short film

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/33622304?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0" width="400" height="220" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/33622304">Untitled</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user9635394">Devon Catucci</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

This is the short film my group and I did for our final project. Originally, we came up the concept of doing a film showing a young man stalking a female student. We drew out a storyboard shot by shot, and I created a shot list, detailing what sort of angles and shot sizes we were looking for and brainstorming locations for each scene. We also came up with a props list and planned out the fastest way possible to shoot.

Unfortunately, due to medical reasons, I was unable to be there for the actual day of filming. Devon and Linda quickly bounced around our concept and changed it to work with our one lacking crew member. They came up with the creative idea of having the camera serve as the stalker's point of view, and they did a great job.

Editing was fairly easy. I had some familiarity with final cut, and I believe Devon also did. We choose music that would convey our message well, first we chose the more upbeat, fun, but still dark song "Psycho Killer" by the Talking Heads, which we thought had some nice foreshadowing, and then another song we found in the hunter library, an instrumental with sounds of suspense and doom. The hardest part was cutting the scenes so that they flowed and matched up, for example, in one pair of consecutive shots, the notebook Devon carried jumped from one hand to the other, so we needed to switch to another similar shot that was from an angle that hid the notebook. Other scenes we edited together, such as the shots where a character opens a door and then the next shot shows the door opening, were also a bit tricky to match up. But overall, I think editing went fairly smoothly. I enjoyed working with different shot lengths and trying to make the shots match the music and give a rhythm of growing suspense.

If we had more time to work on the project, I would have liked to do more editing with color correction, and possible add more sound effects, but overall I think the short film went very well. It was definitely a challenge to come up with a project with limited resources and such a short amount of time, especially since I was struggling to keep up this semester and was out a lot due to sickness. I'm really glad I had such a great group and they were able to deal with my unexpected absence the day of shooting and quickly come up with workable footage and an altered concept.

I really enjoyed pre-production, coming up with the concept, storyboard, shot list, figuring out props and locations and costumes, etc. It was a challenge to think of every detail (like wearing layers so we could make it appear that it didn't all take place in one day), but it was a chance to be creative and challenge ourselves to think quickly and be very efficient. I do wish we had more time to edit, and I look forward to learning more about the editing programs in the second portion of this class. It will take a lot of practice to become familiar with and comfortable with all of the tools and aspects in final cut and imovie.

All in all, I really enjoyed this class and the projects we did in it. Although I wish we had more time, and I felt some of the material was a little too basic, it was good to have a chance to reacclimate with programs I was only somewhat familiar with, and the pressure to complete projects in a short timespan really gave me a feel for what the industry and real-life deadlines are like. I was a little disappointed I didn't get to spend any time behind the camera during the actual shooting of the final project, but I learned a lot during the other filming project ("Traffic") and the photography project, and I feel like I got a chance to test out all the skills I needed to learn for the class.

Sound at the Museum of the Moving Image

Recently, I went on a trip to the Museum of the Moving Image. I saw a great demonstration there on sound editing, and in this blog post, I want to share what I learned.

There are many aspects that make up the sound in a movie, such as the dialogue, sound effects, and musical score. Filmmakers carefully edit together these components in order to convey a specific feeling, to correctly depict action, and to help their movie come to life for the audience. The demonstration at the museum used a clip of the movie Titanic in order to illustrate the complex process of sound editing, so I will use examples from that movie to explain what goes into creating the sound of a film.

Two factors most commonly thought of when discussing sound in film are the dialogue and musical score. However, without the complex arrangement of background noises, the dialogue would seem disjointed and out of place, and with only music, the movie would seem more like a mere moving image and less like an experience. The combination of background noises and surround sound can make a viewer feel like they are in the middle of the action, while the entire soundtrack helps to create an emotional response in the viewer.

Some background noises are taken from a library of sound effects that are public domain, meaning anyone can use them. Examples of this are the lion’s roar, played backwards to create the sounds of the ocean, and the slowed down elephant’s call and gunshot sounds used to depict the noises of the collapsing ship in Titanic. The lion’s roar and gunshots are noises we associate automatically with danger, and the elephant’s sound gives us a sense of the largeness of the ship. Many sounds could successfully imitate the noises of a shipwreck, but the sounds specifically chosen by the makers of Titanic help to make the viewer feel a certain way and subconsciously make connections.

A Foley artist, specifically for a movie, creates other background noises in a studio. In Titanic, one of these sound effects is a tin can being crushed. A sound many people here in everyday life, created with a minimal cost, amplified in a studio, creates a gut-wrenching effect when a large portion of the ship crumbles.

The sound effects in a film have as much of an impact on the audience as the musical score, dialogue, and non-sound aspects of filmmaking. At the Museum of the Moving Image, I learned just how much work goes into carefully choosing and orchestrating sound effects for a movie.

Design

The importance of design in the movie industry is illustrated well by the American poster for the 2009 film The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. This poster successfully conveys information about the movie, as well as intriguing it’s target audience, in an aesthetically pleasing way.

The poster is well-balanced, with the graphics and font centered, with the largest images directly in the middle, and the smaller text and pictures on the edges of the page. In the very center, the title of the film is shown in a serif font, which is shadowed to give the illusion of popping off the poster. The title is also curved. The older font gives the viewer the sense that this film takes place in the past, while the curvature of the wording alludes to it’s whimsical nature.

Above the title is the image of the main characters affectionately interacting. They are draped in fabric in a sort of anachronistic costume, letting the viewer know that this movie will be somewhat fantastical. Their body language in this picture also would pique the interest of any viewer interested in a romantic story, and allowing it to appeal to diverse audiences.

Below the title is a more whimsical image of a fun checkerboard, providing a bit of an optical illusion. This leads to what appears to be a portal, an elaborate golden doorway showing another world, with some mystical looking characters standing nearby. The elaborate door gives the viewer the sense that this film has a complex and attractive set design, and what’s beyond it gives a sense of the plot and genre of this film. It clearly defines it as a fantasy and adventure style movie, just like the picture above it shows that there is a romantic plot.

At the very top of the image is a list of well-known actors appearing in the movie, and their photographs line the bottom of the poster. This allows viewers who may be familiar with either the names or the faces of the actors to identify that this is a movie they’d be interested in.

The poster for The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus gives the viewers information about the cast, plots, genres, and designs of the film, showing it would appeal to fans of romance, whimsy, or adventure and fantasy, and it does so in a way that is pleasing to the eye by using techniques such as grouping information, using a grid system to balance the page, and carefully choosing a font. 

traffic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWk0bQhjudo&feature=player_embedded

Photo essay

For this assignment, my group and I choose the theme of "love" at Hunter College. Our plan was to take pictures of public displays of affection and happy couples on the campus, but we quickly realized there was a serious lack of romance around, so we decided to photograph loneliness, instead.

This first photograph shows two girls, both alone and isolated, although they are right next to each other. The corner dividing the frame shows the stark division between their worlds. 

This photo portrays a group of women socializing, while a college student sits separated from them. Although he is right next to a group of people, he is still clearly alone.

The vastness of the background of this photo, paired with the small figure of the boy riding down the elevator, gives the viewer the sense that he is very small in an expansive environment. 

Stamp Assignment

*Disclaimer: I don't really know much about GLSEN.org. I found it while looking for information for this assignment, and I liked what was on their website, but would not support them without learning more about the organization. 

Photoshop exercise

Happy veggie couple =]