Film Studies 201

For our master shot narrative, I was assigned the position of director. One of my initial ideas was to try shooting in the Boseman Gallery (or the Cultural Arts Gallery), but I had doubts about the legal issues and after discussing it with the rest of the crew, we agreed it wouldn’t be feasible. We then turned to my second suggestion, which was the Clocktower Lounge. I thought it would be a good place to film because it’s indoors, which lends to a higher degree of control, it’s very quiet depending on the time you go, and the setting provides visual interest and a cozy feel. I also had the idea of making it so that Bran and Park had never met, that Park is just a normal student, and Bran is a borderline-crazy stranger. Lastly, I thought we could use Park as the protagonist, bookending the film with shots of him to create a cohesive product.

Although I wasn’t able to make the first b-roll and vox pop shooting, due to my evening art class, I was at the second (and final) b-roll shoot down at the Phoenix Hometown Hires office. Shooting b-roll was a different experience from the interview, where we had a specific, preplanned shot we wanted to get. We definitely came to the b-roll shoot with ideas, but we were able to look for things in the moment, things we might not be able to predict or didn’t occur to us until we were collecting the footage and audio, such as when church bells started ringing in the distance just before we started recording ambient sound. We could experiment with angles, subjects, and heights. “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” and “what do you think of…” were tossed around as we collected instances from life, making our b-roll form from a more organic shoot.

Our expert interview, with Will Rikard of Phoenix Hometown Hires, went well overall. We had a few scares with the sound equipment, but in the end it came through! I tried to keep everything running smoothly at the shoot. We had a nice-sized space to film in, and it had blue walls and a whiteboard in it, which added interest to our shot. Unfortunately, when we got back after the interview, I noticed the background was a little dim, which might not have been a problem if we’d used a backlight (but we didn’t want to overwhelm Mr. Rikard with too many hot lights). Since we’d practiced putting up the lights beforehand, we were able to put them up relatively easily and quickly. I took notes for the b-roll during the interview, and afterwards Mr. Rikard told us about a great opportunity for getting some b-roll and vox pops.

Our expert interviewee for our documentary, which focuses on the process of finding unemployed people work, is the Executive Director of Phoenix Hometown Hires, Will Rikard. The expert interview was shot in the office of Phoenix Hometown Hires in Wilmington. The b-roll and vox pops will be shot at a local church, where Phoenix Hometown Hires will be hosting an event later this week, as well as additional vox pops from out and about, if viable. We also plan on gathering B-Roll from multiple locations around town and maybe even the college, once we’ve decided on the shots we want most. I wanted to set a cheerful, but respectful tone with the interview subject. The documentary seems to have an uplifting, hopeful focus, so the best idea would be to make the expert feel calm and cheerful, while knowing we respect his and his organization’s efforts. The ten questions we went to the interview with are: 1.  Briefly tell us about Phoenix Hometown Hires. What are the organization’s g...

#1: Indoors at Night There are three main sources of light in my room right now: the warm, artificial glow of the ceiling light, the harsh, electric street lamps, and the shine of my computer screen.   The ceiling lamp casts a yellow, almost orange, hue that fills the room, creating well-defined shadows. My own shadow has a more ghostly clone, due to the computer screen that’s shining a splash of cool-toned light on my hands and clothes. Outside my window are street lamps, creating high contrast by bathing oval-shaped portions of the parking lot pavement with a cold, white pallor and leaving crisp, dark shadows. #2: Outdoors by the Pool The sole source of significant light here is the sun. Although the light is creating defined shadows with clear edges, it’s not direct and intense enough to create extremely hard shadows. Thus, the lighting is overall rather soft, though it’s bright enough to make the pool glimmer, defining ...