Watching the Lord of the Rings series when I was much younger was one of the best experiences of my life! My mom read all the books including the Hobbit and she's very excited about watching the Hobbit in Theaters. My boyfriend and I decided we'll go and watch it in theaters on the night of the premiere! This is something either of us have ever done! Surprising I know! Watching the blog videos (vlogs as I like to call them) about their making of the film Pre, production and post, it filled my heart with inspiration! Needless to say, if I had a tail it'd be going in circles!
We watched the post production blog and I have also seen the production blog itself. They have literally hundreds of people working on this film! It took them 266 shooting days to film the hobbit! How I dream of being employed for that long on one film! It would be amazing to work on such an incredible project! When I see the production blogs done by the crew, especially the art department crew my heart just melts with the idea that I want so badly to do that someday! And there's no reason I shouldn't be able to do so.
Raise your hand if you'd donate your hair to film!! Ooo Ooo me me me me me!!
OH yeah!!
I can only hope I've kicked this flu by then!! So in order to work on kicking that I'm going to go make myself a cup of tea and relax a little. Enjoy! Go see the movie!!
Recently, I was asked to help out with a senior thesis horror film that required some special effects make up! I have done make up before but nothing all that complex. So far this is the most complex make up job I've ever done and it turned out really nicely.
I was specifically asked to create a slit throat on one of the actors. I was intrigued and really excited to figure out the best ways of going about this! First I looked up a few video tutorials on YouTube...
Both of the one's I viewed required liquid latex. I was extremely crunched for time and luckily found out that someone was letting us use their make up. They had liquid latex. HALLELUJAH!
I didn't even get to play with it until I was on set but it was really fun and really useful, you can easily make a scar with this stuff. It's awesome! I plan on getting my own stuff someday. I really enjoyed the opportunity to play with it and the shoot turned out really well! Everyone was really thrilled with my handy work! The actor himself really got into the character (if you can call being dead/dying a character).
As you can see above, I also played around with my hand. No, I'm not kissing him!
I'd like to have more opportunities to do this kind of stuff, actually. I think I could do better eventually after figuring out the nature of the materials and such. It's very exciting to be able to figure out this kind of stuff out.
Also just another fun plug I just recently watched The Game by David Fincher. The film was made in 1997 and in my opinion is very much comparable to the possibilities we have now in epics like this. It was a very mind blowing experience! It was mind blowing in a sense that you are caught off gard a lot and you don't know what to expect the entire time. It's crazy! But it's not one of those confusing movies that you would have to watch 2,384,903,802 times in order to understand it at all. When you get it, you get it but you'll be surprised how you got there. Go watch it!!! It's on Netflix!
Recently, I watched a film called Pretty Ugly People directed and written by Tate Taylor. Taylor has also directed The Help (film #97/ 123 films on my favorites list)
and Winters Bone.
Pretty Ugly People I thought was a pretty strange title. I'm not sure I would have chosen it for the title. Mostly because it just doesn't quite roll off the tongue. It's not terrible but it's not great.
Getting more to my point of reviewing this film, I am not quite sure how it might make certain people in our society feel about losing weight. The character loses weight by a gastric bipass surgery. My knowledge of this surgery is that it is not a surgery for someone who just casually wants to lose weight. You have to be morbidly obese to have this surgery. The character's name is Lucy (weird right?!). In any case she loses the weight and has another surgery to remove access skin. She has the remains of her surgery cremated and she spreads the ashes throughout the film. The plot of the film is that she convinces her old college friends to come on a hike with her up a mountain she's always wanted to climb. Convinced that their friend is in trouble the come to visit her unknowingly having been signed up for this camping trip. The trip reveals everyone's real characters and she realizes that the people she idolized all through college turned out to be very shallow people. In the end they move on to the next chapters in their lives after realizing their serious flaws and changing them to better be happy with who they are.
The criticism I have of this film is that I wonder if people will think that if they lose weight that all their friends will be unhappy with them. Truth be told, if your friends get mad at the fact that you've done something good for yourself, then they're not your real friends. I haven't had any thoughts of losing weight since I dont really need to. However, if I were more vulnerable and over weight I might think about that possibility. My Mother lost almost 100 pounds and never lost one friend. Maybe this is because she had good friends to begin with. Maybe that doesn't really happen in real life. I guess I'm just questioning how this would effect someone's motivation to do something good for themselves like loosing weight.
As film makers we should try to think a little bit about our viewers and how they might feel after watching our films. I'm not sure if Taylor really thought about that or not. It was a decent movie, wasn't one of my favorites but it was alright. I'm excited to see more of Taylor's work though. I enjoyes Winter's Bone and obviously The Help is one of my favorites.
The last film I added to my favorites list came in at number 55 out of a total of 121 films!! Warning This film is a tear-jerker!! The film I speak of is The Pianist!
I had kept seeing it suggested to me on my Netflix account but never really thought too hard about biting the bate. My most recent method in watching films everyday has been to look up the directors of each of my favorite films on IMDB and look for other films they've directed on Netflix. Obviously, I couldn't find all of them. My other method is to look for films on Netflix that are suggested to me by friends and staff members at Ithaca. Sometimes I'll even eves dorp on other people talking about a film and try to find that one too. Needless to say, the "director method" as I like to call it, took me a very long time considering I have 121 films on my list currently!!
The Pianist was directed by Roman Polanski, who also directed Chinatown (#41/121). The writing was very well done and art direction was incredible, directing was wonderful and Adrian Brody did one heck of an act!
I suggest if you don't mind balling your eyes out a little it's a great story and certainly something everyone should experience because it's good to understand what happened from a certain perspective. It's really great! Sorry this post was a little later than usual but I've been a busy little film making student these days! Hope all is well with everyone out there!
I've been attempting to direct actors for about three years. I am NO expert, it's a world of science that can be quite a mystery. It's very difficult to work with amateurs, kids, animals, and many other life things!! This really reminds me of a facebook note from back in the day when notes on facebook were cool! I actually found it on my facebook and I love it it's so funny.
Win Wender's Golden Rules
1. You have a choice of being “in the business” or of making movies. If you’d rather do business, don’t hesitate. You’ll get richer, but you won’t have as much fun!
2. If you have nothing to say, don’t feel obliged to pretend you do.
3. If you do have something to say, you’d better stick to it. (But then don’t give too many interviews.)
4. Respect your actors. Their job is 10 times more dangerous than yours.
5. Don’t look at the monitor. Watch the faces in front of your camera! Stand right next to it! You’ll see infinitely more. You can still check your monitor after the take.
6. Your continuity girl is always right about screen directions, jumping the axis and that sort of stuff. Don’t fight her. Bring her flowers.
7. Always remember: Continuity is overrated!
8. Coverage is overrated, too!
9. If you want to shoot day for night, make sure the sun is shining.
10. Before you say “cut,” wait five more seconds.
11. Rain only shows on the screen when you backlight it.
12. Don’t shoot a western if you hate horses. (But it’s okay to not be fond of cows.)
13. Think twice before you write a scene with babies or infants.
14. Never expect dogs, cats, birds or any other animals to do what you’d like them to do. Keep your shots loose.
15. Mistakes never get fixed in post!
16. Final cut is overrated. Only fools keep insisting on always having the final word. The wise swallow their pride in order to get to the best possible cut.
17. Other people have great ideas, too. (I LEARNED THIS LAST YEAR WITH WHITE LIGHTS!!)
18. The more money you have the more you can do with it, sure. But the less you can say with it.
19. Never fall in love with your temp music.
20. Never fall in love with your leading lady!
21. If you love soccer, don’t shoot your film during the World Championship. (Same goes for baseball and the World Series, etc.)
22. Don’t quote other movies unless you have to. (But why would you have to?)
23. Let other people cut your trailer!
24. It’s always good to make up for a lack of (financial) means with an increase in imagination.
25. Having a tight schedule can be difficult. But having too much time is worse.
26. Alright, so you’re shooting with a storyboard. Make sure you’re willing to override it at any given moment.
27. Less make-up is better.
28. Fewer words are always better!
29. Too much sugary stuff on the craft table (or is it Kraft?) can have a disastrous effect on your crew’s morale.
30. Film can reveal the invisible, but you must be willing to let it show.
31. The more you know about moviemaking, the tougher it gets to leave that knowledge behind. As soon as you do things “because you know how to do them,” you’re fucked.
32. Don’t tell a story that you think somebody else could tell better.
33. A “beautiful image” can very well be the worst thing that can happen to a scene.
34. If you have one actor who gets better with every take, and another who loses it after a while, make sure they can meet in the middle. Or consider recasting. (And you know whose close-ups you have to shoot first!)
35. If you shoot in a dark alley at night, don’t let your DP impose a bright blue contre-jour spotlight on you, even in the far distance. It always looks corny.
36. Some actors should never see rushes. Others should be forced to watch them.
37. Be ready to get rid of your favorite shot during editing.
38. Why would you sit in your trailer while your crew is working?
39. Don’t let them lay tracks before you’ve actually looked through your viewfinder.
40. You need a good title from the beginning. Don’t shoot the film with a working title you hate!
41. In general, it’s better not to employ couples. (But of course, there are exceptions!)
42. Don’t adapt novels.
43. If your dolly grip is grumpy or your electricians hate the shot it will all show on the film. (Also, if you’re constipated…)
44. Keep your rough cut speech, your cast and crew screening speech and your Oscar speech short.
45. Some actors actually improve their dialogue in ADR.
46. Some actors should never be forced to loop a single line. (Even Orson Welles wasn’t good at that.)
47. There are 10,000 other rules like these 50.
48. If there are golden rules, there might be platinum ones, too.
49. There are no rules.
50. None of the above is necessarily correct.
#4: we went over this in class today!!
#6: I have a friend I interned with two years ago that was the script supervisor for a film I interned on! It was awesome having her around because she's gone on to do AMAZING productions: to name a few- Paranha 3DD, LOL (starring MIley Cyrus), Scream 4 (2011), and A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas. Never really in big time A list movies but she does VERY well for herself and I had the privilege of working very closely with her. I also love seeing her facebook posts on what she's doing with her career. She's always got a ton going on and I think that could be the secret to her success. I've always wanted to try having a script supervisor for a film of my own! #17: I learned this in White Lights last year, I couldn't possibly take as much credit for what that film was with out Jackie Campbell, Josh Best, Dave Howelle, Maxwell Melhman, Courtney Herman, Harlan Green-Taub or R. Aaron Walters, or Benni Lee Janssen. It takes a crew to make a film happen you litterally can NOT do it yourself. Unless of course you're Jeffrey R. Newell.
#24: ALWAYS HAD to deal with this issue. I think it's made me a better film maker and a person.
#28: I learned this in script writing last semester! It's ver difficult to deviate from thinking your actors need to explain everything they're doing. They don't need to! Trust me it makes it a lot better when they don't explain anything: as we've seen in The Artist (oscar winning best feature film 2011). (see above video)
#41: When I directed a short adaptation called "The Flea" in 2010, it was a HUGE mistake casting a couple that was together to play my main couple. It was also a mistake trying to edit my film on a crappy old computer using a bootleg copy of a really lame editing software, but that's another story for another day! In the middle of my shoot the couple had broken up (WHICH would have been AWESOME for believable acting since it was a break up story), but He decided to screw my film because he was too broken hearted to leave his room to do a one hour shoot (tops) and have it be the end of it! My film sucked but it was the best I could have done given the circumstances! I can't say I regretted this film because I learned more doing this film alone than any other film I've ever done (directing). (see above film...and please!!! don't judge) #42: This leads me to my next point. NEVER EVER EVER adapt a novel unless you have a bjillion dollars and you don't care what people think of your films anymore because you have so much money that you don't need fans anymore. It's so hard and I don't think the general public will ever understand how hard it is to adapt a screen play from a novel. Therefore, they automatically won't appreciate anything you put out there. If a film maker adapted a novel word for word it would literally be a three day film. It takes a magical person to please anyone when adapting a novel to screen. I took a class on it the year I made The Flea! I honestly believe that the only way to appreciate a film based on a novel is by being extremely open minded, not expecting anything upon entering, and understanding the film as a "take" on how they saw the novel visually and how they made it work. I personally don't like to read a book before I watch the adapted film, because, this way I don't form my own visuals before I see others take on it. I like to see the film first and then read the book because then I can see more clearly how the film maker had seen it that way. I also enjoy the experience of reading it and seeing the story in more depth, rather than seeing a summarized version of the story after you already know what happened and why it happened. To me it's just not worth risking my career over someone being too close minded about my take on a novel. So I personally try and avoid it at all costs. However, some may strongly disagree with me on so many levels. They can go make their films and I wont judge them for that adaptation, in fact if anyone does it, I have a whole new respect for them. However, I feel most people dont see it the same way I do. #49+50: None of these rules need apply to anything. Do you're own thing. This is more of a good advice list from a professional. By all means go out and make mistakes, it's great to learn from them! I wouldn't have agreed with any of this if I hadn't made mistakes thus far in my own career.
I 'm learning about my self, I have learned that I don't personally take enough risks, I don't like to leave my comfort zone. No one has ever made anything of themselves by just waiting for miracles. Some how, I need to do what I don't want to do so that I can do what I love.
Anyways, I found this mostly relevant and fun too!
I thought for a while about this assignment and I wanted to bring in something very complex and yet simple. One of my inspirations was a recent funeral I attended. The preacher quoted a scripture that caught my attention and made me cry like a baby. The scripture was John 11:35; Jesus Wept. To understand that a symbol of such great influence among people for hundreds of years and to see him humbled for the grieving sisters of Lazarus, to understand that he knew and felt the pain that they were feeling is very deep and I decided to take it and make it something more modernly understood.
My six word story is:
"The King wept with his people."
This reminded me of the scene in The King's Speech. In the scene I speak of, the queen comforts the king as he weeps. It's a scene where the audience begins to feel a mutual feeling of the weight of the world and a man in complete frustration and nerves. Almost a feeling of release. I wish I could find the particular scene on YouTube, however even if I did it probably wouldn't do it justice. It's a great film and it's a must see, for sure. I have personally made a list of my favorite films from the past three years (that I've seen). The King's Speech came in at number twelve out of my (currently) 119 films.
I found a little clip of the film in this montage of the story line on YouTube.
