Zachary Willard Film/Blender

 Two Former Friends

 Writing Practice Here are some additional scenes I've added to a feature length script I'm writing. Mon - Nothing Tues - Wrote Wed - Filmed Thurs - Nothing Fri - Edited

 What I've Learned I once again had a struggle coming up with an idea that I both liked and could do. I still have in fact not come up with an idea. I now realize I have a losing strategy here. I in fact have no strategy. This has become problematic. However, I will have a finished film by next weekend. It hasn't helped that people have liked my films as of late and I now feel that I must do a good job. I want people to have something they want to watch, not something they're forced to watch. As a result I have not written anything of substance. I write a few pages than give up. I don't like it. It sucks. I limit my resources extremely because I'm afraid of planning things with a lot of people involved. I find it's very stressful. I really have no excuses, which is why I will still have a film by this weekend. I don't start with a genre and therefore my film is just a blob of concept. It is a pipe dream, not reality. I don't like genre because then it pl...

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

 Practice Film Mon - Wrote Tues - Wrote Wed - Nothing Thurs - Nothing Fri - Filmed Sat - Edited

The Scheduling Fiasco Mon - Brainstormed Tues - Brainstormed Wed - Nothing Thurs - Wrote Fri - Wrote

It was really incredible to see the vast improvements everyone made in their films this marking period. Aiden's latest film, The Aiden Rimmer Show: Chapter 3 , is no exception. With this film it's interesting to see the improvements because it's part of a running series making comparisons easier. I recently went back and watched the original out of curiosity and this latest one just blows it out of the water. You can see the effects of his extended practice with editing from making the food frenzies. If I had to point to one specific element that improved most notably it would have to be the pacing. The film never seems to hold on a shot or a scene for longer than it needs. The story flows continuously, even in the way the camera moves. Where before he used a lot of locked off still shots, now he utilizes much more movement. For instance, the scenes with Patrick and Justin in the woods features a tracking shot. This sort of movement adds energy to the film and makes us feel...

 Stages of Lost Thoughts Mon - Edited Tues - Filmed Wed - Nothing Thurs - Edited Fri - Edited

 What I've Learned For this latest film I wanted to try a different approach to my pipeline. Normally if I have music I do it at the very end and most often I don't even do it at all. Lately through watching more TV and movies I've come to gain a greater appreciation of the importance of music. So for this latest film I decided to start with the music. I intended it as an exercise for using music as a story telling tool. I'm not very adept with the creation of music so I got help from a friend who knew all the technicalities. Our process was we would come up with a vibe or feeling we wanted to get from the music and then devise a sound. In reality we just messed around with synthetic instruments we thought sounded cool. In this way the sound took on its own form, one best suited for itself. If we tried using the sounds we had to make the originally intended vibe it wouldn't have worked I don't think. Just another of the many instances where I've learned the ...

 Script Practice Mon - Wrote Tues - Wrote Wed - Nothing Thurs - Nothing Fr - Wrote

 Intention Definition and Exploration of Ideas For this film I aimed at exploring the concept of not knowing what to make. Mostly because I didn't know what to make. In my last film I talked about exploring changes in characters and how they can influence the audience. For the theme of this film it is harder to define due to the fact the topic is the undefined. It is about not knowing what it is. I really became intrigued by this idea of 'meta'. Something that references itself. Most art before the post modern phase was a reflection of reality. An imitation or mimicry of something which already existed. For example: A drawing of a landscape or portrait of a person. However, the post modern phase began to make the art about the art itself. A minimalist piece of simple lines and colors is not mimicking anything perceivable. There are no natural occurrences of this: So the art becomes about the art itself, it is now a unique part of the world. If you ask yourself: well what...

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

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

Brainstorming Process Currently ironing out the idea for my next film and it has been a bit of a ride. Since my last film was about not being able to come up with an idea now I have to come up with an idea. I started off with a rough concept for a guy stuck in a dream and went with that for a week and a half or so, than I realized it was bad. I just didn't know what the focus of the story was. So, I totally changed the script and here are the pages of my notebook where I worked it out. Brainstorm Pages Mon - Brainstormed Tues - Brainstormed Wed - Nothing Thurs - Brainstormed Fri - Wrote Sun - Wrote

 No Deprivation of Darkness

 Writing Practice Mon - Nothing Tues - Wrote Wed - Nothing Thurs - Wrote Fri - Wrote

 Beginning of Practice Feature Script I've decided to write another feature length script just to get into the habit of writing longer things. I have a rough plan of where I want to take it outlined in notecards. Anyway, here are the first few pages. Mon - Edited Tues - Edited Wed - Edited Thurs - Edited Fri - Edited

An Omnidirectional and Incomprehensible Meta-process

 Progress Check So far I've got the entire script done, I've finished filming and am about to start the editing process. Moving into editing will be a little more time consuming than normal since I'm thinking about doing some minor VFX where you see me in two places at the same time. Still haven't decided if that's a definite or not yet though. What I've Learned So far this film has been a ride because it's been the most autobiographical of any film. I really botched the planning phase. For a while I had no clue what to write. So I sorta just filmed some stuff. None of it felt good though, I still didn't know the look of the film or what it was about. I've always been uneasy about making a film about not knowing what to make, but this time it just felt like what I had to do. I also watched Adaptation last night and thought it was one of the most thought provoking films ever. It really inspired me to write and gave me the courage and understanding tha...

I think I was able to learn a lot of different processes for filmmaking from the presentations for this marking period. One of which that I found particularly helpful for my upcoming short is Mark Weller's film A King' s Quest. It was particularly helpful because the film I just finished shooting as of today is made with just me. Seeing Mark do his film by himself helped to motivate me to also do the same. Also the way of using your budget limitations for comedic effect is something I might utilize in the future because it seemed to work quite effectively here. Also, having to do all the acting for my film I have a greater respect for his ability to make the scenes feel connected. In   his film it really feels like the characters are talking to each other even though he plays all of them. The next filmmaker's process that influenced me this marking period was Aaron Grinberg. What I learned was the importance of quantity. This past semester Aaron has made three music videos....

 Intention Definition and Exploration of Ideas 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...