FILM IS BEHAVIOUR - BDM 204

Another interesting Wednesday.
Mainly, this time it was all about practicing and learning

'STATUS CHANGE'.

 Mr.Patrick divided us into a group of two and asked one person from each group to give the other person an offer.
   < Tinggg...  In the drama language 'offer' is known as a 'topic' to talk or discuss on. >
We were to talk/discuss only and only about that particular topic to each other. We did. Overall experience was... boooooring. And that was exactly the point Mr. Patrick was trying to make. Revolving around just one topic will bore the audience. We must change the topic after some time but..but...there should be a logical connection between the topics before switching the topics.
Adding a catalyst is very important for the story to keep engaging the audience. The catalyst can be a new person or a new situation.
The scene stays way more interesting when a person is trying to defeat/stop all the actions of another person than just one person going on trying to get where he wants or get what he wants.
I did quite a few Google searches and read e-books to find a solid definition of 'status change'. But I couldn't find any. So, I'm gonna make up my own.

Status Change - When the current situation projects no hope for anything new to come and change the situation into its state of best to worst or worst to best, then "something" eventually comes along and somehow changes the current situation from 'best to worst' or 'worst to best'.  Phewww.
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Glimpses from the screenwriting class.

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Some other very important things that Mr.Patrick taught us:

• Find the baggage - Research, talk to people and try to predict/find the baggage that the audience would be carrying in their minds or hearts while watching the movie.
• Bathos- Using humor to enhance the drama.
• Faceless bad guy, injects fear in audiences mind. On the other hand, Personalized Villains/Antagonists with a clear purpose evokes sympathy(not every time).
• Main character - This is the character who the story is mostly about.
• Protagonist - The character who changes over the course of the story.
• Hero - This is the character who you hope to see "win".
• Mise-en-scene - The arrangement of scenery and stage properties in a play.

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Mr.Syd Field talking...- BDM 204 screenwriting

We saw a tutorial video on effective screenwriting. A well known American screenwriting guru called Syd Field sharing his ideology, experiences and basic techniques of professional screenwriting.

The video was really useful. I found few things that everybody can apply while writing a screenplay.

• Screenplay is a process. It keeps changing. Never be attached to the initial ideas.
• Find the best time of the day to write the screenplay. Research about yourself. Find out at what time your creativity is liberated the most and work at that time.
• Always keep a pocket notepad with you.
• Screenplay is a step by step and day by day process. Be patient.
• Work most of the time on the basic idea, action, character and the structure.
• It's not a novel.
• Screenplay can be described as the story told in pictures, with dialogues and description.
• Structure of the screenplay must serve to build a relationship between different parts of it.
• ACT 1  -  Beginning (30 pages)
• ACT 2  -  Middle (60 pages)
• ACT 3  -  End (30 pages)
• CONTEXT NEVER CHANGES, ONLY THE CONTENTS CHANGES.
• Never forget to describe and explain the setup. Middle or after middle part of the screenplay must contain confrontation. The end should be clear and it should inject a sense of resolution.
• Description & Creation of the protagonist should be finished by ACT 1.
• Interior scenes/shots are referred as INT. Exterior scenes/shots are referred as EXT.
• Dialogues should be in the center of the page.
• The narration of the opening scene should be dramatic, in order to grab attention.
• Action of ACT 1 should be summarized.
• The obstacles should be summarized.

A little about characters.

• Add attitudes.
• Show attitude through dialogues.
• Change. Character(protagonist) should change at some point of time.
• Biography of the character should be written. (5-7 pages)
• Try writing in 1st person. Example: My name is...

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I felt that my fellow classmates were already aware of most of the things said in the video.

There were many funny moments that day in class along with studying. Kim said that she got measles after watching the video. Hehehehe.

Lol ... :D

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There was one more important thing that I took a note from the video and I wanted it to be my closing statement of this post.

"Never show, until its ready"

The Shanon Face (Homework) - BDM 234 Cinematography

New homework - Shoot two shots (Close up and Mid shot) at each of the following lens settings...

1. 18mm
2. 35mm
3. 50mm
4. 75mm
5. 105mm

1. 18mm - I had to move a lot closer to her face to click a close up but the more I went in the focal point became a problem and I had to sort of compromise the close up shot in order to get her face in focus. Plus, that picture gave a fish eye effect. In the mid shot, the background seemed to bend.

2. 35mm & 50mm - I felt pretty much same on both the settings. And it was easy to focus her. In the 50mm, I had to move two or three steps backwards.

3. 75mm - I got an elegant close up. No problem in focusing and composition also was not bad(that sign in the background kept coming though). In the mid shot, I had to make more distance between the camera and her in order to get a mid shot.

4. 105mm - I was standing on the road while clicking it. I had to move a lot backwards. But...the shot was so perfect. There was good amount of distance between the fore ground and the mid ground and the mid ground and the back ground. It enhanced the depth of field.

If I had to pick...I would go with the 105mm shots.

THE UNKNOWN - Cinematography BDM234 homework

THE UNKNOWN

Process : Fear, its just a state of mind. It can be created just like an illusion. We were assigned to click one picture which should illustrate a feeling of fear.

Initially, I planned to capture a man with leather gloves on, in darkness. I used my phone's light to light up the frame and asked my mate to hold a knife that would reflect some of my phone's light which would make the knife stand out. That didn't work quite well for me. The composition failed. I should have tried excluding his face from the frame.

The very next day, at around 12:30am, I was drying out clothes outside our flat. That's when I saw my neighbor returning from some party. He was walking across the wooden fence in front of our house. I couldn't find out who that is in the beginning and that gave me a mini heart attack. I knew at that moment that I had to click it. But the moment had passed. I ran and stopped him and told that I need to click a picture of him and he was totally cool with it. He didn't ask why? or How? He didn't even suspect me of doing any funny business in the middle of the night with a camera. He simply helped me. Such a nice person.

I asked him to stand on the other side of the wooden fence and not to move even a bit. It was too dark and I wanted to take a long exposure shot. And I did.

The man's face wasn't visible but his presence was. That my friends, is known as 'FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN'.

This is the edited version of the raw image. The Unknown.

I brought up the greens and made the shadows darker. I chose not to crop it. Selected the man on the fence and darkened him too. The night's elements are now more clear,that is,darkness. And now it looks scarier than the previous one.

THE UNKNOWN.

Namaskar...Welcome to an Utkriya blog - BDM 234

It was my first cinematography class. Cool classmates, wide range of equipment, mouth watering cameras around and with Patrick speaking in Hindi...I felt comfortable in the new place and environment. The project was to shoot a promotional introductory video of the whole creative department(mainly film department) to be screened in India and China. Students were assigned to shoot it but obviously without Patrick and Ash we would have shot something that would bring down the rate of admissions from Asia.
Mr.Dan handled the camera for the 'day 1' shoot. Basically, Patrick would give an introduction of himself and talk about the course and the Institute. Dan had to pick a frame which would look best and professional and I believe he managed to do so. We used Canon XF305 to shoot the whole thing. I was handling the audio, that is, standing in a funny posture and holding the boom mic close enough to record the dialogues.

Glimpses of Patrick's performance!

The second part consisted of Virat(an Indian student) sharing his experience of SIT with the audience and talking about his journey from 1st year to 2nd year. He was like a pro. Finished it in 2-3 takes. Kimberly did a good job of filming that while I continued making funny postures for recording the audio.

I volunteered to do a quick B-roll shoot of Virat directing a shoot in the end. I think I did good but not good enough. Clock was ticking I kept loosing my concentration. The feedback from Patrick was really helpful.

I must tell you, there was another team filming us filming the introductions of Patrick and Virat.

That means, 

"X filmed Y while Y filmed Z"

Concept: Life Saver - BDM331

As promised on facebook, I'm putting my concept up for the game's trailer cinematic. However, Laura's and Vince's concepts have been shortlisted. (as only blog counts, writing concepts on facebook might not count, so I'm writing it here too)

"Have anyone ever seen busy doctors and nurses, attending a medical emergency? It's a chaos."

Pitch- Dr. Drake, a young and newly appointed surgeon in 'Lifeline' hospital, which specializes in 'emergency cases', in the 'SRN' city.

The hospital has a reputation for holding a good track record of solving medical emergencies in the city. Dr.Drake is awesomely talented but awfully young. His age, attitude, dangerous lifestyle and flirting with death style, keeps affecting his job. But surprisingly, never affects his patients (awesomely talented). Other doctors hate him for being unethical but nurses(females) dig him.
Now,the game.... Every medical emergency in the hospital will be the levels/rounds/stages of the game. For example, the game has 5 levels in it...then those will be a case of... 1. Seizure, 2. Domestic injury(a kid falling down from stairs), 3. Road accident. 4. Psychotic break, 5. Heart attack.
The gamer will live the life of Dr. Drake, attending these medical emergencies and living his personal life,that is, waking up in hangover in unknown apartments when he is needed in the operation theater.
Its a bit hard to digest a concept like this but... Usually its always explosions,guns,swords,knives, blood..basically violence & killing in all the games...but in this game we can save lives.  Also, a doctor's deadline driven chaotic job can be highlighted.

We discussed almost every pitched concepts. Interesting concepts from Brandon, Steven, Shawn, Sarah, Seth, and Callum. After voting, 'Town's Secret'(Laura's concept) and 'Grandfather/Grandson mutation' (Vince's concept) got through.

No matter which concept, we'll rock it. Peace out.

A FEW GOOD HOMEWORKS - BDM204

Sup? Did you order the "code red" or not?
That's right. This is a review on 'A FEW GOOD MEN'.

Its a movie based on the play written by Aaron Sorkin. In terms of screenplay, this movie IS rip-roaring. This discussion can be easily ended by few people who would just say "bro...Tom Cruise movie bro", but there is more to it. "Bro...Jack Nicholson bro". I'm kidding, I was refering to screenplay,dialogues & direction.
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Formal review:
It hit the theatres on Dec 11, 1992 and Oscars were written all over it but only made it to the nominations. Directed by Rob Reiner and written by Aaron Sorkin, this made Tom look like just a cherry on top of the cake.
A military courtroom drama with words finely put toghether to make ear candy dialogues that pulls the auidence and makes them to sit on the edge, throughout the movie. Lt. Daniel Kaffe played by Tom Cruise is a young Navy lawyer freshly out of law school trying to walk on his late father's footsteps and struggling to live upto his high expectations. He is assigned as a defence lawyer to Pfc.Louden Downey and Lance Cpl.Harold Dawson who are accused of the muder of Pfc.William Santiago. Dawson and Downey claim that they were given orders of "code red" by Lt.Johnathan Kendrick, who follows only Bible and the orders given by his superiors.
Lt.Commander Gallawoy(Demi Moore) is assigned as asst.Lawyer to Kaffe. She insists on trial as she believes that there is more than the facts which are placed by the investigators of this case. On contrary, Kaffe believes that trial would be a mistake as its clear that the hustle between Dawson-Downey and Santiago caused the death and they would loose the case.
After Kaffe realises that a young lawyer(himself) who hasn't seen the courtroom ever is assigned on such a high profile case must be to keep him out of the courtroom on this one too, he decides to SLAMDUNK Col.Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson) who is believed to be the one who ordered the "code red" secretly.
The cinematography and editing were in complete discipline. Not less not more. Robert Richardson and Robert Leighton(cinematographer and editor) stayed unselfish and only delivered what the script demanded.
Overall: 4 out of 5.
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This movie is one of my favourites and it delivered famous catch phrases through dialogues like "You don't need to wear a patch on your arm to have honor", "<Why do you like them so much? Because they stand on a wall and say, "Nothing's going to hurt you tonight, not on my watch.">"
No dialogues or images were a waste and the movie was directed with a lot of care. Watch it, you won't regret. And if you do, SUE ME... I'll hire Kaffe for my defence. :)