Final Film Opening: Steve

STEVE Film Opening

Final CCR

OVERVIEW OF CCR AND PRODUCTION

After completing my project, I learned a lot about the importance of incorporating each other’s strengths in a production. Knowing that Virginia was the editing master, Kai was most organized, and I was most detailed when it came to attention to costume design, we worked together to make that much more of a masterpiece with our final product. The problem-solving skills and overall barriers that my group had to overcome were unexpected and unavoidable, but still, we found ways to make it work. Never did I think I would be preparing to film one week, but actually end up in the hospital for an uncertain amount of time with an unknown amount of recovery time, putting myself in the position of being replaced. Throughout these ups and downs, I was able to understand the true importance of everything that goes into building a film and managing a production which I plan to incorporate into any future endeavor I have in this field.

Final CCR:STEVE Nicole CCR

CCR bullet point planning

CCR BULLET POINT PLANNING

• Explain how the representation is Dainty, a young girl who was abused and taken advantage of as a child

• Engaging and distorted shots to captivate audiences 

• Can be distributed through student film festivals (All American, Shortcuts TV, etc)

• Young adults, 25-30, primarily men

• Development on location

• Nicole's surgery interfering with the schedule

• Adjustments to script and character because of accident

• Used adobe premiere, adobe after effects, dafont.com

• The genre of psychological thriller is meant for more advanced individuals, which explains the target audience

• The psychological thriller makes the audience think

• Youtube

• Instagram 

• Color correction

• Fast editing

• Lolita glasses

• Open similarly as to how i did for the actual film by spelling my name

Final costumes

 FINAL COSTUMES

The total cost for each costume came up to be $0. We went diving through our closets for the proper attire and all three of us were successful. 

Steve

Kai, who plays Steve, is an advent member of the debate club, making a suit easily accessible to him. He was able to find an old one that he didn’t mind laying in the grass and dirt with. This suit was a black blazer, black formal pants, a white button-up, and some formal black shoes. For his tie, we decided he would keep it on, but have it loose. His hair was messed up to keep the look of just waking up or a drunken man. His hair is long already, so we didn’t need to purchase him a longer wig or some sort of extension.

Dainty

Dainty’s costume had the most complexity and detail since her character’s backstory is the most important. She is wearing yellow crocs with child-like jibitz all across them paired with pint-high-length cat socks. Her shorts and small, tight, white sunflower jean shorts with a tight pink shirt with a character design on it. On her right wrist, she is wearing a cast to represent the abuse that she had gone through, which was written into the script since I am actually required to wear a cast due to my surgery. She has bright red lipstick, two braids, and red heart sunglasses. This combination for her face was made to allude to Lolita, which is a character from another movie who was a child with bright red lipstick and red heart sunglasses that was abused as a child. The entirety of her costume goes to represent the child in Dainty, even when she doesn’t want to come to terms with her age now.

Maria

Maria’s costume came down very simple as just a looser blouse and jeans. She tied her hair up in a claw clip to make strands stand out more and messed up her makeup. The makeup isn’t extremely crazy, but more under-eye marks of mascara to emphasize her exhaustion. Her shoes and bottoms really do not matter as much, considering the fact they are never seen on camera.

Production shots/Post-production editing

 PRODUCTION SHOTS / POST-PRODUCTION EDITING

Coloring

As Steve awakens, the shot seems hazy and slightly distorted. In addition to this, Steve is overexposed and appears a lot paler than he actually is. This was done to open up the film and create confusion in our audience as to who this person may be and why he is waking up in such a daze. This daze is reflected throughout his beginning stumbles and the odd combination of overexposed colors and bright green grass and trees. As he runs into Dainty and begins to converse with her, this coloring stays and continues as we get closer to Dainty. These harsh colors go away the moment Maria comes into the story because it is no longer this one-on-one intimate conversation between Dainty and Steve. All of this was created using Adobe Premier.

Editing

The cuts between credits and shots are quick-paced in the beginning to symbolize the distress that Steve is going through once he first wakes up. The opacity gets changed when he starts walking around to illustrate his dizziness and nausea. As he meets Dainty, the cutting between their speaking doesn’t sync up entirely to what is shown on the screen, showing a more flowing conversation between the two. Once Maria came into the scene, the shots were not as quick as before and began to focus more only on Maria and Steve’s argument. All of this was edited using Adobe Premier and graphics through Adobe After Effects.

Shots

The shots for this were done in a POV perspective instead of over the shoulder to make the watcher feel uneasy and almost uncomfortable with the direct eye contact. Dainty’s show is also closer than Steve’s to accentuate her features and highlight how young she’s supposed to look. This shot was also done at a higher angle. Even though Steve and Dainty do have a significant height difference in real life, we wanted to emphasize how much smaller Dainty was, causing her to have to look up at him. The same was done vice versa for Steve, having the camera at a lower angle, forcing him to look farther down than Dainty really was. His shot was not shot as close because we wanted him to appear much larger and dominant over her. Once Maria is entered into the conversation, the shots change to side angles of the characters, no longer the POV shots. The interaction is no longer intimate and is now beginning to get loud, so the wider shots help create this environment.

Final location and setting decisions

 FINAL LOCATION AND SETTING DECISIONS

Even though our past conflicts, we kept going back and forth with the idea of going forward with the white room in the end. We asked a friend if we could borrow their living room since it is fully white, but in the end, it didn’t fit our vision. Next, we asked another friend if her living room would be available to us, but she was already using it to film her project. Finally, we came to the resolution of using the woods, but a different section of it. 

In a previous film of ours, we used this patch of woods near our city that had a long field of grass in front. Before, we had used the backside of these trees that were farther away from the park itself, but on the other side was also the highway. This would have ruined our audio and given away the “isolation” aspect we were striving for, it would be completely ruined by the obvious presence of other life forms. For this reason, we filmed in front of the trees, instead of behind. The field seemed way more open this way, creating our pod of isolation for our main character. Not only were the grass fields neverending, but the trees were incredibly tall, giving us the advantage of getting far enough shots, without losing the illusion of him being in an inescapable location. 

The trees behind us did not appear to be the average oak tree most people see in their neighborhoods. The branches and leaves they had hanging over them seemed very out of place with the rest of the surrounding trees. Because of this, we chose a secluded section of trees to film in front of to make it seem like there was a long line of these trees than there actually was. We angled our shots in a way that expanded this horizon.

Equipment Update

 EQUIPMENT UPDATE

Our group has easy access to a free equipment rental service called ShortCuts TV that lends equipment to student filmmakers. Our team didn’t think that lots of students were aware of this company, so we didn’t believe that there would be any line when it came to getting the equipment we wanted. However, to our disbelief, there ended up being a shortage over spring break, since everyone had the same mindset as we did. We have come to the conclusion that we will probably end up using the cameras, light kits, tripods, etc. that our school provides since we know it is not currently out of stock. We have the right types of cameras and products to make our film. On top of that, we will be filming outdoors during sunlight, so we don't need any type of fancy lighting. 

Now that spring break is over, we are hoping that there is still a chance to get equipment from ShortCuts. There are a ton of students now returning everything they used, leaving more for us. Even if this is not a possibility, we still have our other backup plan.