Digital Portfolio (2019-2020)

I felt if I was going to create a film as a modern interpretation of the allegory, I should do my research and really break down the story so I don't lose the key components of it. So, I'm going to go over the events before the story, the story itself, and its affect on society to this day. Before The Story In the story Plato says that the person narrating is Socrates, his old teacher who was executed by the Athen government for "corrupting the minds of Athen youths." According to my english teacher he was apparently offered either death or exile and he chose death. Most people think of Socrates as a voluntary scapegoat since he chose this way and it points to him being something of a martyr. In reality Socrates was moreso a preacher of free and individual thinking, which the government did not appreciate and actually falls in line with the theme I want my films to have this year. Plato released the story saying that they were Socrates words and not his own,...

Carey Zhu Carey is working on creating a LoFi video. I'm actually pretty excited about this because I used to listen to a lot of LoFi and was super into LoFi culture. I know Carey, he's a really good fried, incredibly smart and incredibly talented so I'm keen to see what his final product is. I also sit next to him and really enjoy looking over sometimes and just watching him work when I need a break from the research I'm doing. He's incredibly talented and I really can't wait to see the final product. Really impressed by him (he also has a YouTube channel  https://www.youtube.com/user/TasteTheSno  ) Allan Yang Allan's really impresses me just by the simple amount of research and history that's going into his work. It actually inspired me for my next film I want to work on (involving Irish history). He was actually one of the only presentations I was focused and attentive for the entire time cause everything he was talking about was just ...

What is dialogue? The literal definition is a conversation between two or more people as a feature of a book, play, or movie, in accordance with Google. Dialogue is something I've really been interested in because listening to good dialogue is incredible and having the skills to deliver it correctly is one of the most important parts of being an actor, in my personal opinion. How do you write "good" dialogue? To begin looking into this I found a website called Script Reader Pro. Right off the bat he gives a list of tips he refers to as vague. It should: Propel the story forward Reveal character and theme Build conflict and drama Sound different for each character Entertain with witty, quotable lines Never run on longer than three lines Never be on the nose However, right after he states that while it is good advice, it doesn't get into 90% of the problems with bad dialogue, nor how to fix said problems. He gives some good advice, to not just let your...

What is hybridity? (copying notes from my sketchbook) Combinations of different art forms into piece Incorporating as many forms as necessary Allows for unexpected to occur Alan Becker Alan Becker is an animator I remember from my childhood, who created the Animation vs Animator series (which I will link at the end of this), and I definitely didn't expect to see him in my high school art class. The most unique part about his animations is obviously the sentient animations he creates that fight against his cursor. The animations eventually evolve and start to make the browser come to life, as well as things like Minecraft and League of Legends. This was all fascinating to me when I was younger because I didn't even think something like that could happen on video, and I was watching a computer screen similar to mine be filled by stick figures fighting each other and Firefox becoming a legitimate fire fox. The animation to this day is still kind've incredible t...

I thought about it and realized I didn't know how to set up a proper script, so I decided I'd go ahead and investigate. This blog post will be a bit more sloppy and disorganized since it is moreso for me and something I can go to to read and get help for creating my script. I will also only be using one site for this. Script Language and Where To Use It First Page of the Screenplay: " The top, bottom and right margins of a screenplay are 1". The left margin is 1.5". The extra half-inch of white space to the left of a script page allows for binding with   brads , yet still imparts a feeling of vertical balance of the text on the page. The entire document should be single-spaced. The very first item on the first page should be the words FADE IN:. Note: the first page is never numbered. Subsequent page numbers appear in the upper right hand corner, 0.5" from the top of the page, flush right to the margin." Screenplay Elements: Scene Heading: ...

What is Music? I figured a good way to start would be to talk about what music is, before going in to how to use it in film. Many authorities have tried to define music in the past but it's proven to be a lot more difficult than anticipated, and I don't plan on trying to say my definition is correct, I'm just going to do my research and do my best to explain it briefly. Most early professionals defined music as organized sound, but if you look in natural or even industrial places, you can always find organized there. Technically, even speech (which is different from singing) is considered an organized sound. Another roadblock in defining music is the fact there there are several languages that don't have a word for music, this problem is most common in Native American and West African languages. On top of that, according to m usicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez, music and just plain noise are always going to be culturally defined, and it is likely impossible for there t...

Given the film that I'm interested in making I decided I'd investigate how to write a fight scene first, and then look at how you actually film and choreograph it. I decided to include some of my favorite characters with great action scenes, to give a little spice to the blog. Writing Starting off I found a website by a man called John August. It looks like a blog or merchandise sort of thing and looks like he does lessons on all sorts of aspects of filmmaking, so I'm sure I'll use this again at some point. He pointed out a few things I'm assuming he learned in his time as a teacher or filmmaker, or perhaps both. He recommended to keep in mind that you're not writing a screenplay, so write it as if you're trying to experience a movie. He also recommended to keep sentences short and use something called sluglines, which I didn't know about so I searched it up. Sluglines are not headings, rather they're just lines that bring attention to what is i...