Doc Film Premise

Making YouTube videos is not as hard as it may seem, but there is a lot of work involved. My goal in this documentary is to show the process a YouTuber goes through to create one of their videos, as well as to include some details about what type of person would be interested in starting a YouTube career. Sarah uses her YouTube channel to create small funny videos of herself for others to watch and enjoy. 

Status Report Nov 12

Have had 2 shootings. One with the actual activity of my sister shooting her first take of her film, the other with me interviewing my sister about her life. I still need to do both of these again, but now I have a better idea of what shots I need to get. Both of these were just to see how the flow would go, so I just left the camera running and recording a medium-closeup of the whole event. For both of the next shoots, I plan to get a plethora of close-ups. I am currently sorting through and trying to figure out exactly what close-ups I should get for b-roll.
That is where I am at right now. Going fairly well, but I need to speed up a bit if I am going to get a quality piece. See you in class!

Camera

For my previous project, I used my sister's Cannon 60D DLSR camera, which has a very shallow range of focus. It can make the background look cool and out of focus, but it also is hard to keep the people I am shooting in focus, as them even wobbling back and forth slightly can cause them to be out of focus again. For my next project, I am using my parents Cannon Vixia HFG20 Digital Camcorder. The camcorder is different than the DSLR in that it has a much deeper range of focus. It also has several features that the DSLR didn't, such as the zebras feature we discussed in class and an auto-focus feature that can help for those moving shots that I am unable to repeat in the documentary. Overall, I am very happy to be changing to a different camera that is better suited to my needs for this project. See you all in class!

After Midnight

Inspiration

I am drawing most of my inspiration for my next film from Steven Spielberg. I want to do a short suspenseful comedy. In Spielberg's work, he never lets you see the monster till near the end of the film. Shots of the characters that are being attacked often have very little look space, which both makes the audience feel uncomfortable and does not show the creature they are looking at. Another angle he likes is to have the camera view be that of the creature, viewing the scared peoples faces as it approaches. No matter how scary you make the monsters appearance, it is always worse to not know what it looks like. At least once you see it, you know what to expect. To truly frighten the audience, you need to keep them in the dark.
[edit01]
In continuing this assignment, I have decided to stray a bit from the dark side and instead focus more on the various interesting types of shots that Spielberg often uses in his films. Shots such as in Gremlins, when one of the little monsters is hiding under a desk and the camera view is shown from its perspective. [could not find clip for this shot]
Spielberg's approach has been called his "Midas Touch" (SensesOfCinema.com) in that most of the movies that he has produced have been quite successful, including Gremlins, Jurassic Park, and Saving Private Ryan. They are all drastically different movies, showing his versatility. While my goal is not to make my movie successful, per say, I do want to make a good film. My choice of Spielberg as my role model has as much to do with his variety and techniques as his success.
In terms of my film, I want to replicate the overall feel of the moderately frightening parts in Gremlins, while not duplicating it entirely.
Another shot from Gremlins that I do want to replicate, however, is from this scene: [3 minutes in] Where a man finds the cage that contained the adorable little creature is open, and the little guy is hiding. He offers the critter his candy bar, but the monster takes his arm instead. You never see the monster in this shot, but it conveys the monstrosity quite effectively, while still maintaining a sense of suspense and humor.













The balance between suspense and humor needs to be nearly perfectly maintained in order to get teh right feel that I am going for. [http://www.avclub.com/articles/gremlins-is-a-perfect-holiday-movie-for-those-all,90106/] This article both has good clips of the movie (that are quite hard to find elsewhere) and descriptions of how the humor to scare ratio is maintained throughout the film.

[edit02] Also, the adorable nature of the soon-to-be monster is important to my homage. The cute little yorkie that I am using will hopefully resemble the adorable Mogwai from the film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch

Memories Video

Lighting Theory

From my favorite online short fiction film, Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog.
The key light is coming from the florescent lights above and in front of him, giving a significant glare off of his goggles and nicely highlighting his nose. There is a fill light coming from a window on the right of the picture, giving a blue tint to that side of his face, rather than it being coated in shadow. There are also two back lights that give the subject that nice highlight from behind. One is from the window on the left and other is from the strange tank directly behind the doctor. Other than the window and the tank, there is very little light elsewhere in the scene, making the doctors secret lair look very dark and mysterious.

Another shot from the same show. In this shot, the key light seems to be coming from the right, with a fill light on his left to cancel out some of the shadow. There is also some interesting reflections from the florescent lights on the ceiling, namely the spots of light on each side of his head, though there does not appear to be a back light this time, as there is not a highlighted glow around him. The ceiling lights also illuminate the rest of the scene, allowing us to see the frozen yogurt container in the background (which played a part in the film before).