinking with the phone call scene and that it seemed too soon that this would happen. Sooooo, although Jim said that it would be fine if I left that scene the way it was and after telling Luke that he was done, I decided to ask him to shoot the scene over. This was for the best though. It really does make much more sense this way. So, another night up until 4AM, but the project was finally done and looks AMAZING.

The last thing that I want to talk about is the audio in the movie. Without the audio, the movie would not nearly be as good as it is. I found music at Freeplaymusic.com and sound effects from the network library at the lab as well as freesound.org These sites are AMAZING for anyone looking for sounds and music. Editing the sound was just as time consuming as editing the video, but the overall mood and feel of the movie is set with the music and sounds.

Overall, despite the hours that I put into this project and my blood and sweat, the project turned out AMAZING and I couldn't have done anything better. I hope you all enjoyed this video as much as I have.

Lastly, if you can, try and spot the subliminal bunnies in each flashback scene. :) Also, try and find the two shadows that are in the film that arent supposed to be. (Hint: one is a boom mic and the other is a camera shadow)