Editing

As director I was not in the edit room for every edit. I did come around for one or two and my team relayed problems to me. One problem we ran into was that we lost all of our audio. We later found out it was a bug in premiere but we were able to recover our sound. Also in the edit we saw that a line of script was missing so we were able to experience the ADR process and we got the dialogue we needed.  There were many things missing from our initial shoot that were beyond my control. But we worked with what we had and everything turned out ok.

Pre Visualization

The pre visualization process was extremely tough. With so many ideas floating around and the not so great understanding of what everyone role would be created a not so easy environment. There were many planned meeting that I felt wasn't the most necessary. Storyboards were changed a few times. Even planning the production schedule was bad. But overall we came up with an idea and we ran with it. The pre visuals should have helped the shooting process to be easy but there were some difficulties with exactly how it would be shot. Just overall confusion that was settled later.

Master Shot Sequence

I am fortunate to be the director in this next project. I have a few ideas that mainly deal with suspenseful elements. As a group we came up with several scenarios. A serial killer speed dating, a party "hook up" or kids playing with the supernatural. Originally we were going to do serial killer speed dating but we saw that other groups came up with similar ideas so we went with the supernatural. The scene was to be set in the middle of the night around 4 am and deal with a girl talking to a ghost but she was actually being pranced by her friend.

Vox Pops and Expert Interview

Shooting our expert interview and most of our vox pops were a bit challenging . As producer I had to check out all the equipment and make sure out interview subjects were on schedule. Well, some of our subjects were late (up to two hours) so a daytime shoot became a night shoot and we not prepared for the lighting. Then we had some people cancel and had a change of plans often. Overall it was a great experience because I got to see how things rarely go as planned and that as a production it is very important to be prepared for the worst and to have several back up plans .

Documentary and Schedule

For our documentary, we will be interviewing a street musician, Mark Eaton. We will shoot at night in downtown Wilmington when the street musicians attempt to mesmerize the night crowd coming to and from bars, puns and restaurants. Our main focus is the musician and his potential audience and to give further insight on the musicians  goals and views of his craft. 

Interview Questions:

1.      What is your name and where are you from?

2.      What instrument(s) do you play and how long have you been playing?

3.      What type of music do you enjoy listening to?

4.       What type of music do you enjoy to play?

5.      Where in Wilmington do you like to preform?

6.      How do you feel about the music scene in Wilmington?

7.      What do you think about Wilmington’s night life?

8.      Have you ever preformed anywhere outside of Wilmington?

9.      Have you ever experienced any enthusiastic fans?

10.  What do you love about music?

Vox Pop questions: 

1.      What did you think about their music?

2.      What kind of music do you like?

3.      How do you feel about Wilmington’s music scene?

4.      What do you like about or what do you think most people like about Wilmington at night?

Production schedule (subject to change) :

Friday evening (7/8-11) 2/14: Shoot vox pop and try to find and secure our desired interviewee. It’s Valentine’s Day which should mean there will be plenty of people around to talk to, and hopefully multiple musicians will be out as well.

Saturday afternoon-evening (4-7/8) 2/15: Shoot more B-roll and any shots we may not have gotten the night before. We hope to capture footage of Wilmington in the day to contrast our shots at night. A sunset shot on the river is a desired shot for this day.

Monday evening 2/17: Back up interviewee is scheduled just in case we cannot secure an interview with one of the street musicians.

Tuesday-Wednesday: Edit footage.

Light Observation Indoor

I enjoy to do weird things like sit in a dark room and then turn on the TV. I enjoy what the light from the TV does to that room. It creates what I like to call "moving shadows".  I have 3 guitars and the shadows of the guitar necks dance on the wall like branchless trees in the wind. I absolutely love that, it's one of my favorite views. There are often extreme areas of darkness ranging from the closet to the floor to the walls to the ceiling.

Light Observation Outdoor

I went outside during the snow and observed the light. I'm from DC and I enjoy being outside in the snow because it is so much more beautiful at night. The way the light is trapped and reflects off the snow and illuminates the night sky. There's a special brightness that comes from the snow, I'm not sure how to describe it, but the snow somehow makes the night sky go from black to a darkish purple. There wasn't any extreme darkness to be found except under cars and in snowless corners of buildings.

Filmmakers Statement

My film related experience includes mostly writing concepts and working on scripts, but I have also had minimal production for one project that had to be halted after the death of my father in March 2013. I plan to pick up the project again while in Wilmington after I save/raise money to buy props and costumes. (Really excited about being by the beach, so many ideas come to mind). But until then, I will continue to write scripts, but will shoot a low budget mini web series in coming months just to get some production in!

In this course, I want to learn the aspects of film production and expand my production knowledge from Intro to Film. My sole interest are writing, directing and acting and that is all for now, but there are so many jobs and responsibilities during a production. I do not want to be one of those directors that do it all on any given production.

In 10 years, I plan to be living in a decent house in Hollywood, sipping on drinks while looking out into the Pacific ocean wondering what landscape I can build a story on in the ocean or in the mountains of Asia. By then, i will have finished at least 3 out of the 5 books I want to write for a series that will eventually become a movie. (This particular series was my first movie concept, but it would need a very high budget and experienced crew to be successful so I'll write it as a book first to get that budget to make it a film).

I am at UNCW now working on second degree in Film Studies, I earned my BA in Mass Communications (TV Production/Broadcast Journalism) at North Carolina Central University (voted number 1 public HBCU while i was there TWICE) and during my junior year I realized I was better at making up my own stories than actually writing on facts. I couldn't be a good journalist doing that.

Aside from film, I also write music and play guitar. I think I am pretty good, while all my friends think I am better than what I actually am (they don't know any better).

Halloween 2012 I was "The Crow"

My musical interest range as much as my film inspirations. I grew up listening to nothing but chorus gospel music, hip hop/rap and R&B. When I first picked up the guitar at 17 I changed from hip hop to Pop Punk Rock (mainly Fall Out Boy and Paramore) then I went back in time to 80s rock (Guns N Roses, Bon Jovi) then even further with Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin. Then (as strange as this sounds) once I became a theater minor at my last school, musical theater became an inspiration for my music. I love "Phantom of the Opera" and "Les Miserables"

A slightly less comical guitar picture