Zachary Willard Film/Blender

Lighting Lighting is one of the most essential principals of filmmaking. There is a quite daunting variety of ways to light a scene. The different aspects of lighting vary from brightness, color, temperature, white balance, soft/hard, direction, and more. There are many ways lighting can be used to better communicate understanding of a scene. For instance, lighting is one of the key components in creating the tone of a film. If you look at a comedy film the lighting is always balanced and light in tone. On the contrary, for a dramatic film the lighting will be darker and less balanced. There might be hard shadows cast across the background to amplify and enlarge reality. The human face will be lit different ways to portray the characters emotion. All of these decisions lead to a better, more meaningful and developed film. The Cinematographer's Role The role of the cinematographer is to decide what to do with the lighting. The cinematographer, or director of photography...

Production - What I learned Through the shooting of this film I learned a lot about how to balance time while producing quality content. Although this project is different than most because it was shot all in one day the basic principals are still present. The basic principals of balancing time and quality are to remain flexible, experiment, and know when to call it. Flexibility is absolutely essential to creating content that is conjoined with its surroundings. One such problem that occurs that requires flexibility is a change in location, missing prop, or shot that isn't working. Sometimes you might have a scene mapped out in your head based on your presumed location. However, when you arrive on set the location might be slightly altered. Being able to adapt to these slight alterations are what makes the film retain flow. The audience should think that it was planned that way from the start. If there is no adaption to the new situation it will be pretty clear. The audience wil...

Exploration of Ideas For my research posts throughout the first marking period I have carefully selected topics to study. The main topic I studied was the writing process. My first investigation was on hooking the audience at the beginning of the film through writing. I analyzed the beginnings of three films that are of differing genres. I did this in order to see if there was a consistent pattern. The main consistency no matter what was beginning in the midst of an action. The start of the film is never at the start of the journey. For Pulp Fiction the film starts in the middle of a conversation. For Indiana Jones the film starts with Indiana already arriving at the destination of one of his expeditions. For the Matrix, the film starts with the agents chasing after Trinity. The Matrix is the most differentiated because the main character is not even in the hook. This investigation was key in writing the hook to my film. For my film I hooked the audience by showing two men dumping a...

VFX are everywhere Most people think sci-fi when they think CGI or VFX. However, VFX can apply to any and all genres of filmmaking. Once you know what to look for VFX can be seen everywhere. The video below is a VFX breakdown of a crime genre show, Mindhunter,  that takes place in the very early 80's. When I watched this video my mind was blown by the amount of completely unsuspecting VFX shots. These are referred to as invisible effects. The intention of these effects is that you never no that they were there. Unlike a spaceship or superhero flying these effects are replications of real things. For instance in the Mindhunter VFX breakdown many elements are composited in to enhance the composition. Elements that are attributed to that era such as cars, signs, and buildings can be composited into frame. Sometimes these objects are real and sometimes they are completely digital. VFX Core Concepts For this investigation I will be looking into VFX since I plan on doing a sci...

Why use Story Structure? The structure you use as a foundation for your script is key in creating a narrative that flows and excites. Most beginning writers make the mistake of ignoring story structure completely. However, if you ignore story structure your film will likely suffer from seeming aimless or boring. Story structure is a great tool for pacing your film at a rate that keeps your audience interested. Structure is also a way of making sure your audience doesn't get confused. Story structure does this by laying out events in a familiar fashion. For this investigation I will be learning how to utilize story structure, two types of story structure, and when to deviate from the provided structure. Structure - Three Act Structure The three act structure is the most common structure for telling film narrative. The only downside to using this structure is it doesn't tie everything together like the next two. An example of a film that uses this structure is Mad M...

Hook Your Audience The start of your film can determine rather quickly if people will keep watching. In 2013 Microsoft released statistics showing that the average human attention span of that year was about 8 seconds. To give some perspective the average attention span of a gold fish is 9 seconds. Opening credits have all but been eradicated in the modern film industry. This is due to how quickly our audiences lose interest; being in a world that moves at a break neck pace. Since this is the case it is extremely challenging to capture and hold attention. For this investigation I will be analyzing how films capture the audience. I will also examine the effect these introductions have on the understanding of the narrative and characters present. Indiana Jones Although this film has opening credits, there is a considerable amount of movement happening in the frame. The way that Spielburg has the camera move with the characters on screen draws us in. We move with the character...