Treatment

Longline:
A married couple who has four children decide to go on a date. They get a babysitter last minute so that they are able to go out on a peaceful evening alone, but like any parent they worry about their children.

The children are ten, eight, five and two. They are crazy, loud, and energetic kids who love to torment their babysitters. The parents are too afraid to leave them alone with a babysitter because the last few times didn't work out for them. The babysitter arrives and the parents are about to leave for their date but suddenly the youngest child begins to cry and this starts a riot among the kids. The babysitter says it is fine and tells the parents to leave.

The parents leave and are sitting at a restaurant ready to order their food when the wife says
"We should call them, what if something is wrong?" and the husband replies with "Honey, I'm sure they're fine, let's just have a nice quiet evening. Okay?" They finish the dinner.

They both try to enjoy their evening, they finish their dinner and are on their way to the movies when the wife starts to in-vision crazy scenarios like her kids kicking the babysitter, tying their babysitter up, and running around the house recklessly. She starts to worry even more and tells her they should go home but once again he says "They're fine" They continue to watch the movie. They finally go home and as the mom walks up to the door she expects the house to be a mess, the babysitter to be crying and the kids all fighting. But to her surprise the babysitter, is sitting on the couch reading a book and all kids are fast asleep in their beds. The babysitter says "They did great! I had fun with them"

Rodrigo Blaas for Alma's Film

The short film I picked was Alma's film which was about a young girl who was walking down the street on a snowy afternoon and she stopped in front of a store that had a doll in the window. The doll was identical to her. She had blonde hair, green eyes, a blue hat, tan gloves and a pink jacket. She was shocked to see the doll staring back at her with the same green eyes as herself. She looked away for a slight second and when she was looking back she realized the doll had disapeared and the girl was very confused. She looked through the window and saw the girl looking back at her from a table in the store she tried to go in but couldn't because it was locked but then when she walked away it opened. She went in and her life had changed completely.

The shots were clean nice and simple. I thought the movie overall was a simple movie that had a lot of extra features that slightly added to the film. The filters were nice and kind of glossy to add to the snowy feel of the movie. It gave me a cold feel and really blended well with the movie. I think the director intended it to be this way so that not only the setting and mood would be set but so that the gloominess would help the story move forward as a whole.

She was walking through the street and the shots changed quite a lot. It changed from wide angle to a tight angle and that really added to the intensity of the film. I personally felt it was helpful because within any movie when there is an intense moment coming up a person usually has a tight shot to show her/his expression so that the audience can see their pain, sadness, happiness, etc.

This film had no talking and barely any sound which i thought helped the movie a lot because it made me pay attention the the character as well as what was around her. When the girl saw her own reflection and then realized that there was a doll that looked just like her behind her it was intense because it was a close tight shot that showed her surprised and confused expression that really added to the film.

Overall I thought this movie was good and interesting. It caught my attention throughout. I was very pleased with it though it left me with questions: Who was the master mind behind this idea? Who was creating and watching after these dolls?

Im not sure how this would help the movie but i guess the director wanted the movie to be mysterious because throughout the film that is what i kept referring too. The mystery of the film.

The movie was great and the ending was even better. The girl is now trapped within her own doll and when the movie ends a new doll, a redhead, is set in the front window indicating that a new girl is going to come by, see the doll and be trapped like the hundreds of others.

Broadcast Assignment

For the broadcast assignment myself and my partner Plenny were not sure what to do with our broadcast so we decided to stay simple and do a football segment. I felt our questions could have been stronger though it was good because the interviewees did a good job at answering them.  I didn't envision anything special though i thought the b-roll would have been better even though it was difficult because there was no other game shots. 

The background was simple for most of the interviews; we just got a shot of the football field to add to the theme of football. For Xeyrus' interview plenny got a nice shot of him in front of the mustang and the flag and it added to the interview. I felt our shots were simple and easy to shoot so that our broadcast was simple. Though they were simple they were nice and easy to see everyone within the shot. Most of the camera work was smooth even though Plenny did hand on camera work. Most of the audio was good and easy to hear but sometimes i felt it could have been better because the wind contrasted with the voices. 

I think we did a good job with the voice-overs because they, like the rest of the segment, were simple but caught peoples attention. 

We tried to incorporate the interview's with the b-roll though that was difficult because there is no game footage because they were not in season yet. I want people to have a cheerful attitude towards our broadcast because we want people to come out and support the football teams. 

Our editing was not easy because we had to chop the footage a lot because of the interviewees didn't do so well in answering the questions. They, mostly, messed around and it was hard to mixed together. The glitches were fixed and it was overall a good but short segment. I thought it was something that could be improved but with the time we had it was a good segment. 

Character in Time

 

A 17 year old girl goes through her daily routine of dance and school. She eats sleeps and breathes ballet. Her parents pressure her to be the "perfect" child as she dances till she can't possibly feel her feet anymore. Little do her parents know that she hates the pressure and more than anything she just wants their approval and love. She feels she will be looked down on if she doesn't dance. She has to starve herself to have the perfect little body like her parents want. Her life is nothing close to what she wants, she wants a normal and happy life. She wants to be a college student and travel the world. She aspires to be a mom and a good one. She wants to love her child and give her everything her parents never have. She reaches out to someone, anyone, hoping that one day someone will be able to understand her and be willing to love her like her parents never did.

"Exit Wounds" - Production Portfolio

A. Rationale: ( A: 100 Word rational of the project) 

What film did you make and what was your working plan? Why did you want to do it? What style did you want to experiment with? What audience were you making the film for? Why did you think it was a good idea? Any other relevant material.

Jennifer, Plenny, Maria and I wanted to create a film about a man is struggling with money to support himself, as well as his 6 year old brother. He is already so worried about how he is going to survive on the little income that he receives and when he gets fired this causes him to be angry and steal from his work. This shows how many people struggle in life and even good people make wrong choices. Liam knew it was wrong but at the time he was thinking of his younger brother and how he wants to give him the best.

Word Count: 102

B: Commentary: (1200SL-1750HL) word portfolio derived from your working notes and journals and highlighting your individual contribution to the project)

In the most relevant order detail:

1. Your areas of responsibility on the film. (Writer, Director, Director of Photography, Editor, one or more)
2. Problems and Challenges that arose in your area of responsibility.
3. How you solved problems that arose in your area of responsibility. (Remember that by fully explaining the above, and by giving specific details about what you did, you are actually giving evidence that you actually worked on the project.
4. Problems that arose on the film as a whole (not limited to your specific area of contribution.)
5. How the group solved problems that arose on the film as a whole. (You may, if you wish, detail problems in this section that arose because someone on the shoot had problems, was undependable, and did no work However, the first question I will be asking you is, “Why didn’t you go to that person and tell them that they were not contributing enough, or help them work on skills that they found difficult.”)
6. YOUR CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE FINISHED PROJECT
   Note: This is a critical evaluation of the finished Product and not a second chance to complain about someone’s lack of work. Comments here should be insightful and detailed commentary about the project itself, what was successful and what could use improvement plus commentary on what you would do to avoid such problems in the future. (So, I would expect to see comments like “There are too many shots that are too long and linger for a beat after the take is completed” but not comments like “Fred screwed up the editing.”)

My main role during the production of this film was sound designer. I found the main track and also made some music that could be dramatic for the scene when Liam steals the money from his work. I also did some cinematography and directing for one of our days of filming because our cinematographer, Plenny, was absent.
Challenges as the sound ddesigner weren't very big considering i got lucky and found tracks and made tracks at a fast pace that fit our film pretty well. I did take a long time looking through the folders trying to find music that wasn't used or that fit our movie and i seemed to do that okay. I was nervous at first because i didn't feel the sound track i made would fit well enough but Jen, the editor, said it was perfect as well as the last sound track for the ending scene. 

The problems i faced for filming were huge i was worried most of the shots werent going to come out looking as good as the previous shots because it was a different person filming. Plenny is a great cinematographer and for all of our films that has been her main job and her not being there was unusual considering she is always there while production. It was difficult trying to think of the shots plenny did and get them right but overall it came out decent, expecially with Jens help, cause she is also pretty good with cinematography as well. 
I addressed the problems by just trying to focus on the footage we needed. I tried to think of shots Plenny did so i could reenact them. 



The challenges that we faced with our actors were that the little boy playing the little brother, my brother AJ, wasn't listening very well. The first few days of filming he did a good job of trying to stay focused and get the filming over with, but on our last day of filming, our re-shoot day, he was not corr-operating well at all! It was very frustrating for me because i was already lost trying to film and his lack of focus and fooling around was just not how i pictured out last day of filming. I think the reason he wasn't focusing was cause Plenny wasn't there and she was the one who helped him and talked to him.
Our biggest and most frustrating challenge was the footage. Our footage wouldn't upload correctly and we had to re-shoot certain scenes. The worst part about having to re-shoot was since the light wasn't the same as the day we originally shot, we had to re-shoot the whole scenes correlating to that certain part of the film.
The ways we fixed it were, to just try and bare with AJ. We tried to get him to do the shot correctly so we had to shoot it like 20 times until it was decent enough to use. We struggled and were all very fed up with the filming and couldn't wait to be done but we stuck with it and finished and the scenes we needed complete.  
We all participated pretty well to our film, sometimes each of us got off task and that slowed down production but that is to be expected while filming. 




First off I feel our film wasn't very strong to begin with. It was good but i feel more details and more thought could have put into the film. Plenny and I were working alone and had a horror movie in mind but it wasn't done being edited. We joined Jennifer and Maria to make a bigger production crew because both groups felt two wasn't good enough. We decided to go with Maria and Jen's treatment but made some changes when it came to our pitch. Our organization wasn't very good cause we got our actors a couple days before out first filming day and we just kinda threw things together when we were filming, but it seemed to work to our advantage until we had problems with the footage and had to re-shoot. Our main idea for the film overall i thought was "sometime bad things happen to good people." Liam is a nice, caring and loving brother towards Christopher and he wants to just give him the best he possibly can. That is difficult for Liam though because he doesn't have a lot of money and later on ends up losing his job. After losing their parents Liam doesn't realize how much he has to put in for Christopher and his own survival. He doesn't want Christopher finding out so he goes to steal from his job to help pay for their life. The shots we did for these scenes were well lit with the lighting kit and made the scene flow nicely especially with the intense background music. A scene i really liked was when Liam came home mad and yelled at Christopher to stay home, it was the scene before he was going to steal the money from his work. I liked this scene because the lighting was good and Jen did a great job of working around the small room and getting different angles for shots. During this time AJ kept laughing at Nick for his acting so Nick tried made it work though by yelling at him to not laugh and say "it isn't funny Christopher."  
I felt the most successful days were when we were all there and focused, not only Plenny, Jen, Maria and myself but our actors as well, because when AJ wasn't focused it threw everyone off and it was hard to focus. I tried to remind myself that my brother is only 5 and isn't an actor but it was hard cause i really wanted to just get the filming done with because it took hours to get just one scene done. Things that didn't work were when we were all just off task and weren't communicating with one another, one days of filming, which was our first day of re-shooting, i forgot some of our props and Plenny wasn't there and Nick had to leave early and none of our organization was there. Overall this movie came out decent, i would fix a few things here and there but i liked that our film was good with a short and very hectic schedule. The sound in the scenes weren't always so complex but they did help to give the movie more feeling.

Sound Treatment Peer Review

Peer Review on Sound Treatment

Jenna Fontaine’s Treatment:
The intent is that their actor can not be safe within her own mind.

The plot points are when the mother leaves and the voices start to take over the girls mind and the man is killed then the doppelganger is in the next scene.

The climax is when the noises stop and the girl doesn't hear them anymore, then the pizza man is killed.

The point isn't resolved and the climax is where it ends because the evil twin takes over.

The dialogue is very important to the movie because it shows the importance of the
characterization of the girl and her reactions to the voices.

The voices are what helps the story move forward because it causes her to kill the pizza man.
Suggestions are to help the scenes flow smoother.

My Treatment:

My intent of the scene is to show the evil side of people and how people should be aware of their surroundings because some people can be clueless.

Some important plot points are when the first girl is killed, she is killed within the bathroom and her friends don't realize that because she “left” to go home. People need to be aware that not everyone in the world in kind and some people are crazy so walking around at night by yourself isn't a good idea.

The climax is when all the friends are dead and the girl is left alone and she doesn't know what to do she is struggling for her keys from the car but can not find them, she hears a lot of noises around her and she is afraid of what is coming.

The resolution is when she is awaken by a jump into the pool and she realizes it’s a day dream.

The conclusion is when she realizes the day dream is now becoming her reality and she sees the women dead on a lost fly-er.

The important dialogue parts is when her friends repeat the same things they did when she first had the day dream which shows that her dream is now becoming her reality and she is afraid the same things will happen again.

The character that controls the scene is the main girl who is in the middle of all this drama and she sees the different killings and needs to warn people that this might actually happen.

My suggestions are to make sure the film isn't confusing because it might be confusing to people when she realizes its all a day dream and her reality is becoming her dream.

Part 3 Narrative

 

How is this film constructed according to narrative/story being told?

The film is constructed such that we have story of a man who has a family and has to go off to war in Afghanistan. We see as the movie goes on that he has a lot to deal with as far as war goes, then later on once he gets home he realizes that his family has a huge effect on the way he is acting. While hes at war he is held hostage and he  has to kill a man and when he goes back home that causes him to have post traumatic stress and that effects his relationship with his family. He thinks his brother and his wife had sex and he starts to go crazy because he is still traumatized from his time in Afghanistan. He ends up trying to get over the things that happened and move on but its hard and his family is some what damaged by his actions.

Is the narrative organized by plot or time sequence, or some other way?
The narrative throughout the movie is organized by plot.

Does the film use other principles than narrative sequence as a structure (for instance, an argument?
A huge argument that occurs, which is also what i chose for my five minute extract, is the scene when Sam has an outburst and destroys the kitchen his brother built while he was gone. He fights with his wife and he threatens to kill himself. He is officially crazy due to war because he cant handle the stuff of what he went through. This is important to the movie because it shows how war changes the man within, and it also changes the family. His family thought he was dead so they finally started to get over the fact that he was gone but them he comes back and that causes them more hurt.

What is the nature of our engagement with the story or characters?The nature of the engagement with the characters change throughout the movie. In the beginning Grace, which is the wife, had a wonderful and loving relationship with her husband but as the movie went on she lost that connection because of the changes he was making, which she say as negative. In the beginning she didn't like Tommy because she thought he only cared about himself and didnt care what other people thought but as the movie went on she realized that he is caring and loving person and she accepts him as her brother-in-law. The children also seem to have a mood change due to their father leaving, they seem to get closer with their uncle and see him as a father figure rather then their own father. That also has to do with Sam going crazy because he is jealous of what his brother took from him.

How are characters and issues represented?

The characters are represented as an average American family. This can be represented in the life they have, they mom stays home and helps with the kids and house and the father goes off to war to fight for his country.

What is the style and effect of acting and performance?

The style is realistic because a lot of families have been through what this family in the movie has gone through. The man of the house leaving off to war and that damages the life at home. The characters said in a interview that they actually spoke with families that deal with family members going off to war and that gave them a better idea of how to act.

How is meaning created by camera angles, shots, and camera movement?

The meaning is created because some shots give the film a caring attitude. There is a scene when Sam is asking Tommy and when he was gone and

Does the film make use of symbols, metaphors, or allegories? What are they and how do they work within the context of the film?

I feel the extract i chose was a symbol to show that while he is destroying his kitchen he is also destroying his family and his life. Sam gets so angry that he just starts to go crazy but not realizing but him doing that is also pushing him away from them more.