AICE Media Studies Blog

          Wow so I'm shooting this week and honestly I don't know how I'm going to fit it in with my schedule but if I want to stay anywhere remotely on pace I'm gonna have to figure it out. Noah and I were talking about it and came up with a general idea for how we are planning on scheduling it but at this point in the year, its difficult to get even two or three people together after school so its going to be a little tricky to coordinate a shooting session, let alone an entire sequence of shots in various locations.           Our general plan right now is to shoot the urban scenes sometime this week, by going to the nearby movie theater (I outlined in an earlier post why this would be one of the best locations to shoot) with our friend and new cameraman. This would take place right after sunset when it starts to get dark, so we will have ideal lighting for the night scenes. One is...

          I've had a while now to come up with an image for this movie in my head but I still have this feeling that it will look way worse when I actually shoot. Even though that's probably true, focusing on mise-en-scene will probably really help the accuracy of the shots and the overall sequence fitting in line with the image I have for it.           Even though I've said some of this before, putting all of my mise-en-scene plans into one post will help me plan better for when I actually set it up and putting it into words might help me better display my specific idea for this. First of all, I want this film to look very dark, but with contrasting colors. In my mind, the lighting is slightly dark, but with deep shadows and contrasting bright lights. The setting is urban, but not a futuristic utopia, more like a city with a futuristic tone but a modern feel. The costuming is modern, wit...

          Acting seems to be what people always take away from a film after seeing it. Not necessarily the editing or cinematography, although those are very important, but the connections they make with the characters and the actors/actresses that play them is what forms a memorable movie for the audience. This is based mostly on my own experiences because that's the most memorable part for me: the characters. And if an actor gives a great performance, it makes it that much more memorable.           Because of that, I want to take extra care and thought about who is going to act in this movie, because it will be one of the most important parts for the audience. If I'm really being honest though, it's probably gonna end up being Noah and I. We are planning on just filming each other for the solo scenes and having one of our friends be the cameraman if we need to shoot a scene with both of us in it at the same time. This is defi...

          As I'm just starting pre-production, one of the first things that I was thinking about was where exactly I was going to shoot the film. I need to find somewhere local that I could easily access, but also somewhere that would fit in with the theme of my film. Another issue that comes up is who will act in the film, whether it be myself or an outside source.           For the location, the original idea was to get a location mostly urban, to keep with the futuristic theme, but also one with colorful lighting that wouldn't make it seem overly dark and would give the setting some contrast. Our first idea for this was the local movie theater, which is at a location that is just what we had in mind: a mostly urban setting with neon lighting and somewhat populated. We chose this both because it would give the film a really awesome aesthetic, but also because..... we don't have the money to make a huge set or use any sort of CGI ...

          Now that I've finally finished the research and financing stages and am planning to go into pre-production, I can't keep from thinking about one thing: this is going to be a mess. I know I should be positive about it and optimistic of the experience, but honestly I can't do it. I can't help from thinking of all the ways that this project could fall apart or simply not be appealing or entertaining to anyone even if we do pull it off. Not all is lost, though. Just a brief look at the film industry showed me that sometimes even the greatest films ever seemed like a dumpster fire during production.           One very popular example in Sci-Fi specifically is Blade Runner , which, when I looked more into it, is one of the greatest examples of a disaster production scenario (in this case, multiple disaster scenarios) becoming a legendary film. In fact, the horrible production scenario became so infamous that multiple documentar...

     As I've said before, I'm working on a near non-existent budget for this thing so Noah and I were brainstorming ways that we could attain funding if we were to actually make a full length film as an extension of our short excerpt, since we're broke and don't have thousands of dollars to make something like this. We were researching different methods, each with different pros and cons to them that we noticed.      For example, one way that we noticed was crowd funding. It sounds sketchy but has actually raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for some films. We want to make this film appeal to not just Sci-Fi fans, but fans of a great film story and design. If our idea sounds pleasing to the people, we get instant cash to finance our vision. This is an easy, direct way to obtain funding, put could be problematic if the film doesn't succeed and we are left with a bunch of frustrated people who felt like they wasted their money and got nothing in retur...

     I've been planning what my general script and plot is going to look like, which at this point is obviously a rough outline of what it might look like when I actually film. One other thing I've been considering is the goal or mission statement that I want my film to follow. This is present in some films, and I feel like it would be good to add since it is a clear outline of how the film should turn out and how it should seek to interact with the audience.      For the mission statement, I'm not really thinking of anything specific, but something along the lines of aiming to affect the audience in a way that shocks them and get them thinking about our theme, how technology could negatively affect us in the future, long after the credits roll. If I follow this line well, I feel like I will be more focused and more on topic, and the film overall will be better quality and more aligned with my vision and mission.      I'm working with...