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 and the insights I've gained, I find that Politics and the Social Order is the theme I will choose. I have always enjoyed work that questions society. I find it healthy to have a society that allows for reflection and questioning of the way things are run. My reason for choosing Politics and the Social Order as my theme to focus on is simple. My favorite films all involve a question aimed towards society. Whether the focus be on a rebellion against the cruelty of the government, or a single man doing what he sees needs to be done. It just happens to be the cinema that I enjoy the most. As soon as you involve a society you involve people and their relationships with each other. It is the relationships between people and the people themselves which draw a connection to the audience. In my films this year I may involve other themes such as Looking Inward or Looking Outward or Invention and Fantasy, however, all of my films will still include a connection to Politics and the Social Order.
Planning
Producing
Evaluating
The filmmaking process took much longer than I originally anticipated. What made this process consume so much time and energy was the fact that I was wearing all the hats. Two hats that did not compliment each other were main character and cameraman. The film is just me and Chris for the entire nearly 20min duration. This is by far the longest thing I've ever made, it also took WAY longer than anything else, like disproportionately longer. Going in with a plan is absolutely essential. One thing I did wrong is instead of planning 10x as much because it's 10x longer than anything I've made, I took about the same time to plan. The problem I've learned (and re-learned) with not planning enough is this: If something isn't working you can fix it in the planning phase, if you're already shooting you often cannot. Now there is the possibility of reshoots, but it's hard enough to get everyone together for the first shoot so good luck with that. Also, quality over quantity. I really don't know why the film was as long as it was other than the fact I felt it had to be. Part of the problem was my script was around 30 pages when I finished it, because of this I felt (understanding the rule of 1 page equals 1 minute of film) the film had to be longer to tell the story efficiently. Instead I really should have gone over the script multiple times and tried to cut it down over and over again until I got as refined a story as possible. I did not do that. As a result the film sort of just drags, barely being propelled by any sort of tension or conflict. The biggest thing I've learned, for writing at least, is how not to do conflict. If there was one thing I could point to that made this film bad other than the acting, camera movement (none because I was acting and had no camera man), and location (didn't want to shoot in a bunch of places I had planned cause Covid) it would be the lack of conflict.
Integrating
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 I could say "cut". However, since I was in the scene I had to wait till the very end, it didn't matter if the performance was spot on or not if half their face was out of frame or they were completely out of focus. On top of that, the re-watching process took the length of the clip which meant if a shot was a minute long, I'd watch for a minute, essentially making the shot take twice as long. Because of this factor, for my next project I plan to either find a camera man or not act in my own film.
Mon - wrote
Tues - wrote
Wed - wrote
Thurs - wrote
Fri - wrote
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