Week One; A new beginning!
I typed up the base of this script a few semesters ago, but when coming into this class I really wasn’t sure what to use. I was worried about schedule conflicts, and I even had some issues deciding on what idea to go on. Luckily, on the first day of class, I met up with my Professor and Brianna to figure things out. This week was mainly dedicated to typing up the script for the project. The big things I researched with the mood and theme of this project were Jessica Jones, Daredevil, and Nightcrawler. I love a lot of those films and wanted to try and capture those tones for this story. I spent some time reading and watching a lot of scenes from these films to get in the mood for this project. For the audience, my primary focus was trying to think of who would enjoy this, settling on teens to late thirties. I think it is still mainly for people who enjoy supernatural things, or beings with heightened abilities. I also tried to look at old scripts and see how I could possibly improve my writing and ideas for this specific project.
Week Two; Finding the crew!
At first, I was going to see if I could hop onto someone else’s project, I even went to my professor’s other class to see if anyone wanted to help. Though, luckily because of that I found more crew members! I got them to look at my script, which will help fix the script for the actual project. I also began to plan the idea of going to the meeting between the actors of the project. Big inspirations for this were still, Jessica Jones, Daredevil, but also ParaNorman. Keeping the idea of how he sees and interacts with the ghost in mind, and how whenever he smokes, he sees them all around him. Always able to talk and communicate with them. We had a meeting inside the library to fully plan everything. This week was pretty eventful!
Week Three; The Shot-List and Cast!
This week I went to the theater mixer with Melba! I made about ten flyers with my logline, characters, and contact info! I passed out all ten, and Melba began to talk with some of the actors. Sadly, I didn’t get any answers at the end of the week, though I put myself out there! I also met a lot of people there and had fun with my friend Melba. After that day, I spent most of the week working on my shot list. I watched Jessica Jones and Punisher help with some of the ideas for my shots.
See more about the shot-list in it’s own tab!
Week Four; The Cast and The Pitch!
This week was mainly me trying to figure out the cast and the locations. Since I didn’t have anyone reach out to me about the acting, I asked Melba to help me look for more. I also asked my professor to help me by searching for more people who could act for us. I also asked Jamie who gave me some names of people who could act in the film. I also went to look for locations, mainly around Tombs Street and Langdale Park. I also had a few backup locations that worked for this project as well. I and my Co-Director also worked on the pitch deck that had to be turned in by February 6th. We met up at my apartment and recorded it together. I edited the video also after we made the PowerPoint as well. I watched Lucifer, The Defenders, and more of Jessica Jones for more inspiration for the project.
Week Five; After The Pitch and Pre Production Documents.
After posting the pitch, we switched to fully focusing on doing pre-production documents. Fully swinging into doing the storyboard, and the image system, and fully getting the cast figured out. Luckily, we found almost everyone. The only people we couldn’t find this week was Ricky and the killer. I didn’t have time to watch anything for inspiration, but I did use some of the notes and screenshots I had from earlier in the week to inspire the storyboard and image board. This week I and Brianna mainly finished ironing out everything. The schedule, our pre-production documents, and getting our equipment lined up to be able to shoot. We did all of this because we had to go into shooting weeks. We also had to turn it all in on the twelve. I also did and turned in my Pitch Peer Reviews for my classmates.
Week Six; The scheduling Mishaps
This week has been one of the most hectic. We started it off by going to class and discussing with my professor about missing the last few actors. This week also starts our filming week, so we had to get that figured out. Our current actors and crew already had scheduling conflicts, so our casting director Melba came to class and helped us iron out a new schedule for the filming times. Sadly, a lot of crew could not keep up with our and their projects conflicted so they couldn’t stay on. We settled on only really being able to mainly do weekends, and some weekdays for Ricky and Ericka’s scenes. While a tough decision, I also lined up a backup project with my friend Will Mcoy who is doing a documentary for his capstone. He helped with some of the creative foundations for this project, and I helped formulate him as well. Though after talking to my professor, I decided to take his advice and keep trying with this project to see if we can do it. Sadly, the cage didn’t give us our Zoom this weekend so we couldn’t record. We decided to go to an apple bee for lunch and huddle down to make the updated schedule and see how our next few weeks were going to be.
Week Seven; First Day Of Shooting
This week was the week when we planned to finally film, and coming up to the weekend I decided to watch more of Jessica Jones, and Daredevil for inspiration. I also looked at Rear Window and decided to practice setting up some shots for the actual shoot. We had scheduling issues with the main actress, couldn’t film Saturday. That Thursday I messaged my professor to ask for advice. Luckily, we were able to shoot Sunday. I sat down with some of the actors to discuss more of our scheduling issues to notify us a bit earlier than they have been doing to help curve the issue. Sunday we crunched and managed to fit in scenes 5 and 7. We also got 1, 9, 10, 12, and 13. This weekend was filled with lots of shooting and making sure at least half of the script was done to make up for last week.
Week Eight; The footage
We had another scheduling conflict with the South Georgia film festival and had to reschedule again for the next week for our shooting. So, I took this week and time to work on making our scene-by-scene assembly of the footage we had so far. During this week, I mainly edited and looked over our footage, while making sure to keep in mind our future dates. I also took some time to look ask my friend Jamie what she felt about some of the scenes and how they were cut together. My professor said that some of the footage was a bit grainy, and dark. Though he did like the variety of shots and different perspective choices that we had chosen. So, I and Brianna looked into getting more equipment for lighting and tried to map out our lighting better as per his advice as well as trying to use the tripod more for the shaky footage.
Week Nine; The First Assembly
This week we had all of our production work to date due. So, I worked a bit more on our editing and we managed to fit our way into the deadline and show our teacher the full timeline with all of the footage. This week we planned to film but had to reschedule yet again as our lead actress had to fly to Kentucky for an event. We decided to take this time to work again on our schedule and figure out when exactly to make this up. We also began to plan to shoot on spring break and took steps to plan that out. We sent an email to the cage director and got all of our equipment needs sorted out before we had to go out and film. During this week I tried to play more around with lighting in my room, while also looking again back at Jessica Jones, Rear Window, and Punisher for more inspiration.
Week Ten; Spring Filming
Spring break! We have a schedule and filled everything out. We managed to film our reshoots on Sunday and get the huge scene with almost all of the actors. We also managed to film the killer scene. Now, why didn’t we get a chance to film the parking lot and the outdoor scenes that we also wanted to do? Sadly we got rained out, three different times. It was a little funny, but we didn’t let it get us down. We filmed the inside scenes when we could. We looked over the new footage and began to restructure our new schedule with all of our actors present for it. I also looked more into techniques to try and lower my shaky footage for my camera.
Week Eleven; Crunch Week
The last shooting week! We met up on Tuesday for the last scene with Ricky, met up on Wednesday for the last scene with Mrs. Jackson, and then Thursday for the parking lot. We then got the final outdoor scenes all done on Saturday. This week was filled with tons of filming, and logging all the footage onto my computer. I didn’t get much time to look at much of my inspirations, so I took a lot of the notes and image systems in mind with me to these shoots from previous weeks. I also played around a bit more with the slider we got from the cage to help stabilize some of the close-up shots.
We have a lot of bloopers and funny pictures on set, so here you go!
Week Twelve; The Assembly Part 2
The first week of editing was very relaxing and a lot nicer than the shooting we had to do. I and Brianna were able to sit down and work on our own schedule, and it really helped with this week. We began planning the looks we wanted for the scenes and making sure that we had enough for the trailer. We also began to plan for the posters and try and think about what we were going to do there. I played around with color grading and tried to look up more inspirations for posters. I took inspiration from more simple posters, eye-catching and yet not having a lot going on. I got my inspiration for it from a few movies and shows. The Bear, Rear Window, but the main inspiration and what gave me the biggest idea was a poster made by Brent Nederhand for The Menu.
Week Thirteen; The Posters
This week I finally finished compiling all the footage we could onto the timeline and making our sort of second draft. Putting all of our scenes by scenes together and showing the timeline to our professor. I was able to get at about twenty-three minutes. Which I didn’t think I was going to be able to do. We also were able to use this time in the studio to take pictures for our posters with our lead actress. This week we also began to iron out the special effects plan we had for the ghosts. Our professor gave us the advice to shorten some of the scenes, and to work a bit more with the color correction and darkness in some of the footage.
Week Fourteen; Coloring Central
This week was more of me trying to follow up on the advice from my professor that he gave me when we met and he showed me what he thought of it. I and Brianna mainly decided to focus on color correcting and making sure all the clips flowed the best they could. We also decided to try and pick out the clips that would fit the best for the trailer, and made a small bit of an outline for the trailer. I looked at a few inspirations for the trailer. Trying to look at a few of the ones I’ve seen before. Such as the ones for Jessica Jones, Daredevil, and The Punisher.
Week Fifteen; Trailer Time!
This week is when we are starting to get into the final stretch! I and Brianna are starting to get into the final touches with the editing for our final draft. Putting together our trailer and finishing our posters. I am working on getting all the sound effects and music for the project for this final draft, while Brianna is still working on the title card and the special effects for the introductions for the ghosts for this project. I am using Pixabay for these. Me and Brianna also met up on Friday in the mass media lab to try and coordinate the title card a bit more for the trailer and the final draft.
Week Sixteen; That’s a warp!
This was the final ending stretch! We focused on wrapping everything up. The website, the final director’s cuts, and any other small details and things we had to fix up for the final feature. I leaned back on the main inspirations that I had before, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and the Punisher. I also mainly used premiere pro and focused on the music and sound effects for the final piece.
