A change in perspective

A change of perspective

Everything that I have said thus far as prepared you for this moment. This is where you put on your bathing suit, swim cap, and prepare as we are about to dive into the process of making a film. We have already discussed the three phases and with that in mind you understand how exciting this process. Film is art, and the director is the one with the paint brush, the cameras are the colors, the computer is the canvas, and it is up to the artists to make it the vision. For the purpose of the development of the story, we will do a speed run through. This is an original idea of mine that has yet to be expanded. Here is a brief refresher of it. Using the three phases, we will deconstruct this idea bit by bit to reveal the “magic” so to speak. There is more to a project like this than most people realize. So much in fact that I have given a brief insight to how it is done from a one-man filmmaking crew’s point of view because there is no way getting every painstaking detail down is possible. So, here you go with my adaptation “Filmmaking for dummies.”

Title: "Puddles"

“A kid who wants to be taken seriously by her parents struggles to find things that will make her seem more mature. She tries to get a job, learn how to drive a car, earn, and use money on her own. To no avail of course... She finds pleasure in seeing her younger next-door neighbor playing in the rain. She joins her and the friendship between the two begins as they continue playing together. Every time it rains, they are together and reminded of their simple childhood innocence. Teaching viewers young and old the importance of enjoying life.”

Pre-production: The planning phase.

Having the concept is one thing, bringing to life every single word that is in that paragraph is another thing. The beauty of the first phase is doing just that. I take inspiration from many of my favorite screenplay writers, Stephen King, John Hughes, and Tyler Perry. As the saying goes, imitate your idols until I find my voice. It stands true to this day as I can pull more inspiration from watching the behinds the scenes of their movies than watching the movies themselves. It is strange I admit, however, there is more to getting the words down on paper than most people think. Every scene must be carefully plotted out. My script must have my characters, important and non-important, ironed out. Personality dialogue and all. It is understood that my script must connect with my audience. That said, you must know my audience.

I have a name for my character from the person who she was inspired by. A quirky 9-year-old black girl with attitude towards the sun. She strangely would rather see it rain then shine which makes her an alarmingly different kid, my little cousin Jasmine. My character’s quirk of course has the opposite effect. She learns to appreciate life from watching others. And thus, must find a friend that teaches her to enjoy her youth. I have named the boy across the street of which she only ever sees when it rains, Malakai. Plot which is not at all like a novel where I can explore different plot points thoroughly. There are time constraints that prevent me from making it too long. No one, absolutely no one goes to a movie theater to watch a 3-hour movie unless it is incredible. The only two-hour movie I have ever seen was Avatar and it took me three weeks to finish it. Human attention spans are not that long especially for those who grew up in the era of Vine and Tik Tok. We must capture a person’s attention every 8 seconds, or we will lose them.

Your story must have a beginning, middle, and ending all thought of before you start shooting. Then comes the storyboard that has all your shots that you want to take. One by one every shot measured meticulously plotted describing angles, lighting, and movement. As if you are tuning your brush strokes before you even pick up the brush. The great part about his phase is that it lets you explore your creativity as a madman. Just jotting down ideas, then you organize them like chess pieces perhaps, finally you lay them on the board.

Now comes the world building. Literally. Scoping out sets with my producer (me), contacting your casting director (me) to find some actors, building my sets with your floor designer (me) to make the setting more believable and getting your equipment for with my technical director (me) and director of photography (me) shooting all while staying in budget. All jokes aside it is much better to work with a team and things will run a lot more smoothly. But for independent filmmakers like myself, I am all those people. Now, let's assume all the pieces are in place. The sets are all set up. The actors have gotten the scripts, memorized their lines, and all the equipment is operational. We move on to the next step.

Production: Shoot your shot

This is my favorite part about the production process. This is my opportunity to experiment with visual elements like lighting and color. My place to be my most creative. Here I am in my natural place. That camera is my window into the world that I am making. The tool with which I share that world with my audience. Okay, the actors are in place the camera and lights are on and nobody moves until I say “action.” I have one scene in mind, and I will give a brief synopsis: Jasmine gets a special gift from the boy across the street for her birthday and all her friends in the neighborhood are there.

I want to draw attention to Jasmine because she is the what the audience will focus on in the scene. So, to accomplish this I could use a nice 25mm telephoto lens to capture more of the frame in the shot. I would put Jasmine in center frame with a low angle shot to make her look bigger. He friends are all surrounding her as if they are the Red Sea and Jasmine, is Moses. Her presence must be strong, or her character will lose that forceful determination that she tropes. But she thinks that he is weird because he does not come outside often. At this point I want to then re-shift the attention to Malakai who is visibly different than all the other kids. As he approaches, I follow from behind with the camera that slowly lifts from his arms to an over-the-shoulder shot.

I would get a closeup of his arms that have a protective film over them that protects him from UV light. The kids don’t understand but the adults will catch on. I would have a camera focused on the spot where he puts down the gift so that way it can enter the frame when he puts it down. I would then get a closeup of the tag that says “To: Jasmine.” When he leaves her party, she sees his gift unopened on the table. I will incorporate a slow zoom from another low angle shot to show the box is of almost ominous because she knows who it is from. Switching the angle again as she approaches the table to inspect the box. I would then back into the closeup from before with the tag saying this time “From: Malakai.”

She takes this gift up to her room and puts it in her closet seemingly never to be touched again. I follow her feet up the stairs and tilt up as she enters the room. From there, I would post a shot from the other side of the door as she is coming in. This is called a match action and it gives the illusion that all these sequences of movement are happening in real time. A POV shot from behind the door with another low angle shows her putting the box down in the dark closet and shutting the door behind it preventing any light from entering. We will skip forward to the next time she sees the box, which is not on her birthday, but the next time it rains a week after.

Later on, in the story she sees him playing in the rain thinking that watching as her once sunny day turns grey and dreadful. She wants to do something fun but has played with all her toys accept one. The box she left in her closet. She opens the box to find a red raincoat. So, for this scene I would have her sitting at her window in her room, watching as the raindrops hit the glass. I want to have a slow dolly focused shot from behind her that would cut to a nice 45mm closeup shot of her face in the right lower third of the frame and the window parallel to her showing her reflection. A rack focus shows Malakai splashing outside in the rain in his bright yellow raincoat.

I then want to get a shot of her toys from her birthday scattered across the floor to show that she has had her fill with them. She then moves from her position at the window moving from the left side of the frame to the right side. I then get a point of view shot from the floor showing her dragging her feet across the floor. Then a quick point to the closet that she notices the door was cracked open. A close up to establish what is called a reaction shot to show he intrigue. Once again, we have a static shot from behind the door of the closet and as the door opens light is reintroduced as she lifts the box from the place where she left it. A wide angle shot captures her walking to her bed and placing the box onto it. A POV shot from inside the box shows her face looking down inside. Then the POV switches to Jasmine’s eye level and reveals the bright red coat, hat, and boots combination. Let’s stop there.

Post-production: The good liar

Now that we have all our shots together it is time to continue to our last phase. The editing process is a very meticulous process. It is where you pay attention to detail. Every shot must match the last. All the colors must pop for the film to have tone. And of course, a musical score must be incorporated to keep it from being non interesting. Adding all these elements after the fact seems a little, dare I say, much. However, everything is represented visually and using sound. The reason I called this phase the good liar is because that is exactly what we are.

There is no philharmonic following little Andy on his bike as he rides down the block. That music is nonexistent in real space, but it is existent in the film. And that is what we want to convey. To make sure that our final product is prim and polished, free of any mistakes, jump cuts, off point color, or shots out of focus. This is my Judge phase, and the audience are my jurors who will give me the verdict of all my arduous work. I must make it count. But that is the beauty of it. They could never be as hard on me as I am on myself.

The world that I have built stands and that is all I care about. The story that I have put together from scratch feels like a meal that I finally get to eat. It is my creation, and I am happy that it just exists. For the sake of bringing it all to completion because then I feel complete myself.