Article Response: How to Make Your Film Look Cinematic When Your Lighting Setup is Less Than Ideal

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    A common issue that all amateur filmmakers have to face at some point in their career is how to make their films look cinematic. Sure, you can have some of the best camera shots, angles, audio, dialogue, and special effects ever created, but usually what makes or breaks a scene is the lighting techniques you use and how it affects that scene. You don't want daylight scenes to be too overexposed, or nighttime scenes to look rather grainy. But what if you don't have access to any professional lighting equipment that could help you? DSLRguide from YouTube explains in two of his recent videos on how to make a film look cinematic and how to create powerful images on a budget.

    Natural lighting is your friend. Whether it be cloudy or a sunny day, both can have an impact on your film. Using a window as a soft back light can easily make a scene look brighter. However, this technique doesn't work for every shot, mainly closeups and insert shots. Don't worry if your scene has a bit of darkness in it, as darkness can be found in almost all Hollywood films. What's important to remember when creating a film, is that location, color, emotion, and senses can be used to make interesting cinematic images. 

    Each of these assets tend to blend together with the others. With location, it's all about where you are and what's placed in the scene. For example, having a birds eye view of a city with people and cars quickly going by, or a calming scene of someone looking out the window at the rain falling onto the glass. The colors of the city scene would probably contain a lot of grays from the buildings and pavements, bright yellows from the cab cars, other small colors coming from stop lights, people's clothes, signs, etc. As for the rain scene, it would contain some dark colors in contrast to the bright light outside - the person is most likely silhouetted - and some blues from the overcast sky. The colors then affect how the viewer feels. With the bright colors and grays mixing together from the city scene, you probably feel a sense of excitement, as if you were around that amount of people and looking up at the skyscrapers towering above. The rain scene, however, could create a sense of sadness, loneliness, or calmness, as the rain hits the glass and the actor stares out into the world.

    Lastly, senses. Getting closeup shots of things happening in a big city can affect a persons senses. For example, maybe someone is selling hot dogs outside, you would know exactly what that smells like. Or maybe in the rain scene, the actor blows out a candle, you would know what the smell of smoke is like. This is how a viewer can sympathise with what's happening in a scene if they've ever experienced these things in their life. I really enjoyed watching Simon Cade's video on this subject, as it's a somewhat difficult thing to learn when making your own videos. You really just need to have the right visuals in order to make a film look cinematic. 

Article Response: "Anomalisa", Stop-Motion Animation and How 3D Printers are Changing Filmmaking

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    With the creation of 3D printers, people have found new and creative ways to make their ideas come to life. It's a process of turning digital files into plastic items that you can actually hold, and many people have taken advantage of this new technology by printing out things needed for engineering and designing, things that can be used to help people (for example, someone accidentally breaks a part in their wheelchair, it could cost a ton of money to be repaired, but with 3D printing, you could easily recreate that part and replace it for less money), or even just for random things around the house.

    Though, Charlie Kaufman used 3D printing to his advantage by utilizing it to create a stop-motion film. This film, titled Anomalisa, is about a man crippled by the mundanity of his life, experiences something out of the ordinary. With 3D printing, Kaufman was able to create his characters and the world around them. However, he's not the only filmmaker to utilize the 3D printer for stop-motion. 

    The animation studio, LAIKA, is responsible for the making of Coraline (2009), ParaNorman (2012), and The Boxtrolls (2014), all created with the use of 3D printing. They were able to swap out limbs and facial expressions on a base structure to create a character's motion. This didn't make the process any easier though, as the motions of the characters had to be perfected just so that it would match with the correct motion they were trying to achieve. Basically, the entire process had to go through both digital and physical "realms multiple times before the final image is achieved." It's a very time-consuming and difficult process.

    With Anomalisa, Kaufman didn't mind leaving in evidence to the films 3D printed origins, and you can easily see the aforementioned striations, the color deviations, and the seams between the eyes and lower face. This is what makes the film more interesting and different from other films that used 3D printing as their medium. After reading this article, I'm not sure if stop-motion is the right line of work for me, personally, as it seems a bit too time-consuming and a ton of work. Though, editing it together might be much more interesting. 

Weekly Comments #12: A Winner is You!

    This week has been somewhat slow, but definitely not as crazy as last week! Remember that long list of things I had to do in my last Weekly Comments post? I finished all of it, and was able to turn everything in on time! I'm kinda proud of myself. :) The stress was so overwhelming. However, this week I was able to relax a bit, as it's nearing the end of the semester and I already have my exams finished. I still can't believe we're almost in February! This year has gone by so quickly.

    Anywho, yesterday (1/23, isn't that the coolest birthday date ever?!) I finally turned 18! Yes, now I can finally get tattoos done without having to drive to Pennsylvania (since their age requirement for tattoos is 16). The only problem is, I actually have a small cold right now - sore throat, stuffy nose, etc. - that kept me inside most of the weekend, so I couldn't hang out with my friends or anything. Though, my mom and I worked on making our own funfetti cake pops, so that was fun.

    In BOCES this week, we continued working on our documentaries, and I;m so pleased with how ours turned out !! We uploaded it to YouTube and sent the link to Tracy (the founder of Asha Sanctuary) and she asked LCTV if they want to interview us about it, and they agreed. Very exciting - after being a camera person at LCTV for a little bit, watching people go up to be interviewed, now I'm the one going up to be interviewed. (Along with Ryan and Tracy of course.)

    What else? We had a lesson on how to improve the lighting in your film, which is something that I've been wanting to learn about for such a long time! Lighting has always been a problem for me, and I always end up filming something and then going on my editing software and adding a ton of lighting filters to make it brighter. I should probably invest in getting some actual lighting equipment, though.

    That's about it, so, link of interest: The Smash Announcer Voices Crazy Nintendo Lines. Kinda silly. I've always thought it would be interesting to be a voice actor for cartoons and things. I had just recently learned that the Super Smash Bros. 4 announcer (Xander Mobus) is actually much younger than everyone thought he was! Pretty crazy, how certain voices can make you believe someone is younger or older. Here he does a couple of silly phrases and announces random characters names as if they've just won a match. 

    Anyways! I gotta go start filming my PSA. :0 Grab the camera, let's go!!

Weekly Comments #11: STRESS

    What a weekishly weekly week it has been. Goodness gracious, I just couldn't seem to catch a break this week. I just finished writing my to do list for this month, take a look:

- Documentary critique, the new PSA video project script + storyboard, an introduction speech for my public speaking class, another speech that has to be 8-10 minutes long WITH a slideshow for my public speaking class, a post-assessment in public speaking, an economics project called the "Budget Project" which is absolutely a pain in the butt and probably the worst project I've ever been given since I've been in school WITH a slideshow, the economics final exam, college applications + recommendation letters + finishing my college portfolio. And of course, these blogs.

    All of these assignments have specific due dates, and it's got me all confused and stressed out because I have no choice but to finish every single one before the end of the month. *Curls up into a ball*

    But enough whining! This week in boces, well, my computer is gone, if you haven't noticed. I'm so glad I started working with Ryan on the documentary video because we can just use his computer for editing and writing. But still, it kinda sucks. However, I'm really content with the video footage we collected while we were at Asha Sanctuary. It was so fun meeting all of the animals and I FINALLY GOT TO PET THE COW!!! Although, it was rather cold when we were there, so my feet and hands were completely frozen by the time my mom came to pick us up. I would gladly go back there any time, though, to help out with the animals or film another video for them.

    What else...? Well, we had our typography video and explosions critiques this week, and I always get so nervous when it's time to watch mine. I don't know why, I guess because with each video I create, I really try to put all of my effort into, and I hope it shows.

    Anywho, I have to keep this blog somewhat short this week for obvious reasons. So here's my link of interest:

    This is Albert the cow, from Asha Sanctuary! This is footage of his first time outside after they had rescued him and nursed him back to health. He's obviously much bigger now, since he was only about a year old here. But look how happy he is, jumping around! So adorable. :)

Article Response: "Tips for Conquering Writer's Block (& Other Things That Keep You from Writing)"

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    Something all writers struggle with, no matter what form of writing you're into, is figuring out how to get over writer's block. Writer's block is basically when you're unable to proceed with writing because you mind has drawn a blank and you're fresh out of ideas. This comes into play for me most of the time whenever I'm working on script writing for my own videos. The question is, how exactly can we go about tackling it?

    First an foremost, you need to be able to figure out exactly what's causing the writer's block, and from there you can proceed to using simple solutions to get your brain back into gear. One prime reason why you may be experiencing writer's block is because, well, you're procrastinating. If you've been working on the same project for over a month or so, without actually sitting down to focus on finishing it, that's procrastination. You need to grab you computer or notepad and start jotting down some ideas, otherwise the project will never be finished.

    You can also consider picking a certain date that you want to be finished with the project by. That way, you'll be able to focus and keep your mind on track so you're not drifting away from schedule and putting it off. You just need to work on sticking to it. Another reason is perhaps you're having trouble committing to a particular idea, meaning, you have too many different ideas for your project and you can't focus on the main one. What you need to do is focus on one idea at a time. If a new idea pops into your head, write it down and save it for later. For now, just work on the first idea you had. Also, consider the reason why you started writing in the first place. What was the original reason why you wanted to tell this story?

    Another thing you can do, which I personally have done in the past, is come up with a new situation that your character has to deal with. It can still follow along the same plot, but just think of something new that could surprise the character or change the direction their going in to make the scene more interesting. For example, the main plot is about a superhero, off to save someone in need, when suddenly, there's an alarm that someone just robbed a bank, who do they go to help first?

    Once you realize exactly what's causing the writer's block, you can then continue your writing, hopefully with some new ideas as well. This article and the video provided were very helpful in my opinion, for anyone, not just script writers. I will definitely remember this link if I'm ever in need of help with writing again!

Article Response: "An Appreciation of Chuck Jones’ ‘One Froggy Evening’ On Its 60th Birthday"

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    Chuck Jones - an animator loved by many for his original and humorous story lines that could easily capture people's attentions. His most memorable animations were created for the Looney Tunes series and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. cartoon studios. However, 60 years ago, before many people really knew about the craft and art of animation, Chuck Jones released one of his first animations into movie theatres. It was called One Froggy Evening, about a singing and dancing frog that, after discovering him, a man stole to try to make money off of him. It doesn't go as planned, of course, and the man ends up going bankrupt. The film quickly became popular as more people heard about it.

    What's so interesting about this particular animation, is that it's difficult to figure out exactly how it was made. With an animation as early as this, it's almost impossible for it to have turned out so perfect and clean, without any animation or physics errors. The reason why, is that Jones' team worked every single day on creating new animations and releasing them every three weeks or so. They worked around the clock, making sure there were no mistakes.

    Although, the main reason why, is because Jones himself paid close attention to every single detail. He had created more layout drawings per film than any other Golden Age theatrical short director. He never relied on stock expressions or standard poses, he always created his own custom poses and expressions for each frame. For this particular animation, he studied his own pet frog in order to make his character's movements more realistic. This is what makes his animations so memorable.

    In my opinion, since I grew up watching some of Jones' animations, so I completely agree with this article. His animations contain simple, yet funny moments that can easily make you laugh. All of the time and effort that he put into each animation was definitely worth it in the end, and future animators can definitely learn from his techniques.