Author: msmiller1585

Before entering into my business of film course, my initial goals were incredibly rudimentary. I wanted to learn strategies that would help with longevity in the film industry and also to advance myself in the business. I didn’t quite have a complete understanding of what to intel of in this course. However, as it’s coming to an end, I am taking away an overwhelming amount of information that I know will be a process for me to adapt to. There were so many essential keys that were covered; salary negotiations, freelance business, and contract laws.

One of the few difficulties I found myself having is negotiating money in a skillful way that does not cheat myself nor others. From my own personal perspective, I found it tricky to discuss a rate while I am still in the entry-level stage. What I found to be eye-opening is the negotiating rule. Never state your rate first, but to allow whoever has hired me to give an estimation. Though this is a rule, it’s my responsibility to know the range for the position I’ve been offered. Also, that same eye-opening experience I had towards salary negotiations occurred with my understanding of the freelance business.

As we discussed freelance, I knew that I’d eventually lean towards this area. What I didn’t know was the technicalities in how much money I would keep as a freelancer. I need to have knowledge of the tax rate in the state I conduct my business so that it will help me estimate my freelance rate. When we began to explore the topic of signing contracts, I did have some understanding of this area, especially when it comes to the language that can be used in contracts. What I found to be most beneficial in this area was the clause, most favored nations. I did not know of this clause, but as I learned, I saw it as a way to cover myself in any contract and to make sure I’m getting my worth.

Negotiating salary, freelance business, and contract laws were the most impactful topics discussed in this course. I now am walking away from this class knowing that I myself am a business. As stated before, this may take a process for me to adapt to, but I am confident I will learn as I grow in the film industry.

Before entering into my film production thesis III course, I had little experience in editing. The knowledge that I obtained were basic. Simply assembling my circle takes, b-roll, and or inserts and applying music and sound effects. If I desired to alter the image, I could add some color grading, but this was the extent to my knowledge. Now, my knowledge and understanding has increased. I never knew editing was such an intricate form of art that can take the vision of a film to another level. One element that I take away from this course is the editing workflow. I was unaware of this process, and it sparked my interest to really grasp and understand the different media formats and the presets. I want to further extend my knowledge in these particular areas so that I can familiarize myself with the different codecs based on the platform on which a film is displayed on. Another element that I found to be crucial to the editing process is the organizational structure. For someone who may have entry-level experience, first learning how to categorize your music, scenes, and sequences in your desired software, before composing any assembly is key. In the lecture, as our course director began to show this, I found it beneficial, and it was the one element that I was oblivious of in editing. In my own personal experience, I find editing to be quite overwhelming. Once I learned this simple technique and or organization skill, I found the process to be less tedious. Before I entered this course, my original objective was to master the editorial process. This objective remains the same. What I’ve learned thus far has been very informative, but it’s imperative to educate myself outside of what was taught.

The film Project Power (2020), explores the world of drug dealing with a unique twist. A teenage drug dealer teams up with an ex-soldier and cop to disenfranchise a group responsible for the drug, power. This drug gives superpowers by heightening it’s users abilities that exist within. There are multiple themes for this film, but it’s most prominent theme is a father’s love. The movie follows it’s protagonist, Art, who hunts for a mysterious group that has captured his daughter, and experimented with her DNA to create the pill, power. Along the way, he tracks down Robin, a teenage drug dealer, and connects with Frank, a cop, to locate the distributors for the drug. The genre of this film is a crime, action, and sci-fi, and the tone for the film is gritty. 

The inciting incident begins when Robin’s cousin Newt overdoses on the drug power. The moment Art locates him in a graffiti apartment building, he takes the drugs and he becomes a human torch. Plot point 1, Art pleads for Robin’s help. He uses Newt’s phone to communicate with her, he finds her location, and then he takes her against her will. With much struggle and constant attempts to run away, he begs her to stay, and join forces to locate his daughter. Plot point 2, a pitch from the main distributor for the drug power is interfered with by Art. With the help of Robin, Art stops a pitch to finance the drug, and confront its dealer about his daughter’s whereabouts. In the process, Art is arrested by Frank. The midpoint of the film is when Frank decides to help Art. On the way to the percent, Art explains to Frank that his captain is involved in the drug operation and that his daughter is the formula to the drug power. The climax of the film is when the three locate Art’s daughter on a ship. Each person is designated a task. The resolution to the story, is Robin finding Art’s daughter. The denouement, Both Robin and Art return back to their lives as a changed person.

The production design aligns with the gritty tone of the film. The sets were located in urban areas such as apartment buildings, warehouses, cities, etc. The set dressing made each set appear realistic. An example of this was Robin’s home, it was very vintage, run-down, and consistent with her family’s social status. The costumes for the characters were a reflection of their personalities. Robin, a hip hop lover, sported 90’s vintage based clothes such as a corduroy hoodie. Her hair was in box braids and she wore a nameplate necklace. Art’s appearance was roguelike. As the film progressed he went undercover, yet still maintained his rogue look with green cargos boots. Frank, a young rebellious cop, wore a jersey, outside of the respected police uniforms. He also wore his badge as a necklace. The essential prop in this film was the pill, power, and the briefcase that it came in. This briefcase had multiple disks and in the inside was the pill. It had a very distinct look, favoring a lava lamp, with the colors green, red, and yellow.

Because this film is high in action there are a lot of camera movements. Rack focus, dutch angles, and camera rotations on a motorized four-axis gimbal. The film’s main focal length was 200mm. More of the background was exposed and it also intensified more of the action scenes. Depth of field was apparent in close-ups specifically a realization moment and confrontation scenes.

As previously described, the pill power had three particular colors that reflected throughout the film. These colors carried a symbolic. Red, power and strength, green, energy, and yellow, caution. In various scenes, the colors made an appearance in the clothing that the characters wore, such as the character Robin. They also appeared in the background. A lot of the lighting reflected in the sources of the light. An example, street lights, and windows. One lighting in particular which can be seen throughout the film is the key light. It can be seen on the character Art. Along with the lighting, the camera positions played an intricate role for the dominant characters. When first being introduced to the character Art, and the drug lord, the camera is positioned at a lower angle. It made these characters appear powerful. A noticeably attribute was the camera positioning. It stayed angled to the right or the left of the characters, giving a bolder perspective and open space for the characters.

Each scene had a different composition. There were background elements, middle ground, and foreground. In one particular scene the composition, lighting, and perspective stood out. The where Robin is helped by Frank during a drug exchanged. They are angled to the right, and they stand in a line with Frank’s motorcycle in front, a graffitied building with red lights, and behind that it a Ferris wheel. 

The music selection was hip hop based with an exception of the action scenes. The music was upbeat, fast-paced, and intense. For a high action scene, every sound such as breathing, running, movement, struggling was prevalent. The dialogue was natural and befitting for each character. This film had numerous transitions that aligned with the action-based theme. Transitions such as cutting on action, match cuts, and jump cuts. They heighten the intensity of the film.

There are two production elements I found myself drawn to, based on the movie, lighting, and costume. I loved how the colors of the light appeared in the costumes. This gave a whole new meaning to me for my own personal films. I believe that it helps to capture the premise of the story. As I evaluate my cohorts and I, the challenge we face is communication. I believe a creative solution would be transparency. Having the freedom to be transparent creates an atmosphere of reliance and trust for each team member.

For this month, I created a poetic documentary based on Songs of Solomon. I selected key verses from chapter 1 to chapter 8 to compose a full poem. In the beginning, I was solely focused on the performance. I already knew the tone, rhythm, and cadence I wanted for the poem. I also had an idea for the males voice. I needed someone who could interpret the material and sound as natural as possible. The area I lacked in the most was the visuals. I was unsure of what I could capture that would compliment the performance. Aside from the male voices overs, I initially planned to include two actors, a man and a woman. I would have them seated across from each other at a table, and with each shot, the actors would have different blockings. I also wanted the actors to be shot in a silhouette. However, I thought about some of the challenges I could potentially face getting physical actors. The visuals that I ended up pitching in class consisted of the nature and aspects of a woman’s features, such as the neck, hair, and lips. With much thought, I didn’t think that the woman’s physical features would be beneficial to the film. I thought it would interfere with the continuity, so I changed directions. I wanted all of the visuals to be of the nature. Getting the footages was the easiest part, the challenge that I was faced with was seeking male voice over actors. Once I was able to get over that issue, I then realized that the vision I had was no longer working. The male voice-over actor I had didn’t quite suit the piece. As a result, I ended up relying on my voice over for the entire poem. With all of these changes, my hopes for this film started to decrease, but as I started to edit my project I could see it’s beauty. As a result, what I ended up creating was far more simple than what I had planned, and I am pleased with my results. My film came out to be artistic and beautiful. Though I had some stumbling blocks, I thoroughly enjoyed this process, and it challenged me to constantly create. One of the key things I learned is that it’s easy to exclude and diminish other ideas that are apart from our initial ones. If I would’ve submitted to this mindset, my film would have never come out the way that it did. I am excited to say that my objective was achieved. 

My learning experience thus far in my story development course has been interesting and informative. Before entering in this course, I set out to have three main objectives; strengthen my story plots, learn how to develop my stories, and to learn how to effectively pitch. I believe that I’m gaining some insight to each of these goals as I continue in this course.In this course, we have discussed numerous topics to implement in our upcoming thesis project. These topics range from and include, story building, dialogue, genre, and world building. All of these elements I plan to incorporate in my upcoming thesis project.  So far, what I’ve been learning is the base of a film, and that’s all the aspects of the story. Everything that I’ve learned has helped me to shape my thesis project, starting from scratch.Before I could go any further it’s important to have a story and not just a concept. What makes that story compelling is its structure. In our course, my class and I watched the film “Plan 9 from Outer Space”, a sci-fi esque film. This film was a perfect example of the importance of crafting a story properly. If the story is lacking, immediately the audience will tune out of the film, as this is something that I want to avoid in my project. As I watched the movie, I had many questions and they all pertained to the story. So, I though of my own personal project and I evaluated where my story seemed a bit off. I noticed in comparison to “Plan 9 from Outer Space”, that I had a concept but it seemed to lack structure. I went back to the drawing board because there were some grey areas within my stories plot. My story is about a teenager named David, who’s passionate about artificial intelligence. His goal is to be win the Dawson’s Robofest. Days leading up the competition, David has a derealization moment that triggers his soul to step out of his body. He an his twin brother Joseph must work together to return his soul back at one piece. I’ve been in the process of re-working my script and it took this film to really open my eyes to the “5 W’s”, who, what, when, where, and why. I was able to remove any characters that didn’t help move my story further, and I had to really examine the purpose/ goal for each character within the script. In every scene it was imperative to establish a goal for each character, rather it was a big goal or minor goal. I also tried to make sure that each character worked cohesively with each other. In my story, my main character David, has a three friends, and one of them happens to be his twin brother Joseph. I re-evaluated one particular scene where all the friends engage in a conversation with each other, and I noticed that the dialogue for one specific character lacked motivation. It was almost as if the character was not needed, so I ended up cutting them. I combined that character with another character, and I gave them a purpose in serving as an enquirer. This characters asked all the questions needed for the scene. Some questions I believe that the audience may ask themselves, but I didn’t want to reveal too much. I found myself reshaping the dialogue in my project. Dialogue is just as important to the story as the characters actions. One thing that I came across in my project is that the dialogue is very natural. This happens to be my strong suit, but it also happens to be one of the flaws in my script. It didn’t move the story further, it was just natural conversations that lacked depth. I had to go back and really examine my characters and their purpose to the story, and the scenes that they are in. I actually started to cut characters and that actually added some depth to my main character. The world for my story really sets the tone and the genre for the film. For my project I have two characters that are twins. I wanted to create contrast with the characters. At the beginning of the film, the audience will see the characters in their bedrooms. Both are working on separate projects that gives the audience insight to who they are. David is working on a robot, and Joseph is working on a comic book sketch. I started off creating their worlds in their bedroom. Davids room looks a cyberpunk lab with blue and purple neon lights. Joseph’s room looks like a comic book. There are comic sketches all on the walls, and he also has a comic book stand.It’s important to show these two different worlds because even though they are twins, they still have separate interest and different passions. Based on what was discussed in this course, I’m learning more and more that the worlds of the characters don’t necessarily have to be the actual outside world. It’s actually the space that they are in. This paints a picture for the audience, so that they’re able to get an understanding of these characters, and even enter in their worlds and live in it. When my class watched the show “Dogs of Berlin”, it did an exceptional job in displaying what the world may look like for a detective, and the people they associate themselves with. Though I’m am still working on my script and constantly re-writing, I’m finding myself adding everything that I am learning in this course to my project. I know that these aspects will help me to gear up for my up and coming thesis project. I am looking forward to gaining more insight and hearing from my co-horts.  

Here is an overview of my time in my script analysis class.