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                                  Filming ‘Roommates’

The entire semester was building to this. Fearing and dreading what was to come. I don’t lack confidence in what I make, but with Thanksgiving break interrupting the production cycle, I worried I wouldn’t be able to have enough time to film and edit everything. Despite the odds being against us, we accomplished our final films thankfully.

Casting was the second most stressful part as my lead dropped out mere days before filming. I never met the initial actor as (Hampton) as he came only as a recommendation. However, finals really made everything difficult for him to continue with the production. I messaged everyone I knew who could possibly be interested. I messaged supporting actor Maddie Shallan if she knew of anyone who’d be interested, recommending me Nick Witcoff and Henry Davies for both parts.

Having never met either before, I asked them to meet with me on a Tuesday. Depending on how they fit for the roles, we’d end up filming the following day, only to present the scene in Prod 200 on Thursday morning.

The feedback was definitely helpful after presenting but made me doubt the idea a lot as I was told by some that they couldn’t get any sense of the story. The doubts that people would be able to get the story had me adding lots of unnecessary voiceover in the intial cut I presented to the class.

When it came to permitting on campus, I had the hang of things. However, I wasn’t able to film at my house or on campus for the “party scene” due to my house being so far away and unable to film in a dorm due to Covid-19 regulations. Thankfully Samantha Helmtes allowed me to film in her yard but it led to me having to file a permit with FilmLA. When it came to filing it out, I was thankful to have Jessica Akpan to help me. Despite thoroughly filling it out, I was asked to reanswer 90 percent of what I already filled out in the permit which heavily confused me. I wasn’t able to call the woman from FilmLA back because she sent me the email just an hour prior to their offices closing. Over the weekend I emailed several others, trying to devise a plan but most of which never came through. All seemed lost until I cancelled my monday shoot and met with Jessica again on Monday (one day prior to filming). Thanks to her, we got a hold of FilmLA and secured the location.

Cancelling the shoot on Monday severely set me back to where I feared I wouldn’t be able to make the deadline. I hate asking for extensions but this was necessary as I feared I’d be only getting an hour's worth of sleep. Once notified I couldn’t get one, I rescheduled to film at 10pm on Wednesday (one day before the deadline). We filmed till about 12:30am, leaving me to edit until about 4am. Thankfully it wasn’t as long as the last two films. However, I mentally I was checked out and drained. It baffled me when I was chosen to screen it.

Attending the screening was more fun than I thought it would be. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to make it as I had to go home in Orange County for a few days. Dealing with my generalizd anxiety wasn’t easy either but once we sat in the theater, I was much more at ease. I’m thankful for all I learned and all the comments everyone left me with. A long and difficult semester payed off with this short being screened and it was worth it.

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Crewing On “All Worries”

When it came to filming as an extra hand on set, I was anxious as I hadn’t crewed on a student project since High School. So it was very fitting to have to work on the short “All Worries'', detailing the mental breakdown that lead actress, Rocky Jacobs, had to deal with alone. The short was led by Samantha Helmtes and the First AD and Producer was AnaMichelle Morejon.

I met at the SFTV building, where I was reintroduced to AnaMichelle and met our sound guy, Wesley Trisnadi. From there we were driven to a house, where our director (Sam) lived and would act as the character’s home. From there I participated in Grip work and lighting to prepare for a shower scene. This included directing light to the highest window in the house to brighten the space inside the home. For the remainder of the shoot I was in chanrge of slating each scene. I was truly terrified, finding it difficult to keep track of the scene number. Despite my lack of knowledge, I persevere with the help of AnaMichelle, who helped create a very kind and supportive environment on set.

The two held together a very professional production, with a schedule being maintained well for the first hour. The second half filming for the 12 hour shoot was extremely difficult. All of the shots were well thought out and we were ahead of schedule. Until we got towards the end of filming with “the montage”. What seemed like such a simple set of shots, weren’t really planned out, complicating what would’ve been a fine outcome, was more complicated than to be expected with the crew. In the process, our lighitng became more complciated, trying to block out any light into the bedroom in order to make it appear it was night. Except our clamps failed to stay due to wind and weather. Our director Sam attempted to rest the prop phones and clocks to be later at night. Except, it would n longer receive the text for the scene after being tampered with. The odds were against us all, but the crew preserved to make the best possible out of a 12 hour work day.

As a whole, the crew understood that this was a big learning experience for me, knowing I never crewed for an LMU production before, they were very helpful throughout the entire process.

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Film #2 Refection: True Believer’s

Every video I attempt to do, trys to top the other. However, Film #2 was far more challenging than expected. When it came to casting for the short, it was difficult on another level. The people I know on campus are very few. I know people in a friendly manner but to know them well enough to want to volunteer for several days of filming is quite difficult. My first actor was interested but dropped out, due to also being a Production 200 student. It wasn’t until one day before filming that I found Jack Coyer, a Production student who I met in my screenwriting class. I lucked out when asking him the day before our shoot. When it came to casting the hero, Nitrous, it was pretty simple due to meeting actress Kelly Bouslaiby during orientation week. She was thrilled to be a part of it and be a superhero that looked just like her.

Permitting is always my biggest weakness when it comes to production work. I’m always anxious that I fill out anything wrong in the slightrest. Fearing if I do it incorrectly that it would result in me being deducted points or even being failed in the class. Thankfully Jessica Akpan helped sit through with me and fill out all of the permits. Many of my questions were extremely repetitive for her, but I greatly appreciated her assistance as I was so anxious I’d fill them out incorrectly.

Shooting came much more easily but the real struggle came to the editing process. Having never edited as severe special effects before. I wanted to challenge myself but in the end, over extened myself because when it came time to do the voiceover, I wasn’t sure how much or how little I should’ve added.

Overall I am glad I made this my project. While the class reception was mixed it was something very personal to me that I was glad that I made it.

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Logline: 

A college student begins life on campus isolated with pressure from his father to be a successful lawyer. On his 20th birthday, he wishes he knew what his father was like in college, soon finding himself befriending his father from the 1990s at the age of 20.

Synopsis: 

Calvin’s adjustment college is not an easy transition, especially when you feel pressured by the idea of being one of many family members. He doesn’t really want to go to the university that he’s at but becomes pressured to, by his dad. After moving into his dorm on his 20th birthday, Calvin wishes he knew what his father was like in college. The next morning he wakes up, to his dad from the 1990s as his roommate. Throughout the first week of orientation, he learns more about his fathers past, gaining a new perspective and friendship with his father.

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Developing Film #2: Faster Than Speed of Light

There’s no bigger passion project I can think of, other than Nitrous. This comic has been in development since 8th grade from me. In 2016, I developed a comic called Birdguy, inspired by the fictional in film superhero, academy award winning film “Birdman”. 

After accomplishing the self publication in 2017, I decided to keep it up with another publication called “Nitrous”, a teenager who gained super speed from a freak accident. 

I was inspired to created these characters from the love of comics growing up. School was and always has been a struggle for me. It wasn’t until I got into comics, that the world made a lot more sense to me. 

For this film, I thought of all of my life changing events and this seems the most important in defining who I am. I thought, there’s no going back into who I am, without these characters I created. 

I’m hoping to achieve the same sense of wonder from the frame above in Birdman and the vision I got for these characters combined. In terms of framing, we want to film and edit this, just like a comic book. So that means, there’s a lot of shots to get, in order to formulate movement with images. Despite these difficulties, I think it’s possible embody a comic while keeping the narrative there. I don’t want to get too wrapped up in the comic book aspects to this, that we loose what makes the story so heartfelt.

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Film 1: Reflecting on The Audition

Limitations are aways set when making videos, shorts etc. However, this short was the most difficult in terms of limitations I’ve ever worked on. I have very minimal knowledge of sound on my own, but I knew that being in the enclosed space in my dorm room, would really present a difficult challenge of making the short engaging. 

Every shot had to be dynamic in order to achieve this goal, and if it wasn’t, it seemed as if would slow everything down more than what it already was. 

My biggest challenge besides editing and mixing audio was trimming down the video. Our ending was filled with lots of shots, and if I didn’t put enough of a fox on them, the significance would get lost. It ended up clocking at over the 2:30 mark by just 5 seconds, but it was the closest I could get to it without it being too short. 

When came to editing, I had multiple different shots of Grant (my main character/actor) playing music but different rifts/pieces that he came up with on the fly. Which resulted in him having to re-record all of the guitar playing in post. That’s why there’s such a lack of emphasis on his hands and the strings, as it would reveal he wasn’t actually playing the music in real time. 

Using grange band was difficult but thanks to Grant’s irate skills, he listened back to his own recording, piecing together just about everything to create the other instruments with objects. While I developed the idea, I wasn’t aware that what I envisioned was far more challenging that I imagined. Thanks to Grants skills, he pulled through with a pretty remarkable mix and ended up with a pretty strong video.

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For Short Film #2, my biggest life changing moment was when I started reading comic books. I’ve been reading them for over 10 years, starting in 2011. It was the popularity of superhero films such as “Captain America:The First Avenger” that lead me to going to my local comic shop. There’s a really surreal feeling you get when you’re immersed in the work of artists from as far back as the 1940s to present day. I remember buying back issues of “The Amazing Spider-Man” from the 1970s and 80s.

 What lead to me reading a few comic books, lead to me going to 3-4 comic book conventions a year. There, I was able to meet some of the greats who helped create the characters represented on the big screen

. Simply reading a comic was something that eventually lead to me writing and creating my own characters represented in my lookbook. While these may not seem like life changing events, comic books are a big part of who I am and helped shape me into the person I am today.

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1.  Fade in on our main character, he’s exhausted and frustrated from a long day.

2. Wide Shots are in pace to get a good scope of the character’s room.

 3. The close-up shot is of a character tweaking the song he’s working on (cutting to b-roll of the flyer for talent show).

4. Wide shot switching locations to bed.

5. Close up on guitar strings, his face gets increasingly more frustrated. ]

6. Out of frustration, he throws his guitar to the ground afterward

7. The character goes to washes face takes look in the mirror. 

8. He listens to the distracting sounds from earlier with inspiration.

9. Last shot (not dedicated to it, might change later), lighting transitions to character about to perform.

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Prod 200 | Creative Stresses

There’s a lot of pressure and stress we create on ourselves when creating films. Any form of art has that difficult challenge of feeling like you’re not worth it or incapable of it. I really want to emphasize that with this prompt for the short film.

My suite mate minors in music and is incredibly talented. So it seemed interesting to see how someone else overcomes creative blocks in their life. 

Having a character go from not being able to accomplish his goals with his instruments to accomplishing his goal. 

By being so limited to our dorms, I think there is an emotion and metal obstacle to overcome. I know we have to from point A to B and C but there is a legitimate physical obstacle to overcome for these characters. 

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Analyzing Rebooted

Now I am well aware this is over the time limit that Professor Pendharkar asked us to choose for our blogs this week. However, I have a very deep love and appreciation for this short, that I have to dive into it a lot more. 

Rebooted follows a Skeleton named Phil, an old stop motion relic of from a fictional film called “10,000 Sandals”. Despite Hollywood ditching practical effects for CGI, he’s still determined to re-spark his career. Time and time again he tries to audition for different roles as the monster he is, but no one wants to hire a practically animated character, as they don’t find his scary enough. He reaches his breaking point when he sees his a remake of “10,000 Sandals” is in production with CG sets and characters.

Director Michael Shanks explained the process bringing Phil to life. Noting that the skeleton was an actual stop motion puppet. Rather than taking the easy way out and animating the puppet to look stop motion, the filmmakers found it very important to stay true to their message and make something as authentic as possible.

The struggle for Phil is immense, mimicking what a lot of Hollywood  stories, talking about actors and their struggle to make it in the industry.

One film comes to mind that reminds me of Rebooted, being ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’. Both films center around main characters struggling with their careers, feeling as though they’re going to get nowhere. However, by the end of their stories, they rediscover what makes them a terrific “actor”. 

I find this shot of Phil’s burning to symbolize his self destructive behavior. By the time we meet him here, he attempts to destroy the studio and prevent his remake of 10,000 Sandals. It really represents how people feel about modern Hollywood, remaking and rebooting everything.

It’s self destructive behavior that we reject shallow remakes, yet go see them anyways. Technology is meant keep moving and evolving. However, we can’t keep looking to the past. Phil sees his plan as pointless. No matter how much he despises the remake with all his heart, he has to live with it.

By the end of the short, even though Phil is struggling for work, he manages to terrify a kid on the subway. At first he’s hurt to be seen as a monster. It isn’t until he ponders it, that he realizes he still has it. The spark of scariness never left him. Even though his career might be over, he’s optimistic that there is still work out there for him. 

Rebooted overall works as a short. It’s convey’s it’s ideals well with no dialogue. It could work as a feature if dialogue was allowed, along with adding more supporting characters. The passion put into this really shows with it’s animation.

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This photo was taken my Sophomore year of high school. I created my first comic book and was featured in the yearbook. I really enjoy the angle this shot was ten from. It helps to show how proud I am in the photo.

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