Final Project 3: Hunter of Cards

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKgQAPjk5-0&feature=youtu.be
The Story Board 

For this final project, We came up with the idea of doing a fictional narrative about College. I thought it would feel more appropriate if we added in some sort of a House of Cards vibe to the narration. My partners agreed despite not knowing what House of Cards was, regardless we planned out the entire script to have the student explain what hardship a student must face while going to college and should they be more ruthless about it or not when it comes to personification of the midterm and the final coming to life. Thanks to Natalia's friend, Oscar, who played the main character perfectly. He had that tone of voice to carry himself in the narration while at the same time giving that comedic effect to the role. We instantly loved him as that role. Which motivated us to get everything perfect with the editing despite a few errors, with the premiere program closing down unexpectedly or not having the right clips. We first had Oscar record his lines before doing any shooting because of the camera feedback. We went to a quiet room on the fourth floor with Hunter North. After Natalia provided, suggestions on what we should do next, the sound effect for the fight scene and the other variables scene, and then later taking on the role as the personification of the final exam during the final shooting. Eva provided makeup, props, moral support, suggestions on what to wear, audio recording, and camera movement when she wasn't busy doing her role as the professor. I provided camera movement while everyone was playing their roles, provided suggestions in what shots we should have or use and how the story should begin and end and then playing the role as the personification of the midterm later on. We all basically shared the role of directing on how we wanted to film this. It was tough at first because of the location, classroom being used, and people walking into our shots, but everything just became easier over time. After we got our shots, all we had to do left was to sync up the audio and edit the video. Editing was really fun because we were all editing together most of the time and frequently looked at each other to make sure that we were both on board with all the changes or had other unique ideas. I found this very interesting because we were so invested in our story and working as a team to get it right.

Film History: Extra Credit

Maya Deren, Film Marker and Theorist

The Film "Pierrot the Madman"  by Lionel White

Luis Bunuel, Famous Spanish Director.

The Foreign Film, Talk to Her.

Marlon Riggs, Film Maker and Educator.

He is an African-American filmmaker and gay rights activist. He has written and directed several television documentaries. He is most known for the 'Black is...Black Ain't', 'Ethnic Notions', and 'Color Adjustment'. His themes in films are usually examination of the past, sexuality in America and presentation of race. What I like about Marlon Riggs is that he did not become a film marker because he loved film. He became one so he can spread his message across the world, about how he felt and by breaking the silence amongst humanity.

"Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee, produced in 1989.

The movie is about a story of typical neighborhood that is constantly tension with many racial issues. Eventually it reaches it's peak on the hottest day of summer and comes to a full tragic boil on the hottest day of summer. Directed by Spike Lee, this movie was very controversial due to white critics saying that this movie will cause black people to riot. However this movie was a success and had received numerous award, including best original screenplay. In 1999 it was deemed to be culturally significant to be in the U.S. Library of Congress and listed among as the greatest movie of all time.

Museum of the Moving Image Trip: Automated Dialogue Replacement

During the trip to the Museum of the Moving Image, I was in awe by most of the exhibit there, one of them is the Automated Dialogue Replacement or ADR for short. This device allowed the user who is participating to pick a scene from a collection of movies in its database and reenact them. For me, I picked a scene from School of Rock, where the main character Dewey, aka Jack Black was impersonating as a school band teacher. He was introducing himself to his class while at the same time laying down the rules for them. I had to reenact every word that Jack Black said to his class in any way I wanted it. First, you put on the headphones to the device, a machine instructor inside the device will tell you have two times to say the lines. One to practice the line and the other to record the line. The first time while practicing, you will hear three beeps, then the scene will begin. The class has spoken first, then it was Jack Black, you have to say the line the same time he does. Thankfully, there were subtitles to read along too. That will be your practice, to get a sense of how he says it and also to get ready for what you have to say. Then after that the headphones will replay how you sounded while saying the line. From there it's up to you on how you feel about the tone of voice you're using. You can change it up from the recording part. Now for the recording part, there will be another three beeps. The scene plays again, the class says their part and you have to say your part, but this time Jack Black wasn't saying the line again. His part is muted, but you have subtitles to follow along. Once that is over, the entire scene will play again with your voice dubbed over Jack Black's lines. It sounded really cool while at the same time weird hearing my own voice being played back to me. It was like I was in the movie. This experience was really great and I can't wait to go back there again.

Relationship Between Shots. Blog #3

           The movie Training Day was a very amazing and dramatic story about a rookie cop learning the way of the streets and doing some justice while having a corrupted cop as a partner and a mentor. After awhile, you realize that this corrupted cop has a very tight grip on his fellow officers and his whole community back home, that he has every piece of dirt on them and can arrest them at anytime he wants. They show the fear and force loyalty for this cop except for the rookie. The rookie has a sense of justice and doesn't want to do what the corrupted cop wants. Eventually the corrupted cop begins to understand that the rookie is not one of them and has to be killed. Which leads to a fall out, a shoot out, and even to a point where the two cops are trying to kill each other in front of the corrupted cop's community and family. You think the community will try and help out the corrupted cop, but they all stand against him because they saw the rookie defying him.

          The camera begins to have a medium close up zoom on the corrupted cop's face, he's in complete shock, looks around the community in disbelief as the camera pans around the area to see everyone standing against him and one of his followers pointing a gun at him. The camera does a medium shot of the gun towards the corrupted cop and the stared down between them. Then the camera follows up with a medium long shot on the rookie walking away, covered in his own blood, with his former mentor in the back yelling out to him to come back and finish what they started.

Medium close ups on the corrupted cop's face as he shouts at the rookie, the community, about how he runs this place. Following with other medium shots and long shots of the community and his family slowly walking away and leaving him alone on the street with no longer the power, fear, or loyalty he has left. Just a shell of a man. The angles at this part shows how much this corrupted cop has fallen.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KrNpxODiDA

           

Audio Interview Assignment #2

https://vimeo.com/123907151

The Soundwalk. Blog #2

My Soundwalk, my neighborhood, it sounds so peaceful at night. The texture of sounds is almost always harmonic, like I'm hearing the true sound of Night or my Neighborhood to be exact, however it ends up being erratic. Sounds of strays cars whizzing on by, either down the road or up the block. The car doors opening and closing, slamming and honking almost like a rhythmic sort of tune. Footsteps soon follow, stomping up and down the sidewalk like a galloping horse. Sometimes the back of the foot are being slowly dragged across the pavement as if it were sandpaper. Then everything becomes quiet again for a few seconds, until you hear the jingling of keys or buzzing apartment doorbells ripping through the air, with the back up sound of apartment doors being slammed behind whoever is entering or leaving. After a while, it becomes a pattern until late in the night where only the ambience sound of sleep surrounds the area with the air and wind as its instruments. Only playing gently breezes and soothing atmosphere, however there are a few stragglers of sounds creeping its way into the mix. You can hear the weird sound of garbage bags being thrown or rubbed against each other indicating that someone is searching through it. Then loud glass bottles chime as it is being thrown to the ground and the erratic noise of it breaking. One or two people will have taken a stroll through the neighborhood by now, talking loud and very slowly, almost muffled in their tone of voice, but clear enough to be heard. Those who had fallen to sleep, will have probably have woken up from the sleep of Night either disturb or shaken up by the nightmarish sound. 

Defining a Space Assignment #1

https://vimeo.com/121312576