Group Work: DP

This is such a fail because I've just discovered there's a reflection guide on the RMIT TV blog. I think I missed this. Which makes this entry a little bit late.

Anyway, on week 3 we were formed into groups for our last assessment, the short film. I got the Director of Photography position, which is the one I wanted. I am so thrilled because I've been always fascinated by cinematography works, especially the good ones. I joined a cinematography club when I was in high school, even though it was for a pretty short time, it was still a great experience. Moreover, after cinematography, I'm getting interested in photography up till now.

What's the job of Director of Photography?

They are the head of the camera department and it is their job to capture the photographic impression of the directors' vision

More on DP descriptions here!

One of the DPs that I like is Bruno Delbonnel who was the DP of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince movie (2009). Actually I'm a fan of Harry Potter and have been reading the books and watching the saga but from all of the Harry Potter movies released, I like the Half-Blood Prince the most, in technical way. I mean, the cinematography was just awesome! Bruno Delbonnel definitely went with a whole different way on depicting the world of Harry Potter.

Long story short, I'm so excited for the final project!

Clown Train

I realized I haven't made an entry for the Clown Train review.

I re-watched the Clown Train by Jaime Donnely on YouTube with my headphones so I can hear the sound even better. Actually I really like this type of films or short films. The psychological, horror kind of genre really piqued my interest. I like the cinematography techniques and works in the film but not really on the sounding. In my opinion, there several moments where the sound is not balanced or not well-focused. Like in one scene, the sound is only focused on the Clown's sound, but not really on the man's sound which make the man sound a bit lower than the Clown's sound. However, I really like the use of the sound effects and also the background sounds. Not forgetting the great actors and set. I can't believe that they actually shoot it at the Australian Railway History Museum! Great choice on that!

In a nut shell, I really like the concept of the film and I think it really deserve the award for the Best Film at RMIT Student Film Ceremony Award 2009!

Lenny Project

FINISHED MY LENNY PROJECT!

It's been a while since I get my hands on movie editing. For Spring/Summer 2008 course I only used iMovie. This is my first time playing with Final Cut Pro. I reckon it's a bit more complicated than iMovie but it can do much more things than iMovie. Believe it or not, I'm really looking forward to dig out some more functions on Final Cut Pro. This is getting exciting! And thank God for that.

Anyway here's my Lenny looking good. I tried to play with the voice over, but I think I should do more of it instead of only having a few bits of video cut which made the audio unstable. Sometimes it's loud, sometimes it's soft or even too soft. Well, noted!

Aliqa loves Lenny!

Special thanks to Albert for uploading my Lenny project to his YouTube, since I don't have an account there. :)

Synopsis

Okay, I totally forgot to blog about my synopsis. Anyway, here goes mine...

Sasha thought that her Mom’s second marriage night could never get any worse than anything. There she was, sitting in a madly large grand suite hotel room, wearing her silly pink bridesmaid’s gown, waiting for the wedding reception. She didn’t care if her soon-to-be father has 2 mansions or 3 horses or a private jet, she could and would never be able to approve him. It’s been 10 years since her father left, and Sasha had been happy enough just to live with her mother.

Just when Sasha walked into the elevator, a mysterious man tapped her shoulder. It was him; it was her long lost father. In contemplation between being nostalgic and traumatic, Sasha cried. Apparently her father came to tell the truth about her Mom, the reason behind the marriage and… her real father.

The point that I'm emphasizing in my synopsis is basically Sasha's point of view of the surroundings. I want the readers to know what Sasha feels. The loneliness that's growing inside her with the portrait of a large suite hotel room and how she feels about the marriage pictured through the silliness of her pink bridesmaid dress. It's not only about the dress, the whole idea of the marriage is stupid. She doesn't like it.

Anyway, I wanted to end my story ambiguously by letting Sasha's father to reveal the truth about him. That he's not her father and he's trying to do a bit of an inappropriate thing, like trying to molest Sasha. I will end it before that happens, of course. However, as Christine said, it would be better if the "revealing truth" is related to the marriage.

I am, and still, trying to think about an appalling truth that is not cliche but still interesting. Ended up with a quite complicated end and it's merely impossible to do through a short film, maybe a TV series would do, but yeah...

Christine led me to a better idea by using the idea of "the soon-to-be father is actually still/already have a family". But I can't come up with a good thing, it's still too cliche for me!

Shut it, sisters!

I adopted a blog related to photography which is Shutter Sisters

I haven’t track much about this blog since I’ve just started browsing through it. iTo put it simple, I think this blog is amazing. This blog is basically a community of some women photographers. They share their best shots and share what they feel about it and what are they playing with, such as focus, contrast & brightness.

Most of them are using SLR cameras which are pretty much the same type with my SLR camera and that inspired me to explore more tricks on playing with my camera. But they also use some more professional equipments. No wonder they get better shots with all those kits. They also use Polaroid cameras and the result is very interesting that now it moves me to buy a Polaroid camera.

Most of the entries are very original since they took the pictures themselves or they attached some pictures by somebody else. They add comments and personal thoughts that related to the photos.

One-liner

I've been running through several ideas and also been lurking for some great inspiration, but as people said, simple is the best. So I decided not to go for a complicated story line.

Anyway, the story that I'm using is one of my own-made story that I wrote on summer course 2 years ago. With several changes here and there, I decided to go dark but I am trying to keep it simple, still. I was contemplating about the sins that I'm going to focus on. Well, I guess the more often I think about the characters, I seems to have some enlightenments, thank God. I will probably start drafting before it slips out of my mind.

I reckon this one-liner would and should be the punch line for my screenwriting. I've read some of last year's one-liners. Some of them are really good! I really like some that made me curious about the complete story, not forgetting about the twist, which is very important in my opinion.

I think a good one-liner should give small hints about where the story is going but NOT a spoiler. That way, it makes the reader, in this case maybe me, intrigued and willing to read the rest of the story.

7 Deadly Sins

So! This is the pilot post for Film and TV 1 subject. Woot!

I used to use my RMIT student blog, but unfortunately I can't access it anymore, due to my own fault for not remembering the username. But I DO remember the password, this is unfair! Most people forget password, not username. Right?

Anyway, first week, first lecture, first tutorial. I knew it'd be interesting, that might be one of the reasons why I decided to take the subject. Ever since summer 2008, I feel like Film/TV have piqued my interest.

One of the major assignments was revealed and it's screenwriting. The theme is 7 deadly sins. When the line '7 Deadly Sins' came up, the first thing that came to my mind was of course; wrath, pride, gluttony, envy, lust, greed, sloth.

In the tutorial, we managed to pull out some examples of characters from each sins. Apparently, instead of creating or finding a character based on the literal meaning, there were a lot more of it that we can explore. Like, looking for an unexpected characters who looks normal on daily basis, but actually grasp the essence of those sins which made the characters a little bit more... different and mysterious.

For example, gluttony can be symbolized by a character of a drug-addict mother who's actually living a happy marriage life and raising her 2 kids. Why would she consumes drugs? And this might lead to a list of questions about the character.

I am now working on my one-liner. Crossing my fingers, hope I can belt out a good one!