EXCITED FOR THE END

For most projects that we do for AICE Media Studies, I edit them. This means that my desktop gets covered in files of videos, audio, and pictures. One of my favorites things to do when I finish to project is to delete all the files that have clogged my desktop, and let me tell you, I'm a little more excited that usual. My desktop in filled to the point that I can't even organize them, I have resorted to piling them on top of each other. I could delete them now because they are all on iMovie and on WhatsApp but incase something happens, I feel a little safer having them in a third place.

I'm sure I could organize it a little more, but at this point is there a point. I can't wait until I get to drag it all into the trash. I know that sounds harsh and don't get me wrong, I love doing this project, but I just want it to be over. 

Until the next time, your friend,

Lærke 

*INSERT AUDIO*

Before Spring Break, Eitan and I recorded different audio bites so I could work on editing in the audio while I was out of town. The short film relies heavily on audio which meant we had a lot to record. From the top of our heads, we remembered to record the sounds of trash bags, washing machines, shoes fighting, walking up stairs, and any other sounds that were obvious; this did not included the small details, that well, most people forget about. As I was editing in the sound, there were a lot of parts that we hadn't recorded the sounds to; however, most of these would be fixed with the music that Eitan's brother was supposed to create. I would like for you guys to reread that last sentence and focus on the words "was supposed to", yea, you guys guessed it, he bailed. Now we have to try and find another person who is talented at the piano or figure out how Garage band works. I know this girl who's extremely talented on the piano, actually I know two, but I haven't talked to either of them in a while and I think its rude to ask someone you don't talk to anymore for a favor. We have plenty of time to figure it out but Id like to have it sooner rather then later, so the whole filming and editing part  of this project would be finished. On a lighter note, Eitan started the website, and I think it is amazing. He hasn't finished yet but I have faith that it'll be good all around. Ill keep you guys updated.

until the next time, your friend,

Lærke

WHAT YOU ALL HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR!

I know, I know. You guys have been waiting weeks but the time has come. This has been a much anticipated event and I appreciate all the support. I know some of you are reading this right now and thinking "OMG did they finish?" No we didn't finish but its something better.

The Lærke and Eitan blog company presents, Between The Seams. This is the title for our short film. Eitan came up with the idea, I think it stems from the fact that it is a love story between a shoe and a sock, and because shoes and sock have seams. I think it fits well with the story and its kind of humerous because its similar to between the sheet.

In the short film, we have it displayed in the beginning with a typing effect; however, we asked around and a trusted informant believed that we should place the credit and title scene differently. I haven't been able to yet but when I mess around with the sound, I will see where the credit and title scene works best.

We are now in Spring Break, so to keep up with the schedule, Eitan and I will be working on different things. I will continue working on editing and Eitan will start working on the website. This is the best way to stay on track because I am out of town until March 29th, making it difficult to meet up and work on it together. Hopefully, we can maintain our schedule.

Until the next time, your friend,

Lærke

TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY

So on Tuesday, we re-filmed the ending scene because Eitan and I decided thought the old ending didn't flow well. I think the new ending is better and overall just a cuter ending. We finished that pretty fast, so we started to think of credit ideas. Eitan and I couldn't think of any ideas that would work well with the stop motion themes. We tired so many different things but none of them seemed to work which was disappointing. Although these seems we didn't do anything on Tuesday, we did. We finished filming and planned to record sound on Wednesday. So Wednesday came along, and let me say I have a new found respect for foley artists. Eitan and I spent sometime walking around the house, trying to figure out what combination of sounds would work for the sounds we needed for the project: washing machine, walking up and down stares, bags rustling, etc. We played around with different items and I think it worked out well. I won't know until I edit the sounds in and see if the sound makes sense to the situation. Additionally, through editing, I will be able to see what sounds are missing and if we need to fix anything. Right now, Eitan and I are pretty good on time. Today is Thursday, March 22, and we are done filming and sound. I have most of it edited other than the sounds and I only need to fix the title and credit scene. Eitan will be working on the Website over Spring Break, and I on editing. Hopefully, we keep up the work ethic and stick to the schedule that was posted in one of my earlier posts. I am excited to see the end result as we are getting closer to the due date.

Until the next time, your friend,
Lærke

JUST ANOTHER DAY OF FILMING

Last time I talked to you guys, I was explaining the events of Friday. Since then, we filmed another minute and is now at a full four minutes of film. I knew going into this that it would be a long tedious process, but it wasn't until Saturday, did it really hit, how complex this our storyline is. It isn't complex as in difficult but complex as in so many different moving parts that need to be considered. This was the first day of filming that I got annoyed with the actual production process, it was long and stupid and we didn't get far; it was as if we had hit a major roadblock and we couldn't seem to make any progress, or so we thought. By the time we finished the afternoon, it turned out that we had actually gotten a lot done. When we had put all the videos on iMovie and edited them together, we had four minutes and ten seconds of film. While filming one of last videos, my phone ran out of battery. I was so angry. I thought we had lost about 15 seconds of film, which coincidentally were the last seconds of our narrative tale, yet when my phone turned back on later that night, I found out that the app had automatically saved the video on it's own. To extend the time on the film, we changed the ending. So, the shoe makes the journey all the way down stairs and the socks walks out of the drying room, after losing its partner. Instead of meeting and having a happily ever after, they walk past each other. The shoes continues and stumbles upon some shoes that weren't very nice. The shoes surround the sock and beat the sock up. The shoes hears the commotion, turns around, and come to the socks rescue; then they live happily ever after with their child. Eitan and I drove all the way to Baby R' Us and bought two pairs of baby sock. I wonder what the employees of the store were thinking when two teenagers walk in to buy baby socks. Anyway, that pretty much brings all of you back to date.


Until the next post, your friend,

Lærke

Y'ALL, THREE MINUTES AND COUNTING

Yesterday, Friday March 16th, Eitan and I reached three minutes of edited film. I know this doesn't seem like much but it has been a tiring couple of days and it's not even over. Today, we are going to continue filming at 12 and try to finish the entire short film before work at 7. This might seem like an  unrealistic goal but we filmed two minutes yesterday, so fingers crossed. From the 3 minutes that we have, I am excited to see the final work and proud of the work we have already done. I think its turning out really well and hopefully, we are able to extend the story without creating unnecessary plot lines. We stopped several times through out the day to eat and to take a drinking break, but at one point, Eitan and I were laying on the floor trying to film, when my cat wakes up. In the top left of the picture, you can see a red table cloth, my cat's bed in under that table. She thought that we were laying there to pet her, so she proceeded to climb on top of me and just lie there; I took this opportunity to take a break. Yesterday was a painfully long filming day filled with interruptions but we got through it. In the end, it was fun and I enjoyed the experience; hopefully the other days will be like that.

your friend,
Lærke

YES, THE FLOOR WAS COLD

In the picture, I am laying on the floor after finding out that we only have a minute worth of film

Yesterday, Eitan and I continued filming our project. We decided to buy the Stop Motion Studio Pro app which, somehow, takes better pictures than the free one, so we had to recreate the first 16 seconds that we had. We started filming around 3PM and stopped around 6PM because Eitan and I both had prior engagements. I wanted to make sure we got enough footage for me to edit, so I asked Eitan to film the same scene from several different angels. Mostly this means we have a lot of bloopers. Even though this was tiring work, Eitan and I had a lot of fun. I think we might have go in a slightly different direction to make sure the story meets the five minute mark. In just the 2-3 hours that we worked, the film is at about one minute and five seconds. We have a few ideas on how to expand the story and we hope to try them out today. I think reaching the five minute mark might the most difficult part about this project, but if everything goes as planned, we'll have it done before Spring Break. 

your friend,

Lærke 

STORYBOARD OR NAH?

The storyboard of the past

Originally, the plot line for the short film was a shoe who sees all the shoes couples and longs for someone. The scene then cuts to a pair of socks that are in love but enter the washer and dryer cycle and one of them disappears. The shoe looking for someone to love wonders around and eventually finds the sock; they fall in love and it is happily ever after. When I mention this idea to the group from the class discussion last week, they recommended dedicated a large portion of the process to creating a detailed storyboard. I started on it and about half way through, we changed our idea. It is still the same concept but we are incorporating human action to create a more realistic atmosphere. We will present a human character to enhance the personification of the inanimate objects. Since we changed the idea, I will not be creating a new storyboard because I don't have time. Eitan and I are filming again today and tomorrow, and hopefully getting most of it done. Today, 4 hours will be dedicated to filming and tomorrow 7 hours will be dedicated to filming. I realize that this is going to be a lot of work in a short amount of time but we are ready for the challenge.

your friend,
Lærke

CLASS DISCUSSION

Yesterday, in class, we split up into groups to discuss each others projects. I was very interested to learn about my classmate's ideas. They are all unique and creative, and I am excited to see their finished products. When I mentioned our project idea to the group, they all thought it was a cute idea. They suggested filming the story using a small scale set and offered some softwares that are useful for stop motion. The advice my group members gave me was extremely helpful. However, I later mentioned the advice to Eitan and we both decided to continue filming in large scale. We believe that large scale will enhance the story better than small scale.
Today, Eitan and I started filming using the software that a classmate recommended, Stop Motion Studio. So far we have 16 second worth of film and it only took us an hour and a half. I know that sounds insane but it only took us that long because we had to do the same scene about three times. We learned a lot through filming today, so the next times will be a little easier and hopefully faster.


Your friend,

Lærke

CASE STUDIES

Stop motion productions are time consuming and difficult to create efficiently; therefore, Eitan and I decided to further research into other stop motion productions. The time it takes to create these productions varies depending on whether it is a full length film or short film, or how much detail the director puts into the production. 

Picture and information credited to NPR

Image from google, information from YouTube

The film Anomalisa was know for its realistic characteristics although the character are dolls. The film is about a middle aged man who meets a women that changes his view on life. According to the directors, Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman, certain shots took weeks, sometime months, to film. Everything in the film was created to fit the atmosphere and size of the dolls. The directors were able to control the lighting and any other factors. Stop motion was used for this film because the directors wanted to clarify that everything shown in the movie was purposeful. 



The short film, Zero, is about society outcasts finding each other and creating something that above the other. It is a dark storyline filled with violence and hate but ends with a form of acceptance. This project took 2 and a half years to film 12 minutes. However, most of that time was used to create all the puppets and set designs for the film. The creators of this short, went into extreme detail and produced a well made production. Each puppet, set design, and extra characteristics were created handmade; they put in the time and effort to make a product from scratch.

Source

Source

The story of The Nightmare Before Christmas follows Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, and his adventure of turning the frightful halloween into Christmas. This stop motion production took 3 years to make with 24 shots to create a second worth of film. In the original poem, there was only 3 character, however, in the film, there were over 200 puppets used. Additionally, Jack Skellington had over 400 heads to portray each of his emotions.  A lot of hard work was put into this production and it paid off; it got great reviews and earned a lot of money. 



The Bottle is a short film about sand and snow communicating between an ocean through a glass bottle. The creator, Kristen Lepore, told PBS in an interview, "so many things went wrong but it only took 4 months of filming." Considering this short film took place in two different places at two different time, 4 months isn't that bad; the short film is about 6 minutes long. The creator has won many awards for her film and was the writer and director of the pilot episode of Adventure Time, a show on Cartoon Network. Overall, this story is heartwarming and really cute, I enjoyed watching it. 



Stop motion is a long and hard process, however, from researching these examples, we are able to learn from their challenges. Eitan and I have a difficult road ahead of us but I am confident that we will be efficient by working hard and planning thoroughly. 

WOW THE INTERNET, MAN!

During class on Monday, we came across a page that describes important steps for creating stop motion. The suggestions seem to be extremely helpful and I can't wait to try them out. Additionally, the information helped us clarify specifics that we hadn't thought about yet; for example, what we were going to film with. 

• The device we will use to record will be an iPhone.
• Stop-Motion Software.
• For Mac: iStopMotion, Boinx, Dragon  Frame.
• For iPhone: Frameographer, Stopmotion Case, Stopmotion Studio.
• Objects that will be used in the film need to be found and purchased, as well as prepared. 
• Consistent lighting needs to be found. 
• Arrange the scene and make the necessary changes for a matching mise-en-scene. 
• Set up the camera in a place where it won't be moved. 
• Begin taking photographs. 
• Finish shooting. 
• Recommendation: Duplicate frames so the movement happens at a slower pace. 
• Finish the editing process and analyze the finished product to make any necessary changes. 

STEP ONE

I am glad to announce that we are already ahead of schedule! Wooo! For the past couple of days, Eitan and I have been thinking of ideas for our project; we came up with quite a few.

1. A dystopian society where all non-essenital electronics were banned. During a mass casualty event, a lot of people died because they stopped to take video which resulted in several unnecessary deaths. The government decided to ban smart phones and laptops in order to prevent this from ever happening again. An underground group of people still secretly have their phones and are planning a revolt against the government. 
2. A comedy horror about clowns. A kid named Ethan takes care of his friend's pet while they are out of town. Some of the lights were left on, so the kid walked around the house and turned off unnecessary lights. In one of the rooms there was a little clown by the door, the kid texts his friend to ask about the clown in which the friend responds "I don't have a clown. "Ethan freaked out and ran out the house. The friend immediately texts "oh wait you mean the puppet, yea don't worry about it." 
3. A comedy horror about memes. Example, a jump scare where they run around the corner and the words adulting is floating towards him.
4. Stop motion picture:
1. love story between a shoe and a sock
2. love story between glasses and eyes
3. technology as a race
5. A story about a kid trying to achieve his dream of becoming a race car driver with a twist at the end that it was all in his head and he was sitting at an arcade game. 

We took a poll of our fellow class mates and friends, most of them thought the stop motion picture about the sock and shoes was the best idea; we agreed. Eitan and I know that this will be a long and difficult process but we are excited and ready for the challenge. 

SCHEDULE

So last year, when I worked on my portfolio project for AS, I kind of was all over the place. So this year I created a schedule to keep me organized through this entire process.

Wednesday March 7th

• Confirm idea 

Friday March 9th

• Finish storyboard

Tuesday March 13th

• Have all the props and equipment bought.
• Have all the actors picked out and confirmed available. 

Thursday March 15th

• Start filming

Thursday March 22nd or Friday March 23rd

• Finish filming

Tuesday April 3rd

• Finish editing and website

Thursday April 5th 

• Finish postcard

Wednesday April 11th

• Finish creative critical reflection

Wednesday April 11th to Friday April 13th

• Critic group member CCR 
• Fix CCR if necessary 

Saturday April 14th

• Finish
• Turn in
• Celebrate 

*Subject to change 

HELLO FRIENDS

Congratulations! You have stumbled upon my Media Studies A portfolio project. WOO! To begin this blog, I wanted to create an introduction post about the project and my progress so far. For this project, we can choose to create one of four components: a short film, a film promotion, a music promotion, or a documentary. Each of these components include different tasks that are required to be completed along with the creative critical reflection. Out of the four parts, I chose to complete the short film package. The major task in this package is to create a short film in any genre about any school appropriate topic. The minor tasks for this package are postcard advertisements for the film at a short film festival and a website. I am excited about this project for several different reason, one being that my partner is my best friend. Eitan and I work really well with each, we create a safe environment to be able to relay criticism or to say stupid stuff without being judged to harshly; I believe it is important to work with someone that you can trust to tell you the truth about certain matters. Another reason why I am excited is because this project allows us to work on so many different fields of media. This allows for creativity to thrive and gives us the opportunity to truly make something that is ours. I have faith that this project will be a lot of fun and I hope everything turns out well.

Your friend,

Lærke