Felder

Name: Glenn Felder

Guiding Question: What would it be like to make and produce films?

(optional) Use this space to list possible activities, tasks, experiences. Remember everything you do should help you answer your Guiding Question. Organizing the location, actors, script, acting notes and cues, finding the best shots and filming, and learning to use video editing software and produce the film.

(Required) This plan is a “best guess” as to what you and your mentor think you will be doing. It is not meant to be a hard and fast schedule for your Exploration. The plan should illustrate how you intend to complete a minimum of 80 hours.


 * = Date ||= Location/Activity ||= Number of Hours ||
 * = 5/2-5/7 ||= Planning the film (script, actors, location) / Irv Levine's (my mentor's) House or another meeting place ||= 25-30 ||
 * = 5/9-5/24 ||= Learning to use video editing software and starting to film / Irv Levine's House and at the filming location (TBD) ||= 15-20 ||
 * = 5/26-5/31 ||= Producing and editing the film / Irv Levine's House ||= 40-60 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80-110 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80-110 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80-110 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80-110 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80-110 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80-110 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80-110 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80-110 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80-110 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80-110 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80-110 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80-110 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80-110 ||
 * =  ||> Total Number of Hours ||= 80-110 ||

Journal: Journal #1

I have been able to follow my plan of action pretty well, although some of it has been pushed back a few days because of finals, but I am pretty well on schedule so far. I have spent 18 hours so far this week, and I am right now about halfway to answering my guiding question. In my discussion with my mentor, we went over many of the options we had as far as acting (or how to do a scene without actors) and special effects. We also talked about how to plan to shoot a scene like mine. I also told him about some of the types of shots I was planning and he told me whether or not we could make them work and how we would do so. I currently feel good about the project. I am concerned that a month is not enough time to make a real, professional looking film as long as I was hoping, but I think the solution to that is to just focus on the beginning of the scene and make sure that I can get some kind of real results for sure before worrying about the length. Overall, I think I’m in good shape so far.

[OK-Keep at it. –Mr. E]

=Journal #2=

In my last meeting with my mentor, we filmed all of the scenes for my movie. We did a number of takes for each potential scene to ensure that we had footage that worked in any circumstance. There were some problems with the blue screen background that we used to allow us to key out all but the “actors” (stuffed bear puppets in costume). The screen is always supposed to be lit perfectly evenly with no wrinkles to ensure that the color of the screen is keyed out completely with no blending with the subjects, but without professional equipment, we were not able to flatten the screen or the lighting completely. The keying should still be effective, but we’ll see when we get to the editing stage. I am still pretty well on schedule. I was expecting to start the filming a few days earlier and spend a few days on it, but I was not able to schedule it that way and instead had to do all of the filming in one day, but this way we got back on track.

=Journal #3=

In my most recent meeting with my mentor, I spent 8 hours editing all of the footage from the shoot under his supervision. I learned how to use a lot of the editing software that I wanted to get familiar with when I started this project, such as editing out the blue screen, aligning characters and changing their positions and scale on screen, putting in a background and having characters move along with the position of the background, and cropping film after it has already been shot. All of these effects are new to me and I feel like I have successfully implemented all of them into my movie so far. I still have one more editing session left, in which I hope to make the characters in the scene interact with parts of the background I designed to be manipulated, which will likely be the most difficult part of the process. The film right now does not look perfect, but I believe that for my first attempt at using many of these special effects, and considering the limited time and conflicts my mentor and I have had to work around, I have been successful in accomplishing my goal of learning to use more complex video editing software and produce a quality film. I am currently a couple of days behind schedule, but with one more day of good work (tomorrow), I should be finished with it, so I’m not worried.