Work Log

Monday: Watching Presentations

I learned that sometimes plot can be too vague on what has happened for it to be understood. In Zach's case here, he ended up not telling enough of what was happening over to the audience for us to understand what the plot was. Our teacher suggested that this kind of thing isn't as horrible to fix than how it could seem. Even simply adding one or two extra voiced lines would have made things make so much more sense in understanding the story being told, so this was helpful to take away from.
Zach mentioned in his post here as well that he used his own personal phone for shots in his film. This was useful for his POV shots that he used, as having a camera up to his face would be too shaky, to awkward, and more difficult to have fluid, realistic movements due to the weight of the camera. As well, he used different camera lens angles from his phone, allowing for more variety in his shots as well.
Zach did an amazing job in transitioning from real life shots to screen recordings. I've seen these kinds of cuts before, but Zach really did an exceptional job with it. What he told me was that he would have the audio be his tool for this. He had audio from the real life shots continue playing from both the IRL shot and had it continue on into the screen recording to keep a sense of fluid continuity.

Just in general as well, Zach had interesting kinds of shots in his film as well. One thing that I always want to keep in mind when I am making my films is that I need to have things to keep the audience captivated and interested in my films. Interesting shots are an easy way to accomplish this without taking away from the plot. Zach accomplishes this with both his POV shots that offer cool perspective and his very nice looking bird's eye view shot at his computer as well.

One thing that Enzo mentioned was how difficult it was to do lighting during the night time for films. Personally, I had never considered this issue before, but Enzo brought up a good point. Cameras can have a very difficult time getting good footage when the lighting is poor. What Enzo did to combat this is having flashlights on near the cast at all times right out of frame. This was a good idea and one I will implement in the future if I need to.
As well, Enzo's experiences with the cast serve as a good reminder that I really need to keep in mind the schedules of those around me. While they might be very willing to help and want to, that doesn't mean that they are available every day that not only I am but the rest of the cast is. My experiences with the film I am doing right now as well as Enzo's in this serve as a good reminder of needing to plan out recording dates fairly out ahead of time.

Another logistics thing to take away from Enzo's production is that of the conditions outside. As I am writing this, I am waiting to film the next day in temperatures that will probably be very cold. With that, while I was considering weather in terms of precipitation, I had not considered how uncomfortable it will be to simply be outside in the cold. Keeping in mind location and weather is something I need to plan better around.

The use of capitalization in screenplays was something that was given a lot more focus in Aliyah's work here than I have in my own. She uses it with also props and actions that need to get emphasis in the screen time. As well, she capitalizes camera movements that she things are important to include in the shots. For me, I've only done capitalizations with the first introduction of a character in my scenes, but now I could maybe do more with emphasis in my stuff.
Aliyah also included parts in her scrips that were for transitions. On the right of her screen plays, there are mentions of new parts of the scene or going into the scene. I have not done nor seen this before, so it was interesting to note.
One thing that I will definitely do from here on out is cut off my dialogues with actions now. Before, I would have a character's dialogue succeed a total description of what happens while he is talking, which makes timing and pacing confusing. However, if I were to just cut off what my character is saying with an action or description of something, then it would make a lot more sense and be a lot easier.