The Arts in New York City

After working on this multimedia project, I only have one thing to say: EDITING FILM IS SO HARD!

Writing this at 2 am after spending a huge chunk of time piecing footage together, making voice overs, and dubbing footage with crappy sound quality, I am dead. My eyes are red and itchy and I am sick of listening to the same lines over and over again. I’m pretty sure that I could recite the script by heart at this point. I can’t imagine having to do this for a living. Our movie is only 5 minutes long and I’m sick of it. I can’t imagine producing and editing an actual 2 to 3 hour-long film. What a nightmare.

My role in this project was cinematographer, which basically means I had to try and hold my camera steady while the actors (mainly Marinna and Pete) did their thing. It was tough, especially considering I’ve been trying to lift weights and eradicate the jelly-like flab that surrounds my pathetic bicep and triceps areas. While editing, especially the scenes filmed on stage, it was really obvious that my arms were shaking. Thank God for imovie’s stabilization feature and for Vanessa, who knew how to use it.

The first scenes we filmed were the ones on the beach in Baldwin on December 5^th. We had already checked out the location on November 17^th, but we didn’t see much as you can see by the pictures.

Thankfully, the spot was just as beautiful as Marinna said it would be. It was absolutely breathtaking (and really fucking cold).

As Peter and Marinna stripped to their costumes: a wife-beater and shorts for Pete and a dress and sandals for Marinna, I was thanking God that I was a shit actress. Standing on the beach in my dad’s massive leather jacket, boots, jeans, three shirts, gloves, and earmuffs, my teeth were chattering and compared to me, Peter and Marinna were practically naked.

On December 13^th, Marinna and I met again to film on our own on a grassy patch behind Honors Hall. I was worried it wouldn’t work at first with the buildings in the background, but it turned out all right. It was still cold, but at least it was warmer than the beach.

The next day, the entire group got together again to film in the “Little Theater” in Kieley. After waiting for a class inside to finish a final, we finally got to see, for the first, time one of the most focal locations of our film. My immediate reaction was not a good one. As I observed all the crap on stage, the trash students had left behind, and the overall condition of the theater, once again I was worried.

This scene was honestly the most difficult one to work with. The lighting was tricky, the angle had to be straight on to keep the chairs, tables, and props on either side of the stage from being in the shot, and the sound quality on tape sounded awful. I spent more time fixing the audio than filming the shot. Because of the white noise in the background, I ended up getting my group members to re-read the script aloud on photo booth and editing the clips each person recorded together to re-make the audio. Dubbing the film to make the lip movements match the words being spoken was honestly on of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life.

That Friday, on the 17^th, I had two finals: Anthropology from 11 to 1 and Philosophy from 1:15 to 3:15 so my group decided to film without me. Olivia made a guest appearance and filmed the Underworld, potion, and final scenes with Peter and Marinna while Vanessa tried to transfer footage from Marinna’s computer to her own so that she and I could edit it the next day.

On Saturday, at Vanessa’s house, Vanessa and I watched the Friday footage and felt that the industrial settings really didn’t fit in with the rest of the film. The staircase where the Underworld scene was filmed had a ladies room sign on the wall, a fire hose, was really wide and awkward landings and the “stage” where the potion scene was filmed was unimpressive: concrete slabs and a brick wall in the background. We also felt that the Kissena Boulevard entrance with cars whizzing by in the background and people patrolling the pavement didn’t really set the right mood.

In addition, some of the props (the plastic bag and Fanta bottle in the Underworld Scene and the Magic Bullet blender attachment in the potion scene) were not exactly fitting for a story supposedly taking place in ancient Greece. Needless to say, we desperately NEEDED to re-film. So, Vanessa and I fit the usable footage into the film and spent most of the day eating Chinese food, fixing the audio, and cropping and cutting the footage.

On Sunday, our entire group reconvened to re-film some of Friday’s scenes and finish editing the film. In a moment of hysteria, I asked my friend Alyssa to check out our footage after which she suggested that I ask her roommate Sam for advice. After playing with the footage for less than an hour, Sam had worked her magic. By adding a few transitions and altering the speed of some of the audio, she managed to perfectly synchronize the dubbing with the footage.  After a few disagreements, our group finally reached a happy medium and put the finishing touches on our not-so-crappy film. All I know is that film-making is not a career path I intend to pursue.

Here is the finished product: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe_5ivakus0

Making a movie is HARD WORK!!!! I now have such a great appreciation for movies and TV shows that are professionally done because I’ve experienced about 1% of what they go through, and I cant imagine how they do it.  I used to think, “Yeah, what’s so hard about making a movie?  The actors say their lines and the cameraman stands there and films it. Even I could do it!”  Well, let me state for the record that I can’t do it.  I am unable to make a professional two-hour box-office-hit movie.  Trust me, I tried.

There were so many things that I learned through making this movie- so many things you need to consider, such as: how to balance dialogue and action?  In the beginning we found that our movie was very dialogue-y, so we had to add in some parts of silent actions and make use of music.  And that is much harder than it looks.  You need to make sure to pick the right music for the mood; serious, satirical, etc. because music is a very powerful tool and can make or break a scene.  Another issue I never thought about before was the use of different angles and perspectives.  In movies the camera always films from different angles, so the viewer gets to see multiple perspectives and take in the scene.  I never realized that they did this, it was just something I took for granted when I watched a movie.  So when we started filming we only used the same angle, and when we watched it we found it kinda boring.  Once we pinpointed our problem we tried to film at different angles with multiple cameramen, but then we kept getting cameramen in the shots!  So finally what we did was shoot each scene in mini steps and for each “mini-scene” we used a different angle.  This was a major improvement in our movie.

Another thing that was really hard was the acting and staying in character!  It’s so awkward when you’re pretending to be angry in a scene and you’re shouting at each other, so it is so tempting to laugh due to nervous energy and awkwardness. But honestly, after a while I found it easier to get into character and not laugh as much.  But the MOST awkward part of the whole filmmaking process is watching yourself in the movie.  I now understand why famous people don’t watch their own movies, or why artists don’t listen to their songs on the radio.

I know that so far in this blog I was just talking about the complications of making a film, but the truth is that I enjoyed every minute of it (even the minutes after 2:05 AM).  It was so much fun learning about everything that goes into making a movie, and I saw significant improvements in my group’s film from beginning to end.  This also changed the way I watch movies- now I notice the camera angle, the choice of clothing, speech inflections, etc.

My favorite parts of making this film were choosing costumes and acting. It was so much fun getting dressed up and even though I said the acting was awkward at first, it was so much fun acting with my friends because it was fun to laugh at ourselves and made for some good bloopers.

I also loved my group and we worked really well together.  I feel like our movie really was a group effort and we all worked together to come up with the plot, the storyboard and the actual movie.  Even though my official title was “Production Designer,” I felt like I really participated in all areas of the film and that we all helped each other instead of us each being confined to the tasks designated by our titles. None of us felt uncomfortable voicing our opinions on whether we liked how something turned out or not, and I think that really helped us make the best film we could make.

I know some people think that putting an artist’s opinion and making a statement in a piece of art, like our film, is really difficult, but I actually found it surprisingly helpful.  Once we picked our angle (that of a social critic criticizing modern society’s depiction of love), everything fell in to place because our agenda gave us direction and purpose.  When we weren’t sure what was the next step to take in writing the script or filming the scenes, our agenda as a social critic pushed us in the right way.  It also made our movie have a purpose, as well as (hopefully!) being entertaining.  This is what we’ve been talking about all semester- it is great when artwork is pleasing and entertaining, but it is so much more powerful and worthwhile when it also makes a strong, clear statement.  My group and I tried to follow this thought as best as we could in our movie.

My favorite moment in making this film was learning that there are PURPLE skittles, not BROWN.  On a more serious note, I also realized how much time you had to spend filming to get one scene of good footage!  Sometimes after two hours of filming we would only have gotten two minutes of footage.

So, even though this multimedia project has been taking over my life these past few weeks, I am so grateful that this was our final project (not only because it is so much cooler than writing a paper).  It was an awesome experience and surprisingly, I really enjoyed it.  Thanks Professor Healey for an awesome semester, and to all you other groups out there, I can’t wait to see how your movies turned out!!!

At first I was dreading the idea of the film project. I didn’t ever have to do a project that requires so much imagination and creativity. However, after the first few meetings with my group I knew that we were going in the right direction and this project was definitely worth looking forward to. Coming up with the idea of combining the original script with a modern twist was probably the hardest part. Not to mention we were trying to take a social critic approach to our movie. Although I felt like this task was impossible walking out of the first few meetings, each group member had unique ideas that contributed to the overall film. We all had a different perception of the film but the same general idea. One by one we started combining all the ideas and finally got to an agreement on the direction we wanted our film to go in.

As Dramaturge it was my job to create a script for the ideas we were putting together. It was difficult for me at first because we needed the script the earliest and it would set a theme for our film.  It would also have to merge all our ideas so that it could create an actual complete film. However I felt at ease when I knew that improvisation was an inevitable part of this project and the script didn’t have to be word by word exact to our filming. Furthermore, we all decided the best thing to do was to help each other out in our roles because we weren’t really theater experts. With the teamwork of my group members and I, we all contributed to one another’s roles. They helped me with our script and we all worked together on each other’s parts.

I guess the hardest part of the film was meeting, gathering people from outside our project to create scenes and putting those scenes together. Additionally creating transitions so the scenes would flow smoothly was also a big challenge for all of us. However after we had a direction to follow, everything else fell into place. During our shooting we knew what we had to tweak so that it would allow for a better viewing experience. We also stuck to our main idea so that it didn’t seem like we were rambling or going off on a tangent. I was happy that each one of us in our group has something unique to offer. We all had our individual skills that contributed to the production of the film.

The best part of this project was definitely filming! I still laugh thinking about the good times we had filming at the dorms after 12 am. It was a chance for us to not only create our wonderful film but also to bond with one another. I really got to know Liz, Michelle, and Carol better through this assignment and I’m glad I had this wonderful opportunity. I also realized that I’m really not a great actress! I have this problem of laughter (my group members understand). Haha. It’s just that I found everything hilarious as we were filming the few scenes I was in. Nevertheless, we managed to get through all the laughing and we started to put together the scenes of our film slowly but surely. We were (thankfully) on task and diligent in filming and editing. I have to say that I’m really proud of my group because despite our tough schedules we managed to always meet up and stay focused.

Although I really didn’t like the idea of having to do a multimedia project, I really enjoyed this experience! Actually, I absolutely loved it! It was so much fun and I think that through this project I’ve overcome my fear of the whole artistic field. Being creative wasn’t impossible at all; it was just a matter of being natural.

When we were first told that our final would be to make a movie, my first reaction was:

YES!!! One less thing to study for!!!

I figured it’d be simple and quick, a few days of filming a couple of days of editing and voila: a masterpiece deserving of an A.  Wow was I wrong.  It’s possible to say that making a movie is a lot more difficult to do than study for a real final or write up a paper.  One of the reasons being is that in this kind of project it’s all about group work and team effort.  If one person lags on a task, it drags the whole group down, and the same thing happens with the moral if one person brings negativity to the group.  So over all, working on this project was a lot of fun; from the first day when we picked our group I could tell we’d have some good times.

Somehow we ended up with a group of six, when the maximum was supposed to be five, so this meant there were more people than there were roles.  So since I’m not the kind of person to lead, nor am I the creative writing type, I decided to help with production design.  I shared this role with Ashley and we did a fairly good job if I did say so myself.  Using the script and our own ideas (and our own clothes) we were able to come up with simple and reasonable costumes for our leads, Olivia and Jeff (who deserve an Oscar for their performance) to wear.  My only regret was since this movie was meant to be shot during different seasons, we had to make the costumes appropriate for summer and spring.  So when we settled on a t-shirt and jeans for Jeff and a school girl uniform for Olivia, they were expected to wear only that for the spring scene while sitting on a bench outside on the windiest day in November.  Their high moral and great acting made up for their on screen shivering and blue lips from the cold.  Based on the amount of work those two did I think they deserve a solid “A+.”

My biggest contributions to the film making process were the fall scene story board, my spring clothes, (it’s a good thing Olivia and I were the same size) my cameo role in the summer scene (which taught me I’m no good at acting) and my assistance in filming the fall scene.  I really enjoyed drawing my story board pictures, because art is something I’m good at, and can do on my own.  It was the part of the project where I could depict the scene exactly how I wanted to.  So over all I got to participate in a lot of things, except editing, although I did get to see the process of it.  After watching Jeremy and Jeffrey work for two hours I could only sit in wonder at the amount of patience and skill it takes to make just one scene.  I can only commend them for actually sorting through all the different shots we took and the different angles we filmed to make a coherent movie.

We all enjoyed the process, and it’s evident if you see our unused shots.  Every time we cut it was normally because one of us laughed, or a cell phone went off at the wrong moment, or some random stranger just walked through our shot dressed up in full winter clothes when we were filming spring and summer.  Our movie goal seemed almost unrealistic; making it seem like summer or spring, when the trees are bare, the leaves are on the ground and everyone is dressed in jackets, sweaters, gloves, scarves and hats should be impossible.  It did get a little frustrating at times, but we didn’t let it get to us.  One of the most challenging problems we faced was getting the entire group together when it was convenient for everyone.  All of us had class, or work, or other time restraints that made it impossible for everyone to get together.  In fact, there were only a handful of times when all six of us could be present at the same time, but we were still able to get everything done.  This project was a great way to end the semester and the year.  It was ten times harder than taking a final or writing a paper, but it was a hundred times more fun less stressing.  I couldn’t have asked for a better end of semester assignment.

As I sit here thinking about how I should even begin to write about my group’s experience with the multimedia blog, thousands of things come to my mind.  However, I do not wish to bore you with complaints, fascinations, and things that I loved about this project.  This has been my first group project in college where I really had to step back and let someone else lead the group.  All my life I have been the leader of the group, or at least tried to be, and this one instance where I had to follow, was extremely difficult for me.

When choosing a role that I wanted to do, I decided I would want to be production designer, and since Rebecca wasn’t really great with editing, I would help her out with the editing.  After reviewing the script and seeing what we had to work with, I was surprised to find that it was actually hard to keep a script, but still add your own point of view.

We tried to create a storyboard that was different than your typical storyboard, but due to a lack of  “point of view” (something that I was very worried about, and I had brought up during our group meetings) it wasn’t the best.  After our storyboards were due, we were stuck in a state of confusion.  We wanted very much to stick to the script, but still make it our own and that was the hardest part of it all.  Luckily, with some advice and guidance from Professor Healey, we were able to come up with a theme that we could incorporate into our film to bring it away from the original script, but not so far away that we forget the story of the script.

After creating our story and script (Marinna and Peter), it was time to start filming.  We decided to keep all of the original costumes, although I would have much rather have used costumes that were more modern Greek, the other members of my group decided that we would just leave it as is.  I feel as though the costumes could have been better, but with the time schedule we were working on, especially since we started filming much later than we had hoped, we had to make do with what we had.

We trekked to Baldwin Park all the way out in Long Island one day to look at the scenery and decide if we wanted to film part of our multimedia project there.  It was beyond far away, but the beautiful scenery caught our eyes and we knew it was the place.  (We felt it!)  A few weeks after, my group members went out to Baldwin Park to film the beach scenes, which I couldn’t attend because of church services.  Unfortunately, after this one time that I was unable to attend a group meeting, it seemed like the end of the world.

The next filming day occurred in King Hall where we had the privilege of using the stage as well as awesome lighting.  The sound wasn’t the best, but we made do with what we had.  I actually really liked being in the film, and I wish I were allowed to be more of a part in it as an actress.  Maybe next time, if I ever am assigned another project such as this one, I will definitely change my role.

I am not extremely excited about this multimedia project.  I think I’m more of a boring character, where I feel like if I’m not really in the movie, and I’m just on the outside looking in, I lose interest in it.  Working with whatever footage Rebecca and I had, we made do with it and tried to put together an awesome movie.

Before this project, I thought I was actually good at editing, but soon I realized that I might not be as good as I thought.  On a Saturday, Rebecca and I dedicated twelve hours to editing.  With twenty bucks worth of Chinese food takeout, dumplings, fried rice, chicken, broccoli, egg rolls, and the works. We were dedicated and wanted to completely finish the film.  However, that was easier said than done.  We spent the entire day working on the film, editing it, and still, we realized that we weren’t finished.

After extra hours of editing at Rebecca’s dorm, we finally got help that we needed, made the movie with everything we wanted to be in it (minus a few scenes and shooting issues), but overall, we were happy with our final product.  In my opinion, I really like the beginning, the ending, and the scenes that were shot on the beach, however the rest of it, I feel like we could have done it somewhere else with different scenery.

Now that I have successfully made a movie with my group, I know that I never want to make a movie like this ever again, and if I am, I would much rather not have to stick to a script or listen to someone else’s directions the entire time.  Overall, I am happier that I had the ability to do something fun to end my first semester of college.  After all of the drama, disagreements, filming in the cold, editing frustrations, I will never forget this experience.