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)

Doors of Life: Write Up

Ahhhhhhhhh. Thats a breath of fresh air. After finishing this project, I really had to do one of those. The planning and production of this project was soooooo immense. This project started a couple of weeks ago when I had to hand in a proposal for a drama/storytelling project. So, the night before I had to drive up to Chicago for Machine tryouts, I woke up out of my sleep and wrote down on a piece of paper, doors of fantasies. This was the original idea, just one thought that a hallway of doors that led you to your fantasies. But on the car ride up to Chicago, Jesse and I had a long discussion on the upcoming films that I was going to do, which included Weightless, Doors of Life, and my last project that I have to shoot this week Wasted. Although we didn't talk as much about Doors of Life, we decided that we had to change fantasies to just real life situations. So, on this car ride, I wrote up a pretty complete treatment of the project. Here's the treatment:

Overview and Treatment:
Have you ever wondered what could have been if you decided to do something different? This story tells of the possibilities that could have been if you chose a different path in life. The main value and lesson that will be learned through the film is the immensity of your decision-making. Your life could change drastically with only one decision. Furthermore, it gives you a glimpse of what dedication and hard work can do for you in the long run.


The story begins with a man that has wasted his life away by lying on the couch, smoking weed, and watching TV all day. He looks extremely depressed and has no motivation to do anything. He goes to a door in his house as if it was a normal day, but gets sucked into an alternate dimension.

The alternate dimension consists of a hallway with many doors on the left and right and an exit door at the end of the hall. A man appears in the hallway at the other end and starts walking towards the protagonist. The protagonist asks, “Where am I?” The man looks at him with a grin on his face and explains that he is in the hallway to the doors of life. He explains to the protagonist that each door reveals the other direction that he could have taken if he decided differently. Furthermore, he tells the protagonist that if at any time he wants to leave, just walk down to the door that says exit. The man walks away as the protagonist is yelling questions at him.

The protagonist is left alone in the empty, deserted hallway. Nothing can be heard except for the ambience. He starts walking towards the exit, but is intrigued by the label on the first door: weed. He looks back and forth at the door and the exit, but decides to go into the door labeled weed. This transports the protagonist to a flashback of his first time being passed a joint/bowl. He is hesitating and the crowd that he is with is peer pressuring him to do it. After a moment of deliberation, he decides to just pass the joint. The crowd sighs and is unsatisfied. He decides to leave the party and go home. He is in a college dorm and decides to hit the books and start studying. A mini montage of him studying and saying no to going out and drinking and him graduating occurs. Cut to the protagonist coming out of the “weed” door.

The protagonist is extremely intrigued by the doors now and starts walking down the hall looking for more interesting doors. He finds one that says, “_____.” This door ends in the protagonist dying some way.

The protagonist comes out of the door and is frantically looking for another door because he is so frightened of what happened in the last door. He finds peace in a door that is labeled, “love.” The scene cuts to him and his girlfriend in college. They are talking about the plans for the future and what the next step is for them. The protagonist is talking about dropping out because he can’t handle the pressures and intensity of college. But his girlfriend is telling him to stay and she’ll help him along the way. He keeps disagreeing with her. But his girlfriend keeps insisting and starts talking about how they can both graduate together and move out to New York City and start a life together. The protagonist is extremely angry, but can see the purity that is in the girlfriend’s eye. He can see that she really means it and that she may actually be able to help him. Cut to a montage of the relationship getting closer and tighter. Also, the two graduate and leave for NYC.

The protagonist comes out of the door and is depressed because this has to end because he is at the end of the hallway. The only door left is the exit door. He reluctantly goes through the door and ends up in a nice apartment, where everything is different. A voice from the other room calls for him. He looks around and goes towards the voice. The voice is the girlfriend of the last door. She asks him, “What’s wrong?” because he is obviously crying and was in pain. The protagonist replies, “Nothing, everything is perfect.”

Well, the story was pretty thought out, but things needed to be changed and decided on. So, in class we had to pitch our ideas to the class and the top 4 would get chosen. And as you know, mine was chosen. I don't actually remember when the birth scene was decided or thought up, but I do remember that this would be amazing if we could pull it off. So, when writing the script with my partners, we decided that this would have to be the first door that he enters, which opened up a dilemma for us. We have the drug scene which ends up with him passing and becoming successful and the love scene which has him becoming successful. So, because I thought that it made more sense that we had at least one of the doors end with him failing and dying, we made that the drugs door.

OK, so thats everything that happened before we had to gather anything together. After my project was chosen and the script was written, I had to figure out the 10+ locations that we needed to shoot at, the complete prop list, a cast of at least 2 major characters and 9 smaller roles, and a shooting schedule. Like the other projects in this class, we have a week to do everything. Gathering all of the props took 3 hours and looking for a hallway that was suitable for our needs took about 3 hours too. As for actual production, we shot around 3 hours on wed, 3 hours on thurs, and 3 hours on fri. The best parts about the shoots were as follows:

1. We went to the psychology building and broke down this entire hallway. There were about 15 posters on the walls, 10 chairs in the hallway, and trashcans in the hallway.
2. There were only 2 doors that were open and unlocked in the hallway and only one end of the hallway with a door. We had to manage to keep continuity the entire time while shooting the ends of the hallways from the same side. Also, figuring out which way Frank would go in and come out of each door because the 2 doors that were open were on the same side. Lastly, we had to have Frank and another person in the room that he walked into so the door wouldn't lock.
3. I got to longboard with a steadycam down the hall.
4. For the apartment scene, Jesse had to smoke a bong for the first scene. So, because we are so smart, we decided to do this scene first. When the most important scene comes up where he finally sees Jenna in the apartment and realizes his life has completely changed, he comes in with a HUGE grin on his face after we told him he has to be confused at first and then extremely happy when he sees her. (probably my favorite memory of the entire shoot)
5. The party scene was a fun set up and my first time shooting a complete scene in POV. Thankfully, I could direct people while doing it, since we didnt use the sound.
6. The Birth scene... many of you are probably wondering how we did this. So, here's how we did it: There was a coffee table that Jess laid down on. The camera was set up behind her and a a little higher than her so we couldn't see her. Then we placed a construction garbage bag where her vagina would be with two people on the sides pulling it and stretching it out. The doctor was placed behind the garbage bag. We set up a white sheet behind the doctor and shined a light on it to keep the background completely white. So, as this is all happening, I zoom into the hole. Lastly, the audio was all done in post-production. And there you have it... Birth.

Finally, the editing process was actually extremely long for this project. I probably edited about 20 hours over the weekend. But, all of this hard work and stressing was WELL WORTH IT! I am EXTREMELY happy with the way that this project turned out. I hope all of you enjoyed it too.

And... That's a Wrap!

Tattoo Artist: Colin McClain Write Up

Overall, this project went pretty smoothly through production and post-production. However, it was during pre-production where it fell apart. I never would have thought that getting an interview story would be so hard in the planning stages. But things happen that you never expect. So, my original plan was to go to the WonderLab and interview a person over there in a high position and talk about the history, exhibits, children dynamic, learning, and things of those nature. However, after e-mailing the advertising manager, I get an e-mail back saying I have to go by their guidelines because they are a small company and that the only way that they'll do business is if they can use it in the future. OK, sure that's fine. But they wanted us to shoot 4 hours on tues, 2 hours on wed, and 2 hours on friday for like a 2-3 min feature. Totally ridiculous. Sooooo, after all of this, I have no idea what I'm going to do. Thankfully, I was going over to Luke and Lauren's place (the artist of Weightless) to show them the music video for Weightless. They came up with the genius idea of doing an interview with Colin McClain. So, I contact him and get a response to come in and talk about when we can do it. We set up appointments for the weekend, BUT... he never shows. So, the project is due tuesday and we have NOTHING! We end up having to shoot an interview and b-roll all on monday and edit it all on monday and tuesday morning. Although it was stressful getting all of this together, all in all, I am happy with the way that the project turned out and my professor says that the video is ready for broadcast. After this project and other projects in the past, I feel that if you put your mind to something, it'll work out in the end.

Weightless

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.

Hope you all enjoy the video!!!