Zachary Willard Film/Blender

Script

 Practice Script Mon - Wrote Tues - Wrote Wed - read a script Thurs - nothing Fri - Wrote

Practice Script Mon - Brainstormed Tues - Outlined Wed - Nothing Thurs - Outlined Fri - Wrote

Dreams Do Die - Drama Short Film

 Dark Comedy Short Film - Genre Exploration I made this film on the side, it took about a month to write. I wrote it with Andrew Khuu and Tristan Parvin. Tristan and I directed it, all three of us acted in it at some point. The main reason I was making this film was to try out the comedy genre and the horror genre. People seemed to like it so I guess that was a success. This was going to be the first of a few short films I made on the side exploring different genres, however because of Covid I've been limiting my exposure, so this hasn't been able to happen. WARNING: Violent Content and Language Mon - Edited Tues - Edited Wed - Nothing Thurs - Edited Fri - Edited Sat - Edited Sun - Edited

 Progress Check As of now I've filmed everything required for my next film (I'm pretty sure). I've already been doing some editing along the way as I've gotten footage so I could make the work load more manageable. The hardest parts I see as I move forward are going to be making the music and there are three scenes that are completely in Blender. However, I definitely see this as being completable given the time I have remaining until the final product is due. What I've Learned If I'm going to act in a film I need a camera man. For this film the entire process, every scene, was just Chris and I. What that lead to is the process literally took twice as long if not longer because I would set up the shot, than focus, than press record, and for however long the shot was I would have to re-watch it again to make sure everything looked how I wanted it. The re-watching was the worst part because if I were behind the camera and I could see a take wasn't working out ...

Practice Script Mon - Filmed Tues - Wrote Wed - Filmed Thurs - Nothing Fri - Wrote

 6 Pages of When the Going Get's Tough rough draft This is the first six or so pages of the first draft of the notecard outline I submitted 10/18. I expect this will become one of my projects this year. Mon - Filmed Tues - Wrote Wed - nothing Thurs - nothing Fri - Wrote Sun - Wrote

 6 Pages of a New Script In this script I started writing my next project but than I got inspired to take it in another direction and it became another writing exercise. Mon - nothing Tues - wrote Wed - filmed current project Thurs - wrote Fri - nothing Sat - filmed current project

10 Pages of a New Script Once again I'm just writing to get more practice, although I think I will actually make this film. Mon - wrote Tues - wrote Wed - nothing Thurs - nothing Fri - wrote Sat - acted in a friends film

 Script Shot List

 Writing I've continued to write scripts in order to gain as much experience writing as possible. Below are the first 9 pages of a script I've just started recently. I'm still continuing work on the one I showed you from last week. I'm also about to enter production on the drama I wrote titled: Dreams Do Die. My goal right now is just to get as much experience writing as possible. I once heard someone say that in order to get good at something you need around 1000 hours doing it. The way I see it, the more stuff I write, the better I will get at it. The stuff I write doesn't have to be good, I just have to constantly be exercising my writing muscles. Also I wanted to note that I don't plan on making the script below, I'm just writing for the sake of practice. 9 Pages of Script Mon - Worked on Drama script Tues - Nothing Wed - Finished Drama script Thurs - Shot list Fri - Shot list Sat - acted in a friend's film

 What I'm working on Right now I've got a few different scripts I'm working through all at different stages. I'm writing a drama which is working towards the final draft of the script. I'm also writing another action kind of film which is still in the very rough draft phase. For a bit of background, I've been experimenting with different writing processes. For the action film I'm using notecards and a cork board. When I get an idea for a scene or a conversation or even just a shot I'll write it down and pin it to the cork board. This way if I want to change the order of scenes, insert a scene, or cut a scene I just pin or unpin a note card. It allows for a much more free-flowing story. Below are pictures of the current notecards I've made in the order they appear on the board. Note Cards Mon - wrote Tues - nothing Wed - wrote Thurs - nothing Fri - wrote Sat - acted in a friends film

 Idea Journal Over the summer I started righting ideas down in this notebook so I wouldn't lose any. It's slowly been growing more and more. A few of the ideas I plan to include in the short film I'm currently righting for class. These are ideas I get simply from the moment and I write them down, good or bad. The goal is to capture enough snippets of stuff until I've gathered a bunch that sort of match up. Than I can turn the ideas into scenes, and the scenes into a film. Previously I'd really struggled with writer's block and I've found that this really helps. The easiest way to deal with writer's block I've found is to ask a question you don't know the answer to. This is especially hard in todays society when we have the answers to all our questions at the click of a button. What I've been learning to do is when I get that curiosity question: What was the name of that song? I than search for the answer internally instead of externally. I co...

Reflection  Recently I've been working on writing a lot. I did finish the first draft of that script I've been working on since April. It's 98 pages which is 8 pages over my original goal. This 98 page script marks the first full length screenplay I've ever written. Going into it I didn't expect it to be very good, I was mainly writing it just to get used to writing something that long. The main difference I noticed between writing a feature length screenplay (between 90 and 120 pages) and a short film (max 60 pages) is that it requires much more commitment. It was truly a struggle to remain interested in the same story for several months, and I'm only done with the second draft. For now I don't plan to do anything more with it since it's not something I could actually film. This is mostly due to budget, since it's a sci-fi script, I would need a lot of different sets. Once again, I never wrote this script to be filmed, I simply wrote it for practice...

Past Themes Last year I focused on the themes of Invention and Fantasy, Politics and the Social Order, and Looking Outward. Ultimately the goal of all my films was to entertain the audience to some degree. In exploring these themes I found that I am most drawn to relationships between the characters of a story. I like watching them transform, change their perspectives, change the perspectives of others, and much more. However, I find it truly interesting to watch the characters change the perspective of the audience. To see the audience be transformed by a piece is the most satisfying conclusion to any work of art. I find that a story that has elements that require introspection are the greatest gift. However, that's not to say there is not a need for pure entertainment. I find a need to balance the themes and bring new topics to be discussed. At it's most basic, themes are just a broad topic of discussion. From these themes I've discussed and the insights I've gained, ...

Tristan, Andrew, and I began writing a new film. Eventually the path of the film changed but we had previously discussed a monster being in it. I immediately began working on creating a monster model in blender to see if it would work. The concept was a dark, grotesque representation of some sort of demon. The demon was essentially a foot-soldier for the angel of death in our film. We have since put this concept aside, however, I wanted to keep up to date on my modeling so I decided to create it anyway. So far I have the entire face done, still undecided on whether or not to continue with this project. I think for now I will get back to working on scripts. However, it was a good project to get back into blender and learn how to utilize some of the new sculpting brushes and navigate the new layout. First Render Final Render Mon - modeling Tues - sculpting Wed - sculpting Thurs - script writing Fri - texturing

Favorite Part of Class My favorite part of class was being able to work independently. Having the freedom to work at my own pace was a breath of fresh air. Also what I enjoyed a lot was being able to help with other groups shoots. Before we would only shoot in our own groups, but with the freedom to shoot outside of class it became a lot easier. Seeing how other people performed their tasks and managed their crew was also an interesting and insightful experience. What I Learned the Most I've learned the most about how to deal with people on a set. Being outside of school completely changes the dynamic and it really shows you who is a hard worker and who isn't. Being able to pick and choose who I worked with is great, but it is important to know how to work with people you wouldn't want to work with. It is a key role of the director to keep everyone motivated on the shoot. This is essential because if no one is trying than you aren't going to have a good movie. It t...

This very short rotoscope took a lot of my time. I was hoping to have at least 5 seconds of rotoscoped footage but that didn't happen. Just completing this took multiple hours so I didn't have anytime to spend writing more than a page. However, this has been a valuable learning experience. What I have learned is quite simple: use a green screen because rotoscoping sucks. It is a very time consuming and tedious process which, if done poorly, yields worse results than a green screen anyway. With the huge advancements in keying technology and higher resolution images green screen will only get better. I am very glad that I did this little experiment before I decided to make an entire sci-fi short film with multiple long rotoscoped shots.

I wasn't feeling the motivation required of me to complete the first draft of my script so I modeled instead. Honestly the hardest part was figuring out how to make the trashbags. What I did was take a bunch of cubes and randomly rotate them. Then, I surrounded with a UV sphere and applied the shrink wrap modifier. I messed with the settings until it looked alright. Then I applied all the modifiers so I would have an actual mesh, went into edit mode and fixed troublesome areas. For the material I used a plastic material I found online, then to get the wrinkles I applied a noise texture to the normal mapping node. To model the buildings I followed a very simple yet effective strategy laid out in the following video.

So far I'm continuing through at the same pace. I'm now on page 31. It is becoming apparent that the pacing is very inconsistent. However, this is an easy fix when I go to revise. All it means is I need to add in some places and take away in others. As I go along I am discovering things that I need to explain in the first act. This is also good news because it means I have more material to work with. My hope is once I'm done the script will be around 90 pages. Right now I'm not sure how accurate that goal is but I'm still going after it. By next week I intend to have the first draft finished without revisions. Here are this weeks pages.