Plot Rehashing Recess

     What I thought would be a simple conversation with my partner turned into a project changing conversation that took five times as long as I thought it would.  In my last post, I mentioned that in a class review session, my group advised me to shorten my plot significantly in order to not give too much away and to fit the time limit of two minutes, and Vicente's group said the same thing.  We both agreed that we need to shorten it, but how we would do it was very much up for debate.

     My original idea was to use the first half of the storyboard with it ending when the main character wakes up and enters limbo.  Vicente disagreed and believed that we should use the second half of the storyboard for our film opening.  His thought process was that if we only used the beginning portion of our original idea, it would be boring and people would be very confused.  We both believed our idea would be the best way to go, so we argued for a good amount of time.  He continued on with his argument of the lack of entertainment mine would have while I argued that less is better since this is only two minutes of an entire film.  To support my argument, I reminded him of the beginning of the film The Prestige, which can be viewed here.  Although it is slightly more exciting then ours, the opening is very confusing and none of it is explained until the end of the movie.  After this argument, he agreed to use my idea but only if we do multiple cuts between the baby pictures and dead character.  This way, it will create more movement and create some interest.

    In other news, we also have decided a few things filming wise.  One of my friends who owns a very nice camera has allowed me to borrow it for the project.  This will make the quality of the project very clean.  For lighting, I may have to go and buy spotlights, but if they are too expensive, phone cameras will work just as well.  Finally, I talked to my parents and they will get out of the house for a day so I we can have a set for the film.  With a very accessible place to shoot, I am going to start planning out exact rooms to film in and example of shots I'll want. 

Group Meeting Gratefulness

     A couple of days ago, our teacher put us into groups in order to get outside criticism and notes on our projects and blogs.  It allowed classmates with an unbiased view to give me tips on my project and ideas on how to make it better.  When I got into my group, we went over a few of the other peoples projects before we eventually got to review mine. 

     The first thing my group commented on was how nice my blog was.  They appreciated how much I wrote in each post and my occasional use of visuals to help explain my goal for the week.  After appreciating those nice comments for a few moments, I asked them about the storyboard I previously made.  All of them unanimously agreed that my film opening was way too long and would not fit within the allotted time of two minutes.  I kept this in mind and talked to my partner after the group meetings.  Apparently, his group said the same thing, so we both agreed it would be best to cut it off halfway through the storyboard.  More changes will have to be made, but I will discuss that in a later blog.

Story boarding Scenario

     As promised in my last blog post, I have created a storyboard for the film opening.  Since me nor my partner are very artistic, I used this website to assist me in creating the storyboard.  The website allowed me to choose from a set list of backgrounds and character models in order to portray the scenes I wanted.  The red arrows in the first two panels represents camera movement

     I will discuss this with my partner as soon as I can and talk about any changes we need to make to finalize the plot.  I also emailed a few companies about the song "Dear God" since me and Vicente changed our minds about not using it.  Other than these, we are about ready to start planning to shoot this next week!