Production Pt. 2

THATS A WRAP ON OUR FILM OPENING! WHAT A ROLLERCOASTER OF A NIGHT!

I am extremely happy to announce that we have wrapped production for our film opening! On Saturday March 16th we shot the first half of our opening: The boxing scene. This was by far the most stressful part of the entirety of the film opening. We had a rollercoaster of a night having been kicked out of one location, to being rained out, to filming in a neighborhood and wrapping production. I learned an abundance of new things from this shoot and it is definitely one I'll never forget.

Our night started at 7:30 PM at Markham Park in Weston, FL. We arrived and started getting our actors into costume and applying their makeup. Instead of 4 cars we decided to use 6 to make the space seem more crowded since we didn't have too many extras. After getting about 4 shots, a security vehicle came and asked us to leave, saying the park was closed.

We discussed it as a group and decided that we would shoot at a side road by US-27. On our way out of the park we were struck by our biggest problem: rain. Our group hopped on a call and decided that it was best to cancel and reshoot another day. After this decision was made I texted in the group chat with crew and extras that the shoot was cancelled. I went home very disappointed in myself, I was very nervous that we would not get this shoot done. 

30 minutes pass and I'm sitting in my room, Rafa knocks on my door and tells me "Armando's house is big enough to fit all of the cars, call the extras and we'll shoot there." It was a miracle. It took a lot of waiting, but we were finally able to shoot at our friend Armando Padilla's house in Weston, FL. One of our biggest changes in the film so far was our cast. We had originally casted Rafael and Neil Shulkin, but due to schedule problems Neil could not shoot after we left Markham Park. We replaced Neil with Manuel Leizaola, a junior at Cypress Bay.  Once we had our cars set up and our equipment ready, we began shooting.

 Once we got the shoot started we were able to get through it pretty quickly and smoothly. The majority of our problems were errors that the actors were making or me wanting to take a shot again because I didn't like how it looked. We had very little technical errors besides our work light turning off every so often. We solved this problem with the very complex "Unplug it and plug it back in" technique.

Having reviewed some of the shots, I am very satisfied with how this shoot turned out. There were some errors that could have been prevented or fixed, but nothing detrimental. I was very satisfied with the lighting in our shots, although the cars on Manuels' side did not illuminate the ring as much as the cars on Rafa's side, our work light was more than enough for what we needed. 

Im beyond happy and proud to say that we finished filming our opening. This has been my biggest challenge for the last few weeks and I think I handled everything well. 

Now we can finally move on to editing!!! 'Til the next one.

Production Pt. 1

I am glad to say that wrapped shooting for the second part of our film opening: The hospital scene. From the start I was nervous that we would not have a location to shoot this scene, but luckily my partner Rafa's father is a surgeon and was able to obtain us a room to film in.

The room that we were able to shoot in was a trauma room at memorial hospital in Hollywood, FL. 

The room had an abundance of medical machines and equipment, but our 2 most important things out of everything in the room were our source of light (right) and a bed (left)  for Rafa to lay on. I was worried that the source of light inside of the trauma room would not be enough light, but once we arrived and used the light we decided it was more than enough for the shot we wanted. 

Our shoot started very late, 2:35 AM to be exact. Since the hospital is such a busy location, we had to get in and out quickly to not disrupt any of their work. It was a fairly easy preparation since the room was already set up. We put Rafa on the bed with a neck brace and a patients robe. 

 

We shot this scene with the help our Rafa and I's friend Armando Padilla, and Rafa's father. Armando played the role of the visitor. It was important to have this role in the film because without him the television could not have been turned on, which would have left out a big chunk of information for the audience to understand the story. Rafa's father read part of our script throughout to the shot so that we had proper timing for our voice over.

We shot this scene using a Canon 7D Mark 2 on a DJI Ronin S for stabilization. 

Overall this shoot went great. It was very late at night and we were tired, but it was all well worth the effort. One of my errors was not bringing enough people. With more people I could've had more help with the stabilization (the gimbal is very heavy) and with set design (TV turning on when Armando picks up remote). Although there were some issues that I could have used help with, I was very satisfied with the results of this shoot. We wrapped up, ate at Waffle House, and arrived back in Weston at 4:00 AM. One thing that I learned from this shoot was that production requires a lot of WAITING. However it is something that I will definitely take into consideration going into future shoots. 'til the next one

Production Dates and Equipment

After a lot of working around our schedules and a lot of cancelling on other plans, we finally have a date for the larger part of our production: The fight scene.

Here is our schedule for the production.

Date: Saturday March 16th 2019
Location: Markham Park
Time: Crew Arrives at 6, Extras arrive at 7:30


6:00: Crew arrives at park to set up

5:00-7:00: Set up camera equipment/Get actors into costumes

7:00-7:20: Go over fight choreography with actors

7:20-7:30: Apply makeup/oil on main actors.

7:30-7:45: Wait for extras to arrive and put them into their positions upon arrival.

7:45-8:00: Briefly go over what the story is with extras (they have already been told what it is). Give them directions on how to react in parts of the fight.

8:00-8:45: Film scene following a shot list.

8:45-9:00 Clean Up

9:00-Until I fall asleep: Go crazy because I finally filmed my film opening!

Another very important part of our production is the equipment that we use. With the right equipment we are able to capture something that not only captures the viewer with a good story, but also with good quality image and sound. This is some of the equipment that will be used for our film opening:

Canon 7D Mark 2

Canon 24-70 MM Lens

Canon 35 MM Lens

DJI Ronin S

Work Lights from Home Depot

Shoulder rig for Canon camera

Rode Videomicro External Microphone

Storyboard

Voila, our storyboard (Starts on top right corner). The 18 drawings on the 2 pieces of paper will help us have an idea of what each shot should look like. These drawings do not do the camera justice but they all serve as reference while on set, or while rearranging the shot list.

Each square with a drawing in it has a description below it, revealing the type of shot along with side notes of lines when a certain shot is happening or a description of who are what is the main focus of the shots.

Some of the shots we plan to include are:
Establishing drone shot
Medium shots
POV shot
Close Ups
Low Angle Shots

Movements:
Dolly In
Tracking
Whip pang

Blog Critiques

In class everybody got into groups and we showed each other our blogs to receive some feedback. Ultimately this helped us know what we were doing right in our posts as well as what we are doing wrong. I also critiqued some blogs, and I was content with the feedback that I provided. I found this was a very helpful activity that I will be doing with my partners and classmates outside of the classroom.

My blog was reviewed and overall I received good feedback. I was told to write more in each blog and to do more research. I agree with these critiques because writing more will help me explain my ideas better. Doing more research will help me know more about every aspect of making a film like planning (creating a screenplay, naming characters, making a storyboard, making a shot list), production (good equipment to use when you're not a millionaire, shooting everything in a reasonable amount of time) and post production (color correction, pacing, sound design and mixing). 

Apart from the feedback I was given I also reviewed some blogs. What I noticed is that people wrote more than me, but there wasn't much use of visuals to help the reader have an image of the idea. That was something that stood out to me the most and I told the people whose blogs I reviewed. Overall this was very helpful and I now know what I have to do to make my blog better.

Screenplay

Today I will be talking about our screenplay. This is the first draft that I wrote. This still has to be reviewed by my group so we can move forward.

I am very excited to have this finished although there are some parts that still need to be figured out. Although we have decided to use this idea, our characters (Names, Casting) still need to be decided. Now that I have completed this I can go ahead and start working on a shot list and storyboard. One conflict that I had while writing this screenplay was deciding names for the characters. Currently WE HAVE our protagonist JESUS MONTOYA, but our antagonist still goes unnamed. While coming up with ideas, Rafa and I agreed on something that we really thought had potential to be a full length film. That being said, I wrote this screenplay in a way that I thought best sets up the remainder of the movie. The screenplay needs a few adjustments, but this felt like a huge step forward. 

Inspiration

In this blog I would like to talk about the style I would like to go with in our fight scene and our fight choreography. Going into this project I had already ruled out any possibility of a long take, I knew that I wanted to use cuts. I watched fight scenes that used cuts and some that used long takes, looking to see what I could learn from each:

The style that I am going for with the scene is similar to that of Creed 2 (2018). I like this style because it uses cuts as opposed to being shot in one scene. Director Steven Caple Jr. also uses closeups in slow motion of each character to show their suffering in each punch delivered. The fight choreography in this scene is a good show of adjusting the choreography to the camera.

This church fight scene from Kingsman: The Secret Service is one of the most brutal fight scenes I have ever watched. However it is not the blood and violence that makes this scene so great. It is Matthew Vaughns use of great music, pacing, and choreography that makes the scene so exciting. On the cinematography side of it, this movie did a great job in taking the viewer along with the main character instead of leaving them to spectate the main character fighting. Although this scene was made to look like it was one shot, I prefer that my group's film opening does use cuts. From this scene I learned how to use cinematography to take my audience along with the character, and that pacing and music are both very important to keep the audience on the edge of their seat regardless that the scene be a long take or that it uses cuts.

Fight choreography is one of the most important parts of a fight scene because it ensures the safety of actors and it can ultimately make or break the entire scene. From the moment Rafael, Arianna, Jonathan and I decided on a boxing drama, my biggest fear was the fight choreography because I knew how important it was. After conducting research on fight scenes, I learned to treat it like a choreographed dance. The normal flow for a choreographed fight goes: a few small moves followed by a high impact moves. Fight scenes have to be choreographed meticulously in order to avoid any injuries. Improvisation can never take place.  When working with my actors, we will start working on the choreography, followed by power, followed by speed. This is a long process but it will ensure the safety of our actors and camera operator.

CITATIONS:
(2019, February 19) Creed II - Adonis Creed vs Viktor Dragon (Final Fight) HD. Retrieved March 3 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdG2zRAruOk

(2017, July 7) Kingsman: The Secret Service - The Church Fight. Retrieved on March 3 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3zdYUG2_RA

(2018, August 14) Fight Choreography with Iko Uwais & Sam Looc. Retrieved March 3 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdHDSyt_pZ0&t=446s

How to Choreograph A. Fight Scene For Film. Retrieved March 3 2019, from https://beonair.com/choreograph-a-fight-scene-film/