Brendan's AICE Media Studies Blog

 

 

 

 

 

   W hen shooting the scenes in the car I was far more conscious of the rule of thirds. Usage of the rule of thirds is something we lacked heavily in our original film, so using it more thoughtfully now was essential to me.       Within the car scenes, I used the rule of thirds - as well as general shot framing - to visually express to the audience the relationship between Gabby and me. During the car scene, Gabby and I are acting out a fight between a girlfriend who feels unappreciated - and is questioning the loyalty of her boyfriend's loyalty - and a boyfriend who is being extremely dismissive of his girlfriend's concerns and feelings.       The way in which both of us are presented within this scene is essential to understanding not only how each character views themselves, but also how the other views them. In the shot in which I am playing the boyfriend, my character takes up about 2/3 of the entire screen essentially "dominating" ...

   After finding success with using the light for our opening scene, we decided to use it while we shot our scenes within the car as well. During our first time filming, shooting in the car did not produce the results we had intended - using just the lights within the car didn't give off enough light, causing the resulting footage to be poorly lit and grainy. The advantage of using the extra light for this scene is that it matches the orange color of light given off by the overhead lights in my car, so despite it being an extra light source, this extra light would appear to be motivated by the lights within the car.     However, after we set up the shot using the light, it was knocked over and broke as a result. Initially, we panicked but realized that the lights in the car produced enough light as is. The shots came out beautifully and everything was extremely well-lit. Setting up the shots took a few minutes since I was going to be in them as well, but once I adjus...

    Though there were to be minor changes from our original film, one of the things we wanted to remain the same is the opening scene. We began our filming for the night shooting this scene. Before we could begin filming though, I had to drag an extension chord from my garage to the side of the house in order to plug our light in. When originally shooting the scene it was very difficult to see Abby, but having an extra light source made it far easier to see her.      While Chris and Gabby were helping to adjust the brightness/direction of the light, I was ensuring we had our shot lined up. Since I would be driving my car for this scene, I pressed record, had Luise stand by the camera, and ran to my car. As the camera recorded - including myself - a total of 3 cars passed. Reviewing this footage after the scene was shot gave me the idea that we could have her appear after the first car, and disappear after mine passes.       Overall though, I ...

    Being both the cinematographer and main actor in the film presented many challenges. Firstly, figuring out how to frame shots was a challenge because I'd be in them. The way we solved this is that I'd have Luise - or someone else - stand where I thought I was going to be while I fiddled with focus, camera angle, etc. This allowed me to simply press record, go where I was supposed to be and act out my scene.     This method worked for scenes in which the camera was stationary, but if I wanted to shoot a scene with any camera movement, it would need to be a scene that I was not seen/present in. Though it did not have a major impact on our film's quality it limited the amount of diversity we had within our shots. However, I did my best to include dynamic shots where and when I could.     For example, in the shot below I was not in it. Because of this, I was able to take a panning shot showing Gabby getting out of the car and running, as well as the ghost. ...

    Despite acting within our movie is not something we are graded upon, we found that quality acting was an essential part of our film's quality. As such, I began looking for friends to act in our film as we wanted someone other than Jorge, and Mariana and Anthony were unavailable. Unfortunately, none of the couples which I asked to be part of our film were available. We then resorted to using Jorge again and Gabby's friend Chris again.     Though this is not an ideal situation we made do and took our peer's suggestions about running lines. This would allow us to not only gauge who amongst the two of them is the better actor but also to acclimate them with their lines. However, as Chris continued to run lines it became apparent to all of us - including Chris - that acting was not his strong suit. Unfortunately, Jorge was not feeling well either. With all that being said, I volunteered to play the boyfriend for our film. Jorge promptly went home and I began practicin...