3D experience

I had fun with the 3D film for class. Although I don't have any experience shooting 3D it was fun to see a ghetto version of how they do it in Hollywood.  Our prompt was to make a sea monster porno / commercial. Our idea was to create a Godzilla-like environment where the monster could walk through and destroy a few buildings. He would then find a building and start having sex with it (the monster would have a raging hard-on). Then after banging the building the monster would drink a giant beer that randomly appears. After finishing the beer the monster would fall asleep due to exhaustion.

I think what I enjoyed the most about the assignment was designing the sets. I'm not really a production designer and don't have much experience with that but it was fun creating a set completely out of cardboard. Creating the sets of out cardboard really reminded me of the movie, The Science of Sleep, which had dream sequences where certain things were made out of cardboard or similar material. We created a city backdrop and put that up high so that it looked like the city stretched on and on. For our set we made a bunch of buildings out of cardboard and colored in windows. We also made the entire costume out of cardboard. We made a head with a tongue sticking out and we also made eyes that kind of stick out. I made a 4 foot long tail which was attached to a belt-like piece. Chris made the wiener and I went out and spray painted it along with the spikes on the tail and back of the body.

We had a good time shooting the project. Amy was on the cameras, Chris was the sea monster, and I was a gaffer/2nd AC/whatever else we needed.  We had fairly simple lighting set-ups and we also had pretty simple camera placements. What we really focused on the most was the set and costume of the monster. The simplicity of creating something 3D was surprising to me since I figured there was a bit more to it (and I'm sure there is when you cross over into the professional 3D filmmaking world) but knowing that the cameras just needed to be placed correctly and we had to edit it together in after effects was simple enough. Overall it was a good time and I got to learn the basics for shooting a 3D movie.

Rough Theatre

I think independent film making relates to this article extremely well. Making a film on a low budget is definitely a type of rough theatre since it is a group of people who share the same or a similar idea and are trying to make something out of basically nothing. That is what makes independent and student films fun and potentially great pieces of art. It relates to the section in the article that discusses the german audio technicians and how they tried to make "synthetic dirt" that more closely resembled real organic music. Major Hollywood cinema can be very pristine and almost too perfect or digitally enhanced at times. Look no further than Michael Bay or other CGI filled hollywood blockbusters. Independent cinema usually doesn't contain anything like Michael Bay films and recently many hollywood films have been trying to incorporate the more organic independent cinema aspects while also containing classical hollywood elements. While a student here at UNCW I have learned the basics of the rough theatre since most of the funding for films I have worked on has been either non existent or been based off of donations. The power to get the film done has been due to the crew all believing in the project. Money doesn't always make a great film, sometimes it is just due to the commitment of everyone involved.

Saturday Long Take

I was excited about the long take from the minute we started planning it out in class. I love challenges and shooting a long take of any scene is usually some sort of a challenge, wether trying to keep the camera steady or keep the audiences attention. Long takes have always interested me too. Stanley Kubrick utilizes  long takes quite a bit in most of his well known films like The Shining, 2001, and Eyes Wide Shut. Some times a lot of cutting can be a bit ridiculous thus its nice to shoot long takes every once in a while to see the action play out in a different kind of way.

My group had a lot of ideas at first, like a kung fu fight sequence, to a ridiculous dance sequence. We finally settled on an idea. We planned to shoot a sequence that would resemble a phone call across campus (or chancellor's walk) via tin cans. Like a phone on a string that children play with. We would have a super long dolly/tracking shot where the camera operator would sit on the dolly (which eventually became Chris' moped) and ride down the campus filming the scene. Starting on one person, then following their string, and ending on the person they are talking to. I think the basic story behind the scene was that the first person was telling the other person something important yet since the phone line was so long when it finally got to the other person they couldn't hear it at all. ITo me it definitely resembled something from an early silent film, relying more on body language than any sort of dialogue.

Although I had to leave early on Saturday I was able to stay long enough to see the whole shoot take place, and even act in it! Casey was the camera operator and Nate and I acted. It was a pretty simple sequence the only issue we had was that there were tons of prospective students on campus that day for some sort of tour or orientation event. It took a while to clear out chancellor's walk but we eventually got it cleared and got the shot. From what I heard it came out really well. Even for the brief amount of time that I was there I had a lot of fun shooting the long take and I would call it a nice warm up challenge to the video race that is coming up.