Let's Go (on out of High School)

Well, here it is! My last blogpost of high school in the eCommunication program. (Senti I know)

My last project consisted of a mock music video cover of Matt and Kim's "Let's Go." The video is a spinoff of awkward family photos... you can easily tell the two artists don't really take themselves too seriously. We attempted to replicate most of the outfits, but it turned out pretty sloppy. We also tried to use the green screen, but with our subpar lighting, keying didn't work out too well on final cut, so we had to leave a lot of the green in.

To begin, we studied the video closely and delegated the outfits to recreate. We then recruited the RFC crew to serve as our "awkward family photo victims." We had to instruct them how to mimic the movements and sing the lyrics in some shots.

This was one of my first experiences with the green screen, and I learned that uniform lighting is extremely important to make FinalCut key correctly.

I would use more cooperative actors in the future. Unsurprisingly, shooting during 7th hour with senior boys allowed them to skip both class and our production instead of helping us out! :'(

I like that we took on this challenge. The amount of actors and exact outfits we had to replicate was a lot of work, but at least we ended up with a mildly entertaining outcome.

I will take the green screen skills, and improve next time with the lighting.

Final thoughts...

THIS WAS A MESS BUT I'M GRADUATING IN 4 DAYS WHOOP!

haley

Rock out with your Hitchcock out

One of Hitchcock's less eccentric classics, North by Northwest depicts the mishap of Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant), your average business man who gets tied up with some cold war spies. Mistaken as the US spy, George Kaplan, Thornhill is thrown into the chase of his life. The Russian spies soon frame Thornhill for the assassination of an United Nations Ambassador. As if it wasn't bad enough that he was on the run from the Russians, Thornhill now was considered a wanted man by the police as well. Along the way, he befriends the beautiful and seemingly innocent Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who assists Thornhill in his escape. She instructs him to meet with the true Kaplan, and it turns out to be a set up. A plane attempts to kill Thornhill and he loses his trust of the girl but can't help but fall for her beauty. After tirelessly searching for Kaplan, Thornhill discovers that the name is simply a cover, and the real Kaplan never truly existed. Still under the cover as Kaplan, Thornhill agrees to meet once again with the main Russian spy, Vandamm, who is seen to have relations with Eve. Working on the side of the US government at this point, Thornhill bargains with Vandamm, but he won't have it. In the mix, Eve creates a plan of her own and shoots Thornhill with blanks, giving them both a chance to escape the wrath of Vandamm. After many struggles, the two succeed and elope.

The plot line was semi confusing to me (then again I did sleep throughout the entire movie), and I did see some plot holes, but I'm sure the film was revolutionary for its time. The one thing I noted most was the usage of harsh light on the green screen. Particularly in the car scenes, the green screen was extremely evident. The moving windows were not so convincing. Furthermore, at Mount Rushmore and the train station, some shadows were cast onto the green screen. In this case, the shadows were present where they should not have been, which made the work of the green screen more evident. 

The story of the cold war and its tensions between the US and Russian is depicted through Roger Thornhill- an average man thrown into the world of spies.

The usage of the green screen was extremely effective. This low budget style looks amazing if done well and is so much easier to manipulate. Since I have problems with audio outdoors--the green screen is a safe bet to keep away from the wind.

Intentional lighting is something I have already learned but need to master. I don't always take the time to use lighting with purpose and it would bring more depth to my shots. 

The director of this film did a great job casting. I thought the actors were fantastic for the time period and I really like the aesthetic of older movies.

The movie would be better if less green screen was used. It was effective for some shots but could have been better if it wasn't as noticeable and often.

I definitely want to know if the movie was originally shot in black in white, because if it was remastered, I think it was done fantastically. Although everyone else claimed that the men looked really orange, it didn't necessarily bother me. 

North by Northwest. Perf. Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), 1959. Videocassette.

Type "A"

A leader is not made, but born. The skills to effectively lead cannot be learned: they must be innately discovered.

I have always been a natural leader, not necessarily with voice, but by example. My integrity and morals run deep and I can't seem to betray them. While peers around me fell to drugs and alcohol, I remained strong--and I'll admit a lot of that sucked. I lost friends left and right. I never regretted my decisions because deep down, I knew I had done the right thing. I work my tail off and in time have achieved great things, but also have failed many times. Throughout this I have gained the respect of many, which I see as my best leadership quality. In being the voice of leadership, my skills are substantially weaker. My methods work for a while. I am a driving force and perfectionist--I always hold others to my high standards and their best potential. When things break down and fall apart, I get frustrated easily and sometimes panic (not exactly effective). Although I have mastered staying calm externally, externally in this situations, I let emotion rule me. I try to stay level headed and mostly stay that way, but I ultimately don't trust myself. A leader must be fearless, and sometimes I lack this.

Upon taking the personality quiz, my top 5 leadership qualities were:

*Significance              (Influencing)
*Input                          (Strategic Thinking)
*Restorative                (Executing)
*Individualization       (Relationship Building)
*Strategic                    (Strategic Thinking)

I see significance in the way I push forward, reaching beyond expectations. Go big or go home, in my own personal life I never look at challenges and back down. I aim high and sometimes get shot down, but it's a part of who I am. When I lead a group, I want us to achieve and aim for big goals. I also want to be the go to person when in doubt. I need people to need me.

My input is shown in the way I love to learn. I constantly seek knowledge and experience. Because of this, I have gained wisdom and give good advice. In a leadership setting, I give great guidance.

Restorative really boils down to this: I like to fix people. When someone is upset, I am extremely observant and don't really need any sort of explanation as to what happened. Body language, tone, and aura is really enough to tell me the whole story. For this reason, I gain trust extremely easily. I value everyone's mental health and on set, I can read a situation and fix it before anything has even been directly addressed.

Back to my relationships with people, I value everyone's Individuality, and can delegate roles sufficiently. Certain people were made to do certain jobs and if delegated correctly a job runs perfectly smooth. In addition to this, valuing each individual's worth and genuinely caring can get a leader a lot further with their crew. It builds trust and establishes mutual respect.

Strategic really sums up my existence. I am constantly planning ahead, organizing, and observing to predict the future so I have a back up plan/counter-attack. Organization is extremely important in being a good leader.  

As for an "aha" moment- Upon reading the explanations of each of these traits, I was shocked at how accurate each of them seemed for me. I'm currently working on the anger aspect of my leadership (I also need to think people are less stupid according to my mom). LeeAnn's presentation was fantastic. She is such an inspiring, spunky lady who really connected with all of us. (At least I thought so because I loved her energy. If she wouldn't have acted so excited, I probably wouldn't have paid as much attention to what she was saying.

I NEED TO BE NICER AHH. HOW DOES ONE HAVE AN IRON FIST WITHOUT BEING A LITTLE MEAN??

Haley

My Director Soulmate

"I never want to be the guy who is victimized by other people's laziness" -David Fincher

Unknowingly, I have hopelessly fangirled over Fincher without even truly knowing his identity. Some of my favorite movies to ever exist (Se7en, Zodiac, The Social Network, and Gone Girl), all belong to Fincher, and even as a film student, I neglected to take notice of the Director in each of these pieces. Hitchcock may have been the Master of Suspense, but in each of these movies, nothing can be predicted, which according to Hitchcock, is all that suspense really is: when the predictable is suddenly unpredictable.

In his interview regarding directing secrets, Fincher seems to be polarized in his conversation topic. No matter the question, he always turns it back on his actors and his relationship with his people on set. Regarding Kevin Spacey on the set of Se7en, he almost seems nostalgic and infatuated with his ability to bring the deranged John Doe serial killer to life. Then immediately going onto The Social Network, he regards both Jesse Eisenburg and Andrew Garfield very highly, putting them before himself.

Going back to the initial quote I provided from the nofilmschool.com interview, I immediately picked up the vibe that the Director/ 1st AD/ production staff needs to be all about a strong work-ethic, but also creating trustworthy relationships with the rest of the crew on set. As an AD, I need to be a strong, efficient leader, but also remain approachable.

And now I leave you with some notable memories from my favorite Fincher movies.

 And also the interview I watched. http://youtu.be/rpHIzEm6058