The past month

Soundtrack: I sat down with my composer and focused on the sound, the length, the arc, and overall feeling that the music possessed. We decided in class to rework a bit of the sound so that there is more variety with the track as a whole, rather than a few chord variations. I have been focusing with my composer on the music with that in mind, which should be completed by Sunday.

Edit: I am going to tighten up the interviews and end credits, as well as focus on working overlapping the dialogue so that it fits in with the symphony idea. 

Marketing: Finishing up the website and working on printing promotional materials. Also, working on trying to get a premiere screening in Wilmington maybe.

Film Festivals: Start up of indiegogo and submitting to festivals. 

March 16 - March 29

Mostly since Spring Break I have been working with my score artist and my artist for posters and marketing materials.

We were unable to film during these dates due to unavailability of equipment, but we have four interviews scheduled for Monday, March 30th.

I am currently working here and there on the edit.

We also are starting to research festivals and crowdfunding platforms that will allow us to get our name out there and raise money respectively.

This week I am trying to focus on the edit and on the score and art.

March 2-8

This week I worked on the edit a little bit for April 6th. I think it's going to be much harder to get exactly what's in my head "onto paper" so to speak. I am excited to see it all come together, but I think that it's going to be a difficult process. It can definitely be done though!


I also think that we have come to a title, which also puts a lot of pressure on the edit. As of now the working title is "Memoirs in Symphony". I want to use this because the essence of this film has a very humanist personality. It is essentially peoples' memoirs and the way that the edit is composed will be much like a symphony I hope.


That brings me to the issue of music and soundtrack. As for the voices, I am not sure if I will change the frequency of the sound to have an ambient effect or not - maybe in parts. I also want parts with complete silence and I really want an original soundtrack/score. But I am nervous about this because I think that the whole film will need to finished before I can have the soundtrack composed BUT at the same time I think that the soundtrack needs to be composed before the film is edited. SOOOOO that's what I am struggling with at the moment.


I have spoken with my sister about our marketing materials and I am so excited for this!


Finally, I have been thinking a lot about a possible crowd funder campaign for festivals. I think we should release 3 different marketing trailers of 15 seconds worth of an interview or 30 seconds of edited trailer.

This past week

So this week we interviewed Felix and Kristi. Felix's insight and philosophy was so amazing. He has a great Nigerian accent and even said a few things for us in his native language that I think will be really awesome to book-end the film.

Kristi's wanderlust and experiences in life provided us with such amazing footage and insight. She is also the first woman that we've interviewed. She told one story about her grandmother passing away, that was so amazingly sad and beautiful at the same time.

Tonight I am working on our rough cut for the 16th and picking out B roll and a clip to show for tomorrow's presentation.

Last Week and This Week

Last week we focused on talking about the editing process and working on scheduling new interviews and working around our 3 busy schedules.

This week we filmed Felix and Kristi on Monday morning, and are discussing more editing as well. We have run into a problem and will probably nix the first two interviews because of the style mismatch. The style is something that I am really going for and want to keep, so I will probably go ahead and just use sound from the Hal and Zeb's interviews. Jumping the gun and filming really early has proved to be a double edged sword because we have learned what we like, but we also got good interviews that we probably won't use based on the the style.

This past week

This week we worked on the budget, scheduling, and the presentation.

We also interviewed Jonathan from Trader Joe's on Monday, and it was the best interview so far. He spoke about his daughter quite a bit and I realized that this is what really sparked emotion in him, so I tried to stay on this topic for a good majority of the interview. There was an awesome moment where he teared up and Aly was able to bump in on a really great close up of this.

Surprisingly, considering our interviews have only consisted of men so far, our film has a feminist approach. This is why this film, while a documentary, is extremely experimental because we did not plan for our interviews to be in any way feminist, but they have been so far, so that may be something we consider in post.

In terms of this week, we are looking to film on Thursday and Friday nights. This, if all works out, should get us 4-6 interviews, which will put us at a total of 7-9. That's a really good number to work with. From there, we can determine the meat of the film and then schedule additional shoots to help our film and really bookend it well. I want to get a good part of the edit done in March, so that we really have time to work with music and so forth.

Interviewable Subjects and Storyboards

Interviewee 1: I am going to interview my manager Felix (Cruiser's Car Wash), from Nigeria, because he has told me a lot of life stories that are extremely interesting and he has a very different, yet beautiful perspective on life. He is much less family oriented than Americans because of the importance of work in Africa (Nigeria). He hasn't seen his family in years, yet when he is working, he is giving 110% at every moment. I love listening to him and allowing him to mentor me because he is so wise. He also used to be a suit model and dresses like Kanye West when he isn't at work. He is quite the character.

Questions:

1. What was your childhood like growing up in Nigeria?
2. Do you miss your family?
3. You once said to me that you were "here because you wanted to be at Cruiser's because it's what you want to be doing right now", can you explain why you care so much about Cruiser's?
4. Do you think you'll ever go back to suit modeling?
5. What's your pet peeve?
6. What's your happiest memory?
7. What's your saddest memory?
8. If you could change one thing, what would it be?
9. What was the favorite dream you've ever had?
10. Tell me a joke.

Interviewee 2: I am also going to interview my friend Tate because she can always make me laugh, but we can also carry on a deep conversation as well. 

Questions:

1. What's your biggest short term goal?
2. What is your life dream?
3. How do you see yourself when you look in the mirror?
4. What do you enjoy the most when you are completely alone?
5. What is your biggest fear?
6. What is your bedtime and morning routine?
7. What's your favorite place and why?
8. Do you ever dwell on something from the past? Explain.
9. If you could have lunch with one person, who would it be?
10. What is your spirit animal and why?

Storyboards: For the most part I am going to film one person at a time in either Medium, MCU, or CU to capture the facial expressions, mouth, and eyes. I want to use different angles and compositions though so that I don't continue to have just one type of monotonous shot throughout the entirety of the film. 

As for the script and story outline, that can be found in my previous post about the concept and treatment. 

Treatment and Character Bios

Treatment: The film will begin with a quiet panoramic OR still of the beach/inter-coastal waterway/other B-roll. We will hear the quiet, serene voice of the main subject off screen. This will continue for a little bit, then instrumental music will come in at low volume, and then we will finally see the subject talking. The film will be rapidly cut with different phrases, words, and concepts from the interviewees and throughout the story, the film will have an emotional arc that strives to represent the human condition and will hopefully show a common theme. This film concept anticipates human emotion and the idea that "one cannot judge a book by its cover". The music will arc with the edit and the emotion and will show work to create and heighten emotions in the audience.

Concept: I am extremely interested in not necessarily mimicking, but more so allowing French New-Wave film to guide me. I’m partial to Jean-Luc Godard’s films and style. I want to integrate HONY (Humans of New York) concept with black and white, jump cut, intercutting, etc. I think I want to interview some people and write some dialogue as well so that it is a mix of genres. I basically want to episodically document people’s stories without it being an narrative or a documentary, which is why I will write some stories. The people are not connected, there is no plot, but it will cut back and forth out of order in hopes to promote the message that you never know where someone’s been, what they’ve done, how they got to where they are, etc. The French New Wave concept comes into play in post.

Character Bios: The characters that I am hoping to identify and interview in this experimental documentary concept are extremely diverse. I want to shed light on the homeless man that has always been homeless, the homeless man that was once rich, the CEO that had a rough childhood, the drunk that has had an enlightening experience, the average Joe, et cetera, et cetera. The characters are ones that will have to develop throughout the filming and editing process as I cannot plan out what I want them to say and how I want them to act unless I script them and I don't want to control the process.