Final Blog

I wasn't sure what to expect when I first arrived in 201. I had some production experience in my previous school and had a little bit of a head start. But that was short lived. I had never been exposed - haha get it - to learning the actual settings on the camera as in fstops and the like so it was a little confusing at first. The technical aspects of filmmaking have been my biggest obstacle to this point in my new career choice. I need to learn a lot more as I go but this class was a good learning experience. The way it has effected my way of thinking is simple, I need to learn more, work harder and become more involved. Creatively I feel like I'm on the right path and I just need to let go more often and allow ideas to work their magic on their own without getting nervous about a grade.

As far as what I learned about filmmaking, that question deserves a long answer than I'm guessing you have time to read so I'll nutshell it. I learned that previsualizations are paramount to a proper shoot. Time is always against you and people need to do their job as titled. The technical aspects of filmmaking are so extensive that it will take me many years to become as good as I hope to be. Sound and light make more of a difference in the outcome of a film than anyone will know outside of filmmakers. More shots, more shots, more shots. And I learned that no matter how much you plan for, you didn't plan enough!  

Wild Card cew position.

For the wild card project I was assigned as a Director of Photography and Lead Editor. I am trying to get back into a creative frame of mind as I've somehow become consumed with the technical aspects of shooting. I understand that that is an important aspect of filmmaking but my creativity has taken a back seat to "filling in the blanks" of filmmaking and not been a primary focus. So with this project I hope to be more creative with my shooting style. I plan to mix many of the styles I've been learning from all types of films in order to make the film visually appealing and to keep it moving in an exciting manner. As a group we want to use filters and lighting to enhance dream-like sequences and close-ups to stress the importance of the action in the film. Our goal overall is to indicate to the viewer that our female lead is wandering in and out of reality as she is being abused. In the edit it will at times become quick cuts and jarring images that will lead to calm and serene settings as our female lead is removing herself from her current situation and into her dream state. So I am hoping to utilize extreme shooting styles from quick close-ups and hand held shots, to wide, calm, dreamy sequences.    

Editing Sound Project

The edit on our sound project proved to be a little more challenging than I had anticipated. I have edited hundreds of hours of video and other than the usual "getting used" to mistakes and trials, it was usually a bit easier than an open, experimental style film that I have never done before. Not having a specific storyline to follow and shot list with script, it was a little more evasive of an edit than a story with continuity and specific dialogue. The sounds were numerous and the options were a little overwhelming, but once it became evident that the "flow" of the edit would take on it's own shape it was a little easier. Sound poses many obstacles for me but I am growing to become much more interested in it than I had been previously. The edit was a success and I feel that my team put together a pretty solid project.

Sound Recording

Sound recording seemed to begin as a task and quickly evolved into a full blown audio smorgasbord! I started slowly with a few ambient sounds of the outdoors and moved to some household items. But soon after I was excited to being making items take on new sounds. I began to explore new ways to breath new life in to objects that never really contributed itself to my world of sound and had them squeeking, scraping and thumping in many ways. I made a shower curtain sound like a record scratching, I made a dinner plate sound like something from outer space and my guitar strings were in pain. There are so many different sounds that any item can create that we miss them constantly. We take advantage of nearly everything around us and bypass what they can contribute to one of our most overlooked senses. Sound is so overbearing that we actually miss it. Sure we hear horns, sirens, doors closing, iPods blasting in our ears, and people talking, but we often miss the bees buzzing, the wind through the screen, the breathing of the person close to you, tall grass blowing in the breeze, water trickling over rocks and even an ant carrying something ten times its size walking over dry leaves - if you listen closely you can hear it crackle the leaves. We take sound for granted and I try to remember to close my eyes every day and just listen.    

Editing Master Shot Sequence

The edit to the master shot sequence was quite easy initially. I put together a quick edit of the shoot the night of the shoot and it looked pretty good. We needed to grab a few shots for cut-aways and an establishing shot, but we captured everything we hoped to get for the bulk of the short. Time was against us as we all work and and many other projects to pay attention to, but we got the edit finalized. At first syncing up the sound was priority but went pretty easily as we marked our spots and could sync without much trouble. As we did get all of the shots on our list for main story to hold true, continuity was no issue. I was able to add the establishing shot and a couple of cut-aways and we were fortunate enough shoot just enough footage with plenty of angles to make some good cuts and keep the story moving forward. After I finished the full story with synced sound and adding music it was time for color correction. I am somewhat new to color grading and found it to be a bit time consuming as the light outdoors changes frequently and matching each shot is essential. I didn't do too much other than working with some balance, but mostly worked with exposure and contrast. Editing is time consuming but quite rewarding when you see the final product.  

Previsualization

At the onset of the second project idea I was excited to finally get the opportunity to make a narrative. As with any project it is a time consuming and a painstaking task. But with film, and working with a group, much has to come together in order for it to be a success. In my past I usually worked solo and had little knowledge as to previsualization and all of the issues that arise in preplanning. Normally I would write the script, get the actors, secure the locations and shoot. I had my share of obstacles and overcame them, but had I known more about the "previ's" I may have encountered less. Using previsualization was an incredibly helpful approach to preparing for the shoot. Although it was quite foreign to me, after getting the hang of it it was helpful. The shooting script I think came in most helpful as it was right on the script as we shot and each scene was laid out for us. The shot list was useful as a guide to keep us on track. As we know nothing is set in stone and we did have to vary from the original previ's as we went along, but found the shoot to be easier and less time consuming that we had more information to keep us on track. The overhead was used a little less as we shot on the move mostly and only had three scenes where the characters were stationary. Overall previsualization is a solid and proven method that will be useful every time I shoot.  

Master Shot Sequence

As Director of the Master Shot Sequence for our second project I was excited to see that the script was a "generic" script in which we could go in any direction. As I thought about what could be done with the story and had numerous ideas bounce around in my head. I was hoping to do something that others hadn't done previously but need to be conscious enough that I wouldn't take on too much of a project and leave the short in peril. When our team decided that Sam and Lydia were going to act in the short I had envisioned them as a young couple who are on a leisurely stroll in a downtown setting. From this point I wanted to come up with something at the end of the film that would be completely unexpected that might add a bit of humor to the storyline. What better way to that than to give guns to a happy couple with a stroller and pay homage to the greats of Bonnie and Clyde and Natural born Killers, with less violence and blood of course. As a group we all seemed pretty happy with the idea and began work immediately.    

Reflections, and I don't mean mirrors.

Shooting vox-pops is a challenging and often times rewarding endeavor. When a person holding a camera approaches a stranger it's likely that we'll receive a negative response. But when the person is accepting and involved with your topic, it's a refreshing and rewarding experience. For our vox-pops the people that were engaging brought with them a colorful tone to their responses to our questions and that made for much better, and entertaining footage. I found that having a topic such as ours (drag queens) brought out the best in our random interviews. They were both delighted and intrigued to answer our questions. I found that the further out a question is from a persons view of “normal” the better the response would be. The vox-pop portion of the Documentary Interview was as interesting as the subject matter itself. I had done only one of these before and would be happy to do another in the future as the raw nature in which people can express themselves on camera was very refreshing and humorous. 

Production Schedule for Doc Interview

Date	Production Schedule for Chic Scaparo
02/21/14	Scene Description	Location	Scene #	Cast	D/N	INT/EXT
	Dressing room interview	Ibiza Night Club		Scott Sellars	N	INT
	Evening shoot 8pm – 10:30pm
	Ibiza Dance floor
	Performance 10:30-10:45
02/24/14	Edit performance footage and interview	Home
	6:00 pm – 10:30 pm

Blog numero tres.

Our documentary interview plan is to shoot a drag queen at Ibiza Night Club in downtown Wilmington. We will be getting one of the performers to speak on camera and we'll capture the performance and attempt to get the essence of their personality. It's important to me that we make a story out the interview with a beginning, middle and an end. I believe that making our interviewee look as good as possible is the only way to do this project. I hope to show the more fun side of a drag queen's life and open eyes of others that they are just having fun. I hope to set a light hearted tone and focus mainly upon what lead up to them getting into the business of being a drag queen. Many people in the world frown upon this lifestyle and need to be exposed to the happiness and normalcy that is associated with a drag queen lifestyle.

Tentative questions:

1. When did you first do drag?
2. What was your influence?
3. How many shows have you done?
4. What was your favorite show?
5. Do you want to drag for many more years?
6. What do your parents think?
7. What do your friends think?
8. Are you in a relationship and if so what does your partner think?
9. What do you like most aboout being in drag?
10. Do you recommend that everyone try it?

Vox pops will take place in the Front St. area of Downtown Wilmington.

1. What do you think about drag queens?
2. Do you know any personally?
3. Would you dress in drag?

It is my hope that our subject is fun, funny, expressive and above all, transparent. The more they want to tell the better the interview. Many people shy away once the camera is turned on and I would hope we get lucky with a good subject.

Blog #3 Uncertain

Our group was planning on an interview and I am still waiting to hear back from the other three in regards to my objective. Wilmington was closed on Wednesday Feb. 12 and we had planned on trying to do something then.

Shaving and Two Kinds of Lighting

This morning when I was shaving, I used the top light in the bathroom as my main illumination and it was a bit dimmer than the vanity lights attached to the mirror in front of me. While shaving I noticed that the incandescent light had washed the room in a yellow-orange hue and cast a shadow across the right side of my face. This lighting was ineffective for the task at hand. I would have undoubtedly missed slicing a few whiskers from the darker side of my face due to the shadowing caused by the location of the main light. Although the ceiling mounted incandescent is easier on the eyes in regards to brightness, it is a less superior light as compared to the vanity lights mounted on the mirror in front of me. So I quickly changed light sources and went with the much brighter, and energy efficient fluorescent light. This particular lighting filled the room with a silvery-white hue and was much brighter. There were no shadows cast on my face as the light was directly front of me. I did squint at times while performing this task, but was able to finish with out any issues due to ample lighting.      

Diffused Lighting

When my group and I gathered for our first assignment, "Documentary Portrait", it was a very cold and overcast day. Some members of the group seemed to be concerned with what could be considered poor lighting as the sun was no where to bee seen. I mentioned that for this particular project, shooting a structure and not a person, it would work very well. The positives of this natural diffused lighting is that we wouldn't get any hard edges or heavy contrasts, and the light would be consistent and "spread out" evenly, leaving no issues with having to work around the light. If we were to shoot a portrait of a person then we would want to have a bit more directionality to highlight certain areas of our subjects facial features. But as we were using a house and its surroundings, the diffused lighting from heavy cloud cover, balanced the light evenly for us and allowed our group to have some good lighting for our Documentary Portrait.    

A Little Something For My Film Studies Class

My first film was made as a student project in my last year as a Digital Filmmaking student at Herkimer County Community College in New York. This semester was the first time I had picked up a video camera and was introduced to any type of video editing software. The camera used was a tape based, prosumer style camera, and the editing was done on Avid. It was truly a pleasurable experience for me as I finally felt the satisfaction of seeing an idea evolve into an on screen movie. A year after that I created a 24 minute short film titled Tooth & Bieber that was shot on a $200 budget with amateur actors and was shot in numerous locations in Upstate New York. I decided to spend time working in hopes of tightening up my "chops" but found that you either need to go where the work is and hope, or go back to school, work hard as hell, and hope some more. 


With the little production experience I have, I hope to learn more in regards to the jargon and principals of filmmaking as well becoming highly skilled in the techniques it takes to create high quality films. I also hope to learn much more through collaborating with fellow filmmakers as ideas should be shared and discussed; this often times breeds greater results in the overall outcome of any creative outlet. 


In 10 years I plan on being an intricate part of a team that will win the Academy award for Best picture, Best Screenplay, Best Director and Best Cinematography. This feat cannot be accomplished alone, so I want to learn as much as possible at UNCW and meet serious filmmakers that want to work hard and shoot for the stars. I also want to give back to eager film students and others like me who have worked hard in this business only to be shut out time and time again. The film business is a difficult one to get into and I have had very few people reach back to me when I reached out to them, I want to change that for others and give back as much as I can. 

After graduating from high school I spent the better part of 20 years traveling the country and looking around as much as possible. I do not like the grass growing under my feet just yet - there is much to be seen. I want to laugh, a lot. We should all laugh at least 20 tomes a day. Sometimes I forget though, and I find that I'm too serious or overthinking how to print a document in the library or wondering if my professors will be big and mean, and intimidate me into complete and utter failure. Then I realize that I should just relax and find something to laugh about.