The explorations unit was our shortest but, in my opinion, most enjoyable. The short amount of time and broad freedom made this quite an exciting and densely packed few weeks! During this unit, we were given the ability to create basically whatever we wanted, and could experiment with all sorts of new resources and topics, very similar to our conceptual unit. It felt like we had returned to the beginning of the year, everything coming full circle, similar to a film element known as “the same, but different,” starting and ending a story with similar scenes.
Explorations Film
This film is, as I see it, the best I have made so far. We were given total freedom to explore any film-related topic we wished. My mind immediately went to visual effects, of which I am an avid learner. I love the effects methods of the past, and decided to focus on one of the oldest and most widespread effects: miniature models. Models have been used for over 120 years to create convincing sets or vehicles. I chose to create a vast cyber-futuristic city with a flying car passing through it, inspired by films like Blade Runner or Back to the Future Part II. After getting together a shot list and purchasing or finding materials, I was ready to begin.
I created the buildings out of all sorts of recycled materials: cereal boxes, paper tubed, and old computer parts, especially. After creating about eight structures, I strung fairy-lights around them to look like lit windows, and spray-painted them with a layer of gray primer, then dusted them with a thin layer of silver.
While the buildings dried, I shot the live-action portions that I would later insert into the scene. My friend Eli stood before a green screen miming reactions to things around him. We also draped the green screen over his car to get some shots of him inside, where we could add a moving background to create the illusion of flight.
I stayed up late that night to get the model shots. I set up the green screen behind and took a number of pictures with the buildings in a variety of arrangements, which I could layer to build a larger city. I also puppeteered a model taxi on strings to make it fly through the scene. One oversight I am extremely grateful for is that I was planning on using our fog machine to add some depth to the scene, but it was out of fluid and there was no time to buy more. Looking back, I am glad this happened as the fog could have made keying nearly impossible, creating all sorts of headaches.
Post-production was the most time-consuming part of the process, with me spending upwards of three to four hours on it a day, staying up past midnight several days in a row. I created a whole mountain of extra work for myself wanting to make my film the best it could be, because one of the seniors came up with the exact same idea, and I wanted to make my film better.
Keying the green screen was exceptionally difficult, and I ended up manually rotoscoping many of the shots frame-by-frame. I also added a number of other effects, such as holo-billboards, flying car traffic, and a holo-watch which I had to manually track onto Eli’s hand. After all of the many, many layers had been rendered and organized, I ended up with a final product I am quite fond of!
Experimental Music Production
To continue building our skills in Pro Tools, we learned MIDI music production with virtual instruments, and were tasked with creating a short song of our own. I wanted my song to be practical, so I created it as a soundtrack to my Explorations film. This short track is a minimalist synth version of the Sherman Brothers’ song, “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.” As my film takes place in a dystopian future, it felt an appropriate juxtaposition, comparing it to the optimistic future predicted by Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress, where the song originated. I gave my version an eerie, ambient sound and slowed the song to add to the effect. I especially liked how the song fits with the film and helps support the visuals. I hope to use virtual music production in the future to make more soundtracks to help tell stories and build worlds.
English Lyrical Essay
In English, we read many lyrical essays from “The Book of Delights” to “Consider the Lobster,” taking inspiration and analyzing techniques along the way, which we would go on to incorporate into our own essays. A lyrical essay incorporates research and information as a typical essay does, but, like poetry, is much more free-flowing and experimental. The topic I chose to cover was procrastination, as I have much experience with the subject. To give my essay a bit of uniqueness to stand out, I decided to emulate a procrastination time-crunch by limiting myself to only 25 or 30 minutes, with no editing whatsoever, during or after, simply writing whatever came to mind, a technique called stream-of-thought writing. I would then expand upon or correct my thoughts with footnotes, a tool that, as I had learned from “Consider the Lobster,” could be used as a fascinating addition, a second voice, often.