One Shot Reflection

-->

After discussing with the class about my one shot film I realized that there were many things that I could have done differently. I will definitely take this assignment as a learning experience.

 In order to make my short film better I should have worked with the timing a little more. I had Four actions in the film, Harrison found a penny, received a high five, Lucy caught him when he tripped and then he saw an attractive girl sitting on the bench that he wanted to talk to. In class we discussed the idea that we all rush our film shoots to get the project done. I spent a decent amount of time talking with the attractive girl and Harrison to get their timing down for when he is talking to her on the bench but completely spaced on what Harrison should have done before he interacts with the girl. When it comes to editing it is easier to get better pace because you can cut between shots. In my one shot film it was important for to have all the actions happen at the correct time due to the fact that it had more of a music video feel to it. There was a lot going on and it was hard for me to keep my focus on everything that was occurring. In our group of five I was the first to go and I feel that every shoot after that we became a better team.

During class we were taught how to explain to our actors what we want them to do in each take. I learned the importance of mechanics when speaking to an actor as we went through each project. Having knowledge of this prior to the last four shoots I feel that it tremendously helped us when producing the projects. 

-Tori Sturniolo

One Shot Music Videos

I've been thinking a lot lately about the concept of the "one shot story," which seemed a little foreign to me when we first started talking about it in class. Thinking about it more, I realized that I actually had seen many one shot stories in my lifetime, through the form of music videos.

I had to question why an musician would choose to debut their own piece of art through the form of a one shot music video. They seemed, by nature, to be much more difficult than being able to utilize different cuts to get the message across to the audience. Later, I realized that there are actually many benefits of the one shot music video.

One benefit is that it has the potential to be cheaper and easier to make while still being engaging. Bob Dylan famously did this through his music video for "Subterranean Homesick Blues," in which he stands in an alley way and holds up signs for each of his lyrics as his song plays. Though it is pretty simple, the video is actually very interesting to watch, and forces the audience to think about the lyrics and meaning of the song. Watch it here:
http://www.contactmusic.com/video/bob-dylan-subterranean-homesick-blues

Another case for the one shot music video is that it allows quite the opposite- an extravagant display of lighting, effects, and action, all planned out until the last second, as with LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends"

...Or a meticulously choreographed dance routine, like in Feist's "1234."

I realize now that one shot music videos not only give the filmmaker lots of creative freedom, but perhaps even allows the content of the video and song to resonate with the audience more, as each movement is clearly methodically planned and coordinated. 

One Shot Film & The Dictator

Hello all! Let me start off with The Dictator. If you haven't heard of The Dictator, shame on you! The Dictator is a film directed by Larry Charles and starring Sacha Baron Cohen as the dictator. You all know Sacha Baron Cohen right? Starred in Borat and Bruno? To be completely honest, I personally do not find comedy films to be very funny most of the time. This may be because I am a critic of comedy and have my own expectations of comedy since I perform comedy myself, but comedy films normally do not interest me and I dont watch them. This movie however caught my attention and I thought it was very funny. Was it racist? To an extent I believe it was. It played into a lot of stereotypes of middle eastern countries. I questioned whether it was these stereotypes that generated the laughs and in fact I think they were, but of course there were other funny parts. I think you should check out the film and see where your laughs generated.

As for my one shot film, I love my idea. There will be a guy drinking out of a bottle in a dimly lit room looking at a sealed envelope. He will then get up and the scene will fade to black. Suspenseful right? The idea is to get the audience thinking about the envelope, what can it be? Is it important? Why is he drinking? What is he drinking? Can you have some? I'm joking, but im excited about shooting this with my group and seeing how it turns out.

One-Shot Film

Hidey ho everybody, ever since class on Wednesday I've been thinking about our One-Shot Story Assignment. My group was bouncing back and forth some great ideas but I was having a lot of trouble getting my creative juices flowing. By the time we left class I knew that I wanted to do something that built suspense but I had no idea of how I could achieve this.

I finally got a short story idea and wrote up a rough draft but before I reveal too much here is the script. I'd love to hear what you guys thinks and any constructive criticism would be appreciated.

-nickp

Hanna

This weekend a friend came over to my apartment with the movie Hanna so my roommates and I all sat down and watched it with my friend. At first we were a little hesitant of the movie, we knew it was a good movie but we did not think it would be amazing.

We were dead wrong.

The plot itself was good, nothing great but a solid story. But the cinematography was absolutely amazing, I will probably go deeper with it in a later post. I tried to find my favorite scene of the movie but I only found the last minute of it.

Yes that was all in one shot. There is about three or five minutes before that fight and it is all from the same shot. I just thought this was an amazing scene and should be shared to the class.