Week 18

For the final week after showing law and leland my trailer i had to change a couple of things which were the teacup scene since i just used water and yellow color dye. So after I had to use actual tea, so i tried both tea and coffee to see which one worked best and it was defiantly the coffee as it was darker and when the pawn fell into coffee it actually faded in the darkness. I fixed some final touches like adding the production changing up the order of the title and removing the quote. Also some alignment issues with all the texts so they are all the same. After finishing this final project i was somewhat happy with my trailer since i felt it was a bit lame at the end when the chess falls in the teacup however its supposed to be poetic so it makes sense. The hardest part was filming the last scene where the pawn falls, i had difficulty aiming the pawn so it falls right in so that took a couple of cuts to get, also actually making the camera follow the pawn as it falls, so i fixed that by editing in premiere instead of moving the camera i zoomed in the screen on premiere when editing. Throughout this project i learned many things like many different shots like close ups etc. I also learned a lot more new things on premiere like zooming in a screen, or creating a flickering effect.

Week 17

After filming the first scene, i was stuck because i couldn’t film the next scene which was the bocce ball knocking the black pawn. So as i was stuck i went to go 3d print the ball, when putting the file in to the ultimaker it said it was going to take 13 hours so i kept it over night so i can come the following day and get it to start filming however when i showed up i found it barely done, so either the machine had run out of the filament or the file had something wrong it was also tilted so i decided to add a bigger support. When i let it print this time it was going to take 13 hours. And again I came the next day and it didn’t work so i had to think of another solution. When I went home i actually found a ball toy which was exactly the same size only it was purple and green, so i decided to paint it white to look like a bocce ball and filmed my final scenes of when the bocce ball hits the pawn and it falling into the teacup. 

Week 16

After getting the okay to start filming i had only filmed my first scene which was the chess pieces. It wasn’t so hard as i just kept the camera rolling and added each piece at a time, which i can later edit. However i did encounter a problem which was in my storyboard it shows that the black chess piece is in the middle front and each time a white chess piece would show up in the back, the problem was that every time i added a chess piece the camera couldn’t focus on all the chess pieces so i had to rearrange the chess pieces in a way that they would all show clearly so i showed them ganged up around not just in a line in the back which actually looked a lot better however the camera kept focusing on different chess piece every time it entered the scene. I decided to actually use that to my advantage as it had a nice effect where it focuses and defocuses which worked out great with the flickering lights, i felt it brought the trailer together and had a great effect.

Week 15

This week we had to submit our final storyboards and it had to be done with no changes, i was pretty confident with what i had submitted and knew that i wouldn’t make any drastic changes. After submitting everyone could start filming. I was still looking for some props which was the most difficult for me, I also ordered a little light box where i can shoot inside i thought that it would be a nice way to shoot my scenes since it has good lighting and is covered. I could also add a black drop back which was extremely beneficial as my backgrounded needed to be black anyway.

Week 14

During this week i kept on looking for my props for my movie i couldn’t find a plain white tea cup so i decided to go with a blue printed one which was the closest i could find to the one in the movie, but that didn’t matter since the trailer was going to be black and white anyway. However the most frustrating was finding a bocce ball, so my first solution was to actually try and make a 4.2 inch ball by 3d printing it so i decided to work on that later on. In the meantime i did more research on trailers and noticed i liked the ones that showed little elements of the movie which are actually really important. I kept working on my storyboard looking at the best ways to transition from one scene to the other and choosing the best way to show each scene from the camera. 

 

Project Description

I am making a trailer which will be about 25 to 35 secs long. The movie get out is based on racism therefore i will be using the white and clack chess piece to represent the characters in the movie. In the movie several things that are shown and used are mostly a white people object or sport etc. I will be using these elements in my trailer as well. It will start by showing a plan dark scene then each chess piece shows up starting with the black pawn to the white chess pieces which represents the white family. they well be displayed in a way where they seem like they are ganging against the black pawn. Then they disappear and a white bocce ball rolls in to knock the black pawn down, falling into the teacup and drawing. My trailer is themed in a way to show racism in a poetic style and not really showing what the movie is actually about.

 

 

Week 13

This week i went out looking for the props i needed to film my short video, i looked at different teacups but leland said to go with a plain white teacup with no prints on it. What i found most difficult was looking for a bocce ball which i still didn’t find. I looked in several sports shops as well as carrefour but had no luck. I discussed it with law and he mentioned several places to check but if i can’t find it then i will need to find a suitable fix. We also had to improve on our storyboards and include more text explaining the transitions, how the shot will be and the camera. We also had a visitor in class to show us opening credits and trailers i wanted to discuss my storyboard with her to get feedback and her opinion which i did and i will be incorporating that in the shoot.

 

Week 12

This week we had to improve on our storyboards i made a couple of changes and made a new storyboard with a different story. The first story is showing the pawn black chess piece and behind it the white chess pieces. they are in a dark setting with flickering lights   and a bocce ball then shows up and knocks the pawn off the table which then drowns in the tea cup. The second story was based on the auction scene in the movie where they auction off a dark skinned male to the white privileged people, so instead of the people i was also going to use chess pieces which they start holding up tags to buy the pawn. after discussing it with the professors they liked the first story better so i decided to go with that. However I’m not sure whether to go with doing a trailer or opening credit which i think i will decide once i start filming and edited to measure the timing.

 

Week 11

During week 12 we were now discussing storyboards and how essential it is to create a storyboard as it helps guides you and keeps you organized while filming. I created my first storyboard for the trailer that i was planing on making on illustrator, printed it out and explained it in text under each picture. I got some feed back on how i should remove the head of the deer because where am i gonna get that anyway and just having the chess pieces and bocce ball and the teacup which all played an important role in the movie. i wanted to incorporate the deer because it also played a role in him escaping as he used it to kill the father and and the bocce ball to slam his head which is all white games as hunting and bocce are a very white people sport. The reason i added the teacup was because it plays a very important part where the mother tries to convince him to drink the tea to hypnotize him and is what puts him to sleep when they tie him up.

 

Week 10

After the break i had already thought of thing i wanted to incorporate into the movie which are the chess pieces as i felt that can strongly symbolize the characters in the movie. As the pawn being the main dark skinned character and the white king queen knight etc would represent the family. There was some talk of chess in the movie which is how the main character escaped the struggle with the brother by referencing something mentioned about chess earlier in the movie. During class we looked at several movie trailer which were actually pretty amazing and gives barely anything about the movie, they were very poetic with giving hints. We also looked at opening credits which was then an option for us if we wanted to do opening credits or a movie trailer, a trailer had to be 25 to 35 seconds and an opening credit had to be about a minute long. We also had to think about how long our video is going to be whether its opening credit or a trailer. And whether we are considering how to show the actors, directors, producers etc. names and obviously the title of the movie.