Digital Portfolio (2019-2020)

This Does Not Work Now, why does this not work? It's kind've complicated, but I want to tackle this challenge. So, lets break it down. Interactivity The very thing that makes video games it's own medium is the interactivity. It's so much easier to be immersed when you're controlling the actions of the main protagonist for 90% of the game or controlling the flow of the story. When you strip that down you're left with this bare sub product that doesn't feel right because the story and characters weren't created with television or movies in mind. However, there still have been successful adaptations into the film medium with things like The Witcher and Castlevania (Netflix), so what do those get right? First, looking at The Witcher it was originally a series of Polish novels, and the television show chose to be based off the books as opposed to the games, but still carries the same name. It takes the stories from the novels and gives us the chara...

You know exactly what this is. Even people that haven't seen Pulp Fiction know what this is. The mysterious briefcase. Nothing more than a prop, but isn't a prop essential to a scene? Without props, old westerns don't have six-shootin cowboys, Captain America doesn't have his shield, and a scene lacks depth. I want to break this up into a few parts, Functionality, Depth, and Atmosphere. Essentially, breaking down this photo, but explaining why it's all necessary in order to make the scene whole. All from one single image from a 178 minute movie made in 1994. Functionality I won't put too much detail into this, since honestly it's a pretty self explanatory part of the props. The revolver, a hold up, a robbery. This is a diner, so of course it has nice roundabout seating, little utensils on the table behind Jackson, and the wall to show that yes, this is indeed a diner. Clothing an obvious bit since they are in public. Functionality is rather obviousl...

What is a voice over (or V/O)? A voice over can be a lot of things, the main character voicing their thoughts in a more organic way than an external monologue, a narrator doing an exposition drop, or a piece of dramatic irony. They give us access to a lot of things we normally wouldn't have, but using them at the wrong time can really pull the viewer out of the immersion. I want to explore voice overs and think of how I can use them in my film. Popular Examples The easiest example is looking at most mafia or crime drama movies. At some point there's normally a breakdown of the master plan, or an inner exploration into the mind of these criminal underlords. In Fight Club voice over work is done by the main character, The Narrator (played by Edward Norton) so we get to see the inner workings of his mind as well as play deeper into the idea that the character is really messed up in the head, which climaxes at the end of the movie when, spoiler alert, Tyler, the character pl...

Just for a little be of pretext for why I chose to do this as my topic for this week, I recently watched a video on Neo-Westerns, and honestly it was a very interesting topic that mentioned Tarantino breaking down the different "eras" of Westerns. It was also a topic I thought I could realistically spend 90 minutes on without getting bored. If you're interested in the video I'll be embeding it. (p.s Screened is an incredible channel that is very informative, I'd recommend them for any of your classes!) What is a Western? First I'd like a definition of what a Western is. At it's core, Westerns are about a few things. The grey area in the law, a protagonist protecting something or someone, and deal with the themes of either survival or a change in the times, based on which form of Western you're looking at. They contain shootouts and gunslingers/outlaws. With this very loose set of rules I want to go back and looks at the different eras of Wes...

Intention Definition & Exploration of Ideas: I don't know if I am sticking to my original plan, making films about going against the wrong doings the governments of the world inflict on its people. Personally, I think I just enjoy writing stories, exploring characters, and just having themes under them. In the first film of mine that never really came to fruition, it was about not allowing yourself as a citizen to become a mindless drone for your country, however so far in this film I'm working on now, it feels more like I'm working with what it is to be a part of a national identity, how it is to be a patriot for your country. I think this is mostly due to my exploration of the video game series Metal Gear, most specifically Snake Eater, which explores how soldiers are just pawns for their country, and sends a heavy anti-war message. I don't enjoy the idea of limiting myself to one theme or idea, and prefer to just explore human experience and psyche. Planning...

To be frankly honest I haven't done much having been out before the Corona outbreak and being mistold that we didn't have any school work over the course of the virus outbreak, but I do have photos of what I do have done so far and I will continue working on the script and finishing pre-production so I can finish filming once school opens back up. I wanted to make it really easy to look up who it was, what side they're on, and any other information that would be necessary for me to recount these events with as much historically accurate as possible. You can't see it cause I didn't crop these images correctly but on the left side of the screen all the different categories are kept up so I can easily navigate through my admittedly clunky notes. Another little bit of costuming as well as a look at some of the music I plan on including in my film. I'll have to hope my actors are good at singing. I know that I have a lot of characters, and there'...

Alasdair Mac Colla Precursor This isn't actually THAT important but this Highlanders full name is Sir  Alasdair MacColla   MacDonald of Colonsay. His English name is Alexander MacDonnel, and he actually died before the end of the Irish Confederate Wars (November 13th, 1647).  MacColla was the third son of  Col MacGillespie and Mary MacDonald, his father being the main chieftain of  the  MacDonald clan, who were mostly fragmented due to Clan Campbells conquer of their lands in the early 17th century. MacColla was forced into exile in Ireland with most of his family after the Earl of Argyll (chieftain of the Campbells clan) imprisoned his father and brothers in 1638. Military History When the Irish rebellion started in October of 1641, MacColla enlisted as captain of a regiment in Antrim raised against the Irish resistance. However, in January 1642 he defected to the side of the Catholic rebels. Scottish Covenanter forces from Scotland grabbed the at...

I decided for the next film I work on I'll be doing the Irish Confederate War, or the 11 year war. I decided I'd do some research on Irish clothing in the 17th century and Irish Catholicism so I can get an idea of what the costuming will be as well as the religious side of the film. Mostly because costuming ended up being out of my budget for the last film so I'd rather look ahead so I can get a nice sum of money for the costuming. 17th Century Irish Clothing Materials- Woolen and linen clothes tended to be the dress of the everyman, while imported silk and satin tended to be the dress of the upper class. Animal furs were used for capes and jackets. Tartans made in Ireland were often sold to the Scottish. Colors- The Irish tended to love bright colors. The Ulster Army wore various colored cloaks, some red, some light blue, some deep blue, some green, white, and yellow cloaks. Several articles of clothing tended to be multicolored, often either striped, spotted, or ch...

Just a warning this blog is basically just gonna be a history lessons on a bunch of Irish Rebellions and Uprisings that interested me as possible topics for my next film after The Cave. I would recommend just skimming through the blog cause it will likely not be an entertaining read. I started in Wikipedia looking up the conflicts and then proceeded to find other websites in order to find the legitimate facts. (Irish) Nine Years War The Nine Years War took place from August 1594 to March 1603. Took place in Ireland and started with an Irish attack in Battle of the Ford of the Biscuits, ended with Irish surrender by O'Neill. The English had taken possession of Ireland in the 12th century. Following possession the English assimilate with the Irish, Irish Clans & Earls gain power. England controls the area around Dublin and Rural Ireland is controlled by the Clans. English try to extend their influence over the Dublin area while Hugh O'Neill, leader of the strongest Clan ...

Drizzi G I of course loved the blog post by my friend Gio, the best rapper you can get on SoundCloud. I like that he challenged himself by giving himself a smaller window of pre-production so he could test things in post-production. The work he's done so far is already rather impressive. His Before: His After: Obviously it's not professional grade, which I don't think you can expect that out of a high schooler without the studio and music video team, but for doing his own work I think he's doing an incredible job. He's been doing this for four years now and he's made massive strides in his production work in his music as well as his videos. He's absolutely killing it and I'm excited to see the finished product. Carey Zhu I also wanted to do Carey since I work right next to him and I'm constantly impressed by his work. He has a very tantalizing way of working that's way better than anything I think I could ever manage. He gets so ...

Editing Tips and Tricks I first started with a website called The Beat with an article called " 7 Essential Tips and Tricks for Mastering Adobe Premiere Pro" The first tip that they recommended was cherry picking your timeline. This is pretty self explanatory. The second tip was nesting, which is putting your sequences into other sequences. They recommend this because it helps with processing and rendering as well as keeping your timeline clean looking. Third tip is time remapping and speed ramping, which is essentially just a style to make your clips look cleaner. Fourth tip is just a video on motion tracking for folks like me that are kind've spooked out by After Effects. Fifth tip was just about color grading and how it can make your film look incredible. Sixth tip is slow motion, how to make it smooth and when's the right time to use it. The seventh tip was just a video explaining how to animate in the essential graphics panel. I think I'l...

Exploration of Ideas At the beginning of the year I knew I wanted to do my own take on Allegory of the Cave. It was one of the first things we read in my World Literature class and while we were reading I could kind've just see scenes coming together in my head and I knew it was a challenge I wanted to take on.  Planning While planning for this I watched a lot of videos and read a few articles discussing the philosophy of the Allegory and honestly gained a lot of critical information I needed for my interpretation of things. Honestly I think my ideas match the same ideals as Plato and Socrates, sort of critiquing the government and how things are handled. I'm not an extremely political person (in fact I'm a moderate) but there are still some really messed up ways the government handles things and I think showing an exaggerated form of it is perfect to exemplify the metaphor. Producing To be honest there hasn't been much production yet. I've learned a lot o...

Update For What I'm Upto At the moment i think I'm still good for shooting, I still have the final scene to script and still need to storyboard, but I have my costuming done, finished my casting, and have a lot of things done for what I could work on. I'm still a little behind due to having to work the past 6 days and my computer being broken but I've completed what I can at school and I feel satisfied i can still meet the production deadline. Picture Proof Andrew Casher Location Release Avi Dave Zach Towner Carlos Araiza Mike McConnel Drew Stuffick I wasn't quite able to get photos of everyone since I had to just try to get pages when I could. However, I can wrap up everything else that needs done in the next 4 days since I can't film in the class period or anything. Sneak Peak Just to show off the work I do have done (only first page of the script because I plan on editing it before I start filming on Saturday) ...