I'm back

I'm finally back to Weston and settled in my new home. There's only one week left, the time goes by so fast. This week I'm going to concentrate completely on the project and finish it by Friday so I have the weekend to revise it and fix any details that are off. I also have to do the reflection which will take time so I will dedicate most of my free time this week on this project. I feel like I'm behind which is not good but I couldn't really do much this last week and a half. I knew what was going to happen but it was more than expected and I tried to take advantage of what was happening. 

This week will also be the last week of postings! These have been very helpful and kind of fun as I can write about whatever I want (related to the project) and it's cool to see the creative and production process of the project. Hopefully in a week you guys can see a great film introduction and I can be proud of the final product.

The Box

I bought a wooden box and some stuff in A.C. Moore to make my own box as I 'lost' my original one. It also adds a personal touch. I painted it black to make it more mysterious looking and I added foam inside to make it look more official/important.

 




This box is really important as it will be the main thing that start the whole plot for my movie so I want to make sure to make it look good. I'm planning on taking extreme close ups of this box too so that's why I'm putting detail into it. This also has been pretty fun to do as I love to do things with my hands and its cool to introduce something I made into the film I'm also making :).

I'm out

Today I left Weston an I won't be back until the end of next week (Spring Break). It's been hard to record in such an eventful week and it will continue to be as I'm first travelling 8 hours by car to South Carolina, staying there for 2 days, then 10 hours more to Kentucky and the coming back. It will be tough and I think it would be better if I had the recordings as I could work on them in the car but I have not much right now. I will try to record over there like maybe other cool shots but I can't really record the main scenes as I need the props. My only worry is that time is running out and I still need to finish the filming. I'm not worried about the editing or music as I have a lot more experience with that and I can do it much faster.

New ideas

So I decided to turn this "problem" of having everything packed in my house to a positive. I thought that this is actually something that is not common to see and something different that might be cool to record. I wanted to record some time-lapses of them packing the stuff up but I couldn't really do it as when I arrive (at 3:30) they are almost leaving. So I just changed a little the plot. Instead of Tommy looking for the box, he finds it while counting the boxes in the house. He finds this box saying "dad's stuff" where he finds 'the box' with the usb stick. However, I don't have the box anymore so I have to find one. Still I filmed without showing what was inside the box.

I'm not completely convinced about these scenes but at least they are something to have and they don't have to be final.

I didn't expect this

I knew that my mom and dad were moving to Chile this week and my house was going to be moved as well so a company came and packed everything up with cardboard. I didn't really realize that they only took 1 day to pack the whole first floor, which was where I was planning on filming the first couple of plot scenes. Unfortunately, when I arrived home after school everything was packed up and I couldn't really film so I have to change plans.

I think they will take around 4 days to pack everything up and move them to the truck. So I don't really know what to do. Also, some of the props I thought on using like some of my dad's awards and certificates, a little box and a usb stick were packed in one of the hundreds of boxes so I can't really get them back. I will be staying with some family friends until I graduate but I will go there when the moving finishes so I'm kind of stuck.                             

Looking good

Ok so I wasn't sure how to let the viewer know that the father of the family has recently died without explicitly stating it. I decided to start with some setting shots of the cemetery and a picture of the family resting on a tomb. The viewer can deduce that someone has recently died, but not know who of the family, so I zoom in on the dad's face on the next scene. I used an old picture of my uncle with my brother but it works as my brother is also a redhead.  

I also shot a bunch of random shots to see if I include one at the start for the credits. For example a curious frog toy that was hanging off a tree and some pretty flowers that were moving with the wind.

It's time

The time has come. I asked for my friend's help and he agreed to help me record during this week, so I'll probably start doing the shots where Tommy appears as those I can do right now. The establishing shots at the beginning, where most of the credits will appear, I will do in spring break as I'm going to my uncle's house in Kentucky and my cousin is actually a software engineer working at Google right now. I'll ask him if I can record stuff in his room like a cabinet full of computer science related books and stuff, certificates and awards, and just random technological stuff to set how the father is an engineer and really into programming. I'll also ask for his help to make a cool program to be ADAM, as he is like a genius at that stuff. I know how to do a basic program but he can probably help me designing the User Interface and other details so it looks good.

I'm just going to use my phone in the end as Mrs. Stok said, we have to demonstrate our knowledge and use of technique in our film rather than the quality of the picture. Therefore, I'm going to concentrate in using what I've learned so far to create a true Sci-Fi film opening. A shot that I want to include is when Tommy is using the computer, have a fish-eye kind of shot from the laptop's perspective looking at Tommy typing. This will give the feeling that the computer is alive and is watching him through the webcam. It also subtly shows how maybe the intentions of ADAM are not honest and it is a threat to Tommy's safety.