Some Even Better News

 

    So we got another response from a band. Was definitely hyped to get the go-ahead to use their music as I think that it suits our project very very well. It's less layered and less "in your face" than our other band's music, and it's definitely slower and more somber.  This makes it much better for using it as a score for our project.

    The response was a little passive-aggressive but hey they're still letting us use the music so that's all I care about. And it's also pretty cool that these musicians whose music I love actually interacted with us to some capacity. There's a lot of music ahead of me to listen to to select the perfect song. 

https://open.spotify.com/track/36hfuJ6XOZdOuToo4SgLVv?si=491d612858e54e3a

^^Was really thinking about using this one though, that subtle synth is just too good not to pass up on 

Personal Thoughts...

 

So obviously my group finished the storyboard and we know already what we're going to film, however, I'm not really satisfied with where our project is going, personally. Our plot just seems vague and too unoriginal for my liking, like it doesn't have enough of ourselves in it. I really want this project to be good, but I also want to treat this as my own piece of "art", something that paints a picture I want to paint. Right now, I feel a little disconnected from the whole thing, which is what I've felt when doing other projects in the past. That's not to say I wasn't a valuable member in making past projects, I just didn't feel like I had enough of my own creativity put into those projects. 

I think from this point on I'll be more vocal about my own ideas and take a stronger foothold over my work. I trust in myself that I could make a pretty good project, so I'll definitely try to take greater control over our final product. 

Updated Schedule

 

        So the original plan was to begin filming this weekend, preferably tomorrow night. We had our location set up and everything was good to go. However, I have dinner with my family tomorrow night to celebrate my grandpa's birthday, so we can't film tomorrow. And I don't want to film Sunday night because it's a school night and I'll probably have other homework. 

        So we both agreed to film a good chunk of the project next week on Saturday and Sunday. However, there is a bit of a dilemma as Gaby has to work on Saturday from 7 PM to 11 PM. Even though we have a very limited window to film, I think that if we prepare right we can get a good amount of quality footage. 

Great News!

            

            So as mentioned last week on my blog, my group and I were struggling to get permission from some bands to use their music. We were really keen on not using royalty-free music in our project so when we didn't get a response, we were really disappointed. Our number 1 pick-or the band we wanted to get a response from the most-was Have A Nice Life. This is not only because we are both fans of the group, but also make music that suits this type of project well. 

                Here's a message from the band's leader letting us use their music. When we got this message earlier today we were super excited. For one, getting a response from one of our favorite musicians was super cool; and secondly, being able to use their music for our project was something that we really wanted to do, so being able to do so is very exciting. 

Who are our Characters?

 

    Creating and writing our character in as much detail is important because I think that our project is very character-driven. Our inspiration for our character stems from films like Taxi Driver and Nightcrawler. We want to create a sort of sigma male-type character that these films portray. We will definitely need a good actor for this role, even though there isn't any dialogue, expressions are key.

The name of our character is Jack, which is what Gaby decided, although I don't think the name really matters because we're not going to mention it in the video. 

Finding Places

 

    We have decided that this weekend we are going to begin shooting. We plan on filming Saturday with the help of some of our other friends seeing as how we will have multiple characters in the shoot. However, I am worried we won't find a good location to film at, so before our first shoot, I want to come prepared. I'll probably go location scouting on Friday night with some of my friends to see how certain places will look on camera and whether the scenery works with our project. 

    Depending on the direction our story goes, I was thinking of filming at either Town Center or just someone's house. I think I'm leaning more towards filming at someone's house as it'll be much easier to control the lighting and there won't be any external factors that could delay or ruin the production. And I also feel like I see Town Center way too much in school projects I think it's kind of overdone if that makes sense. 

Here's a movie whose atmosphere I love. Obviously plot-wise and content-wise our project is very different from this film, but the way the city is captured and the mood the setting builds is outstanding and something I'll definitely try to draw from. 

On the Storyboard

 

    During class, we decided to begin our storyboard. Our storyboard is a very very rough idea or blueprint of what our project is going to be. Both Gaby and I prefer internalizing how our project is going to look rather than drawing it out because we both feel that sometimes our true vision can get lost in translation when putting it through pen and paper. 

    As you can see the storyboards aren't the most visually stunning or comprehensive storyboards on the planet, but we wanted to get the ball rolling and start putting some ideas onto paper. As mentioned earlier, for both of us it is very tough to put down what we visualize and have planned for our project into drawings, hence why we'll also be writing down all of our different shots in words. 

P.S- I'm not sure how to rotate the pictures of our storyboards.