CCR

I can't begin to describe how happy I am with what I've accomplished. I know it's not perfect, but knowing I did the best I possibly could have done is incredibly fulfilling. I got to make a cool thing I'm proud of with full creative direction, along with my friends- what's better than that?

I hope you get the chance to do something like this soon, you mysterious and obscure Cambridge person you :) I'm gonna miss you. 

I AM FREE

I AM FINALLY DONE WITH ALL OF MY COMPONENTS!

Video (click top right corner for full screen):

Postcard:

Website:

https://toreelinagoldfish.wixsite.com/triagfilm

Postcard Progress

work in progress

Last weekend while on the plane back from New York ( I was visiting a school), I began putting my images into photoshop to work on my postcard.

I went with the design of the fish and son facing each other because I felt that it conveyed the feeling of the film best without giving too much away. For my postcard, I wanted to emulate that they were both facing off inside a fishbowl- hence the borders. The painting in the background is a direct reference to the one in the film, and the white silhouette of the orchids reinforces their significance.

I wasn't too fond of this design at first.  It felt like a bunch of images edited together, not a cohesive, finished piece. I didn't work on this again until Monday night.

Once I was home and had access to my drawing tablet, I could alter my postcard and be more precise with my edits. I had originally planned to paint/draw the postcard from scratch, but given I had no time to do so, I resorted to putting filters on the images and then painting over it with the same technique I would use in a real painting. This also really helped to integrate the background and foreground and to unify the whole piece. Lastly, I changed the layout of the border and text. I don't know what I was thinking the first time around, but thankfully I came to my senses.

Finished Front

For the back, I used this website and my instructor's advice as a guide.

Finished Back

Until next time,
See ya!

PLAY THAT FUNKY MUSIC

As you may have guessed from a previous post, my good friend Zoe is helping me out with music.

When I say "helping," I really mean HELPING. A couple weeks back,  Zoe randomly and benevolently offered to compose the entire score for my film. Now I really don't know how to emphasize this enough, BUT SHE MADE MUSIC, THAT SOUNDS BEAUTIFUL, FROM NOTHING. But before I show you, let me give you some insight into the creative process.

Before she could do anything, she needed some inspiration. She already knew what my film was about but not necessarily what it would sound like. So I gave her a list of songs from movie scores that I liked the sound of, and she predominantly used songs from The Shape of Water and Lady Bird. 

This was one of the first samples:

A few weeks passed until we discussed music again. I basically needed to finish editing so we could work out the pacing. Once I had a rough edit, I sent her this guide so that she knew what kinds of sounds corresponded to the different scenes. We talked about having the sounds in these scenes be derivative of the original sample, so that in the end, the sounds from the disparate scenes would appear to come together in one cohesive piece- just a lil reverse engineering.

During the final stages of the composing, feedback was pretty easy because of technology. Zoe would quickly make edits, I would almost cry listening, and then send notes.

I began writing this blog post earlier in the week, but as of now, the music is done!!! I can't thank Zoe enough for her help with it, and I'm so so happy with it. If you have the time, I highly recommend checking out her portfolio project!

Here it is! Be warned, you may cry.






Del Toro, Guillermo, director. The Shape of Water . Fox Searchlight Pictures , 2017. Gerwig, Greta, director. Ladybird. A24, 2017.

[Inaudible Gargling]

Last Wednesday I met with my wonderfully kind (and patient) friend David to start recording the fish's voice. The wondrous idea to have this dumb fish speak actually surfaced out of the depths of nonsense one night at David's house. I don't remember what we were doing exactly, but we somehow ended up making dumb noises- I'm sure you can figure out how it all came together.

So since I had my wonderful fish casted already all we had to do was actually record the lines. And bOy iT wAs fUN! At first, we recorded the same sounds we initially had made that first day, but it was lacking that underwater feeling. So naturally we decided to gargle. 

David was laying on his bathroom floor with his head resting on the bathtub. Facing up, he was in the perfect position to question why he ever agreed to do this (by "this" I mean be friends with me, he had no choice in helping me under friend contract). Our process consisted of him taking a gulp of water, me telling him his lines, and then recording it on my phone. Despite our initial setbacks, and David almost drowning a couple times, we developed a pretty streamlined process by the end of it. Sure, he did end up drinking a concerning amount of water, but on the upside he's never been more hydrated!

David, hiding his pain with a smile. 

Also, recording this actually lengthened my film, I was originally under the time limit by quite a bit, but this added a couple seconds more to my film!

I never expected to be spending my senior year weekday making unintelligible noises in my best friend's bathroom (while his confused abuela listened warily), but I'm having a great time, and I'm so excited to finish this project!

See ya!

https://goo.gl/images/228CAm

Postcard

As I near the end of my editing process, I've began thinking about my secondary components. I had made a sketch of my postcard way back before I started filming, but looking back at it, it doesn't really fit the conventions of a film festival postcard.

Postcards are usually horizontal, given that it allows for more information to be displayed in the backside when split midway. I would argue I'm breaking conventions, but breaking connections just for the sake of aesthetic doesn't seem like a smart choice.




These are a bunch of sketches that take the horizontal format into account. I figured I could have somewhat of a symmetrical composition in which the fish and son look at each other in confrontation, mimicking the tabletop scenes.

I'm planning to shoot some pictures of Leandro tomorrow during school so I can begin working on that over the weekend.







EDIT: Here they are!

ZOE IS QUEEN OF MUSIC

That is all for now, see you in my next post.

Editing is No Fun

Warning: this post includes teenage whining. 

The title says it all. I began editing earlier this week, shortly after I had finished filming, but I wish I could just go back to filming. After such a fun week of filming, locking myself in my room to edit during spring break is the last thing I want to be doing.

My editing process goes something like this:

1. Review footage and cry because I forgot that one thing.

2. Bang head against a wall.

3. Stare blankly at a wall, any wall works (a fish is also acceptable).

4. Put the clips in order.

5. Make a mess on Final Cut Pro that somehow hides your mistakes.

6. Ask Zoe how to do that one thing you've never done before.

7. Repeat steps 2 and 3.

8. Realize you're not done editing so you can't really finish your quirky step by step list.

Okay all jokes and whining aside, I knew this wasn't going to be easy. I've never used Final Cut Pro, though I'm pretty competent as of right now, and to my surprise my film is actually really reliant on editing. Animating the fish's mouth- which I knew was possible but Zoe taught me how to do- takes a considerable amount of time and patience, and graphic matches are hard to pull off right. Overall, I'm trying my best, and as long as I try my best  I'm sure it'll come to fruition.

See ya next time!

IT'S A WRAP

I am writing this very late at night after quite a long week so it's hard to articulate how relieved I am to be done filming, but trust me, I'M VERY EXCITED!

I'll spare you the details because I know you're probably tired of reading about how much I love filming, but here's how it went down:

All I had left to shoot was the underwater scenes and the shots of the fish creeping up on the protagonist. So once again we met up at Dakota's house in the afternoon and began filming what I didn't know was gonna be one of the most challenging scenes I've had to film.

The toughest by far was the shots in which Leandro fell into the pool with clothes on. I'm so thankful he even agreed to do that, because I was struggling without any extra layers on me. We had to do about ten different takes of Leandro falling into the water, and then I had to get close ups of his face, feet and hands. It's probably worth noting the water was freezing despite it being a beautiful warm day, so that didn't make it any easier. Oh also, DID I MENTION THE CAMERA WE USED HAD NO VIEWFINDER? It was already hard enough as it was, but now I had to forget all I knew about framing and go blind and hope for the best. I had set up the GoPro so that it sent the clips directly to my phone, but even then I had to go back and check at the edge of the pool after every take. Needless to say, it was not easy.

Still from pool scene, color corrected.
We shot in Dakota's pool which, although it's not as deep as I had envisioned, worked pretty well.

The rest of the underwater shots were easier in comparison, but I still have a lot of unusable footage I have to work around.

Leandro, being unbelievably patient.

All I had to do was shoot the remaining shots of the fish creeping up on the protagonist. I shot those the following day at my friend's house because his walls are a muted blue, which was close enough to match the other shots! That was by far the easiest to shoot- which was a nice end to shooting :)

Filming Day 3

After a successful second day of filming, I was feeling pretty confident (maybe a little too much so). So I scheduled to film the remaining scenes with Leandro at my friend Dakota's house. I was planning to film all of the underwater scenes, a montage of the son as a "little kid," and a scene in the protagonist's bedroom.

We began filming at around two. I decided to film the montage first because it was the most time sensitive- I needed high key lighting, so shooting as close to midday as possible was ideal. This scene was pretty easy to execute- if you ignore the fact that I got soaked carrying a fishbowl full of water from the community pool bathroom to the field. We drove to an open field near Dakota's house, set up a nice picnic blanket, and it didn't take too long to film :)

Still from film, color corrected. 

Then we headed back to her house to film the scene's in the bedroom. I wasn't originally planning to shoot those that same day but I figured I might as well since Leandro was there. Because Dakota's hot pink walls were impossible to tone down even with color correction, we filmed in her sister's baby blue room. I couldn't really shoot the other parts of the room because the furniture was a bit too distracting, but despite being a little set back I was glad to have those scenes done!

Still from film, color corrected. 

After about two and a half hours of filming (it really didn't feel like that long), we started shooting the  pool scenes. It wasn't looking too good for me given that there was already a shadow casted across half of the pool. Regardless, we started shooting. Except we had to stop not long after because Leandro was supposed to be home. Still, we got a lot done, which is what really matters!!

Until next time!

Filming Day 2

I DON'T KNOW HOW TO EMPHASIZE HOW WELL IT WENT :))

I had such a fun time the second day of filming! That day the plan was to film all of the scenes that took place in the white room with the fish. I was feeling skeptical at first, but I'm actually pleasantly surprised with the outcome! 

That day I had "senior privilege," meaning I got to leave school early, so I had plenty of time to get home and completely demolish the Feng Shui of my living room before Leandro got out. You see, I have white walls in my living room and like most people I also have furniture, so you know when deciding where to film I was like "perfect! I'll just rearrange my entire living room and breakdown a three piece sectional couch by myself!!" Yeah it wasn't easy.

Once the couches were all out of the way, I had a pretty decent set to work with. I covered the carpet with white tablecloths I had bought at the dollar store , and I grabbed every single semi-portable light in my house for lighting- remember that tank I mentioned in my second post? let's just say Nemo didn't see the light of day for a while (he's okay I promise). I was honestly feeling pretty defeated as I was setting up. I didn't think it looked bad, but it wasn't amazing.

There was literally no way to make it look whiter....or so I thought. The camera's lovely ISO settings came to save me from peril last minute as I set it to the highest possible setting, and I actually screamed from joy- there's video proof of it but it is profane and as funny as it is, this is not the right platform but feel free to email me if you wanna see it ;)

I also had my wonderful best friend Andrea helping me set up, and later hyping me up while shooting- I'm serious if you can invest in a hype man whenever you shoot it is such a good boost for morale.

Not pictured: me screaming behind camera in pure joy.

Once that was done nothing could possibly bring me down. Leandro fell asleep and was like an hour late to the shoot but I was so happy I got the lights right I didn't care at all, plus he's such a joy to work with I don't even care as long as he makes it there- because shooting goes by so fast anyway. It's really cool working with an actor who actually wants to study performing arts, and it makes my job as director so much easier! He even asks to do retakes when he doesn't like how he did something, which is so great!

Leandro, winning his Oscar (not color corrected yet).

Because of that, shooting only took like two hours. All I had to do after they left was shoot the shots that were of only the fish. I don't think I've mentioned it, but I'm planning to animate the fish digitally. It'll work something like stop motion, but what I'm doing is I'm taking the same shot of the fish from all possible angles (by spinning it), and I'm creating assets for the individual expressions so that I can do all of the animation in post. 

Fish mom having a grand ol' time. 

I stayed up pretty late shooting the fish, but it was honestly not as painstaking as it sounds. It sounds kinda corny but I enjoy this project so much I don't really care about how time consuming it might be. I almost don't even care about the final product because of how much fun the journey has been, but I feel like saying that would jinx it SO FORGET I SAID ANYTHING!

OH I ALMOST FORGOT! I painted a poster of orchids to add to the set. It was pretty rushed and I know I can do better, but it serves its purpose!

I used photoshop to paint digitally, and then I got it printed. 

I think that's all for that day,

See ya next time!