Julia Walker

Julia Waker teaches Art History at Savannah College of Art and Design. She explained "Modern Architecture" is bad for the environment. She suggests we should build with materials that are environmentally conscious.

Shahzad Roy

Shahzad Roy attended MCA.

In Pakistan, it is not common for men in his culture to make art or have no beard or mustache.

42 lashes and five years in jail is the punishment for the possession and consumption of alcohol in Pakistan.

Shahzad plans to run for election in 2013.

People got on his case for projecting western values.

Filming and editing

Filming was long and tiresome, but successful with a few breaks. Didn't really have any problems with the shoot, which was good. It helped to refer to the rehearsal footage as a did the final shoot to help move things along. Personally, I think the film is quite humorous. The attack scene was the hardest to shoot, but it is my favorite part. Now I look on to my final edit and getting this thing wrapped up. I can't wait to be finished. It's been a lot of hard work.

Rehearsal Notes

Rehearsing went pretty smoothly. I felt very comfortable just working with my camera and getting ideas out my head for once with out worrying about equipment. Moving the pumpkin around without hands and fingers being seen wasn't too hard. I need to buy some of those long, yellow dish-washing gloves for the pumpkin to use as its own hands. At the end of the shoot, the hand-held camera approach worked out effectively b/c it need a lot of point of view shots towards the end. The slashing scene is pretty chaotic so it all worked out with hand held. My actor was in reality freaked out by a knife being jabbed towards her, so I think her fear will appear valid in the final piece. For that scene, I'm thinking about how I will do the sound. I will record sound as I film, yet I may have to record extra sound for when it comes time to edit screams and such. I need to find a way to make fake blood and create a fake cut on my actor's face. While filming the carving of the pumpkin scene, I noticed that pumpkin juice oozes from a cut to its flesh. I really want to get a neat shot of that in my film. After rehearsal, I already know where I want my lights to be. Even without the lighting and with a crappy camera, the footage looked really interesting the way it was lit. I will definitely be referring to this rehearsal footage as a storyboard and guide for my final shoot. I had a lot of fun rehearsing, and I'm looking forward to the final shoot.

Bill Plympton

"The Bill Plympton Show" was awesome. It was the most inspiring and interesting lecture I've ever been to.

I learned that cheap, short, and funny is good as it is good to "keep it simple."

Plympton grew up in Portland, Oregon.

He moved to New York City and became an illustrator.

He learned how to think up ideas fast and draw fast.

In 1985 he directed and drew his first animated film Boomtown, a blend of humor and draftsmanship.

His work was a big hit and he made big hits on MTV and all over the world.

He tried live action films but they flopped horribly.

I am interested in his style, the simplification, and the extreme angles he uses in his animation. As Plympton stated, I believe animation is the greatest art form there is because in animation you have total freedom and no limitations. "You gotta have the passion. You gotta have the love for it," says Plympton.

I know I do.

really rough story board part II

really rough storyboard

really rough story board is subject to change

read from bottom to top

Pre-production

1. Script -- girl draws jack-o-lantern designs in her room, she carves a pumpkin the takes a shower, pumpkin becomes possesed and attack girl in the shower, the girl fights back and tears the pumpkin to shreads. girl then goes to bed and pumpkin's glove-hands creep under the door with a knife.
a. Actor(s): One 19 yr old female, one pumpkin
b. Scenes: Opening bedroom scene, pumpkin carving scene, posessesed pumpkin scene,
shower/attack scene, final scene in bedroom
c. Location: Dormitory: bedroom, kitchen, hallway, shower
d. Stunts/special effects: fake blood and wound
e. Special Costumes and Makeup: fake blood, real pumpkin guts, yellow dish-washing gloves, casual wear outfit
f. Props: gloves, knives, pumpkin, spoon, towel, garbage bag

3. Location Scout: sound quality is good, power and light sources are good

4. Confirm Locations – same as last shooting

6.Days to shoot: 1-2 days (friday, saturday)

Presentation Visusal Development

Lighting (top)

Characters: Evil Pumpkin and Student (bottom)

Genre, Logline, and Synopsis

The genre of this film is Comical Horror because the situation the character faces is horrific, yet comical to the audience.

Logline: A possessed and revengeful jack-o-lantern avenges a student, preventing her to fulfill her simple intentions.

Synopsis: October 31, 2009, in a cold, dark, quiet dormitory, one college student is unaware of the resentment the most popular Halloween icon holds against her.
In the spirit of the holiday, as the artist she is, the student sketches out jack-o-lantern designs one after another in her bedroom, as the hatred of the carved pumpkin in the kitchen intensifies. Tired of sketching, the student leaves her cozy bedroom to satisfy her hunger in the kitchen, where the resentful jack-o-lantern prepares to take its revenge.
When the pumpkin catches the student off guard in the kitchen, it casts its magical wrath upon her, preventing her to fulfill her simple intention to eat. Driven by the fear of this revengeful pumpkin's powers, the victimized student flees for safety. During her attempt to escape, the student is wounded at the hand of her avenger.
Once she gets away from the jack-o-lantern's terror, the terrified student believes to have found safety in her warm, cozy bedroom even though she is unaware of the pumpkin's evil wrath that crawls beneath her bedroom door.

Dealer's Choice: Script Breakdown

A girl is shown drawing jack-o-lantern designs in her bedroom.
The girl then leaves her cozy bedroom for the dark hallways towards the kitchen to make a sandwich.
A carved pumpkin is shown on the kitchen counter with gloves and carving tools beside it.
While the girl's back is turned, the gloves begin to move and the pumpkin turns and faces her.
Before the girl turns around, the objects stop moving and the girl becomes puzzled, but doesn't seem to worry too much.
The girl then takes her sandwich the the living room and she sits on the sofa.
Before she grabs the remote, she gets up to get her self a drink in the kitchen.
When she returns to the living room, she sees that the remote has been moved to the other side of the sofa.
As she goes to grab the remote, the T.V. turns on itself without the girl even touching the remote or the television.
The girl tries to scan through the channels, but they are all fuzzy.
She then goes over to the T.V. to check the cable connection, which is loosened. As she fixes the connection to the cable, the carved pumpkin turns and stares at the girl without her noticing.
The girl sits down to eat and watch T.V.
As she is enjoying a meal and entertainment, she catches the pumpkin's movement out of the corner of her eye, turns and is started to see the pumpkin staring at her and crawling gloves.
The whole kitchen begins to break out into paranormal activity, with every appliance going crazy.
The girl throws her sandwich and dashes for her bedroom out of fear and closes and locks the her door behind her.
As she runs to her bedroom, the girl trips on the creeping gloves on the floor and cuts her faces with one of the carving tools randomly placed on the floor.
The girl now finds herself feeling safe in her bedroom, not knowing that the creepy gloves are crawling under her door.

Dealer's Choice Project: 3 Act Structure:

Act I (Setup)

Exposition- Main character is introduced as a female and artist, and is shown drawing jack-o-lantern designs in her sketchbook. She is alone in her bedroom of her dorm at night.

Main Character- Her objective is to simply make a sandwich and watch T.V.

Dramatic Premise- The story is about a girl who is frightened by unseen forces causing paranormal activity as she prepares her sandwich and attempts to watch T.V.

Dramatic Situation- As the main character goes on with her business, paranormal activity

begins to occur.

Inciting Incident- Paranormal activity commences when a jack-o-lantern begins to stare at the main character without her knowing.

Plot Point#1- The main character is first confronted with the paranormal activity when she finds her remote control mysteriously moved across the room. The T.V. flips through channels on its own and the remote functions without a person activating it.

Act II (Confrontation)

Obstacles- The T.V. and remote continue to act up, preventing the main character to eat or be entertained.

First Culmination- When she finally manages to have the T.V. set and remote in control, all of the kitchen utilities begin to function on their own as well as the strange activity begins to intensify as the T.V. and remote start acting up again.

Midpoint- Unable to watch T.V. or eat her sandwich, the main character get flustered and scared as she wonders why all the chaos is happening.

Act III (Resolution)

Climax- As the main character looks around the vast, dark room wondering what the hell is going in, for the first time she confronts the jack-o-lantern alive, staring right into her eyes and a pair of gloves beside it begin to crawl in her direction. The paranormal activity starts to increase. Overwhelmed by the paranormal activity, the main character throws her uneaten sandwich and makes a dash for her room.

Denouement- Finally the character finds herself safe in her bedroom, believing that she is she had escaped the terrible events even though she does not notice the creeping gloves crawling under her door.

Dealer's Choice: CHARACTER

This character thinks that she is pretty artistic and that the pumpkin she carved is pretty bad-ass. Even though she is drawing and getting into her sketches of jack-o-lanterns she wants to take a break to eat and chill.

This character wants to eat and watch T.V. She wants to do this because she is hungry and wants to be entertained while she eats. She thinks she wants to eat because she is hungry. She wants food because she is hungry and she wants to watch T.V. because she will be bored eating in the quiet, not watching T.V. She does not want to be harmed. This character wants to enjoy her sandwich and television safely and contently. She just wants to chill and take a break from drawing.

This character wants to know if something really is after her because she does not want to be harmed. She think she wants no harm because she wants to live.

This character wants to be safe.

This character believes that something unseen is after/watching her. She thinks that what she believes may just all be in her head. She believes that things such as ghosts and monsters could be real but she is unsure. In the dark, she believes anything can happen to her.

This character's truth is that she is scared to be alone in the dark. Her real truth is, she believes something is after her and she is scared to death.

This character needs food. She thinks she needs food because she is hungry.

The actions this character takes are going to the kitchen to make a sandwich and sit down and watch T.V.

Her hunger drives her to make a sandwich. Her boredom drives her to watch T.V. Her superstitions make her afraid. She runs to her room scared to death because she fears something is after her.

She is very afraid.

This character finds it urgent to seek safety. It is important for her to be safe because she does not want to be harmed.

This character does what she does because she is hungry, then bored, then afraid. She reacts to paranormal activity and suspicion with fear. She runs away from what she fears. She fears what is unseen and act cautiously upon that emotion.

This character is female. She has a larger build than the average woman but not ugly. She is artistic. She is cautious.

The character's flaw is her failure to confront her fears.

Story-Plot Dealer's Choice

The intentions of the main character, a young woman, are to just leave the comfort and safety of her bedroom to go out in to the dark and cold common area of her room to make a sandwich and watch some T.V. While drawing jack-o-lanterns in a sketchbook, the girl gets up and leaves her room heading for the kitchen. Already feeling uneasy and a bit spooked in her lonesomeness in a drafty, dark dorm, she makes her way to the fridge. Emphasis is put on the jack-o-lantern, tools, and gloves set on the counter. She has the feeling that something unseen is right behind her back as she makes a sandwich. At first without her knowing, strange activity begins to happen such as the carved pumpkin and inanimate objects moving on their own then stopping as she looks in their direction. This sense of weird activity happening behind her back makes the character more nervous. After her sandwich is made, character sits down and is about to turn on the television then she goes back to the fridge for a drink. When she sits back down in her previous seat and finds the remote to have moved across the room. Flustered and confused, she gets up to grab the remote. Before she even touches the device it turns on the T.V. itself to a fuzzy channel. The girl is spooked by this and sits back down to continue eating. As she eats, the channels keep turning themselves. Puzzled, she looks around a vast dark, room trying to figure out what is going on. Once again, paranormal activity occurs behinds her back, yet this time she catches it in action. Appliances in the kitchen start to go off by them selves and a jack-o-lantern on the counter stares off at her, while a pair of gloves near the pumpkin begin to crawl near her. Frightened to death, she throws are sandwich down, and makes a run for it while the paranormal activity intensifies and climaxes. She then makes it to her room, feeling that she is now safe, she decides to go to bed, not knowing that the gloves are creeping under her door. As she is sleeping, she suddenly feels something on her face and tries to flick it away a few times. Finally, she quickly turns to find the jack-o-lantern sitting on her pillow and crawling gloves upon her face and the scene ends.

Theme of Dealer's choice

The theme is FEAR.

The theme of this film is about a girl feeling all alone and scared in her own dorm. She has the feeling that something unseen is after her to do her harm, when all she wants to do is make a sandwich and watch some T.V. I want to portray the character's fear of not knowing what is after her and what is causing paranormal activity to happen in her everyday living space. Some humor may be derived from such paranormal events. Out of fear, the character tries to escape these events and seek safety.

Dealer's choice part 2

Like before, I will have the character fearfully roam around the dorm in the dark/at night. her intentions to leave her room would to be make a sandwich or something then sit done in front the T.V. I want weird and bizarre things to happen, paranormal thinks like the T.V. turning on by itself, and inanimate objects coming to life. I want her to be spooked out by these events yet they are humorous. I want these events to drive her back to the safety of her room but end the film abruptly before she gets there suggesting she didn't make it back to safety in time. Maybe i'll end it with a cut-off scream.

Dealer's Choice

For this next project I am planning to go back to the original theme from the very first project in the class. I'm going with the theme of fear, being alone with the feeling someone is there. I'm leaning on using the same actress and no dialog except for a cut-off scream at the end of the film perhaps and will probably set up at the dorm. The dorm already has a cold and creepy feeling to it. Even though fear is my theme, I want to add some humorous twist, maybe i'll do some stop-motion. I want to have a sense of an abundance of space and a slight creepy factor to the film as well as some humor mixed into it. I still have not decided to go b&w or color or something else yet. I can always experiment.

Project 2 Idea

Point A: Getting dressed

Point B: "Going out"

Conflict: Indecisive about outfit

Characters: Girl and her date/boyfriend

This project will be simply about a girl who is surprised by her boyfriend who wants to take her out to dinner and she can't decide on what to wear. She goes through so many combinations of clothes even though her boyfriend said what she had on was fine. She ends up wearing an outfit totally ridiculous and shouldn't have changed in the first place.

First Critique part 2

Well, I'm glad to know I literally didn't fail. I really don't want to continue working on this project because I really don't think it can be fixed and I really don't want to start a new one either. Since my project is not considered a failure, I don't mind going back to fixing it as much as before we finished showing. I know I can do a lot better. Yes, I believe some people in the class did better than others, but it is a learning experience. I hope I don't make something that doesn't make a lot of sense again. I don't want to add animation anymore either, because I know it will take too long to make something nice. I'm just hoping the rest of this assignment will all fall into place.

First Critique

Pretty much a failure though I knew it would be. I didn't realize it till right before I showed my film that it wasn't going to make any sense. It was pretty brutal. This whole freaking class is making me wonder if I'm any good enough for a profession in art or in animation. I feel like it is hopeless to try. I want to quit. It made me think of how I'm going to need to present an aim or like a goal in life before I graduate. I just feel like I'm not up to par with anyone else. I wish I was smarter and more talented. I wish I had started animating earlier or challenged myself earlier in life. I wish I could have taken more chances. Maybe it's because I'm lazy.... I don't know. I feel like if I fail here, I fail at life. I feel like everything is unraveling and falling apart. I just feel like I'm not good enough and that things just aren't going to work out the way I wish and plan. I can try, try again, but I don't think my best can ever be enough. So I don't know what the hell I'm going to do for my future. For now, I'm just planning to reshoot and redo the entire project with a whole different idea. This is just the way I feel this moment and just have to get it out whether it's appropriate or not to post such an entry on this blog. Your feedback is welcome.

First Time Digitizing and Editing on Final Cut

Well, it was a little bumpy in the beginning of it all but eventually it all went smoothly. The most trouble I had was copying the scratch folder onto the server and and my personal account. I didn't know if it was as weird bug or what, but I just started from scratch and made new scratch disk, and everything fell into place after that. Like Jill said, we have to stay organized with this stuff. Editing was pretty easy. I really like the software. It is a lot better than iMovie, lol, and my camera was perfect to use for the digitizing.

Check this out

http://vimeo.com/1084537

I thought it was neato mosquito.

Learning Final Cut

I had a great time learning final cut pro today. I'm glad I learned how to edit on iMovie in high school because it seems to be helping me out in the long run. I'm already ready to digitize since I have my own camera. So, I'm really excited to start editing this weekend.

Technical Issues & etc.

So, everything went pretty smoothly during the shoot, at least smoother than the first experiment. I had to change the battery twice during the shoot, but it wasn't too much of a problem. I figured out to put all the pieces and equipment together alright. Almost forgot how to rig up the headphones but I made a phone call and had that figured out fairly quickly. When I started filming, I had to make sure the roommate and her friend would keep quiet and I had my other roommate assist me with the project. The hardest thing to shoot was myself, since I couldn't zoom in at my own self obviously, so I had my assistant to that...and i think it worked out alright. I ran into some issues trying to get a soundtrack of a car driving and car doors opening and closing. I had to take that five times because of people making noise outside and such other disturbances. Cleaning up went smoothly and I hope the footage comes out nice. Dear God, I hope everything comes out alright.

fml

dear God, kill me. I think this is the worst thing I've ever made.

Memory Project: Storyboard

Here is the storyboard for the project.

The part on the bottom comes first.

Part A: Project One- Memory Essay UPDATE

Okay, since i can't just use animation by itself, I figure I can introduce the story with myself watching a Batman show on T.V. then thinking back to that dream, which will be animated. Then, I perhaps can have another live action scene after the animated dream to close. The animated portion of my project won't be very complex, since the dream itself wasn't very complex, yet I want to manage my time as well.

Part A: Project One- Memory Essay Final

One of my oldest memories is a dream I had when I was about 5 or 6 years old. It was a frightening dream for me since I felt isolated and defenseless. As many of my dreams, this one took place at my house. This time I was on the front porch near the side laundry room door. I suddenly heard the growl of engines and the squealing of brakes and tires invading my the driveway. I then saw a dark, black, long vehicle parked in front of me known as the "Bat-mobile." Scared to death, the heroic "Batman," now a villain, was coming after me along with his accomplices and other frightening "Batman" characters. I can hear car doors slamming and sets of footsteps heading in my direction. In terror, I scream for my mother as the intruding characters begin to close in and tower over me and I am backed up into a corner. That's when I woke up to find myself safe in my bed, having escaped the terrifying encounter.

I plan to animate this memory for the project with live action opening and closing scenes. I plan to narrate the piece with a script referring to the essay above as I the character have a flashback to the dream. I will show myself watching a Batman movie and then transition to the dream. The closing shot will be like the opening shot of myself, but at peace.

So. Jen, Leni and I are doing our first project based on fear....and I was looking at some pictures jen had took for possible locations and this is what I thought...

I really like the night time shot at Hardaways. I think the red/white diagonal stripes add a strong sense a uneasiness and a dramatic feel along with the lighting. I think the night time scene will suit our theme best, because we want to deliver a feeling of fear of what's lurking in the darkness. So, tomorrow we can just decide on a day we can shoot.