Website Ideas

I understand that the website is a huge component of our final project, so  I decided to do some research to get some inspiration for our website.

Here are the films I researched and the takeaways:

1. Indefinite: Short Film    Genre: Romance

I saw this short film two years ago when it was screened at the 'film festival' we had at our school. I really enjoyed it and it fits into virtually the same genre and style that I was going for, so  I checked out the website. There wasn't anything too unique about the site, but I am definitely looking to steal the idea of adding a page to explain who the cast members are and their stories. Ideally, I would get the cast members to paint their faces or something and point out what these painted faces mean to them and tell their biographies in that way.

2. The Lobster: Feature Film     Genre: Sci-fi / Romance

This film is about a dystopian world where single people are forced to become animals of their choosing. It's quite whacky and bizarre and the website definitely sells that. When I first opened the page, I was greeted with a quiz that asked me a serious of personal questions to let me know which animal I should choose to turn into if I end up alone. 

This would be amazing to include into my website. A kind of interactive quiz that could tell you what kind of designs the user should paint on their face to symbolize their personalities. Or perhaps, something more crazy, like if the user could upload an image of themselves and we digitally 'paint' their faces. It is unfortunate that this is beyond my level of expertise. I am not a programmer and Wix will definitely not allow me this kind of freedom with my website design

3. The Florida Project: Feature Film       Genre: Coming-of-Age

This film's website stood out to me because it is incredibly simple and let the film speak for itself.

It includes just clips of the film being played behind the title with a small quote underneath it. The bottom corner says watch and the top left has a menu page. I really like this design because it isn't littered with so  much information and help draw the viewer into the film. I absolutely hate the font though. 

I am most likely going to replicate The Florida Project's homepage design and add details about the characters in an "about us" page.

Corona Time

The Coronavirus has officially become a major hurdle in this production. There is a possibility that we be may be placed on quarantine and locked inside our homes for several days or weeks.

Our school has been shut down for the next two weeks, which means my partner and I could not meet up for one last discussion in class. Getting people on board to act and being able to shoot in public areas has now become harder and more unlikely given that the government could shut down public areas at any minute now.

We will probably have to create some sort of back-up plan just in case our planned locations go under. Hopefully, we get an extension on the project because if not we're going to make some big changes and fast.

We might have to do a complete shift and change our idea to be about one character locked inside their house so we can feasibly make a decent short film given the time constraints. This is worst-case-scenario and we are waiting to hear back from our teacher and our local governments.

Location Scouting

When I was coming up with the idea I imagined that the location would be a beach similar to Venice Beach in Los Angeles. I have been there only once and it was also a location in the movie Nightcrawler.

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I loved the liveliness and the colorful buildings. The south Florida equivalent of Venice Beach is the Hollywood Beach Boardwalk.

This setting is perfect because there are tons of people there and it is quite a scenic place to shoot. I have been here many times and I knew it would be ideal, but I still wanted to be completely sure that it was the right place. I visited Hollywood Beach and also a couple of piers in Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

This is one of the piers I visited and honestly none of them are like Hollywood Beach. Because of the wood, it looks so stale and there isn't much people or a scenery. Hollywood is really colorful and is the perfect choice. 

I looked up permits for shooting in the city of Hollywood and the process is quite daunting. They require insurance plans and a lot of paperwork. We might run into issues over permission to shoot at the boardwalk, but I'm willing to just risk it. Usually security or the cops have no problem at all with you being there as long as it doesn't look too "professional." If it is just me, layla, and two actors with a tripod and DSLR, it shouldn't be a problem.

Adventures in Screenwriting

We wrote our script and it turned out pretty great.

Their names don't matter, but I named the guy Ben so I wouldn't have to keep saying 'man' or 'guy'

This is just a taste of the whole thing, but my partner and I managed to work out the kinks I mentioned in my last post.

1. We established that she leaves him in the end because she is afraid of commitment and feels undeserving of his affection. We need to create a background for this throughout the story… or at least hint at a reason for her leaving at the end.

SOLVED: 

1. We need to add some kind of meaning to each of the face paintings that she gives him. They cannot be entirely random.

SOLVED: 

1. Create a better understanding of what kind of people these characters are e.g. hipsters, homeless, college students, etc.

SOLVED: 

1. I want to make the film with no dialogue, so their intentions need to be communicated nonverbally and there needs to be a good score to accompany it. 

SOLVED:  I have a friend studying at Berklee who is a bass player and a talented composer who said he is willing to score the film for free. 

I Think We Got It!

“The Face Painter” Genre: Romance

A man (20’s) is walking on the boardwalk at a beach and spots a face painter who is finishing painting a child’s face. He is intrigued by her and we cut to him sitting down and getting his face painted.

She’s very enthusiastic about her craft and they share a couple of laughs while she paints his face.
She shows him with a mirror what he looks like and they exchange smiles. He goes to pay her and their hands touch. They are very clearly attracted to each other.

We cut to another day at the beach and he shows up again to get his face painted. We go into a montage of him coming back a bunch of times and getting his face painted. Their relationship clearly begins to grow stronger and they get more and more comfortable with each other.

One day, he stays with her after he gets his face painted and they hang out at the beach. He proposes to her the idea of him painting her face for a change. She is a little uncomfortable with it, but she lets him do it.

He shows her what he painted on her and it brings her to tears. The guy tells her that he has a present to give her and that he will be back. She stays and ponders what he painted on her face.

He comes back and has a new set of face paint for her, but she isn’t there. He anxiously looks around for her, but she is long gone.


This was just a general plot idea, but we have a couple of kinks to work out before diving into the script:

1. We established that she leaves him in the end because she is afraid of commitment and feels undeserving of his affection. We need to create a background for this throughout the story… or at least hint at a reason for her leaving at the end.
2. We need to add some kind of meaning to each of the face paintings that she gives him. They cannot be entirely random.
3. Create a better understanding of what kind of people these characters are e.g. hipsters, homeless, college students, etc.
4. I want to make the film with no dialogue, so their intentions need to be communicated nonverbally and there needs to be a good score to accompany it. 

This story is perfect because it is two people in their twenties, silent, outside in the daylight, and it's overall just a simple story. We have a lot more freedom to squeeze in symbolism and metaphors because we don't have to try and fit in a crazy plot.

I drew a lot of inspiration from Steven Spielberg's first short film 'Amblin''

I have watched this short film probably a dozen times and it is the epitome of economic storytelling. It's a great story and fits the criteria for a cheap production; it has limited actors, shot in the desert (great weather), no dialogue.

Another film I drew a lot of inspiration on was Damien Chazelle's first feature film Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, most especially a scene where two strangers meet while riding the metro.

It has a really rugged documentary style and it manages to communicate the connection the two characters have through subtle nonverbal movements like their hands slightly touching. The still shown above is a not-so-subtle way of showing attraction,  but it's quite unique, which is what I'm aiming to replicate. 

Back to the Drawing Board...

I'm an extremely pragmatic person and I don't like to jump into anything without having a clear picture for how everything will play out and I was very concerned about our idea for 'The Chef."

I touched on this in my last blog post, but low key lighting is a huge pain the ass because I simply don't have the right equipment to make it look good.

This kind of low key lighting is not hard to accomplish but to achieve a more balanced and "naturalistic" low key lighting would require more lights, gels, and a more adept camera in low-light settings.

Another option was to go the quirky route and use high key lighting to almost contrast the dark themes of the film.

This would also prove to be way too difficult to accomplish because it requires a lot of set design. I have created a production-design-heavy short film before and that approach is also quite costly and time-consuming.

This was a set I built last year inside my house. I spent way more money than I am willing to admit on creating this and I definitely feel like all the work I put into constructing the set was not worth it at all. It did not add enough value to the production and I would have saved way more money avoiding this setting all together.

Now I probably won't go as far as to try and build a set in my home ever again, but it production design is something I know will bleed me dry.

Given our super short time frame for this project, we need to streamline the production process as much as we can. We don't have time to do reshoots because our low key lighting was too dark for my camera, and I don't want to spend hours and hours on set design when nature and cityscapes are already out there for us to exploit.

The lemonade mules idea would be shot outside, but trying to get two child actors will be virtually impossible. My last film had one kid in it and it took me about two months to find someone decent that was willing to act in it. It will be way harder to find three.

We need to go back to the drawing board and think about what stories we like but also if it is practical given the resources we have as students with zero budget.

My criteria for a pragmatic production:

• Outside or inside with lots of windows
• One or two actors ages (15-30)
• Limited dialogue

We Decided on Our Idea

We had some lengthy discussions and debates weighing the pros and cons of both the Lemonade Mules and the newer version of The Chef, and ultimately decided to go with The Chef. The new title is still pending, but will be referred to as The Chef.

The outline for that plot has been created, so I thought it would be great to research different color palettes as a way to get an idea for the mood of the film.

We landed on this:

 

Focusing on creating blue tones while contrasting that with lots of yellow and browns is not only one of the basic choices for color palettes, but it accurately depicts the tone we are trying to set for the film. There is a lot of very dark themes surrounding poverty and death.

The dark nature of the color palette is very hard to achieve given technical limitations. We have like $100 worth of equipment and the camera I have cannot handle the kind of range required for a dark color palette. 

There may have to be some discussion regarding changing the story completely because this is simply impractical given technological limitations. Shooting outside in the daylight is ideal and shooting inside in the dark is the very last thing we should be doing.