Costuming

    As filming approaches, I am beginning to think about the details that often go unnoticed but are crucial to make our story believable. Costumes are a crucial aspect in filmmaking to properly portray time period, age, style, mood, etc. 

    The costuming for this piece will be simple as we are dressing teenagers to live in our current generation. The people we are dressing are teenagers living in our current generation, so half of the battle is pretty much done. My vision for costumes is simple- I want to instruct our cast to wear something casual, but not distracting. I want to keep it to mainly solid colors and possibly non-busy patterns. 

    Best of all, our cast are people who act in real life. They understand what it is to dress as a character, so Jack and I are going to give them some lee way with their costume choices. 

Some general inspiration for the cast:

 

The More Specific:

    The more prevalent costumes in this piece come from the opening scene in the diner. I’m going to have Ember and Ben dressed in something a bit more fancy, building the viewer’s belief that this was a nice, planned outing. 

    I was thinking red for Ember. Red can portray passion: wether it be in romance or rage. For her, this duality works perfectly. 

A simple, yet elegant red dress for Ember

    For Ben, something more cool-toned but still dressed up would work. Possibly a blue dress shirt. Blue is less intense than red, making for a good contrast between him and Ember, the clearly more fierce one. 

Ben's look. Way less intense, keeping it classy.

Besides those two, the costuming vision remains easy and simple for everyone else. Thank goodness.

Equipment

     On the topic of technical equipment for shooting this short film, Jack and I are keeping it pretty simple. We will be using my camera to shoot, which is a pretty standard DSLR camera I've used for many projects in the past. We will also, of course, be using a tripod to assist with keeping the camera stable and helping the final product to look more professionally put together. 

My camera and tripod.. and me

    Something also very useful about my camera is that it's not super advanced. It's a pretty basic picture/video camera with minimal function and a screen to see what you are shooting. This is helpful as there are sometimes throughout this process that Jack and I are not gonna be the ones behind the camera and we will have a friend help out in shooting some shots. It's minimal, but when that is needed, my camera is easy to adapt to.

What you would see if you were behind the camera

    Just before I go, I thought i'd share the quality were looking at for my camera. Simple, but definitely does the job. Funny enough, all 3 people in this frame are casted in my project. 

Shot by yours truly

From left to right, that's Gianna, Connor, and Skyler (Nicole, Christian, Humphrey). 

Not bad, right? :)

Lighting

Dropping some lighting knowledge...

    Lighting is one of the most important elements in creating a mood in a short film. It can set the tone, create depth, and evoke emotion in the viewer. Lighting choices can help to create a specific mood, such as suspense, romance, or drama, and can also highlight specific elements in a scene, such as a character's face or a particular object.

     For example, low-key lighting with strong contrasts between light and shadow can create a sense of mystery, while high-key lighting with even, diffused light can create a sense of optimism or innocence. The color of the light can also have an impact on the mood, with warm colors like orange and yellow evoking feelings of warmth and comfort, and cool colors like blue and green creating a sense of calmness or sadness.

     In addition to setting the mood, lighting can also help to convey information to the viewer, such as the time of day or the location of a scene. For example, natural daylight or warm artificial light can suggest a daytime scene, while cool blue light or harsh fluorescent light can suggest a nighttime or industrial setting.

My film choices...

    Using low-key warm lighting (naturally provided by the restaurant we are filming at) for our opening diner scene can create a sense of tension and even sparks of romance while still pushing the comforting aura of a diner. In addition, the low-key lighting with strong contrasts between light and shadow can create a sense of tension, suggesting that something may be brewing beneath the surface.

    The contrast between the warm colors and the low-key lighting can also create a sense of intimacy between characters, emphasizing the sparks of romance that may be present. This lighting choice can help to create a sense of anticipation and excitement in the viewer, drawing them in and making them curious about what might happen next.

    For the "plan scene," where the mood is more set by dialogue rather than lighting aspects, using high key lighting can help to portray focus. High-key lighting with even, diffused light can create a sense of optimism or innocence, which is fitting for a scene where characters are discussing a plan of action. By using this lighting, the focus can be on the dialogue and the actions of the characters as well, as this is where we see out characters play out on their true intentions.

My current to-do list:

• LIGHTS :      done!
• CAMERA :   up next...
• ACTION :     eventually!

Music Music Music

    Our concept for music in the film is a main set-up of our genre fake-out. Amber selects a romantic tune on the jukebox which sets the scene for her to have an outburst against her apparent past-lover. 

    The song I envisioned when planning out this scene was "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" by Frankie Valli because of its sweet feeling, but rising beat in it's chorus. Due to its popularity and ownership, usage of this song wouldn't be legal for this piece, but I can use it's basis to find something else I like. 

    I thought of finding public domain romance songs, but I then settled on the idea of using an instrumental for an easier watch to display a hectic conversation over a lovely strung together set of acoustics. 

    Last year when searching for music, I found an amazing royalty-free music website called Uppbeat.

    It has thousands of music choices for every genre and occasion. So all i'll need is a couple of hours to spend recklessly on Uppbeat until I find the right track. 

* BLOG POST INTERMISSION WHILE I SEARCH. And search. And search... and... *

MUSIC BATTLE! 

After a long search, I have found two tracks I like. Here are the links to both-

1. "Vintage Vibrations"

2. "Slowtown"

I'll finalize music before filming and update the blog when I pick. :)

Print Component Research

     In class this Wednesday, we learned about the last component of our project: the print component. For short film, Jack and I have to create a postcard that we would hypothetically hand out at festivals. Mrs. Stoklosa showed many examples and taught us about conventions of the typical postcard. I've started formulating ideas for my own, but I need to hold off until filming to gather pictures from our shots to base our postcard off of. That way, we gain the most consistent look between our film and postcard.

In the mean time, I researched other examples in order to analyze and draw inspiration for my own piece.

Research examples:

     In this film postcard, the subjects are placed on the left third. Not only does this leave room for text on the right side, but creates a more appealing view to the eye. The main titles, the film title and the main credit, are in red. This draws emphasis on these pieces of information and also sets up some aspects of color theory. The color red could be used to portray the film's genre, which appears to be a horror or drama. There is also a tagline displayed under the title, giving the consumer a hint to the content of the movie. I wasn't positive of the genre from the red text alone, but the word "haunt" in the tagline is another hint towards horror.

     This postcard has inspired me to settle on 1 color for the main text, our title, and keep a simple color for the less important text. I think this concept looks really put together on this post card. Also, I hadn't even thought of a tagline prior, but I think it's what brings this postcard together. So, I will be s sure to come up with and include a tagline on my postcard.

     In this postcard, the darkness of the background is the biggest factor. It displays drama and disconnect between the subjects shown. The shadows also serve the same dulled-relationship feeling. The mature font also does a nice job to portray a more serious film. I like how the title is below the film credit rather than above. It probably means the filmmaker is well-known. Then, the awards displayed in the middle serve as a nice way to give the film proper praise insight to first time viewers. 

     The disconnect shown by the two characters is what inspires me the most here. I think the placement is really well done and I want to try to accomplish a similar feeling in my post card. I think this placement rather than off to one third of the frame is best for my genre.

Script: Thinking Deeper

     As Jack and I continue to develop our script, I try to stress the importance of intention behind all dialogue. With this, we continue to build a shaky dynamic between Ember and Ben in order to make the angst portrayed in the diner scene fall into place. 

    Were writing this piece backwards- with the diner scene being completed first and the planning to follow for best control of how and why our characters should interact with each other.

    Take this extract, for example. This is where we first introduce a conflict between Ember and Ben. Ember thinks the plan is unrealistic and Ben can't find a reason she's even there. There are a few details within this scene that took extra thought to emphasize the most realistic aspects of our piece:

• Ember has the stage direction "Not afraid".  Most characters at this planned meet-up see Ben as above them and as leader, she doesn't. She's not even in the group, how would she know who is "alpha"?
• Ben's instant defense builds his character as stubborn and weak. His "I'm sorry?" shows he's going in with motive first and brains second. He doesn't know it yet, but Ember is the only reason the plan has a possibility to be successful.
• The stage direction "He pauses and looks around the table" is also an indicator of Ben's weakness. He makes a bold move and instantly searches for approval. Do other's give into this?

    As we continue to develop the script, we understand the value of the detail- even within stage direction. Character intention is specifically important in a scene like this: introducing everyone's relationship with each other, their role in the heist, and how they feel about the heist. It's a lot to keep track of, so every line has to be full of intention- even if it feels like its "filler". 

Filming Locations

 There are two locations our film takes place in. Here are our plans for both:

1. THE DINER

• Gianna, who plays Nicole in our cast works at a diner called Lucille's. Yes, in real life. I no longer work there, but I used to work there for about 7 months over a year ago. So, with Gianna's current employment and my connections there, we are pretty much cleared to use Lucilles as a filming location for the diner scene of our film. It has a retro-family style feeling which works well to not only set a nice scene for somewhere that would have a jukebox, but a nice cafe that would have a nice vibe to disrupt via distraction.

An inside view of Lucille's.

2. THE PLAN MEET SPOT

• This location is not hard to pick. It is a typical teenager meet spot, hosted by Jack's character. Since it just works out, we will most likely be using Jack's actual house for filming. It's lit well due to it's window placement, and it's a pretty open space. I like the open space aspect to show how the people involved aren't really super enthused to be there. They were just gathered. Some can be sitting but the open space give them room to move around. 

Jack's home