Visions Response

This year’s Visions festival was my first opportunity to be a guest at Visions. Last year’s Visions, I was a volunteer. Being a volunteer, I did not feel like I got much out of it. I did not meet any new people, and I was not able to watch any of the screenings or listen in on any panels or conferences. This year I was excited to be able to watch the screenings. Unfortunately, due to other classes I had to attend to, I was not able to listen in on the panels or go to the conference block. I was able to see both screening blocks in the morning and in the evening. 

I was impressed with all of the films in both screenings. I thought there were very well shot and edited. There were of course some that I enjoyed more than others. In the first screening block, I really enjoyed The House that Wren Built by Laurel Cohen from Northwestern University. It was about a girl who went to a boarding school and made houses for little fairies because she did not have any friends. I enjoyed this film because of the narrative. I have always loved fantasy films. I could also relate to the young girl in this film because I myself went to a private school and did not have a whole lot of friends. I was very impressed by the special effects the filmmakers used for the fairies. If I had not known, I would have thought a professional independent film company made this, and not a student. Another film I liked in the first screening was Feast Coast. Not only because it was filmed and edited by UNCW film students, but also because of the subject and how they told the story. They made this documentary very dramatic by adding intense music. Everything was edited well so the documentary made sense. The clips that they used in this film were very specific in how this shark attack event was very scary for North and South Carolina beach goers. Another film I enjoyed was Leroy’s Lobster Shack by Sean Mercado of George Mason University. Not only what this film shot and edited well, the plot was crazy. It was the only film that I found myself laughing from it’s insanity. There was only one film in the first block that I did not care for, and that was the experimental film Arches. I do not usually care for stop motion films, unless they are executed cleverly. This, unfortunately, did not. I understood that it was a film about abuse, but I did not think that medium of film and animation was a good way of sending that message out.

For the 2nd block of screenings, the atmosphere was a little different than the first. Because this block was in the evening, guests and viewers were more lively, and had bigger reactions to the films. The films that I enjoyed watching is this block include: Tyesha, The Bumblebees, Period Stories, Pirouette, and Everyday Heroes: The Story of Doctor Hooves. I liked Tyesha, Period Stories, and Pirouette, similar to how I liked The House that Wren Built; because I could relate to them; as a plus size woman who dances. The Bumblebees and Everyday Heroes: The Story of Doctor Hooves had very clever narratives and had a high energy tone to them. This led to the audience howling with laughter. There were only two that I did not care for, Ronnie Ward and De Profundis. Ronnie Ward was one of those films that did not leave an impression on me, because I honestly cannot remember what happened in that film. As for De Profundis, my only critique was that the subtitles were missing for some of the film. That made it hard for me to understand what was going on.

Overall I enjoyed Visions. I would have liked to have met with some of the filmmakers to network. I definitely hope to be able to submit a film for next year’s festival. Hopefully they will let me since I graduate in December. I am very glad there is a festival for undergrads. This is a good opportunity to get their see what other college students are working on, as well as meet other filmmakers. I had a lot of fun, and hopefully I can come next year.

Week 15 Update (4/27/15)

This week, we continued to wrap up our film. Makayla has been editing all of our footage together. She has not asked us for help or advice, so clearly she knows what she wants the edit to look like. Eli has been uploading more b-roll footage for Makayla to use in our video. He said he has been having troubles uploading it all on our Google Drive folder under Dailies. Hopefully everything will sort itself out soon. As for myself, I have been working on creating the production binder. This binder will include all of the talent releases, location forms, equipment forms, and any emails regarding the production of this project. I hope to have everything collected by Friday in time for our final exam.

I am very happy with our progress. I feel as if we are ready to wrap things up completely. I have yet to see what Makayla has edited for our film. I cannot wait to see what the final edit looks like. I am sure it will be great.

Week 14 Update (4/20/16)

This week, we worked on the Marketing and Distribution project, that is due today. I was the one i charge of this project, because marketing and distributing is a part of a producer’s job. So while Simone was busy with Visions, and Makayla was editing our film, Eli and I worked together to on this project. I handled the film festival stuff, and Eli did the website. 

When looking up different festivals to possibly send our film to, there were a couple of things I looked for in these festivals. Firstly, I looked out for festivals that had a music video category, because essentially, that is what our film falls under. I also looked for festivals that focused on music. I found quite a few are specifically music only festivals, meaning they want to showcase music and film. I also looked for festivals that offered musicians to play live, whether if it was for a “Battle of the Bands” type competition, or just a talent showcase. I made sure to find festivals off of the east coast. I found two festivals in San Diego, CA. If Makayla and her friends choose to go, that would be great exposure for them.

I am very happy with where we are heading with this project and our group. I cannot wait to see the final edit when Makayla is done!

Week 13 Update (4/13/16)

Well, we have officially wrapped up filming for this project. Unfortunately, we were unable to film any of the group drumming sessions. We had scheduled to film them last Sunday, and this coming Sunday. We could not film this past Sunday because Mike (who is the drumming professor in the film and was letting us use one of the rehearsal spaces in the Cultural Arts Building to film) was not there to let us in, and some of the drummers did not show up. So after that, Makayla decided that we would not try and film everyone in a group and instead focus on getting some B-roll to layer on top of what we have already. So that is what Makayla and Eli did for the rest of that Sunday. It is a shame that we could not follow through this project in it’s entirety, but things beyond our control happen, and we just have to accept it and move onto another plan. I know for a fact that we have enough footage to complete our film within the time limit, so at least that requirement checked off.

I was scheduled to be busy during these two Sundays of filming, because I signed on a DIS project with the Theatre Department to film for their next show, but unfortunately that fell through, so now I have more time work to help Makayla on the Marketing and Distribution project. So far I have made a Festival Budget and Rollout Schedule. I am going to hold out on making the website, Film Freeway account, Facebook page, etc. because I think that is something that Makayla should do since she knows the most about her film than I do.

As for editing, Makayla is working with her boyfriend (who is featured in the film, and has helped out with the audio for this video as well). I know she’s been working really hard to make sure everything is synced up. I am excited to see the final edit when it is done!

Week 12 Update (4/6/16)

The progress of this film has sort of stalled right now. As far as I know, there has been nothing schedule filming wise. At this point, I am assuming we are no longer filming this semester, and are going to just work with the footage we have. We have plenty of footage now that we could make a good film for this class. We do have the luxury, being an experimental film, that we can make changes  and it would not ruin the final film. I think we can certainly stop filming and do port-production now. I would not be discouraged at all. Especially since I have to work on the Theatre Department’s production go Mad Forest the next two weeks. If we did schedule another shoot, I would most likely not be able to make it. 

I made our group aware of our stalling, and it sounds like we are done for semester, unless Makayla wants to continue working with this into the summer. Makayla and I have not talked about Marketing and Distribution., but I will talk to her soon about what we want to do for this particular project.

Week 11 Update (3/30/16)

Unfortunately, we could not get anything done as a group for our film this past week. Because of Easter Break, in which some of us headed out of Wilmington, we were unable to get together and film. As soon as the break was over, I informed Simone and Makayla of what they missed during last Wednesday’s class. I told them about the Marketing and Distribution project due in a few weeks. I will work with Makayla to make sure that gets done. As far as I know, we do not have any film shoots coming up soon. I am unsure if Makayla wants to go ahead and work with the footage we have right now and use that as our film, or if we still want to film the group numbers. It would be great if we could fit in a film shoot sometime soon to get this group number, but since we are a bit pressed for time, and I will soon be working on a show for the Theatre Department for 2 full weeks, there is the possibility that this group shoot could not happen. We shall see once the four of us meet again and decide on what needs to be done.

Week 10 Update (3/23/16)

We had our second film shoot on Saturday. We originally were scheduled to film at Jengo’s on Sunday, but some things did not work out. So instead we filmed some more solos for part 2 of our film. The drummers we filmed two jazz drummers. One was a music professor here at UNCW, the other was one of his students. They were both very talented. It is interesting seeing two different types of drummers play. The rock band style drummers had more of a hardcore, fast rhythm, and sporadic style of drumming. The jazz drumming was quieter and not as hard hitting as the other. That is not to say that either one of these styles is better than the other. I actually think both styles are good. I just find it fascinating that you can use the same instrument and play it in completely different styles.

The filming went very well. We all got there on time, and spent roughly 30 minutes setting up. We luckily did not run into any issues while setting up or while filming. We were concerned about the lighting, because we filmed inside and it was daylight, so the sun was shinning through the window. We were not able to get that dark and dramatic lighting that we have been hoping, because the sunlight was coming through the windows and did not have a sheet to cover it up. Despite that, I think we can still make that footage look really cool and make it fit with what Makayla wants through color correction. Our 2 drummers each did 3 or 4 takes at drumming. They timed each other because they did not want to go over a minute per take. This was very different from our first film shoot with the band drummers who we let “jam” out as long as they wanted for each take. The average take for that shoot was roughly 7 minutes, though there was one drummer who did a 21 minute take. Because our jazz drummers were so organized and kept the filming very short, we finished within 2 hours. We were able to pack up really quickly and left before the sun had set. 

The drummers we filmed on Saturday were very nice. The drumming professor even said he would help us reserve the classroom we filmed at for when we film our group numbers. I was very satisfied with what we accomplished this weekend. Hopefully this means our group shooting for parts 1 and 3 will not be crazy.

Week 9 Update

Last week for Spring Break, our group did not do a whole lot together for this project. We knew ahead of time that the majority of us were going out of town for the week, so we could not do anything for this project. As far as I know, Eli still has all of our footage from our film shoot from two Wednesdays ago. I am not sure why the footage has not been uploaded to our dailies folder. Maybe because there was so much footage, the file sizes were too big to upload into Google Drive. I have had that happen before with large video files. I am hoping Makayla has or will get a copy of the footage. It is always good to have multiple copies of files in case one copy gets lost of corrupted. 

Our plan for the next couple of days is to film our next section of the video, one of the group drumming sessions, on Sunday the 20th. We have contacted Jengo’s Playhouse, and they have graciously let us film there that day. I am a little bit nervous about what Sunday will be like, because we are going to be filming multiple drummers at once. I can imagine that it will be a crazy filming day. It is also supposedly going to rain that Sunday, so hopefully that will not interfere with our shooting. Jengo’s has been very kind and professional to us. Near the end of the spring break, they emailed us asking if we still planned to film there, and also informed us about a 50% downpayment before we start filming. At the time I am writing this, we have not payed the down payment, but I will make sure we do. At least Jengo’s is not being too pushy about this. Again, I am very nervous, but also excited about our shoot on Sunday. I am going to stay very optimistic about it, but I do know that something is bound to go wrong. Hopefully we all can fix it and keep control of the filming.

Week 8 Blog (3/2/16)

I wanted to wait to do this week’s blog until after our film shoot Wednesday evening.

Well everything is going very well. We finally have a few locations to film at. Last night we filmed at one of the drummer’s house. And we even got permission from Jengo’s to film there later this month. It took a while for the ball to start rolling, but now we are excited to continue working on this film.

As for Wednesday, we got there and started setting up around 4pm. It took us an hour to set up everything. We had a tone of equipment that Eli had brought. We had at least two of everything, which I thought was a bit excessive. We ended up using most of the equipment. We used five cameras, and used two LSD lights. I helped with sound recording since Simone stayed in class yesterday. I had set up one H4N recorder, and luckily I have taken the sound recording class, so I know how to use the equipment. The batteries in the H4N were low when I first started them up, but luckily we had a 2nd H4N with batteries in them, so I was able to swap them out. For filming, we let each drummer come onto the set and start drumming/jamming. We let them do what ever they wanted, because this was a part of the drum solos section in our film. In this section, we want to highlight the talent of these drummers. We filmed four drummers last night, and we gave each one three takes to show off their skills. Each take was roughly 3-7 minutes, except one take which was 21 minutes because the drummer was “feeling the vibe” and we did not want to interrupt him. They all were incredible! They are all very talented and I am really happy they can be a part of our video. After everyone was done, we wrapped up and left just before 9pm.

It was great to finally be able to film something. We had such a long gab in between pre-production and production, that our group was getting a bit worried. It was smart that we filmed the solos first, because it allowed both the drummers and ourselves to ease into filming this project. If we had started filming with a group of drummers, there would have been a whole lot of chaos.

Week 5 Update

Well we have hit a snag in our pre-production. Our filming locations have not been approved nor denied. I have contacted two different people in the last two weeks and neither of them have responded to our request. I am not sure if there is something wrong on our end, if Pat or Kim never got the email, or if it is something else. I will make sure this problem has been solved by the end of the week. I may have to visit either Pat or Kim in their office and work out this problem in person. I know Makayla is working at finding an alternative film location to film our two big group numbers. I am hoping we can get a place soon, so we can film on our preferred film shoot dates. 

The only good news that we have is that Eli got to check out the camera we plan to use for this shoot. He checked it out during the weekend so he could play around with the camera, see how it works, and get used to filming with it. 

Due to scheduling conflicts, Makayla and I have yet to meet together to revise our budget. We still have our original draft, but I would like to revise it so we include our in-kind donations. I will make sure this gets done as soon as possible.

I still think we are in a good place as far as pre-production. Because we knocked out so much within the first few weeks, there has not been a whole lot left to be done. Once we get over this obstacle of getting our film location approved, we can continue moving forward.

Week 4 Update

This week has been rather slow for Pre-Production. We have done a lot of work these past few weeks, so now we have hit a slow point. We have gotten a few more drummers who have accepted to work on this film project. We have set out a couple of possible film dates. I have already sent two on-campus location requests for when we film our group numbers. I am a little worried that neither of them have been responded to yet. We may have to wait a bit longer to get a reply. We have our first-draft budget made, and we will be revising it later on this week.

Again, this was a slow week for us, because we have done a majority of our Pre-production work in the first two weeks. We have made progress. I think we are moving along quite well. I am really excited for us to start filming our experimental film.

Week 3 Update

We have gotten a lot of pre-production work done so far, and when I say we, I mean our Director. She has done a phenomenal job so far. I can really tell that she is passionate about this film project, which is great. I do wish that she would let us help her out a bit more, but she seems to have most of it under control. The rest of us are doing what she asks, when she asks. So far, I think we are all going to get along quite well for this film project.

So far, we have our cast members, a crew call poster to invite other film students to help us out with filming, a first draft budget, storyboards, schedules, treatments, and more. Once we have our set location confirmed, we will be able to complete our preproduction and move into production soon. This appears to be a very big production, with the number of cast members and possible crew members. I am really excited about working on this project as the Producer and Editor. This film is going to be a bit hectic, but if we all work together, I think we can pull it off.