This weekend was the weekend of the Virginia Film Festival, and since Mariah and I were both out of state no filming happened.

My main progress was in working on the website, which I had some bold ideas for that I didn't really have the time to follow up on. I tried to make everything on the site as circular as possible since that's the running theme-- Crew Bios were rotating, Galleries were on Carousels, our crew photos were framed by circles etc. My monitor kept on fooling me with the blue that we were using, and even after it seemed as if I bumped it up a lot there were still problems with it looking flat in class.

Wix is kinda buggy to be honest. There are odd things that will throw you for a loop if you aren't able to or knowledgeable enough to avoid them, like how you can get duplicate texts locked under your header permanently, or how mobile menus don't support anchors (which they should be able to that's just poor design), or how you can't even freeze a header on mobile, or how you CANT EVEN ADD ANYTHING TO THE MOBILE PAGE. That one ticked me off a bit. I deleted something and couldn't get it back, so now I'm trying to find some way to wing it or I have to recreate it in the Desktop application. I don't mind Wix, but they're design philosophy (especially and ironically for a webdesign host) is really bad.

I had a way better Idea with loading and opening animations anyways, so I'm going to see If I can find the time to hard code that HTML/CSS into Wix at some point. Trust me, It's gunna be great...If it ever happens (#TrumpQuoteIsDoublyAppropriate).

Teenage Interview: 5 down, 1 to go.

This weekend we shot our footage for our teenage interview. Everything went smoothly during and after the 2 hour drive up to Raleigh.

I arrived first and immediately started readying all my camera and lighting equipment that I had laid out in my overheads. I set the ursa settings as I liked and needed them, and by the time all that was done Mariah and Kebba had arrived.

They met with the subjects first (I had been waiting outside like a creep) and soon Alex Matthews, who was our stand-in sound operator, and I had begun checking out the situation for sound and lighting in the room and started bringing in the equipment. There was a slight delay because of maids who were cleaning the house, but it really didn't take that long.

Soon we were ready to begin shooting. I set up cameras to have a low F stop so that we could focus on the subjects and blur out backgrounds as much as possible. This would keep the audience from being distracted by the bases of some C stands that were in my shots on one camera. We didn't have much space to work with, and as a result I did not have much choice but to get around them as efficiently as possible.

One of our cameras was set up on a Monfratto, but the other I was manually operating on a shoulder mount with no sticks. I had done this before, but for several reasons this interview made the setup a lot more difficult for me to keep a steady camera.

Regardless the interview came out well, and when combined with B roll I was able to capture before and after the shoot I'm sure the scene will be a success.

Weekend re-shoot. Switching cameras.

This weekend we went out and re-shot our narrative scene for the teenage section of our film. This time I switched from an A7sii to an Ursa Mini.


The Mini I am more familiar with overall than the A7sii, as a large part of my camera experience in general comes from working with the original Ursa, and and also is better designed for daylight narrative setups due to it's increased size over the a7sii. Nevertheless, the day before setup I looked over alot of ursa material to make sure I knew all of the key differences between the two models. I didn't have too many troubles with discerning the functions of the software, since the Ursa Mini didn't stray far from it's predecessor. The only factor that I had to look into heavily was format types, since I didn't have much experience with them at all. I'll be looking more into those as well as codecs later on since I want to get a grasp on different codec concepts anyways.

The key differences were mostly in the hardware. The size, weight, and design had all been adjusted of course. A lack of an AC panel through me for a loop, as there were some functions that could only be accessed from that panel on the original Ursa. It's ultimately convenient though, because I got to play around with the mounting area they left in its place and see what extensions I could add on. I had some difficulties figuring out the attachment mechanics behind the shoulder pads on set too, but I arrived so early that it was solved before the entire crew was on set.

Beyond that, a normal day of shooting, nothing going uncontrollably awry, and the large screen on the Ursa Mini helps me further confirm my image. I think I'm probably going to stick with it for the rest of the film. No offense to the A7sii fans, because it's a good camera, but for the vast majority of our purposes it's unnecessary.

The Weekend of the Success of the Filming of the Gossiping of the Moms

So this weekend was ridiculously progressive with our documentary. We managed to shoot a third of our footage this weekend for our whole film, as well as establish a poster for the movie itself.

We woke up on Saturday morning to get the poster done, shooting outside of Fischer Student Union and taking on the task of readying our actors and shooting the photos before it started raining, which we completed just in time.

Several hours later we were back on set, this time at the house of one of the mothers we were to interview. I had invited a younger film student to set to help me out with as well as to learn about the equipment. Along with the regular crew, we set up as quickly as we could, despite having several setbacks, including dust on the internal sensor of the camera, minor lighting troubles regarding mirrors, and an extremely poorly timed interruption by the neighbors to deal with parking issues.

Beyond these trifles the shoot was extremely successful. Our interviews went exceedingly well, and came out exactly as we envisioned. Our interviewees talked casually and everyone had a great time!

The next day we met in the black box to shoot our narrative mother's scene. We gathered there slowly between 1 and 2. With the help of Kebba and Mariah, I quickly set up lighting and camera, while later assisting them in setting up the background of the scene. The first couple of hours after we were ready to begin production were largely underwhelming on my part, only because our plan was largely revolving around sound and editing at that point. Later on I shot the scene itself one actor at a time, and Mariah had me take photos of each of our 4 crew members against a different one of our 4 backgrounds.

By the end of the day we were all extremely satisfied with the work we had gotten done, and Mariah put together our group photo mimicking the mom's narrative scene. Everything looks great, and maybe I'm a lot more enthusiastic this week because I got to put my lighting skills I had been learning from last semester to serious work, but I feel suddenly even more confident in our actions and our film as a whole than I did before.

Also a Storyboard. Just one. That's it.

An overview of the Narrative layout and frames for Act 2 Scene 1

Totally Sick Shoot

Hello all,

No drawings this time, mostly because I did most of my work on set this weekend.

This weekend we got to film Act 1 Scene 1 of our doc, which is the narrative potion. Despite multiple setbacks we managed to finish 30 min ahead of schedule. By doing so we were able to obtain extra footage that Matt used in our scene. Quite proud of how efficiently we were able to handle the situation.

And to explain the title I was diseased during the shoot. Moving on!

We filmed on Campus near Fischer student union. We were shooting directly outside at a small circular table near the amphitheater, which is mildly unfortunate when a crowd of parents and students are outside blasting hip hop. Later on there was a party in the clock-tower room right above us as well, so Sound could have been bad due to this, but we were able to time our shoot perfectly between the two disturbances.

When we got there I had some slight issues. I had prepared two bounce boards so that I could bounce light into the actor's faces since they would be covered in shadow by 3. The light had extended a lot further than I thought it would have however, and I would up having to ditch the bouceboards idea entirely by the time we were ready to shoot. Fortunately I had the A7sii to compensate for the lack of light on the subjects. There were multiple instances however where the backgrounds would be brutally blown out, due to the raw difference in where the afternoon sun hit the earth and the shade covered the actresses' faces.

So once again we had some exposure difficulties, but this time I had brought on Adam Fackleman to help with the film if he could, and since he had more experience with the A7sII than I did, he actually showed and reminded me of some of it's features that we could use, as well as helping me with double checking any ideas on how to improve shots.

All in all, great shoot (though I was sick during the middle of it and fell asleep instantly when I got back to my apartment), super time efficient, with impressive young talent and a fantastic crew!

Lights! Camera! TOO MUCH LIGHT!

WARNING: CAMERA STUFF AHEAD!
SKIP TO PRETTY PICTURES IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BOTHER

This week we started getting B roll for our documentary.  I took out the A7sII for the first time, and the camera seems like an excellent tool, though I quickly discovered some problems that, though they were partially my fault make me reconsider the A7sII as our all-purpose camera.

Somehow the night before we left to go shoot our B-roll, it did not even phase me that I had only one lens. I noticed this a little too late the next day, and the harsh morning sun wasn't kind to our video. The lens that we used was a zoom lens set to F2.8, which isn't bad at all given the situation, but I had very few options in terms of controlling the light.

I reduced the ISO as far as it could go, down to 50 (which I never want to have to do again), and found that wasn't enough. With a cringe and a prayer of dubious sincerity, I adjusted the shutter speed in a wild attempt to account for the light. In order to keep the B-roll from looking like it was fresh out of Saving Private Ryan, I avoided any moving shots or moving backgrounds at first, instead relying on racking focus to create movement and interest within the frame.

Eventually I used moving shots, and for some reason that is completely beyond me they seemed to play back just fine, even at insanely tight shutter speeds. The biggest problem with the A7sII I found after a little research, was that it's high native ISO gives it problems with shooting in daylight without above average strength ND filters. For the sake of keeping our film looking consistent though, that is not something that is hard to remember.

Sorry about the sorta kinda boring post. Here are some more storyboards from scene 1. I'm trying out a new technique to let me play around with shot ideas. Since I'm the only one using them it's all good if there are random bars through my pictures cause I know what's supposed to go there.

...

I'll stop rambling now.

The title screen; bolder cursive title for legibility

That's a fork...just accept it.

Katie and June saying goodbye when their friend leaves for the bathroom. (More stereotypical to go together? Questions for later.)

Yes, it kinda looks like they're going to miss in retrospect. That's going to look awkward in slo mo.

She's not leaning out a cardboard box with a chair in it, nor is she being launched through a perfectly shaped square hole in the front of an awkward bus. This is what I meant by random bars.  The lines separate the image into potential new frames for better visualization. 

Stay tuned for god knows what! 

(I don't yet)

Week 3 update

This week I have begun working on storyboards for scene 1 of our documentary's skit sequences. For those who do not know, our documentary Circles is focused around 3 acts, each containing 1 skit to help outline the social environment of the age group we are interviewing, and an interview portion in which we talk with women about the subject matter at hand.

The storyboards are below. They are rough approximations of the scene, since the full script has not been completely finished yet.

The opening scene for the film. The title is written in cursive virtual text across the table. Chairs are scattered with our two main characters Kaite and Nikki sitting near each other.

Nikki begins to lean in, covering her mouth while she whispers something so no one can read her lips.

Katie plays with her hair, acting innocent as their friend June approaches from off screen. 

There is much more work to be done with the storyboards, and I will post it as I complete it and read over the scripts. 

In other news, the hunt for older women to interview continues. I am heading back to Raleigh this weekend to meet with some family and attempt to find more contacts through them. 

Rachel Bio and Interview Questions

The following post is a bio and series of interview questions for the fictional interviewee Rachel. Though the character is fictional, the questions asked may very similarly line up with what we might encounter, making this good preparation for real interviews. 



Rachel's Bio:

Rachel is a mother trying to uphold her life in suburbia. She for several years she has been trying her hardest to support her family, which includes a young, trouble-making middle schooler boy and her deadbeat husband. To do this she has spent the last 12 years balancing 2 jobs while attempting to keep her family unified. Though she herself is a relatively nice, if not extremely stressed, many other mothers in the neighborhood blame her for her son's behavior, and tell their children to avoid him since they see him as a bad influence. Many also judge her by her husband's lack of action, questioning why she would ever marry or stay married to someone so lackluster.

The following questions are for the interviewee Rachel:

1. How aware are you of gossip in your neighborhood?

2. How much of an impact does the neighborhood gossip have on you?

3. Do you feel that you yourself are gossiped about?

4. Do you feel what other mothers say about you is justified?

5. Do you personally gossip about anyone else?

6. In relation to question #5
    a. (If not) Did you gossip about others at one point? What changed to make you stop?
    b. (If so)  Do you imagine those who you gossip about feel similarly to you after finding out about what you've said?

7. Quite a number of women have been in your social predicament before (that is, being the subject of gossip). Do you have any idea how to fix your situation?

8. Gossip like this happens all the time. With the high number of occurrences, is your situation even worth fixing knowing it will simply return?

9. If other mothers were to gossip about your family, say your husband or your son, do you think it would effect them as much as it would effect you? Why?

10. Would you call the other neighborhood mothers your friends? Why?

S**tting on your Friends: A Beginner's Guide

The topic of our documentary, Circles, is surrounding the nature of gossip and kinship between friends. When the idea was first brought up by Mariah, our director, I was immediately reminded of a long car ride into the mountains with my cousin. During the trip she mentioned her disdain for how people within her gender share a natural dislike of each other. She brought up how she felt that, regardless of how close two women may be as friends, there is a complex rivalry that makes them find flaws in the other as frequently as possible, which contributes to gossip. I looked back and realized that other women I had been friends with had said similar things, and while men have a tendency to create a similar intra-gender competitive or aggressive environment, it is expressed very uniquely in women.  

Being asked to research the topic, I did what I'm used to doing. I looked into it's roots and tried to find work on the fundamentals of the social phenomenon that is gossip. In other words, I tried to science the ever-living f**k out of something that is supposed to be intrinsic.

Nothing is True 

The best place to start a conversation about this is Socialization Theory, which put simply is the idea that infants start out as clean slates, ready to be scarred, painted, stained, pick your verb, into obtaining their future traits from the world around them. I'm getting this out of the way early because it's important to note that all of the following can be changed and nothing said in this blog is predetermined to happen in any way, regardless of ethnicity or sex. 

Duels and Duets (food for thought) 

During my research I came across a book by a man named John L. Locke called Duels and Duets: Why Men and Women Talk So Differently. The book attempted to improve upon others like Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus which discussed the differences between the ways in which the two genders socialize and communicate. It did so by looking at things with a biological and psychological perspective, essentially trying to use hard sciences to explain daily behavior. The book claimed that men socialize and critique each other directly through "Duels", which are social competitions for status. They are more upfront and confrontational than women who socialize in "Duets", which use gossip as a means of building or reinforcing strong foundations between friends.  

The book was criticized as having a "shakey" foundation however, and furthermore not being based off of strong studies in the hard sciences. The books is more of a collection of interesting thoughts than anything else. Gold star.  

Gender Differences in Gossip and Friendship (Crazy s**t that should be boring but isn't) 

There was another study I found that was MUCH more interesting by David C. Watson called Gender Differences in Gossip and Friendship. Before I go further, it's important to note that this study was done exclusively with men and women between the ages of 17 and 29. Our documentary will cover EVERY age group as best we possibly can, therefore the results are only relevant to some of our subjects.  

It should also be noted that the following is based on IRREFUTABLE STATISTICAL EVIDENCE THAT HAS PASSED THROUGH REVIEW FOR ETHICAL AND ACCURATE SCIENTIFIC STANDARDS AND PRACTICES. (Don't bother arguing with these results, only the opinions based on them. For real, you'll look dumb as s**t).  

Sonya wins...Friendship: 

Regarding women, this study indicated that there was low correlation between gossip and friendship quality. With males the opposite was true. On top of that "women tend to place more emphasis on the importance of friendship that do males...[as a result] Higher friendship expectations and a greater emphasis on communion make the female friendship more vulnerable to damage compared to males."(Watson 498).  

From this it sounds as if gossip would be significantly less prominent in women, but since this would refute the whole point of writing this blog I'm going to craftily suggest another idea to save my a**: that gossip is actually a constant, and rather than it disappearing altogether it becomes more hidden. This lines up with the experiences of the women and my cousin, as well as (for better or for worse) Locke's previous theories based in biology and other "hard" sciences. 

Friendship in Watson's article is surprisingly well thought out and defined.  Every single positive connection you've made in your lifetime can be reduced to nothing more than an instinctive balance between your own personal agency and the benefits of communion so that you can retain as much free will as possible while gaining status(science has a tendency to make you feel all fuzzy and warm on the inside).  

Cheep cheep cheep (talk a lot, pick a little more):

Gossip fits into this by helping to seamlessly advance status. "Gossip enhances the ability of the group members to communicate about the shared activity and perhaps enforce norms about the collective endeavor without direct physical confrontation"(499). There are limits to this however, as "some gossip is necessary to bond with the group, but if the level is too high, then the person is viewed more negatively"(499). 

Then thing about gossip is that it not only strengthens bonds between friendships, but also gives you raw information about the people around you. Gossip is a method "whereby the individual is in possession of the knowledge has a type of currency...mutually empowering to its participants"(500). "Power...is not something that separates individuals, but something that connects individuals together as the powerful person is someone that is sought after by others."(500) 

Wrapping this one up 

Gossip, by it's nature, is actually around to empower those who engage in it. It's why it's so common amongst women, but by the (^STATISTICALLY PROVEN^) fragility of female relationships, it needs to be hidden. 

There was one thing I failed to mention about my car ride with my cousin. We realized that everything above was so blatantly obvious, yet no one had even bothered bringing it out and talking about it as a social aspect. Sure there has been Mean Girls(2004), and the like which makes fun of gossip amongst women, but few have confronted it as a serious problem in society. 

That's what could this documentary interesting, we're getting an opportunity to record on camera the reactions of women being called out about something that more prevalent in society than brushing your d**n teeth, something their guilty most likely, and finding the raw ethical nature of it. Sure, gossiping is healthy and natural in some situations, but is it moral? This documentary could wind up making you ask something along the lines of: How moral is this? How moral am I? (Questions for later).  

Complain about facts to this guy:

Watson, John C. "Gender Differences in Gossip and Friendship. Sex Roles. 67. 9-10. 2012. pp. 494-502.