Creative Critical Reflection

Click here to watch my Creative Critical Reflection!

Here's a little behind-the-scenes of everything that went into this project! Thank you for staying with us through this entire process!

Final Project

Click here to watch our Final Project!

Thank you so much for going on this journey with us. I really hope you enjoy our film!

Our journey has come to an end!

Hello everyone. Before I begin, I wanted to let you know that this will be the my last post before the final product and Creative Critical Reflection. *cue sobbing*

This has been such an incredible experience, and I feel so honored to have worked with such a talented, creative partner. Throughout the production of our film, Nick and I both learned a lot about the craft as a whole, as well as valuable lessons in group work, something we will cherish as we both begin college in arts-related programs. We are both really happy with the final product and are so excited to share it with all of you!

As noted yesterday, I listened to the foley sounds and musical score today with fresh ears, and boy am I happy I did! I made a few adjustments of volume and panning in the opening and velocity of each pluck of the strings on the Harp and Koto; these few minor tweaks truly polished the audio as a whole. I also adjusted the volume of the voice-over when the music crescendos to ensure the story, the most important component of our piece, can be easily and clearly heard.

That's really all I have for today. We finished the final touch ups and I am ready to click the mouse:

Thank you for coming on this journey with us. I hope you enjoy the film!

Music is done!

I now present to you... (drum roll please)... THE FINISHED SCORE TO OUR FILM OPENING!

Similar to the foley sounds mentioned earlier today, I will listen to the score tomorrow with fresh ears to ensure every detail is exactly how I want it to be. I had a blast creating this musical score and look forward to sharing it with you!

For this score, I wanted to incorporate aspects of minimalism into a piece driven by Japanese scales and modes. I also wanted to use instruments that are typically played throughout Japan. I recorded the following instruments: Japanese Koto, Harp, Japanese Flute, Tuba, Violin, Cello and Double Bass.

The repeated triplet figures in the second half of the score were inspired by Steve Reich and his series of Phase pieces. Reich has been instrumental in my development as a composer and I felt as though his minimalist style would complement the visuals nicely. This section played by the harp and interjecting Japanese Koto also has a flowing nature and provides a solid transition to the wind foley sounds that follow.

In addition, the scarcity and drone-like motives were inspired by the opening of the 2012 film Argo. While the film follows the same general structure as ours, the historical fiction genre of the piece helped drive the score for our film. The opening of our film closes in silence, with just the foley sounds encompassing the empty space. This immediate absence of music is powerful and shows a change of mood and tone, as the voice-over changes from history-based dialogue, to personal, reflective dialogue. Originally, I had composed a few measures to be repeated at the ending section, like in the harp passage, but I decided the silence really gave the piece the dramatic edge that we are going for. The silence also presents a sense of mystery and will hopefully prompt the audience to want to watch the rest of the film, as this is just the first two minutes. Stay tuned!

F is for Foley!

Foley is fun! Just kidding, it's really not fun at all.

I have spent today adding foley sounds to our film so I can finalize the audio tracks and finish the musical score. This included the sound of wind, the rustling of leaves, newspaper being moved around on the gravel, and the stick clinging against the fence. This process was extremely tedious, as I attempted to match each movement with its corresponding foley recording.

The final product looked like this:

As you can see, I had to do a whole bunch of slicing and moving to make the audio appear realistic and not too over-the-top. This process took quite a but of time but I am very happy with the results. Whenever doing foley, I like to listen to the final product after about a day or so with fresh ears to make sure there aren't any necessary further adjustments. I find that listening to work after several hours brings a new experience and is able to highlight certain flaws that my ears had become accustomed to when editing. I plan to listen to the final product, music and all, tomorrow as the very last step to this project. Thank you for coming along this journey with Nick and I! Stay tuned!

Voice-over is done!

The voice-over is officially complete and all of the pieces to this puzzle are starting to be put together. The shots are edited, the music is recorded, the voice-over is synced, and I am a very happy girl. Today's recording session went smoothly and aside from a few technical difficulties, we were able to finish the entire process rather quickly.

I will be posting a few clips from the film tomorrow to get some feedback! We worked on color-correction for a while and are not 100% sure if we love the aesthetic just yet. Maybe a little bit of feedback with guide us in the right direction! Stay tuned!

It's all in the details...

Let's play a game of "Spot the Differences"!

If you found the obnoxious bright red "FIRE EXTINGUISHER INSIDE" sign, then congratulations! You won, and the last two hours of my life spent editing out the dreaded sign, frame-by-frame, was not wasted.

Technical talk: I am using the software Final Cut Pro X to edit the project. As you can tell, I am currently working on post-production, the most tedious process of creating this film. We have edited the shots in the order we want and are now working on the minute details that will hopefully elevate the final product (refer back to the sign for an example ^). In addition, I will be recording the voice-over tonight to add to the piece. After this, I will be able to finish recording and syncing the music and we will be all finished! Stay tuned!

Filming is D O N E!!

The title says it all! Yesterday, Nick and I completed the filming process. It's all post-production from here! 

I have included some side-by-side stills of our film with photographs from the Japanese internment camps in 1942. As you can see in the first side-by-side photo, the backgrounds are similar, including the building with the barred windows. In the second photo, the fence is seen with the barren, rocky, desolate ground. As you can see, we tried our best to recreate the setting and events from over 70 years ago. 

Yesterday morning, I woke up with a text from Nick saying "There's a 75% chance of rain today at 3:30pm." 3:30pm. The exact time our young, strict-scheduled actress planned to meet us at the filming location. 3:30pm. I'm sure you can imagine the panic that set in while reading this message. However, the filming Gods were on our side and actually gave us the perfect weather for our film: cloudy with a subtle breeze. As we walked to my car, the rain started to fall, and Nick and I erupted into laughter; how did we manage to do that?

All in all, we are both extremely happy with how the shots look, and we have even finished the first round of editing. I will be recording the voice-over tomorrow in my music studio so I can sync the audio with the visuals. After this step, I will be able to finalize the music, and we will be that much closer to completing this exciting project! Stay tuned!

The Filming Begins!

Today, Nick and I began filming the opening origami sequence of our film. We had to get creative with the filming process as this is a rather low-budget film:

To begin with, we used a piece of black fabric as a backdrop and a desk lamp for lighting. We placed the camera on a small tripod to stabilize the shots, especially when pulling focus, and to ensure we weren't creating any unnecessary shadows. In addition, we were able to move the lamp around and create some really beautiful shots with interesting shadows and compositions.

As shown in the pictures below, in lieu of a dolly we used the tripod on top of a soft blanket to glide across the floor. This resulted in smooth camera movement and a great couple of shots!

Here is a closer look at the origami! We printed out newspaper from the 1940's relating to the Japanese internment camps to show that our actress made these origami figures out of the scraps of  newspaper from the time period.

All in all, we had a really fantastic day filming the origami sequence! We ran into a few problems involving some of the shots, but we were able to work together to fix everything and created some beautiful work. Our next step is to film the outside scene. We plan to work with our young actress this week so we can begin editing the full production very soon! Stay tuned!

Voice Over Script!

Tying into yesterday's post, I have decided to share the script for our voice over! As I mentioned earlier, we have combined the concepts of the Zodiac with the story of a little girl growing up in a Japanese internment camp. This first section will correspond with the shots of the origami:

Legend has it that thousands of years ago, the Jade Emperor held great race between all the animals: the first twelve to cross a river would have one year of the zodiac named after them, in the order that they passed the finish line. 

The ox was initially in the lead, but being sly and cunning, the rat and the cat jumped on the ox’s back while it swam across the river. Right as the ox approached the finish line, the rat kicked the cat into the river, jumped forward from the ox’s head, and finished in first place. Sad and deceived, the ox took second. Next came the tiger, who had been held back by the weight of the water which soaked his thick fur. After this was the rabbit, who had jumped from rock to rock across the river. Fifth was the dragon; although he could fly, he had been held back while helping extinguish a fire in a burning village. The horse almost came in sixth, but was scared by the snake which slithered through its feet. The horse fell back, and the snake took sixth. The sheep, monkey and rooster all came together on a raft; the dog came in eleventh for he decided to bathe in the river, and the pig finished in last after being distracted by food along the way. 

I was born in the year of the rat, the first place winner, something I was always proud of. But I often asked my mother: “What happened to the cat after the rat threw him into the river? What place did he finish in?“ “He didn’t finish the race,” my mother would say.

This section will transition to the final shots of the young girl sitting by a fence outside. The set will look like the internment camp and it will then be clear that she was creating the origami at the internment camp out of spare newspaper, truly the only entertainment available. This is also where we plan to weave in the young actress' voice in the voice over.

It was the year of the horse, 1942, in the prime of World War II, when my family and I were seized from our homes and taken to the Manzanar concentration camp in central California. Stripped of everything we owned, it certainly didn’t feel like we had finished in first. It didn’t feel like we finished at all. Thousands of years ago, we had pushed the cat into the river, and now it felt like we were finally paying the price.

We have written the script for our film opening in a way that would be conducive to the creation of a full-length film. Nick and I agreed on the importance of this project being a film opening and not trying to cram in too much information within a two-minute time limit.

I hope you enjoyed reading our script, and I am happy to share the process of putting all of these puzzle pieces together!

Script, Sound, Score!

Hello again!

Nick and I are still in the process of storyboarding, and I will post the images as soon as we finish. We have revised, redone, and replaced the storyboards several times and are working towards making them just right, as the majority of our film relies on these boards. As our piece is visually driven with just a voice over and no diegetic dialogue, we want to make sure our storyboards are exactly how we we envision the piece, still with the understanding that we may change something here or there once we begin filming and really dive into the visuals. With this being said, we are going to wait a few more days to post the storyboards. So, today I will be talking about everything you are going to hear in our film. This includes the voice over, foley sounds, and musical score.

In terms of the voice over, we plan to have an older woman record the lines, as if she is reminiscing on her unfortunate past. In addition, we are going to experiment with recording our young actress speaking the lines and weaving the two voices together towards the end of the voice over. We are not certain if this is going to work exactly how we are envisioning it, but it is certainly worth a try! I think this effect would be extremely powerful and poignant, and I am just hoping that it will work!

As a composer, I record a lot of my original music and have the proper equipment to do so. With this being said, we will be recording the voice over with my PreSonus AudioBox Recording Interface. This will give the piece an overall professional quality that will appear polished and refined. I will also be recording all of the instruments in my musical score using this interface to ensure a sense of continuity and a pleasing, formalized soundscape.

As of now, I do not think we will need to produce any foley sounds, as the piece will be driven by the voice over and music. However, if we feel as though we would be better suited with adding additional sounds in post-production, we will be certain to do so.

In terms of the musical score, I have written down more ideas and will be recording them soon to post on this blog. I am excited to record a few bits and pieces to share with you, but I will not begin the full recording process with all of the instruments until we finish recording and editing the film. Synchronization is a key component of film scoring, and I love being able to watch the film as I record the music. With this visual aid, I am able to push and pull tempos based on the emotions conveyed in the scene, something that is powerful and gives the production a higher level of professionalism.

I have been incredibly inspired by the film composer Hans Zimmer and would like to share this video to help in explaining the process behind film composing. Beginning at the time 1:20 in the video, Zimmer is seen conducting his music while watching the film's image projected on a large screen. This is exactly what I will do when recording the music for this film.

While Zimmer has the luxury of having a 100+ piece orchestra available to him (I WISH), I will be recording each individual instrument myself and then layering and editing the tracks using Pro Tools and Logic Pro X. Throughout the video, Zimmer also discusses the emotion he can bring forth in his scores, something I strive to do with this film project.

Alright, I believe that is all for today! Thanks for reading; I look forward to sharing the next steps with you!

A closer look into the genre!

As I sit here reading and re-reading our script, one thought keeps entering my mind: Genre.

Historical Fiction is one of the least popular genres available today. In fact, finding statistics on the Historical Fiction genre in films was near impossible. Most statistical lists do not even include the genre in their postings! It doesn't have the angsty passion of Drama, the belly-laughing aspects of Comedy, the intensely terrifying scenes of Horror, or the sitting-on-the-edge-of-your-seat moments of Thriller. So why choose this genre?

Nick and I decided to choose Historical Fiction as the genre of our film opening because we believe our story idea will bring attention to the Japanese internment camps and give due respect to the individuals who were forced to suffer through these horrendous years. As mentioned in an earlier blog post, the topic of Japanese internment camps has been almost entirely left out of the media, and we have the goal of changing this depressing fact.

After researching genres, I also noticed that many films fall under the category of multiple genres. When delving into Historical Fiction, Zack Snyder's 300: Rise of an Empire stood out as having multiple genres aside from just Historical Fiction; Action, War Film, Fantasy, Epic, Drama, and Superhero Film, just to name a few.

Inspired by this discovery, our film will be centered around Historical Fiction as a sub-genre of Drama. Here are a few films that also helped in finalizing this decision as they too follow this genre/sub-genre pattern:

I know I promised storyboarding would be next, but I felt the need to fully grasp and convey the genre before beginning the next process. Stay tuned for the storyboards (for real this time!).

Origami?

As our project begins to take shape, Nick and I have decided upon the main visual concept: Origami.

You may be thinking to your self, how does origami tie into Japanese internment camps? How are the two at all connected?

For our film opening, we decided to mix the concepts of the Chinese zodiac with the internment camps, resulting in a visually and emotionally beautiful piece... hopefully.
The film will open with close up and extreme close up shots of our young actress making origami animals. The animals will be folded out of newspaper that we will print with dates and headlines corresponding with the time period of the 1940's (it's all about the detail). These animals will include some of the following: ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, pig, and rat. All of these animals represent the Chinese zodiac.

As the shots progress, an older woman, the actresses' older self, will be speaking about these animals in a voiceover. She will explain the story of the animals and why the order is significant. The shots during this time will correspond with what the actress is saying. Following the story of the zodiac, we are going to experiment with fading the older woman's voice into the little girl's voice as she begins to explain the second half of the concept. Here is the tentative script for this section:

I was born in the year of the rat, the first place winner, something I was always proud of. But I often asked my mother, "What happened to the cat after the rat threw him into the river? What place did he finish in?" "He didn't finish the race," my mother would say. It was the year of the horse, 1942, in the prime of World War II, when my family and I were seized from our homes and taken to the Manzanar concentration camp in central California. Stripped of everything we owned, it certainly didn't feel like we had finished in first. It didn't feel like we finished at all. Thousands of years ago, we had pushed the cat into the river, and now it felt like we were finally paying the price.

At the line, "It was the year of the horse, 1942, in the prime of World War II," the shots will change to the little girl sitting by a fence, similar to the one in yesterday's post. The final shots will be of the young actress playing with her origami animals by the fence in solitude.

Storyboarding will be our next endeavor... Stay tuned.

Setting, Costumes, and Props - Oh my!

Hello again!

As the research continues, I have put a lot of thought into how we are going to actually execute the filming process of this film opening.  We have found an actress to play the main character and believe she is perfect for the film. In addition, we will be working with voiceovers to create a dynamic piece.

But now, we have daunting task of finding a location to film, costumes to fit the time period, and props to help further engage the audience in the story. Mise-en-scène is the name of the game.

In terms of costumes, I have found inspiration in some pictures I gathered on this fantastic website showing life at the Japanese internment camps.

To be completely committed to bringing this historical event to the present time, our actress will be wearing a collared shirt underneath a sweater with a plaid skirt. (Pictures coming soon)

In terms of filming location, our opening scene will be near a fence similar to the one found in this picture:

                                      

Nick and I believe our high school's fence will be a good spot to replicate the Californian setting. This is not set in stone yet, but if all else fails and we don't find anything better, the school's fence will certainly work.

Here are some more pictures from website mentioned earlier that will be the basis for our set.

As you can see, the area is barren, dull, and just depressing.

As I brainstorm the Mise-en-scène, I grow more and more excited to begin filming this piece! 

Next step? Background research to begin writing the script... Stay tuned!

Time to fill you in on the main concepts!

Hey everyone!

For today, I have decided to fill you in on the overall concept and theme of our film.
After hours of thought and deliberation, Nick and I have finally come to a conclusion:

We are going to create a film in the genre of Historical Fiction, based on the Japanese internment camps in California during World War II. 



After doing research on our different ideas, we realized that this extremely devastating occurrence is rarely found in any form of media. In fact, its absence in film and news is quite astonishing. After researching for hours, I was only able to find three feature films that were in any way related to the Japanese internment camps.

The first film I found is titled "Children of the Camps" and immediately caught my eye.

After watching the documentary, I knew this is the topic I wanted to focus on: children of the camps.

Another thing that really interested me was these harmless individuals were placed in the internment camps for one reason and one reason only: Japanese ancestry. I find it unbelievably disturbing that these people were punished solely for their ancestry, and I feel as though Nick and I will have the goal of instilling the most respect towards the subject matter as possible.

Well, that's all for now! I'm going to continue researching today, and I'll probably end up watching the documentary again to take some more notes (I highly recommend it).

A first-look into the research!

Hello again!

Today I decided to begin researching background information that will help build the plot of our film in tremendous ways. Here's a little spoiler alert; I am currently looking up Japanese music and culture. That is all I'm going to tell you about the story for today, but as Nick and I begin the writing process, I will fill you in periodically.

As I am sitting here visualizing the opening scene of our piece, I have a recurring melody in my mind:

In addition, I have taken some notes on different aspects of Japanese music:

I'm now going to take a bit of a break from the music and begin researching a certain historical event; details to be released soon...

Let the games begin!

Hello there, let me be the first to welcome you on this journey!

To begin, I will introduce myself. My name is Shelbie and I am an 18 year old student and will be working with my incredibly talented friend, Nick, on this project. We have worked together in the past and found that our dynamic is quite fantastic; he is a film maker and I am a film composer. With this being said, Nick will take the wheel in the technical aspects of filming while I will compose a musical score to add a strong element of originality and depth to the piece.

What is this piece? - you may ask. Well, Nick and I are creating a two-minute film opening. I will just have to leave you with this information: the genre, storyline, and characters will be disclosed soon, so stay tuned!

These next two weeks are all about research, research, and more research. Our story requires extensive historical research and that is just what we plan to do. The following week, beginning on March 20th, will be our week of filming and editing, while beginning to compose the music. (Something's telling me I'll already have some ideas written down by then, though.) Finally, the last two weeks will be spent recording the music and additional post-production. We have left two full weeks for this process just to make sure we are not stressing at the last minute - extra time to perfect is not a bad thing!

With a deadline of April 10th, Nick and I are going full speed ahead and are extremely excited to share our ideas and final product with you!