Self-portraits

Even though, I felt slightly embarrassed by my self-portrait, I thought, for working on my project, it was a fun experience to figure out how to express myself in an experimental way. For viewing the projects made by my classmates, I got to learn more about them through this assignment. I got to know some of them, not only prior to this assignment, but prior to taking this class, from other classes we had taken. With this assignment, I found out stuff that I actually did not know about them and I got to see the different approaches that they took to express themselves.

Cucalorus

I went to Cucalorus every day from Thursday to Sunday. I became a volunteer for the festival, which resulted in me getting a Pegasorus pass. I had short shifts and made sure I had plenty of time to see at least 5 showings, for the sake of this class…I went to 10. On Thursday, I went to my 2:00 volunteer shift, which lasted an hour, after that I went to my first three screenings, which were: Son of Clowns, the Emperor Shrimp block, and She’s Allergic to Cats. The Son of Clowns film was filmed in Raleigh, where my family lives, and so I spoke with the filmmaker after the film and talked about Raleigh, a friend of mine who appeared in the film,  The following day I went to the Wandering the Sphere panel, after my shift with the Virtual Realty set-up at Expo 216, which was then followed by the screening of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 Film, The Shining. I stayed for the Q&A following the film, in which the audience go to talk with Kubrick’s daughter, Vivian, as well as Garrett Brown (inventor of the Steadicam and camera op of the film) and Joe Dunton. After the Q&A, I was able to get a picture with Vivian, and a couple of my friends (which I thought was insanely awesome). The next day, Saturday, I had another volunteer shift which was to be a survey coordinator, during a screening. The screening was the Elephant Seal short block, which happened to contain a film by Dave Monahan. I enjoyed the film and thought it was great to another film made by one of the professors at my school. The following screenings I saw that day were Slash, which almost reminded me of 2007’s Juno in a weird sort of way and the Convulsions block. The film, Gwilliam, that was in the block was, I can honestly say, the first film to make me almost throw up (I did in my mouth a little). The last day, Sunday, I went to one (and my last) screening which was a Dutch film called, Moos. The film was a light-hearted comedy and (style-wise) reminded me of 2002’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Cucalorus plan

For Cucalorus, I will be volunteering and I am planning to go to different screenings around my volunteering shifts. I will be working with Virtual Reality on Thursday and Friday, and will be doing surveys for the Elephant Seal shorts block on Saturday. I plan to go to any available screenings after my shifts Thursday through Saturday, currently planning to do, at least 2 or 3, on the latter day. Then, I plan to do some more on Sunday, seeing I don’t have any shifts that day and will have all day to see as many films and mingle with as many filmmakers as humanly possible.

Photo Assignment

Self-Reflection

                An idea I have for the self-reflection, is to incorporate a short story I have been working on and use that as a narration. The story will be come off as the inner monologue of an individual from birth up to the age of eighteen, and observations he makes. I want to incorporate into the story, aspects of how I see myself and how others see me. I want to incorporate aspects of anxiety and paranoia, for those are examples of how I view myself at this point.

                Seeing that this version of myself goes from infancy to young adulthood (18), part of me is concerned of how I will go about this in terms of the actual footage I will actually make and to coincide with what my story will be telling. I am also concerned with how I can make this reflect how myself, and others, see me. I feel that this would be an interesting approach of reflecting on myself, as well as something that can possibly be very humorous. I like to make people laugh, it makes me feel better when I can put a smile on someone’s face.

                With that being said, I see my approach to this project as a challenge. I see in as a way I can challenge myself not only as a filmmaker, but also who I am as a writer and as a person. As the project type entails, I think it will truly help me reflect on who I currently am as a person, who I used to be, and who I strive to be (I know that sounds like an overused cliché). I know that using a short story as a voiceover narration, even though it has been done, will definitely be a challenge for me, as a film student. But, figuring out the direction of the story and coming up with ideas for the footage to use, will be the true challenge.

Approach to Music Video

                The ideas I have for my role, for this project, involve making sure everything goes smoothly during filming; given the ideas my group has for approaching this project.  Seeing we plan to do this a single shot, or at least that illusion (if deemed necessary), I want to make sure we have enough rehearsal time with cast, crew and equipment to which we can make this style of filming comfortable for everyone on set.

I am planning to focus on the blocking for both actors and crew.  I want to make sure that we get any equipment or cast and crew members, who are not supposed to be in the shot, out of the frame while we are recording the entire video, or section of video. Also, through blocking, I want to make sure that everything has a nice flow to it, as we move through the two rooms, as the camera follows our five actors.

Also, seeing that the context behind our video will take the “(500) Days of Summer” approach, in which we will give off the sense of jumping back and forth through time. I will work with my actors, especially my main actor, to put them in the mindset of this approach. I will also work on the emotional approach with each actor. For example, with the main actor and the aspect of love, I will work with him and see if he can express a unique love for each ex, and then for other moments get an expression of anger or sadness.  I will also be working on instant transitions throughout the video, such as going from anger for one ex and then instantly transitioning to loving another as they switch out being a certain object throughout the video.

I am looking forward to making this project and the challenges that await. 

Location and Talent for Music Video

Our location for the music video will be David's apartment in Seahawk Village.

Our talent consists of:

Guy: Ryan Ayars

Exes: Alexis Terrell, Morgana Callahan, Tess League, and Wesleigh Neville