Personal Reflection on project

My project, was to create a film using the mac program iMovie. I was elected the leader of the group since i had previous experience and familiarity with the iMovie program. I selected Chris Turo, Jo Tutko, and Brian Callaghan as members of my group. We named our film, Burn 'em and Turn 'em, Baby!

Initially we decided to do everything collaboratively, instead of dividing up jobs. Jo made the suggestion each one of us write 2 pages of dialogue and then put it together but I quickly dismissed the idea (even though good) because i wanted a very close knit process. I knew later we would shine in our own area's but i wanted the frame work, (the initial genesis of the project) to be agreed on and be a cross-hatching of each others ideas.

The brain storming was a very important part of the project, and besides the filming, took the most substantial amount of time. We simply sat in my room (where most of the work was done) and threw out ideas. Pen and paper equipped in each hand, we racked our brains for ideas, anything that poured out of our minds. I video taped the original brainstorming session to look back at great ideas i had not writen down.

After we had a basic idea of the concept (poker tournament, 3 players and a dealer, mockumentary) we rendered each character (The Duke, Tex Gold, "Sporto" Lance Strongarm, and the Dealer). The next step i am very proud of, and that is the costume design. One thing I have noticed in films is the ability to greatly convey a character without even speaking. The most effective way is through stereotypical costume design. One thing that I have noticed in amateur film is the mediocrity of a character's attire. When you watch a major motion picture every character is dressed appropriate to their personality. I was not going to do a film where we were all wearing a t-shirts and jeans. So each character personalized their outfit.

Chris was VERY helpful with the props and supplying clothing. Half the prop list was items he supplied. Other things were borrowed or even purchased(football, etc). Jo had bought the Poker for Dummies book on the assumption he could return it after the filming. Well, after the first take where Brian knocks the book out of his hand, we realized that no longer was possible. The force of the blow had bent the front cover.

Chris also wrote the screenplay. One day I felt I was doing a subpar job at conceptualizing #89 so I simply turned to Chris and asked him to write my lines because he seemed completely on target.The four of us were such a great producing machine. Brian the first day, seemed to have an endless amount of great ideas. After that, Chris rendered those ideas into a script. I had a vision, a certain look I wanted each shot to take, so at times i was the cinematographer. I took the Director role, basically making the story boards and planning the actions based on the script. Jo, was also great with taking care of the set. Initially, in filming, we had the ghastly setback of having things on camera that should not be. So, after realizing that, Jo got big into moving tables and items and telling me if certain angle's would not work. Brian and Jo helped me with the lighting in the interview scene's. There were many tough shadows that we avoided, because of the two of them.

I learned the limitations of iMovies. That some things are just not possible, you see them on the big screen, but for guys like us, you simply do not have the technology to recreate them. I am referring to a scene from Snatch that we wanted to imitate. Some very valuable things i learned were: slow motion, black and white, and how to play things in reverse. I learned how to extract the audio from a video file, which is very helpful. We messed around with many programs (Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, iStopMotion, garage band) to learn how to do cool effects, but at the end of the day, i thought the video was good enough without them. Honestly, they would have been unnecessary, I felt it would have stuck out worse if I had included them.

The question i keep thinking about is what would i do differently? I do not know what i would do differently. I really liked the film, I have watched it at least ten times in entirety and I honestly love it. It is not profound or laugh out loud funny but I like what it is. I agree perhaps it was too long but it is not like i would submit it into a film festival so i think, as a first film it shows some promise.