Music Video Producer/Costumes/Makeup

For the music video assignment I have been assigned the roles of producer, costume designer, and makeup artist. As far as being a costume designer and makeup artist I am not surprised people recommended me for the job seeing as how I have a background in studio art and how I have done the roles before on other projects. However I have never done the role of producer. As I have heard, producers are the ones that secure the shooting location, determine the budget, helps set up the shoot schedule, and overall talks to the crew to decide what works best for everyone. It seems to be a very logistical position, one of which I believe I will feel comfortable in once I get the hang of it. Personally, I like to follow things by a guide and get everything completed on time. Timing to me is extremely important and I can't stand for something to be late. Most of the time I am usually well organized with multiple calendars filled with events. As producer, I will be able to set up a schedule that will accommodate most everyones needs. A problem that has occurred too often among my previous projects. I would also like to make sure that we have everything we need in terms of props, costumes, and other equipment. This will deal quite a bit with budgeting and seeing how we are all broke college students, the budget will have to be on the lower side. This however, does not mean we can't be creative and come up with a better solution.

Art House

One thing that I have always loved is experiencing a film with a small group of friends. It is something I value, similar to how the author says that there is a cultural value to microcinema. Microcinema, is in my mind similar to tradition because sure you may not get to see or experience them all the time but it is something to keep alive and to share with other people. It's kind of like saying that every film student has seen Citizen Kane due to the fact that it is a classic. Microcinema is a classic tradition that I think should stay alive.

Assignment 1c

While I have shot on film before, this was a different experience. I'm use to working with my mother's Minolta Maxxum and neither of us had use for a light meter. I have also taken a photography course a couple of summers ago through Hoggard High School where we got to process our own film in their darkroom. The class was a great way for me to further my abilities but yet again we did not work with light meters. I think that if the course would have been over a longer period of time then we could have explored the idea of light meters rather than just the film itself. I loved working with the Pentax once I got a feel for the camera and for the light meter. I believe that I have a Pentax somewhere at home that I was given as a gift from a teacher and have been wanting to use that and the Holga she gave me for some time. After working on this project I have had the inspiration to want to go buy some film and once the weather has let up go and explore with those cameras. I think that I feel the same way about film that my mother did. Where film is a unique process and it gives you a surreal experience. The only thing I hope to work with one day is shooting a film on film stock. I have worked on destroying film stock in the 6x1 class but I feel that if your actually shooting something on that camera there will be another feeling or experience that is different to everything else that I have mentioned above. Overall, working on this project and shooting with the film was a great way to explore and expand my creativity and has given me more ideas for the future.

Light observation #3

One of the final things I noticed while shooting light was that we had to constantly rework the light meter to make sure we had the right numbers. Some of the shots were in direct sunlight and the light meter had a more difficult time getting the right numbers for these shots. It was a constant thing due to the fact that the clouds kept covering and uncovering the sun. We also had to adjust the light meter in cases where there was not enough light in the shot. We had to make sure there was a certain amount of light that fit into the frame and helped the light meter.

Light observation #2

Another thing I noticed while shooting was the difference between indoor and outdoor lighting. We were constantly changing locations and you could tell not only from the change of air conditioning but the color of the lighting. When outside the light was warmer and brighter. Whereas when we were inside the lighting had more of a green or blue tint to it and was much cooler than outside. This makes a difference on the object we are shooting and a difference on the how we have to set the camera up. Each environment has a different effect on the light meter.

Light observation #1

One of the first things I noticed was the weather. At first it seemed like it was going to rain because of the overcast, but the day turned out nice. Our outside lighting, however was constantly changing. For one of my final photos we had to adjust the light meter and camera accordingly seeing as the object I was shooting was being directly hit by the sun. Whereas one of my other photos was seemingly more in the shadows. The clouds over head were constantly changing and hiding the sun which made the lighting a tad more difficult. You ended up having to wait for the sun to come back out and take the shot before it disappeared again.

Assignment 1b

For this assignment, I went in thinking it could not be any worse than another project I had to do over summer that was fairly similar. Both my partner and I had no experience in sound design with no clue what to do. The project took a turn south when my partner would not listen to me and rejected the fact that we weren't meeting the requirements for the project. I ended up having to make changes on it myself and hearing ours with the rest of the soundscapes I was worried for my grade and how people would see how I worked. However, this project turned out a lot better. I thought that to do this project we would have to warp or change the sound itself in some sort of way. As I have never taken a sound design course I have limited ability regarding sound so I was hoping to gain some experience. I also had a much better group of people to work with, who also happened to have experience and sound design. At the beginning of summer I didn't realize what all was put into the sound aspect of a film. Now, however I see how important is in aspects to the whole and how many layers of sounds can make a difference. For our soundscape most of it consisted of layers of different sounds. The main thing we changed was the speed and the breaks of silence. This made me realize you don't have to alter much for the sounds to make you see an image. It was really cool when we were working on it because I kept imagining this man marching through the snow at night, in the rain going towards a cabin. Like the Poe feel we talked about in class but I was also brought back to wilderness films such as the Revenant and White Fang.