V-Week

This week is all or nothing, good or bad, victory or defeat week. A lot has piled up and I need to get it all done, with studying for finals somewhere in between. Quickly, Raw image processing is hard yet yields very good images; editing will resume after my History paper is completed; I am wired on caffeine right now. Sorry for the short post, but I got stuff to do. The documentary will be completed to a presentable degree on Thursday morning. Wish me luck!

~Greg Z~

Stress ensues

As the title suggests, today was a bit stressful. I left school @ 7am to get to Infinity by 8:15. Luckily, my sister wasn't there yet so I picked up a breakfast sandwich at Wawa...mmmmmmm! So after my sister finally showed up (traffic issues), I shot everybody in their natural habitat. And I was surprised to see that they indeed looked more natural than in the video. I guess it is more stressful when some guy has a giant camera in your face, rather than a little one. Anyway, I am excited to process these pictures. Stick here for more updates.

~Greg Z~

Drastic times...

I have edited a large portion of the short and things are looking up. However, my successful procedural rotoscoping experiment proved to be too stylized for such a piece. It looks cool, and I might use that technique for something in the future. But right now, I need more footage. The only other option in front of me is covering cuts with still photography. I will borrow my friend's Canon Rebel XT and drive out to Infinity next Monday. I have about 50 shots planned and will probably take 150 pictures, or fill up the memory card...which ever comes first. I will also shoot Raw to gain some knowledge in Raw image processing. So indeed drastic times call for drastic measures. Stay tuned.

~Greg Z~

Please wait...your call is important to us.

As foretold, my classes are not giving me time to continue the project. But I have good news; my MTV internship is over! Now I have Mondays and Thursdays back! As per request of Phil and Chris, I presented my mid-term work finally. Some praise was issued, along with criticism. This week, I will continue to work on it and show it again to Phil and Chris. I ran into a problem when editing. I have a lot of footage, but not enough of what I need. The one challenge ahead of me is to figure out a way to cover cuts with existing footage. Perhaps I will try a little rotoscoping...

~Greg Z~

Yet another weekly update

I have captured all of the footage and as I feared before, it is a lot. It looks really good though and I am excited to start editing. I think the three challenges that lie ahead of me are creation of a coherent and slick graphic scheme, manufacture of tight and engaging music, and completion of the project in time. I really wish that my other classes would let up on me just so I can get a good and solid start on this. Oh, well. I guess I will become a nocturnal creature once again. Cheers!

Slow and steady wins the race...right?

I have captured 2 1/2 hours of footage so far. I should have captured more but I have underestimated the amount of space that HDV footage takes up. My external hard drive is almost filled. I think I will move the project to a lab computer so I do not run out of space. Also the Power Mac G5s process HDV footage a wee bit better than my Powerbook G4. Don't you agree? Anyway I should be capturing more footage (hopefully the remainder) this week. Stay tuned...

~Greg Z~

Holding Pattern

Since last week I have done nothing with the footage. My other classes have been taking up my time so I couldn't capture any footage. Also, because I shot in HDV, I need a Sony HDV camera to capture the video. So I need to rent a camera before I get any footage. Once I do, I hope to capture the footage and start editing immediately. There is not much time left in the semester. I am looking forward to the finished product, as should you...

~Greg Z~

HUGE Change of Plans

Well, this past week was fun. I apologize for not posting last Monday but things were very crazy. And I know that you may be looking for a production timeline but that will not be here. My local resources, which I referred to in the last post, did not pan out. So with two actors and two locations my success rate decreased dramatically. However my sister came up with an interesting idea. She suggested that I do a documentary on the company she works at, Infinity Publishing. Infinity Publishing is an "author originated" book publisher. They are the leaders in the publishing-on-demand industry. I considered my options and decided this was the only way I could not fail this Projects class. So I packed up my gear and made my way to Allentown, PA to commute with my sister to her job for three days. Here are the three days in journal fashion. Enjoy!

Day One - Tuesday
I am an idiot. I forgot my tripod back at my sister's house. Looks like I am going freehand today. I can't believe that I forgot it. I am also running into some serious issues with the camera. I have been reading through the manual and I am starting to get acquainted with the camera. However some of the settings are very sensitive and if I am not precise, then the footage will be unusable. Today I will get lots of B-Roll and specific shots of the production department and establishing shots of the building.

Day Two - Wednesday
I reviewed yesterday's footage and a lot of it is unusable; especially the shots of the production department. I though I had the white balance locked down, but the footage's balance strobes from bluish to yellowish in exact intervals. Sucks for me. Today, I will make sure that the while balance is locked down for every shot. Today I remembered the tripod so I will get some more B-Roll and establishing shots. Also, I will conduct the interviews, which will drive this documentary. Since the office is not very photogenic, I will hold the interviews in Infinity's sister company’s Audiobooks studio across the parking lot. Let's hope my audio equipment is sufficient.

Day Three - Thursday
I got a good amount of footage yesterday. I think I am in pretty good shape. Today, I will redo the shots in the production department; get some office antics, and the closing shots. I definitely think I am in good shape.

Considering the entire process, I did pretty well. The audio for the interviews did not come out as loud as I expected, but I will make do with what I got. Now I have another issue. I wanted this digital short to be about 7 minutes. However I filled up 5 MiniDV tapes. Now the convention that I go by is this. Good Amateurs shoot at least 300% of what the final cut will be; Good Professionals shoot at least 3000% of what the final cut will be. 300 minutes raw (give or take) / 7 minutes finished (give or take) = 4286%

Crap.

~Greg Z~

A Slight Change of Plans

Sorry for the late posting. I usually post every Monday during my down time at my MTV internship. However this was no ordinary Monday. My department is moving from the 8^th floor to the 17^th floor. And yes, upgrade in floor height equates to amount of respect (that is probably not true but I can believe, right?). Anyway, I was archiving loose tapes all day today and never got to my ritualistic down time. So I post now. I am sure nobody really cares. Yes, it would be nice to wake up to an updated blog/feed but Mondays are my days where I collect my thoughts on the previous week. So having to look back on this Monday as well is just added value. But enough with the prologue, now comes the meat of this post.
Last week, as you may or may not remember from that post (it's right below this one), finding actors is very hard. So I posted a Casting Call for my digital short on craigslist.org. I posted it in the TV/Film/Video list of the Philadelphia section. I did not expect much due to the vastness of the list. However after a few hours, I had 7 e-mails from people interested in the digital short. To say the least I was floored. I waited until the next day to reply because I did not want to repeat myself...digitally. By then I had 13 actors interested. However the actual auditions proved to be a problem. It was Friday at this point and I should have started production at least a week ago, if not two weeks ago. So I wanted to hold the auditions on Sunday, which is super-late notice. To no surprise almost all of the actors could not make the audition. I say almost because one could. That actor lives on the corner of Olden and Rte. 31, 2 minutes from the campus. So I called off the auditions. I spent all of Saturday contemplating my options. I did not want to fail. I wanted to make this movie. But how? After some time I realized that the answer has been staring me in the face.
This semester has been plagued with the exact opposite of what a Styx song suggests, not enough time on my hands. Spring Break is next week. What better time to shoot a digital short than a completely open week? So now I have enough production time. But what about the actors? For this answer, I looked to a Hollywood director that I can relate to, Robert Rodriguez. His first feature-length film, El Mariachi, was made with family and friends as the actors. By the way, it is a very good movie that is the predecessor to his Desperado, with Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek. So I will use my familiar resources around my home back in North Jersey. Here, I can have a much more flexible schedule and I might have the cooperation of the local Police Station. I am excited once again with this digital short and I expect great things. Currently, I am putting together a long-overdue production timeline for this and next week. Keep you browser or aggregator pointed here for an update to this post. I will be posting the production timeline soon...and sorry for the long post.

~Greg Z~

Problems

In regards to my project; finding actors is very hard. All last week, I was e-mailing tons of people about this project and it seems that I have only one actor intrested in the piece. I know I should have started production already, but kicking myself over it won't help. I need to assess what can be done right now, so I can have some proof of concept. If you want to act, please tell me. I have 4/6 locations signed on and 1/9 actors almost signed on. Hard times to come...

~Greg Z~

The Fifth Posting

The script is complete!! I am very excited but somewhat wary. My brother is very knowledgeable and is the main reason I am in the field I am in now. He got me hooked early on and I can't seem to get away. So I had him read the script in return for some super critical feedback. It was critical. He told me that the dialogue was solid but it lacks a driving theme or motivating element. He basically told me there was no real story, just a sequence of coherent scenes. That was a blow to me. So I read over the script again, and I can’t seem to add any motivating elements. That is why I started to develop the Music Video idea. In case this digital short fails, I can still do a good piece for this project. This week, I will re-evaluate the projects and see which one I can most practically complete. So stick around.

~Greg Z~

#4

The script is almost complete. However I am running into an issue. As I write, I think of how I can make this possible in production. This state of mind has advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages: More concise writing, less edit time
Disadvantages: More writing time, less creative ideas (due to constraints)
Right now, I need to think of an ending that doesn't suck. I am also starting on acquiring locations, equipment, and actors. I have three locations already and an almost guaranteed camera. Getting actors is the toughest part now. I would use my friends as actors but I want this short to be very good. I just hope that everything will come together.

~Greg Z~

Posting numero Tres

I am excited to say that I have established a story to shoot and I am currently in the process of writing the script. It is a different idea than that of the three choices I had last week. I can't say much for two reasons. One is that I am not sure how it will end. The second is because just in case this is a really good story, I do not want anybody to "borrow" the ideas that stem from it. Hopefully this script will be strong enough to support a digital short. I am looking forward to what the week will bring.

~Greg Z~

Second Posting

Thinking of an story to shoot is quite hard. This process is definitely easier with a group of creative people. However I am steadfast in my self-appointed challenge to complete this project by myself. I have a few ideas for the digital short.
1. A Drug Addict's story - A story of how a man's life was ruined by being addicted to something silly (e.g. flowers)
2. Dream Log - A series of testimonials of people's dreams. Possible visual interpretations.
3. Music Video - A story based upon the music and lyrics of an artist's song. No band shots, just story.
So that is what I have so far. The last one seems the most likely because I already know of the band that I would tap for the musical talent. More to follow...

~Greg Z~

First Posting - IMM498

Hello all,
First posting for IMM498: Projects - Master Level. I have decided that for my final project I will do an Independent Short Movie. I also just realized that I tend to wrongly capitalize words in a sentence. Anyway, this digital short movie will be under my complete control. I will do everything, except for the acting. Next week, I will post the formal Proposal and Timeline. Stay Tuned!

~Greg Z~