And We are Digital.... Finally!

So, this past week in class we were finally, after weeks of miscommunication, missing cameras, missing cords to the missing cameras, group members being M.I.A., and many other mishaps, we were able to digitize our film! It was the first time I had seen all of the footage we had filmed, and it was very exciting to get to see all of of hard work thus far on screen, even if it was only on a tiny camera monitor. I had forgotten just how many takes we had shot of the same scenes. There was at least a full sixty seconds of just my legs walking down stairs over and over again. Watching that footage was... well, awkward would be putting it lightly. I told our editor Bryan to make sure to darken the footage a little bit to reduce the glare on my white legs.

Also, in reviewing the footage, I realized just how fortunate we were to have found such an amazing actor to star in our film. Justin was so willing to try anything and added so much life to the character and had us all rolling at all times and almost in tears a few. He willingly jumped over a moving vehicle, hurdled over several benches and small walls, as well as push past countless innocent bystanders across campus. He was more than happy to strip down to his boxers for the opening scene and was not hesitant to let a few choice words go every once in a while. Okay, maybe more than every once in a while. He even wore the same outfit for about five days straight during filming.

While watching the footage, I saw things that I hadn't noticed while filming. There were some shots that I had been skeptical of at first that turned out very impressively, and there were others that I had high hopes for that were kind of flops. I noticed when some one in the background was looking straight at the camera, or the same extra popped up in too different shots on two different locations. Oops. I suppose we didn't listen too closely to the lesson on having some one as the set designer to watch for some of these things. Luckily, we still have editing which can take care of many of these problems. I can't wait to see the film after Bryan has worked his magic on it.

So, funny story, as I am working on this blog I get a facebook message from Bryan that he has begun to try to edit the footage that we finally had gotten digitized and there in nothing there. Well, something is there, a white screen, but that is it. No dramatic race across campus, no awkward white legs marching down stairs, no hurdling over cars or benches, or cursing in boxers. Nothing. So, its back to Eric to try to get this problem fixed so Bryan can edit the visual part of our movie, so I can then go back and edit the audio part of it by adding dramatic music and sound effects as well as attempting figure out how to enhance our already recorded audio. Let's just hope we can get all of this done by next Thursday!

Teamwork

Filming this movie was an absolute blast! We all collaborated so well it was as if we had all worked together before. Our director Imran had a great vision for how he wanted the shots to look and what feel the movie should have. He had things well planned and storyboarded so we were able to utilize them as a valuable tool to guide our shots and keep us on track. We were also able to easily improvise and let our creativity flow with ideas that weren’t necessarily planned for, and I think this helped our film have a good balance of creative freedom and organization.
Jennie, the cameraman (woman rather) was also invaluable to the process. She was not only very knowledgeable of the camera and also very daring. She was willing to shoot take after take of the same scene or even the tiniest moment to get it just right. She climbed on top of desks, hung out of windows, and ran around after our actor chasing him down the side walk and walk and down stairs. She was a true trooper. She also worked very hard to work around everyone’s scheduling conflicts. Jennie made herself as available as a busy college student possibly could and sacrificed a lot for the sake of our team and our film.
Well, to this point , Bryan and I have not made our big contributions to this project—not for the sake of laziness, but rather the project simply has not reached the point at which our jobs kick in. Bryan should begin editing tonight or tomorrow and should finish sometime this weekend. Then the footage will come to me to add in the sound effects, music, and any voiceovers or rerecordings if needed. These next two steps will be what take the raw footage that contains our ideas and turn it into a finished work. over the next few days we will be working, under the creative supervision of our director, along with input and ideas of our entire team, to polish the rough scenes into a work of art for all to enjoy. I am excited to see what Bryan puts together. I know once I watch it a few times, the ideas will start flowing. I hope the finished product comes together like we envisioned. If the people watching it enjoy it half as much as I have enjoyed making it, it will be well worth the effort.

Editing

I could sucker punch technology right in the face at this moment. Let me tell you a cute little story of our incredible project that had so much time, planning, creativity, and effort turned into... well, a blank, white wall of nothing but a little blue spinning circle on my moniter. So, as you might have read in previous blog posts, just how excited I am... I was, for this film. Our team collaborted to come up with a great story line, we storyboarded shots well, found the perfect actor, and had great ethusiasm and work ethic for this project. Filming went off without a glich other than a few minor scheduling conflicts, tripods in the backgrounds of scenes, falling down the stairs once or twice, forgetting to turn the camera off, or back on, etc. When we watched all of the footage we had gather, we were all really pleased with the way our vision had translated to film, or at least I know I was. We knew with the right editing, it could be quite a little film. Brian and I were ready to get working right after spring break, as we were the first group finished with our footage. The only thing that stood in our way of achieving our vision of taking the labors of our team and translating them beautifully into a cinematic masterpiece was digitizing.


Oh, digitizing. I curse the day you were born... er, invented? So, for a month straight, that is the week we got from spring break to this past Thursday, we have been trying to digitize our footage so we can get to work and have our project finished before dreaded finals week. Well, guess what this week is, oh, just finals week-- the most feared week of any undergrad that sneaks up at the end of every semester. The week when you spend more time in Club Torreyson than you do your own room, you have not slept or showered in a time period that most would probably consider inappropriate, and you wish more than anything someone would invent a way to intervienously infuse your bloodstream with Starbucks. But, back on topic, it seemed as though every week when we would try to digitize, either other teams had the cameras, or a cord was missing, or Eric was missing, or something happened, or rather didn't happen to make our film digitized. SO finally, Last thursday, Eric spent forever digitizing our footage, because of course ours would have problems and be difficult after having such smooth sailing up until this point. ANyway, we got the footage, Brian edited it, and we found that there were roughly ten minutes worth of footage missing-- pretty vital footage such as our opening shot. Eric helped us out and got us the footage at midnight on Tuesday night.

Through a series of unfortunate events, I ended up becoming the editor for our film. Though I was on the irritated side that I had to stay up all night the night before working on it when I still had a final the next day and hadn't slept more than six hours this week, I actually enjoyed myself. I really liked the editing process, until I was going on about hour ten of editing when my computer started to go haywire! It had been slow all night and would freeze every ten minutes or so, and I would have to either just wait it out or restart it altogether, but about 5:00 this morning it stopped. Oh no, it didn't stop freezing up. It was kind enough to crash my computer, corrupting all of the film files, andrefusing to even play back the progress I had made thus far. Yes, yes. Twelve hours of editing (middle of the night editing, at that) down the virtual drain. Really? Really AVS, you want to quit on me when I am so close to finishing a project that my team and I have working on for about two months now? You are just such a sweetheart. I appreciate all of your cooperation. So... after numerous desperate attempts at salvaging anything we could, we salaged... nothing. Nothing. Wait, in case you just missed it, I said nothing. We have nothing to show for our work this semester other than our thoughts in these blogs. Oh, there's technology again for you. Let me guess, this blog would save or post either. That would be just my luck today, huh?

The Player

The Player was a definite improvement from the previous film. The Player was directed by Robert Altman in 1992, written by Micheal Tolkin. It stars Tim Robbins as Griffin Mill, a studio executive who is being blackmailed by a dejected writer. Mill ends up killing a writer, who is not the one blackmailing him as it turns out. He ends up meeting the dead writer's girlfriend and they fall for each other, as Mill somehow avoids charges for the murder. It is a thriller with many qualities that lend themselves to film noir, including the very dark plot, overall sense of hopelessness, and especially Griffin Mill himself as the antihero. The story leaves us as the audience feeling very confused and uncomfortable. We are torn between wanting what is right and wanting the protagonist (and considering Mill I use this term very loosely) to get away with it.

One thing about the film that I thought was particularly interesting was the cinematography. Robert Altman was incredibly creative and clever with the way in which he used the camera to portray his satire of the industry. The first shot of this film is a long shot, a very long shot, talking about long shots. Clever huh? It is following Griffin Mill through the Hollywood lot showing what he does and who he is. The shot ends through a window to his office with him hearing movie pitches. It gives the view the feeling that they are actually there walking through the lot and simply peeking in on a conversation. It is a very effective way to grab the audiences' attention and affection from the get go. Another shot that was noticeable was the extreme close up on Griffin Mill's eyes showing the intense fear he had. It was almost a very cliché shot, however, it was executed so well by Altman and used so strategically that is somehow worked quite well.

One thing we have been discussing all semester in class is the theme within movies. All of the films that we have watched have been about the movie making industry. The Player in particular says something very strong about the business. Altman uses this movie to highlight the predictability of the business. It will never stick to reality, but will always end up compromising to appeal to the masses. Altman seems to think that studio executives and directors will always cop out and make safe, predictable movies where the hero gets the girl and there is a happy ending, which is not only the case in the movie Griffin pitched, but also in The Player itself. Mill lives happily ever after with his stolen girlfriend in a house with a white picket fence and gets off scot-free for a murder, plus his movie is a hit. Altman made a movie about movies and the struggle of the writers who write them and the producers who produce them. He seems to almost mock the audience saying that we could not accept reality in a movie ending but our feelings must be handled with care.