Independent Component 1

Another story with a meaning, a message, and a character moving through life.

For the finished product please click the link below:
Simple Affection (2016) | A Short Film

LITERAL

I, Isaiah Kai Maylad , affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 89 hours of work.”

Cite your source regarding who or what article or book helped you complete the independent component.

• Mills, Robert. "Colour and Storytelling in Films." Robert Mills. Chris Alwood, 17 Feb. 2015. Web. 3 Sept. 2015. < http://www.robertmills.me/colour-and-storytelling-in-films/>.

• Fischoff, Stuart. "The Evolution of Music in Film and its Psychological Impact on Audiences." Calstatela. Cal State LA, 24 June. 2005. Web. 10 Sept. 2015. <http://web.calstatela.edu/faculty/abloom/tvf454/5filmmusic.pdf>.

• "Introduction to Color Temperature." Filmmaker IQ. Filmmaker IQ, n.d. Web. 17 Sept. 2015. <http://filmmakeriq.com/lessons/introduction-to-color-temperature/>.

• Flinn, Denny Martin. How Not to Write a Screenplay: 101 Common Mistakes Most Screenwriters Make. Lone Eagle Publishing Company, 1999. pg 142-169. Published.

• Hess, John. "Introduction to Foley and Sound Effects for Film." Online Video Clip. Vimeo. 2014. Web. 3 Dec. 2015. <https://vimeo.com/112006972>.

• Mascelli, Joseph V. The Five C's of Cinematography. First Silman-Lames Press, 1965. pg 50 - 66. Published.

Update your hours in your Senior Project Hours link. Make sure it is clearly labeled with hours for individual sessions as well as total hours.

A: The Senior Project Hours Log is all updated with hours that were completed over the course of this project.

Explain what you completed.

A: During the course of this project, Yuji Karuhaka and I combined our acquired skills and knowledge from both dance and filmmaking in order to create a experimental hybrid short film that crosses both the genres of silent and musical. With Yuji behind the choreography aspect of it, while I was behind the camera turned out to be an extremely fun and hands-on learning process. I was able to sharpen my skills as a filmmaker especially with the exposure of new cinematography techniques and editing softwares. The story itself was meant to be a fairly basic and generic in order to see if we could successfully convey an emotional impact through the visuals of the story (dance and cinematography).

INTERPRETIVE

Defend your work and explain its significance to your project and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work.   Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work.

A: I believe that our project highly demonstrates 30 hours (plus the hours after). Throughout the project, Yuji and I went through the three phases of filmmaking (pre-production, production, and post-production) successfully. In the beginning, the two of us thoroughly planned out our concept with notes and outlines and met up in order to successfully bounce off ideas. Because of the fact that our schedules didn’t really meet up during the day, we met a lot at night in order to discuss details. We made sure to mark up certain aspects we wanted to see brought out when the performance was actually put into production and looked around for a willing and open lead actress, Paula Montano.

A marked up page of our screenplay. The entire screenplay will be released once the film is released.

Shooting on location at a park in Pomona.

Filming on location at the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts (LACMA)

During production, Yuji and I (along with a crew of other students that were so gracious enough to donate their time and efforts to seek out the end of production) drove out to many different locations and cities in order to achieve the proper emotional appeal we sought out for the visceral connection. We took a day to go out to Los Angeles and film in many different locations. We decided that it would be best as a choice for the audience and a great learning experience to film out in the public. We wanted to see if  we were up to the challenge especially with our particular set of skills. Throughout production, we stayed countless hours in certain locations and hit certain road bumps along the way (i.e. There were times where our batteries would die, and being in public, we had no place to charge them, causing an unpredictable shortcoming of our full day of filming.) In addition, we took the initiative to go out and scout the locations we were filming at in order to fully understand the aspects that would affect certain things while on location ( i.e. weather, time of sunset, etc.)

Lighting test at LACMA when location scouting in Los Angeles.

Another lighting test at Santa Monica Beach.

When it came down to the editing, this was my favorite part. Usually, I dread editing because it’s sometimes tedious (AND I HATE iMOVIE and have no means to get a new program). This time however I downloaded a fully functional free trial of Final Cut Pro X in order to get the most professional and efficient editing experience for this project. In addition, I loved to see the final product being pieced together and start to fit nicely together. I was able to explore the functions FCPX had to offer as well as apply new editing techniques through the use of style that we were adapting to our film. Although audio was not used in the film at all, it was still hard to sync up music with the dance numbers that were filmed during the duration of the assignment. In addition, I stayed countless hours on the computer sitting through the pain of strained eyes and my love for filmmaking in order to calm down my excitement for the piecing together of the final film.

Getting accustomed to a new software, that made editing more efficient and easy.

APPLIED

How did the component help you understand the foundation of your topic better?  Please include specific examples to illustrate this.

Honestly, film is such a hands-on topic. My mentor, Marc Estrada, told me how filmmaking is such an essential field to go out and work for experience. He further stated how you could easily read all the books and articles on how to make a movie, but if you don’t go out to do it, you’ll never learn. With film, filmmakers learn from the mistakes that are made. Over the course of this IC, I was able to fully engross myself into the filmmaking process and be in charge of my own small production (even if we didn’t have a budget). My team successfully went through the different stages of production in order to create an efficient work environment and productive set. Yuji and I planned out our production to the very center in order to get as much done as possible. In addition, Yuji and I wanted to focus on the emotional aspect of visceral media. We wanted to apply techniques and knowledge in order to elicit the right feelings into our audience when viewing the film. For example, cinematography was much different that I’m used to especially since dance needs to be shot in very long takes. Yuji needed to get accustomed to the long unbroken shots and get used to the fatigue that came with precise shots without many breaks in between.

I also was able to explore music throughout this component, especially since music is such an essential portion of the filmmaking process. Music is a huge key both when relaying film through dance and through film because of how connected people have become to it. In our project, we had to deliberately and strategically chose the songs that were going in since the lyrics of the music was going to be the only spoken dialogue through the film.

Screenshots of the dance numbers presented in the short film itself.

In addition, this project helped me become a better director. Using the aspect of a silent film, all actions and facial expressions need to thoroughly communicated to the audience or else the viewer won’t understand the proper emotion to feel. As a director, I can usually explain to the actor how I want a line stated of portrayed. However, without the use of dialogue, I needed to come up with more descriptive methods in relaying my meanings and emotion to my actors. With the focus being solely on the actors and the story rather than the spoken words, it was a real challenge to convey the true interpretation onto the screen, but was done nonetheless.

This project was truly a wonderful learning experience for me and I would like to explore more aspects of film under a project like this again.