Turds to Birds Reflection

This final project involved me in a film for the first time. I had never in a before and I have never helped produce a short film; therefore, I was inexperienced. I didn’t exactly know how to make a successful film because I didn’t thoroughly comprehend the fact that it is a long and well thought out process of hard work. I basically felt like an amateur and figured that it would be easy. I thought that ideas would pop up left and right and that we could just act upon it as we filmed. Although ideas did pop up in our heads very easily, putting them together and actually making scenes for a short film was hard.

I was an actress in our short film and I helped with the whole idea of our final plot. I was a woman who worked for “Turds to Birds” as a dance teacher. Everyone contributed to the film in terms of the script, acting, and the general production. However, Ben was the cinematographer and the chief editor. He produced the cuts and knew which transitions were perfect for making it a short and concise film. Our group helped with the music and the minor problems involved as Ben was editing the film through our Facebook Message thread.

Our group worked well together because we enjoyed being around each other which made the experience ten times better. We didn’t really have a pre-production this film especially because our original story didn’t work out the way we thought it would. It’s easy to talk about a great story; however, tying it together and making it a short film is much harder. Originally our story was supposed be a love triangle between me, Gavin, and Lauren. It was an awesome story that would have been very funny and creative if it was well thought out; however it wasn’t. We didn’t know how to condense our information into a short film. Therefore, we changed our minds and decided to do an instructional video of how to do the jerk. We didn’t know how to break down the instructional video into different scenes and involve 5 cinematic elements at the same time. Therefore, we decided to do a weight loss infomercial that involved three different classes.

The last minute change of the story caused us to have many weaknesses because we didn’t have a well thought out script. It was poorly planned, but we went with the flow and improvised. Our strength was that Ben adjusted well to our quick changes as a cinematographer. We were able to slip in the five cinematic techniques easily. We used title cards to show the change in time in our film which saved time. We took a close up of Jessica yelling at Lauren to show the anger she had for Lauren’s poor work as a “stepper.” The beginning shot of Gavin’s class was a split screen to show the differences in weight. It was added to show the irony because Gavin, the teacher, had the small weights and Lauren had the heavy weights. We took a high angle of Lauren to make her look small and insignificant in the beginning. Lastly, our fifth technique was a low angle of Gavin when he’s yelling at Lauren complaining about her nails. This shows Gavin’s superiority as a teacher.

Overall this film was a good experience for me. My favorite scene was when there’s a high angle of Lauren and she’s asking if she could join “Turds to Birds.” Next time I work on a short film, I want to put more effort into the pre-production so that production would be much easier for me.

Reflection on Turds to Birds

The members in our group consist of Ben Ratner, Sherin Jacob, Lauren Eichhorn and Jessica Mazurkiewcs. We called ourselves the Jerk Production. At first our movie was going to be about a love triangle between Sherin, Lauren and I but at a second glance the topic was too complicated and too hard to convey. Instead of making a film about a serious topic such as love we decided to have a little fun and filmed about the parodies of infomercials and how often they lie to the audience watching them. We decided to film about a work out plan that consists of trainers: Sherin, Jessica, and I, which would come to Laurens house to help her lose ten pounds before summer.

Right at the start of the film Lauren is explaining to the audience how fat she is and why all the workouts she did during the past ten years did not help her lose a single pound of weight. We began with a close-up/medium shot because it showed the audience she was emotional about her weight. She did not like to be fat and she would want to lose it. Then as Lauren went through each of her weight loss class we filmed her on her first day being at class and we filmed her two weeks later. We want to do this to show the audience that she has improved so much that she is doing better than the teachers/trainers but still has not lost any weight. When Lauren was in my weight class it starts with a split screen. She lifts the 8 pound dumbbells and I lift the 1 pound dumbbell. It is ironic how I am the trainer and I am using less weight than her. We did this to add a little humor to the film. We also put it in a split screen to show how much Lauren is struggling at first. But then two weeks past and she is lifting weights more than me. A high angle shot was used on Lauren during my class when she gives up and drops the weights, she then later cries about how she broke her nail. We did this to show that Lauren does not have any power in this situation. I respond back with a low angle show to show her whose boss and that she can’t give up.

My favorite scene in this film is close to the end when Lauren is complaining about how she did not lose any fat from all these weight and dancing classes. We only filmed it twice and there was no script. This is my favorite because it portrays Lauren’s true funny side. I think the film was a great success because each and every group member corporate. We did not waste time and was very determined to make film the greatest we can.

The greatest part about our team work was that we created a successful film without any scripts or preplanning. Everything was impromptu. This film brought out our real personalities and therefore our personalities have created a successful film. And to end the film we of course danced to Teach me How to Jerk a Los Angeles dance movement that started in 2008 to show that we are the Jerk Productions.

V is for Vampire: A Reflection

When I first signed up to take this class, I envisioned a classroom full of students who watched extraneous films every day and talked about them with artsy jargon only pretentious filmmakers and film critics used. That was all; I expected nothing more or nothing less than this. But obviously – being the terrible assumer I am – I was proved wrong. We not only analyzed every aspect of a movie – its subplots, its camera angles, and its sounds – but we also wrote a lot of essays and movie reviews that I did not expect.

However, what surprised me the most was our last mission: to create a short film. I was thrilled. And what made it even better? Our ability to choose who we desired to work with. Although I had this power in my hands, I can be completely honest and say that I was not the most confident person in the world when the members of my group were finalized. I had no problem with Yoonjin, Linda and Sonoko; however, I was not close to all of them, and I feared for awkwardness – one thing I don’t like dealing with. Nonetheless, I sucked it up and saw this as an opportunity to make new friends and to learn more about my capability of being an effective teammate in my group.

Our first group meeting consisted of brainstorming. We each pitched in ideas about what genre we wanted our film to fall under. One key idea we all shared was not creating a typical film. We sought to produce a film that would be different from what other groups in the class would make. Thus, after much negotiation and an abundance of rather very interestingly weird ideas, we came to a decision: Twilight. There is much craze about the Twilight series in the today’s media and honestly, it’s too much. We all agreed that the idea of vampires was extremely overplayed, and we wanted to do something about it. Thus, our film is not only a mockumentary about Twilight; rather, it is also about the life of a typical teenage vampire (if that is even typical at all), and it serves to tell viewers that vampires really are not much different from humans like they’re portrayed in movies today.

One thing I enjoyed about my group was our understanding of each other’s ideas and our capability of working together without any problems. In fact, I was pretty surprised at how well we flowed with one another. Thus, picking roles for each person didn’t require much stress. Everyone agreed with which role we each wanted to take part in: Yoonjin as an actress and a director; Linda as an actress and a planner; Sonoko as a cinematographer; and I, myself, as another cinematographer and a editor. All four of us worked very well together and although we had our different roles, we essentially produced the film all together as one group.

Our group filmed in chronological order because we decided that would help make editing easier and faster. The first place we began to film was in the woods by our school’s track field. We had envisioned starting off the film in a specific way, and the location was perfect. Even more so, the weather cooperated with us that day so when we saw what we had filmed afterwards (dailies, anyone?), it was very similar to what we had written and drawn in the first box of our storyboard. Score – this was it.

In this first scene, I held the camera up in the sky and – using a swooping motion – filmed towards the woods in a medium shot. Along the way, the camera captures Linda, passes her, but abruptly goes back to where she is standing – as if it took a double take of her. The effect of this cinematic effect is to enable the viewers to feel as if they are the ones whose gazes are being followed. In this way, the audience is able to be more engaged in the film, rather than just simply watching it. Another cinematic aspect we incorporated in this first scene is a shot of Yoonjin crouching down on the ground, picking up leaves and sniffing them. Filming this was quite a challenge; we were in a hurry to because it was unbearably cold that day, and we were trying to save ourselves of embarrassment from the track runners that would pass by us constantly. Nonetheless, we purposely filmed this part in a low angle so we saw Yoonjin and the tops of trees and the sky behind her. This made Yoonjin seem powerful and distant from the rest of society – which in most vampire movies is constantly the case.

The second scene was filmed inside the school itself. Here, Yoonjin does something very out-of-the-ordinary and quite strange: she goes up to a friend and starts to randomly sniff her hair. In order to depict this moment in the best way possible, I filmed her approaching her victim in a long to medium shot and when she began to sniff the hair, I did so in an extreme close-up. This captured the details of her action more authentically and suddenly, the viewers became more personal with Yoonjin.

The third scene was filmed at Yoonjin’s house, and it was here when things sailed smoothly. The life of a vampire at home is shown in these last few scenes and through The Incredibles being on television and the silliness of the actresses, we tried to be comedic. Yes – it was definitely hard, but it was worth a try! In these scenes, bird’s eye view, close-up’s, and “worm’s eye view” – looking directly up at an object – is used. All three of these cinematic aspects are used to show Linda studying. A bird’s eye view is used to show viewers what work she is doing, a close-up of her pen in hand is used to depict her writing, and a direct shot up at Linda’s face is used later on to show the blood drip on the dining table due to a fake nosebleed we refer to as ketchup. These shots are crucial for this scene because in order to show the different aspects and meanings for studying, it is essential for the camera to focus on different parts of the action in different ways. In addition, we copied the “crotch shot” from M in order to portray the deceit and bogus behaviors of vampires in movies.

Overall, I am happy with my group and our final presentation. The process of producing this film was enjoyable, and I learned a lot through the experience. Personally, my favorite parts of the film are the separate interviews Yoonjin and Linda speak in in between all the action. These parts are humorous and so ridiculous to watch that they are memorable. We could have worked on efficiency so we didn’t have to procrastinate until the very end to complete the film. In addition, we could have used a tripod for some scenes because using a handheld camera was too shaky at times. Through this project, my eyes were opened to so much more about film: its difficulty to capture that one perfect shot, its patience required to perfectly edit everything afterwards, and its journey of collaboration and ambition to create a fabulous piece of art for the aftermath. Because of this opportunity, my perspective of filmmaking has been raised higher. Now, I know to appreciate all the different aspects of movies, and now I have made more friends in the class through this experience. It’s a win-win situation, so I don’t regret anything at all. And there you have it - peace and chill out.

Reflection on the Creaion of the Film "Dream Come True"

In our film, Dream Come True by Monsters Inc. was made of combinations of many different parts by different people. Everyone in my group had different job which lead to success of the film. Our group had a bigger number of partners compare to other groups that we had an opportunity to have a job per person. We had director, cinematographer, editor, actors and cameraman. I took a part of actor in our group. My part was difficult than I expected however, few people did more than I did. I personally think Chloe is MVP in our group. She suppose to be a screenwriter however, she was involved in the part of editing. Since our film is foreign film, there are many extra works to be done by editors. Such as translating other language into English and put subtitle. Before shooting the actual film, we had basic idea of how the story goes and we had actual cuts of many details in pictures. However details changed when we were shooting. By the natural effects, some changes were made like camera angles. We planned to take a scene in the sunset which is not very bright or dark. However, we only had 10 or 15 minutes to take scene each day. So that some of the scenes which planned to be at sunset was taken at the dark. Also many details were added during the production of the film. First we took a scene as we planned to do and we took same scene with details added then we picked the best one.

Our film is based on a myth which dreams could happen in real life. The whole plot of our film is that if the ghost knows the truth, it can take a life away. Three friends are talking about the ghost at the beginning of the film and that conversation is the whole plot for the film. After talking about ghost, Jane dreams about her friend Paul is running away from the ghost. Next day, Jane tells Paul that she had weird dream about Paul and ghost, but he tells her to forget about it. Jane dreams same situation one more time with Paul running away from ghost. However this time the ghost looked innocent so Jane tells the truth to the ghost and realizes it is the ghost. The film ends in mysterious way and it is not showing actual ending but we know that Paul die at the end.

I believe our film was successful. I personally think our story and the way we filmed it fits perfectly in genre of horror. Also the film has strong message which delivers dream can happen in real life. However, the plot of the film is kind of unclearly made. I saw the film after knowing the whole plot and I enjoyed it but, when I saw it again pretending to be third person point of view, I saw our film as being unclear at certain point. So if I did not know the plot and watch the film, I would have difficulty understanding the film. My favorite scene is when we had an eyeline cut which represents a person running in dark. It very clearly shows the feeling of person who is chasing by something. Also when Jane found out the innocent woman was a ghost; it was very clearly shown that she is shocked by her face expression. At the same time, the ghost smiles in very disgust and joyful way that the audience feels terrified. I felt this scene showed shock and joy at the same time.

I was expecting to have as many kinds as cinematic techniques such as techniques we recently learned in class. We tried to put the match cut to our film. Basic theory to make the match cut was not difficult. It is just a cut between one motion. When Jane was pointing at the road to the ghost, there should be a match cut but it did not work well as we were all expecting to be. If I get a chance to make a different film next time, I would like to include more specific details to it. Not just a flow of story line but explaining why that situation was created. To have a better understanding of an audience, expressing and explaining takes big part in making films.

I have always thought that films were made by directors and actors. However I experienced that film need to be reviewed by many different parts of jobs. It is very complicated and I understood the fact that the film takes more than year to be produced. In our film, Dream Come True, we used long take at the beginning of the film to give basic plot for the whole film. We used long shot to express the isolation and loneliness and medium and close up shot for the detailed shot. Close up shot took the feeling of shock and joy which is very well expressed in our film. We also used dutched camera angle when we took the shot of the ghost. The dutched camera angle gave a strong felling and unbalanced of a character that something is not normal. Through out the course of Rhetoric of the Moving Image, I have learned how the images it self can express the feelings and how it is expressed. In a process of making the film, every time before taking a shot, we thought about the fact that how the audience will understand film and the meaning that represent is flowing as we planed. After taking this course, my whole point of view toward the pictures and film changed even during the creation of the film and now I look at the pictures and film very carefully in a meaningful way and try to understand what it means and represents.

The Making of Blinded Love

The experience of making the film Blinded Love with members of Fortune Cookie and our outside actors was certainly unforgettable to me. Even though this was not my first time making a short film, I have definitely learned a lot from the experience that I was not able to experience during the production of my first short film.
My main role in the group was the director and the editor. Jin, Andrew and I all contributed to the screenplay of the production. Andrew was our camera man and he helped me directed the film as well. Vivin, Leslie and Jin were the actors of the film. I had my friend Ling Ling Long starring as my main female character and Maya Nakamoto starring as Ling Ling’s character’s girlfriend. And I also had a cameo part in it.
In the phase the pre-production of this film, Jin, Vivin, and I all came up with different ideas for the story; it was really hard for us to make the final decision of which story we were going to use. Jin came up with some pretty exciting stories that could surely go for Hollywood big budget movies, but considering that we were all amateurs, nobody was giving us any money for the production, and the time was extremely tight, I suggested the group to go with my idea. I think that my group was being pretty cooperative of that. I was really frustrated in the pre-production phase because I went back to China during the Christmas break and we did not have much time to talk enough about the story and I had to think about where and how to take the scenes because I was the most experienced in this area. Since most of us did not have free periods together, we talked about our film online. After I came up with Jin’s character Eric’s narration, Jin made it much funnier by using his sense of humor. Andrew wrote the script for the scene in the band room and helped me develop the scenarios of some other scenes.
Most of the film was shot on last Friday due to our inability to all be together for many reasons last week. And because we did not think through the part that we had MLK assembly that day, we were not able to do nearly all of our scenes in the places that we planned to. And I was devastated by that. I did not know what to do in the beginning because I was being really stubborn on staying with our original plan, and changing the places of our scenes meant that I had to abandon everything about the camera angles, positions and movements we were going to use that I have planned out for us. However, the rest of my group came up with different plans when I felt like doing nothing and I’m very glad that they did work out.
Blinded Love is about this guy Eric who is really good at schools but at the same time, is really bad at girls. He has been in love with this really gorgeous girl Leslie for years but he never has the courage to let her know or even talk to her. Eventually after he pulls himself together and goes to tell the girl how he feels about her, the girl who he has been in love with for years turns out to be a lesbian. The “lesbian” idea actually came from one of the episodes of the TV show Friends where Joey has a hard time chasing a girl and he finds out that the girl is a lesbian at the end. I found it to be something amusing and we were able to do in a 2-5 minutes film so I came up with the story. Also, we have our protagonist Eric’s voice over narration run through the movie with insert scenes in between. I think this was inspired from Mr. D’s short film.
In my mind, Jin’s character was supposed to be someone who was really shy and sincerely wanted to win his dream girl’s love. With Jin’s intentionally doing the accents in his narration and his hilarious acting went kind of digressively from my expectation. However, I think that he did a very good job in the film by developing his own acting style and the film did turn out to be good and funny. I think that the film is pretty successful considering that we improvised most of our scenes in less than 3 hours because of that MLK assembly.
I had an extremely hard time editing the film because I forgot to let my actors know that they needed to keep going on with the scenes after they were actually done or the shots would be too short to cut. Another thing was that my actors did not get use to the idea that each shot needs to be taken at least more than 5 times to be perfect, and I was not strong enough to make them do more takes. The most challenging part to me was to put Eric’s narration and the moving images together. And I was so afraid that we needed to reshoot some of the scenes because there were no enough images to go simultaneously with the narration. However, I tried my best to fix the problems by using my limited editing skill. Also, it is not obvious that the character Leslie is a lesbian at the end of the film which is very critical to the movie. If I were given the chance to do the last scene again, I would definitely insist on making my actresses kiss or do something else to emphasis it.
In our film, we used voice over narration throughout the movie; voice over narration is a way of telling the story by having the character’s narration in the back go with the moving image. The contents of the narration and the image should be closely corresponded to each other. We also used close ups for the film to emphasize our characters’ expression. When Eric’s friend tells him that there’s another guy in his way of getting Leslie, we used close up to show Eric’s confusion and anger. Another cinematic technique that we used was the tracking shot of our femme fatale Leslie’s first appearance in the movie. Technically it was not a tracking shot because we did not actually have a wheeled cart like the professions do. But I tried to make it seem like a tracking shot to show Leslie’s beauty. I can’t quite articulate why I thought it would give the effect that I wanted; it was just something in head that seemed to work. The fourth technique that we used was flashback. Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in the character’s memories. Each scene besides the last one in this movie is actually a flashback. The last cinematic technique is long shot. A long shot is to show the entire human figure or object. I used long shot for the scene in which Eric gives Mr. D the weird answer in class.
After I was done with this short film, I truly and thoroughly experienced again what I concluded from my last film that making a movie is absolutely something a hundred times more complicated and exhausting that it seems to be. But it was really fun working with my group members. I’m very proud of each of us. And as the only girl in my group, I’ve learned that next time I will have to be strong and insist on doing what I want for the movie. Additionally, next I will certainly plan out everything and take each possibility into consideration to avoid letting things like MLK assembly stop me from doing what I want. Last but not least, I will never let myself or my group members procrastinate during the production phase because we may always want to leave the time for reshooting the scenes and fixing the problems that we may have neglected before we edit it.

Vive Cuevo! A REFLECTION.

Simong Tosky

When this project was first assigned it twas just me and my right hand man Thomiatro. It would have been very hard to make a film with just two people, but then like a ham sandwich falling out of the sky, Yale don Dale turned around and gave me his signature head nod. Then I knew we were in business. Three people=the almighty Triad.

This was a very precious move, this allowed me to fully become the director in chief, and leave the acting to the pretty boys. I think Yale and Thomas did incredible jobs acting, which I must give them major props and redonkulous kudos for. They really let go of their normal personas for their parts and let it all hang out. Sometimes it took some major tooth pulling, but we did it.

While we were deliberating ideas for the movie; I looked at Tommy and then I looked at Yale. I was like (in my head) “hey simon, this probably won’t be a movie with a lot of talking, Simon: good we don’t have to bother with a script, you turkey.” Also I knew immediately that we had to make an Avant-garde movie, mostly because it would give me freedom to do whatever I wanted to. As a Triad we decided to go with a weird remix of the “Day in the Life” story. We filmed on two occasions after school at my house. My main concern was “get the necessary film as quickly as possible, and start editing, and editing and editing and edit EDIT EDIT EDIT!” I was the editor as well, which was a gift and a curse. The gift part was because I was the director as well so I would have total control of what the movie looked like. The curse is that im a semi-perfectionist and I can edit for hours and hours at a time, for days, months, years and weeks at a time. This was probably why we were done, 1+1/2 weeks before the movie was due. This is also why I will not make another movie until 12 years from now or later.

Our movie is called “Vive Cuevo!” What does this mean? According to my hispanol hombres it doesn’t mean a damn thing. But to me it has a deep meaning; it is a mixture of the song Viva La Vida and the liquor Jose Cuervo. It’s a word that we use in our every day lives, for the good things that happen. Like if you just found a $5 dollar bill on the ground, Vive Cuevo! (o you lucky dog you!). The Film is an Avant-Garde Comedy, so the goal is not to tell some worldly story, but to make you laugh or at least be happy. The plot of the movie is very random, discontinuous, and strange; very similar to this essay. An underlying theme in the movie is just doing the crazy stuff you want to do, but in most cases in normal society cannot. It’s a world where you don’t care if you make a mess of things, its called freedom. America. Barrack Obama.

5 Cinematic effects:

Close up shot- good for getting in close, we used it when we wanted to emphasize something.

Medium-shot we used this shot a lot, we were indoors in cramped quarters and it was hard to get a long shot.

Stolen shot- Bob the Builder we got you through the window hommie. Non-diegetic sounds- I sprinkled these throughout the movie, they add to the surrealistic aspect of the movie.

Non-Linear story line- added to the avant-garde aspect, kept things unpredictable.

I learned a lot about film throughout the course of this course. It really came in handy in making the movie. I’ve made a movie for English class last year, but it had no cinematic value. It was a beautiful mess, but it was a mess with no structure, our new film is an organized mess. I wrote this essay very informally and I did not spell check. I will miss this class :(

Marisa Green
Reflection on True life: I’m a High School Senior

My film for the final project was True life: I’m a High School Senior: a documentary about four different seniors from four different high schools on Long Island. My group consisted of Sofia Alcalay, Alenna Kanner, and Elaina Epifan. The idea came about the second the project was announced. I suggested that we do a “film” similar to MTV’s True Life series. I thought what better way to go into second semester then documenting the lives of seniors from different towns. We all go through the same journey, emotionally and physically, so the idea reaches out to all our viewers.
Everyone in the group had a specific role. Aleena filmed, Sofia interviewed, Elaina edited, and I directed. Each role had crucial and particular parts to it. Filming contained making sure we accomplished all the material we needed to complete the project. Aleena had to make sure she shot certain angles and had good lighting at all times. Interviewing at instances was very difficult; Sofia was in charge of making sure that the interviewees understood the question and that they were able to answer it in a timely manner. Elaina’s job was without a doubt the hardest, she pieced all of our clips together; even though she had little experience with iMovie she was still able to craft our project incredibly. My job was to oversee everything, making sure that everyone’s schedule didn’t conflict and that we had more then enough material to bring this documentary together.
To say making a movie takes a lot of effort is an understatement. We had at least an hour worth of film and had to pick only five minutes of it to use. All through our filmed material, we had at least five cinematic aspects. My favorite cinematic aspect that we attempted to make use of was the tracking shot. Not only did Aleena capture this shot by following our objects, but I also hopped on my long board and was skating around with another camera. (Due to the camera’s bad microphone, the tracking shot that I filmed couldn’t be use, but it was still so much fun filming it.) My favorite scene in the entire film was when Jimmy was introducing himself. At the time, some siren was going off and it was rather annoying but as we brought the movie together it sounded as if we planned to have that noise. We also used close-ups a lot; we utilized them because it made the interview more personal, you saw the person’s facial expression and that led to seeing their actual thought process. As I said before, the hardest part of our entire project was the editing, more specifically shifting from one interview to the next. With iMovie’s transition it helped all the scenes shift smoothly which was most important.
Overall, I think our documentary came out very well. Our film was designed to be real; showing what life as a senior is like and we definitely achieved that. Our interviewees answered questions about what activities they partake in, how senior year is different from all the others, and about the process of applying to college. I think our film is a great selection to show to future classes because not only does it pertain to what everyone is going through but also it has all the necessary requirements for the project. I feel that as my second encounter of making a movie, it was very successful.