Brain Fog Central

Image of the Day Group Critiques My favorite part of sharing any idea I have is that I both really want to share it and am too nervous to actually share it. But I do  like helping other people flesh out their ideas. For our first round of group critiques, Julia talked about her idea first. I thought it was a solid concept, it's just that her pacing was a bit rushed. A lot of the things I've noticed in the past years' film openings that I've watched is that people generally give you the full plot, when really we should only be giving hints and leaving room to expand sub-plots or add new facets to the main storyline. At least that's my take on it. Julia's idea had reminded me of that; I felt as though having her main character experience a vision in the first minute of the opening was more on-track for the pacing of like an 8-minute short film, whereas we are presumably making a feature-length film's opening. That's not to say that you can't have a ser...

 I LOVE YOU WADE I would like to give a MASSIVE thank you to this beautiful man right here. Wademan you are my HERO!!!!! So as my post from a few hours ago said, I was completely going through it. No plot, no inspiration, just self-loathing. So I sought out on a treacherous quest to find my spark. It was a perilous journey, filled with nook after cranny after rock after hard place. It was actually just scrolling through a bunch of media blogs from the past couple of years. I started out going one by one, but a lot of them weren't really inspiring; if anything, they convinced me to just cope and half-ass it. So after a bit I just started clicking on the blogs of people I knew; mainly kids who were also in the TV program. The only one I really knew of from the past couple years was Sam Perez and Tai Cummings' Replica . The sound design, the cinematography, the production design, everything is just so beautifully done. But tonight I found so many more amazing ones; most notably Re...

 AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH Actually losing my [ F-WORD ]ing mind right now. It feels like I keep taking one step forward and two steps back every time I work on this project. To give a brief update on my last post, I will likely be able to borrow lighting equipment and a camera from a local TV station if I film during spring break, so that's good. This is the updated timeline. You could argue that this is the most barebones shit I could've possibly whipped up. You'd win that argument. I don't want to stress myself out trying to rush through Pre-Production. It's the most important part of filmmaking to me. Production, on the other hand, will likely only be one day, and I've tried to keep the crew as minimal as possible.  I've also got a fair amount of experience when it comes to speeding through production/post-production; I've spent tons of Saturdays these past few months making short films within the span of 8 hours. I'm only acting and doing graphics ...

I will have to rethink the schedule I posted on Wednesday. Honestly, it's just too impractical. The people I would ask to help me to film will either be A) filming their own film openings or B) competing with me at STN in a couple of weeks. Competition season is really irritating. I'm gone from the 12th-18th, and right after that is Spring Break (most of which I will be spending in another state). I might have to film during the break, as I'll have a few days where I'll be in Florida. If I go this route, though, I might not be able to secure equipment for filming. This isn't the biggest  issue; I think the main thing I would want to take from either the school's TV checkout or BECON is lighting equipment. I've texted BECON to ask if we can check equipment out during the break, which I highly doubt is allowed, so I'm gonna try and figure out some way to get a cheap lighting setup for shooting outdoors. I have about $190 left over from my final paycheck, a...

Dear Diary, I'm exhausted. What are we doing tonight Brain? Truth be told, I've been backlogged with schoolwork lately, especially club stuff. Honestly can't wait until I'm replaced by next year's President. Sometimes I get a little free time that I can put towards developing this project, but mostly I'm just trying to keep my head above water. Because of that, I think there's only one way I can get this project done well . The power of love. After two-and-a-half years of the tight schedules and deadlines and nuisances of the TV program, I have feel nothing but contempt whenever I even think about being behind a camera. I don't feel joy, I don't feel interest, I only feel stressed. Now, I can find someone else to be my cinematographer, but at the end of the day I have the final say over everything; the quality of its execution is wholly dependent on my patience and performance. And it's because of this that I feel I need to find some kind of spar...

Updates in Story (and life) A lot has happened over the course of this trip. It’s been very emotional at times and I’ve had to think a lot about my family and my future. Because the source material of this project is literally my life, a lot of where I wanted to go with this story has changed. Before, the main focus of this story was going to be queerness. However, that feels a bit disingenuous; figuring out my identity was a struggle and affected me and my home life a lot, but it was never the biggest thing on my mind. I think I want it to be a lesser focus, and instead have the family’s relationship with each other take the spotlight. If this were a feature-length film, I’d dedicate more screentime to the other family members, and likely change the structure, but for the sake of this opening there’s really only a few changes.  Instead of a love interest going with Opal to see their family, it’s their older sibling picking them up from the train station (to go see their family). A...