Final Project

Well, I spent the whole day finishing up. Here's the final project!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Voky3xxJhbucQQZXpRLq0qeGF8lUCmBy/view

Aaand I totally forgot the CCR... whoops.

Music Cover

I wound up covering the Flinstones theme instead. All credit goes to original composers Joseph Barbara, William Hanna, and Hoyl Curtin. Here's the video, check it out!

Schedule

So I had a surprise visit form my grandma we spent the day together, and now it’s too late for me to shoot. Now I suppose I might as well set myself a schedule for this week that I’ll hopefully stick to.

Monday- Edit in class and shoot as much as possible at home

Tuesday- Go to dog park for the outside shots, get the music

Wednesday- Finish shooting / get editing

Thursday- Edit in class, finish at home

Friday- Reflect

Weekend- Edit and post critical reflection, post link to project

Is three days not enough to shoot everything else I need? It’s possible, but I have to try, I guess. I’ve been efficient with editing in the past so hopefully I can grt through that quick as well. Oh, and the music but that shouldn’t be too time consuming. Now that I think about it, I recall having to record and post how I do it if it’s a cover of someone else’s music or something. Guess I’ll be able to show off my chops in that area here.

Did I procrastinate too much? Absolutely. Will it happen again this week? I sure hope not. I’ll try my best to stay on the ball but old habits die hard. I’ll just have to keep reminding myself that this is the big final project and I need to keep myself motivated. What a fun way to start the quarter. We teenagers really like making it hard on ourselves, huh?

Filming finally

Right then... I procrastinated a little morethan I should've and now the break's almost over. Whoops. But some filming is better than none, right?

This is my favorite shot so far. It feels like a great transition-y shot and it looks super professional. Well, at least the action does. The quality itself is surprisingly poor for my iPhone 6. Maybe I'll reshoot later with more focus or something but if not, I like this one, despite its potato cam quality.

Here's a runner up for best shot [in my humble opinion]. I could probably edit it to speed up a little later on. I like how well the tilt up matches with her looking up and it really helps show something above has gotten her attention.

And finally, this one. Sne's all chilling out here. Really relaxed and stuff. I like how she kinda just smacks her lips there, or whatever dogs do, it shows how she's just chilling. I probably could've held this shot a little steadier, huh?

Anyway those were today's highlights. I'm definitely filming some more tomorrow so stay tuned.

Filming, almost

It’s spring break and I might as well start trying to get some shots of my dogs. One positive is that they’re good to go, for the medical issue has come and gone. However, now I’m uncertain as to whether or not I should give them a bath. It could be too obvious if I cut between shots of them being fresh and less fresh, perhaps. But wouldn’t being snow-white contribute to the overall cuteness appeal?

I can’t decide but I’m not going to go and do a whole other pros and cons list. It is just about time for them to get a washing right about now anyway. If it’s too noticable then I’ll reshoot afterwards with the less clean dogs or just try and cover up the discrepancies with editing. Either way, they’re bound to end up looking the same as they are now. Excellent!

Anyway, it’s getting pretty late actually so I’ll get to work tomorrow. Oh, and I spoke with my mom and she’s fine with letting the dogs roam freely for the project, she’ll take care of the baby. Although, it’s up to me to clean up all the toys and everythinng said baby has left strewn around, but I can just get around to that tomorrow as well... I wonder if the URL I chose for this blog is influencing me or if I just know myself that well.

Oh, and apparently it’s national puppy day or something. Celebratory puppies inbound

Film Title

Why the heck haven't I thought of a title yet? After all, it's like the first thing everyone sees/hears about a movie so it's pretty important, and people often really like to judge a book by its cover, unfortunately.

Titles of dog movies are usually something like the names of the dogs (Old Yeller, Mamaduke, Hachi, etc), something describing the dogs (Air Buddies, 101 Dalmatians, Show Dogs, etc), or something descrbing what the dogs do (All Dogs Go to Heaven, A Dog's Way Home, A Dog's Journey, etc). For mine I'm leaning towards the latter two since just having the protagonists' names feels rather bland.

Now, if I do one describing the dogs, how could I describe them?  Looking at them the first adjectives that come to mine are cute, and furry, and white, but none of those feel like good movie titles. I guess I'd end up calling it "Lost Dogs" or "Spirited" or "Puppers" or something. That last one is modern slang so yay for appealing to the young hip crowd, I guess.

On the other hand, for a title describing the dogs' actions, I could be a little more vague. A semi-cryptic title would probably incite curiosity in a potential viewer, right? For that, I could go with "Running Free" or "Life Unchained" or "Pursuit". Going with a more light-hearted theme, I would think that last one might fit better. After the whole setup of the intro it could fit in well, popping up as the humans chase the dogs, too. Now that I think about it, since I already determined the title would come up there in the kinda-storyboard I did, that last one would probably be the best choice of the bunch.

In the end I believe "Pursuit" would be the best title. I briefly considered throwing "fur" in there for a pun, but "Fur-suit" brings with it some... undesirable connotations, especially in today's society. Anyway, I could probably design it as a colorful little pop-up to appear in the opening once I'm editing the final product. I think I'll have some little muddy dog prints on it for extra light-heartedness. That's all for now.

Complications

Well, I was hoping to start filming around now, but it looks like I'll have to put it off for a little. For one, my little dog's got to wear something for medical reasons and I was hoping it would be off by now but apparently it'll take a bit longer. Such is life, I suppose. Perhaps I'll be able to get some footage of my other dog in the meantime...

Anyway, another issue is that tmy carpeting just got removed, and now I got a hard floor like everyone else. My dogs used to love running around, chasing each other left and right on the carpet. This is something I really wanted to capture to emphasize how the characters just like having fun and all, but I presume ithat now they'll slide everywhere and run into things with that momentum and no rug to slow down on. Or maybe they'll get used to it quickly, time will tell.

One other problem I have now is my sister started walking and my overprotective mother insists on keeping the dogs restrained for the baby's safety because she's afraid they'll play rough and she'll get involved. Mothers, am I right? I hope she'll loosen up if I tell her I need to let the dogs be themselves for this project when it's time to film, but knowing her, it's a bit of a risk.

In case things come to the worst case scenario and all these issues persist, I suppose I can bring over my older dog to a friend's house where she can play with his dog and I could just film that instead. The only issue there is that if I need tons of footage I'd have to be over there a LOT, but desparate times call for desparate measures, right?

Pros and Cons: Dialogue

Now, for actual dialogue between my characters, I could bring in some friends to do the voice acting, or it could just be me, but since my dogs are both girls in real life I guess it would be kind of weird for me to do it, so I'd rather stick with bringing in outside help if I end up going this route.

Pros:

• Better characterization
• Helps tell the similar dogs apart
• Could be used for some humor
• Helps viewer connect with characters more
• Follows the example set by Snow Buddies

Cons:

• I'd have to go out and bring people in, depend on their availability
• Requires better writing than just narrating
• No matching mouth movement like in the Buddies flicks
• Probably not as quick and easy as doing it myself
• Have to come up with some way to exposition through dialogue and not make it cheesy
• Have to script dogs playing and talking and it'll proably be cheesy
  

Well, with less pros and more cons thsn the first option, it looks like I'm gonna go ahead and have a narration accompany my film opening.

Pros and Cons: Narration

So after some more discussion in class I've come to the conclusion that I need to do some narration or some sort of voiceover with the dogs dialogue. I gotta start filming soon so to help narrow it down, as Jim Halpert would say, it's time for a list of pros and cons

Pros:

• Faceless, anonymous speaker, needs no introduction
• Aids the telling of the narrative
• Quick recording process in post production
• I can do it myself
• Just need microphone and quiet
• No need to write dialogue, just spout exposition
• Follows the example set by Air Buddies

Cons:

• I don't sound like Morgan Freeman
• I won't be structuring the filming around the narration
• I'll be biased towards the quality of the audio because it's me
• Kind of a cheap story telling element

That's what I've thought of so far... Now for the other option.

Storyboard, kinda (Part 2)

For the second half of the opening, the plot picks up. 

The music comes to a stop and both of them suddenly look away as the jangling of leashes is heard. They already recognize the sound and react like that when they hear it so getting this shot shouldn't be too difficult. From a low angle this shot emphasizes that they are called by something above them.

Outside for the first time, they walk out and the tracking shot pans to the side with them. I don't think it would be too hard if it's a wide shot and I can sort of squart down and follow along at a distance, I think. Anyway, this is followed up by another little montage-like sequence following them along as they walk, with the production credits flashing around them. After pulling on their leashes a few times thanks to seeing other dogs or people or vehicles, they'll be snapping free and running off, which I'm not entirely sure in what manner to film but I know I can film it at a dog park and with their collars slightly loosened. 
Running off after the collars snap, the title pops up after they pass and covers up the humans running after them, keeping with the whole faceless humans theme. That's where it ends! I could probably come up with some more music on my own or just find some royalty free form killertrax, but that part comes later. The title too.

Storyboard, kinda (Part 1)

So I'd like to start off with a closeup of my younger dog (Zora) on the ground and wagging her tail, looking ahead. Getting down like that is an easy trick she knows and she usually wags her tail when she's gonna get a treat so this shot should be easy. Alternatively, I could start with a closeup of her face from a side and then cut to a closeup of her wagging tail, since actors shouldn't look into the camera. 

The second dog (Mia) is revealed with a two-shot of them together, This might be a little harder to do but the concept can be played with when I'm filming. They're both down on the ground and alert of each other, tense and ready to play.

 Cur ro one of them suddenly sprinting forward, breaking the tension and playfully jumping on the other one. This shot doesn't need to have both of them so it could just be done with just one of them laying down when suddenly I bring out some food or something.

A similar shot but with the other dog, from the other side, than can be done in a similar manner. (and yes I did flip the same drawing)

From then on I was thinking to show them play-fighting and then cut away to a sort of montage of shots that show how they live their live, general dog stuff like running around, barking, eating, and sleeping, edited in sync with a cover I'm making of this song. 

Dude, where's my plot?

Hey, I was out of commission for a bit thanks to the surprise emergence of wisdom teeth and complications thereof, but now it's time to get back to work. In class I met up with some others and we determined it would be best for me to watch some Air Buddies movies because of the fact that my dogs are small and cute like those in those movies and we decided that it would be cool to follow some of their examples, such as giving the dogs funny voices. Thankfully, I had the original one on DVD and there's some more on Netflix.

The original Air Buddies starts with narration expositing the backstory and stereotype- I mean, personality of each of the dogs. They have one thing in common and that's that they get in trouble a lot. From there this shared trait of mischief separates them from their owners and they spend the movie struggling to get back to them. The opening keeps focus on the dogs and their actions but also includes humans, establishing them as actual characters as they deal with the rebellious puppies causing trouble.

Snow Buddies opens up with a dog harrassing some cats. Thre's cheesy dialogue between them and then the dog goes to meet up with the other dogs. After more cheesy dialogue, they start playing a game, but one of them sees an ice cream truck and jumps on, the rest of the dogs following his example. The truck somehow takes them all the way to Alaska for the snow gimmick and they spend the rest of the movie trying to get back home from there.

...Aaand the rest just go off the rails while recycling the "buddies are separated form owners and have to get back" formula with a gimmick. The rest of the movies I watched (Space Buddies, Santa Buddies, Treasure Buddies, and there's one more on Netflix but I didn't bother because there's only so much of these things that I can stomach) they all start with this week's guest star giving exposition and setting up the plot that will inevitably take the dogs from their owners. "

See that? My dogs are way cuter than Disney's. Anyway, in conclusion, I'm gonna keep my opening more like the first two and just set up the characters and plot without sending my dogs to space or the north pole or anything like that. Just have dogs going out and having to get back home. I'll have the storyboard up soon.

A little more planning

When dogs are the main character they are shot like any human main character, with wide shots and closeups and everything in between. Some movies have animation so the dogs move their mouths and talk, but there's no way I'll be doing that, so it's important to communicates the characters through their actors' body language. Consequently, I did some research on how dogs train for movies and the like. It's actually a pretty extensive process, according to this article from NPR: (https://www.npr.org/2015/07/29/427210264/a-hollywood-animal-trainers-secrets-for-getting-dogs-to-act-on-cue). Thankfully, as I said in the last post, I'm confident in the possiblity of building a story using footage of my little furry actors' regular day-to-day activities. Should the need arise, though, they can alredy perform a few tricks and being young they can definitely still learn some new things, but since I'm only gonna be doing the opening of the film it shouldn't be too much.

Anyway, back to the cinematography, I believe everything, or at least the majority of the shots, should be shot down low to match the dogs' point of view. While other dog movies also feature the humans' side of the story, I'm going for a more comical route, something akin to the famous Peanuts franchise, wherein the kids and animals are prominent while the adults are shown only as towering legs with garbled voices from above. With something like that I could keep focus on what happens on the ground and the dogs' actions while the humans are kept from stealing the spotlight. 

I've considered the storyline to start off showcasing the dogs being all playful at home, only to escape outside one day and get chased by their owners. That's about as far as I've gotten but it's just the intro so I guess that's about enough. The big title could pop up after the dogs run past the camera, obscuring the running humans, which goes with the what I said befor about keeping the humans out of focus, I suppose. For outdoors scenes there's lots of leash-free dog parks they like going to so it wouldn't be hard to get a vidoe of them running around like that. Anyway, that's it for now, but I'll get doing storyboards and all that next time. Enjoy those pictures of my dogs.

Initial Planning

It's time to make up my mind on what the project's gonna be. I've been thinking of a few possibilities such as a mockumentary or a parody or something along those lines, but after learning some more about this project and having seen some examples of what other people in the past have done, I think I should divide up my time with more editing and less filming. To facilitate filming I've ultimately decided to do a charming little adventure movie featuring my two dogs kinda like Homeward Bound or 101 Dalmatians.

That's them. They appear to be adequately cute, at least to me, and they always love running around so I feel like I won’t have much trouble taking some good videos of them to put together after I’ve come up with a storyline and everything. For now, I’ve been thinking about some dog movies that I've seen before. There's no one genre for movies that center on dogs, but they tend to be adventure or drama.

Typically from what I've seen, dramas with dogs focus on the animals meeting and their living with their bipedal companions, as in Old Yeller, Marley & Me, and Hachi, where families take in and learn to live with the beloved pet. They can end in tearjerking deaths of the pet in question, as in the aformentioned examples, or happily end in the family staying with the dog, as in Air Bud, Beethoven, and believe it or not, All Dogs Go To Heaven.

However, I'd rather not work on a drama. The other type of dog movies is adventure, usually having the dog and its family being separated, leading the dog to go on an adventure to return home. This is the sort of format I was thinking of doing, something along those lines without being depressing but raather comedic or endearing or something. Some examples of adventure movies with dogs are Homeward Bound, Bolt, and 101 Dalmatians, all of which follow that sort of format with their plot.

Representation

In my project, I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing just yet, but it's reasonable to assume that, having me in it, it'll involve Latino representation. One example of Latino representation in the media would be the superhero Vibe in the CW's The Flash. I believe it's a fairly accurate portrayal, as he is a Latino character played by a Latino actor, and there's more to his character than just his ethnicity. He has some stereotypical Latino characteristics such as speaking Spanish and having a sizable extended family, but in my experience these are not inaccurate and I think they're fair, so I would probably retain these characteristics. Another example of Latino representation in the media is the Marvel movies' Luis, who is Ant-Man's best friend. He also speaks Spanish and mentions having s numerous cousins, but he's a criminal whose family gets deported. These are common negative stereotypes and even though there may be some truth to them I don't think they're fair and I wouldn't retain them. Not every Latino is an illegal immigrant that's so impoverished they need to resort to crime.

Genre 2

My second sub-genre is the monster movie sub-genre, which combines elements from disaster/horror movies and science fiction. They usually feature one or more people as they struggle to survive and/or fight with a dangerous creature. These films usually tend to form a connection between the viewer and the monster, as they are usually either not inherently malicious, or their circumstances being out of their control. The human characters can either be forming a bond with the monster or be doing their best to kill it. In terms of production, they tend to use darkness to keep the monster obscured frequently for either cost or suspense. In Japan, this sub-genre stands out because of "kaiju" movies, which are specifically about giant reptillian-like monsters wrecking entire cities.

One notably famous monster movie is Godzilla, which is the most popular Japanese kaiju movie, and was originally directed by Ishirō Honda in 1954, but there have been several remakes since then since it was so popular. This movie features a giant monster, Godzilla, wreaking havoc on Japanese cities, killing dozens of people, after having been disturbed by the government testing hydrogen bombs. Some of Godzilla's attacks are obscured by the darkness and the human characters do everything in their power to murder Godzilla, but one of the main characters realizes in the end that it was the humans' fault that Godzilla was awakened, sympathizing with the monster, too.

Another notable monster movie is King Kong, another classic which has been remade countless times. Initially a 1933 horror flick directed and produced by Meriam C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, this movie included various other monsters on Kong's island, mainly dinosaurs. This film focuses on an emotional connection between the monster, Kong, and a human protagonist, Ann Darrow, with the monster bein kidnapped by humans and forced into New York, causing him to break free and run away in fright, causing destruction thanks to the humans' actions, like Godzilla and other monster movies. Dozens of people throughout the movie are killed by the monsters and the humans set out to murder Kong after he breaks free, eventually succeeding in shooting him to death with guns, against Ann's wishes.

Frankenstein is another old classic monster movie, and though it's not a giant monster destroying a city, it still fits the misunderstood gentle giant trope, killing people because of humans being jerks to it. Humans then hunt it down mercilessly as per usual.

A more recent example is Pacific Rim, although is focuses more on the humans trying to eradicate the monsters, but there is indeed plenty of monster-destroying-city action. Humans, again, go to whatever length necessary to kill them, but this one doesn't really explain much about the monsters or their motivations.

Another recent example, Rampage has a lot in common with certain other monster movies (such as the giant gorilla and the giant reptile) but is ironically based on a video game instead. In a twist on the old formula, there is a good monster attempting to take down the others, with the good monster's human sympathizers trying to stop the government from gunning to eradicate all of the monsters. Oh, and the entire existence and aggression of the monsters is humans' fault, too. U like with others, one monster actually survives this time.

Back to the classic Japanese kaiju movies, Gamera is a giant rturtle that is awakened due to human bombs, just like a certain other kaiju. This time, the monster even goes out of its way to save the life of a human, which lspires said human to go out and try to stop the government from eliminating the monster, as per usual. However, also as usual, he fails and the government succeeds in getting rid of Gamera. This time, however, they just send the monster to another planet instead of killing it.

Finally,  my personal favorite is Big Ass Spider! which also stars a creature made gigantic by man that goes on a killing rampage. It even kidnaps a lady and climbs up a skyscraper before being taken down thanks to the US armed forces. Sound familiar?

Genre

The film sub-genre I chose to research is the neo-noir, or modern noir, which are often labelled as psychological thrillers or crime dramas. Usually revolving around mysteries, detectives, crimes, and the like, it tends to use darkness both in physical lighting and in plot themes.
These films typically feature stories and characters with moral vagueness, paranoia, and/or vengeance. In terms of production, they often employ Dutch angles, unbalanced framing, and lots of shadows and dark coloration. As for the marketing, neo-noirs are usually aimed at adults, who tend to prefer the darkness and mystery, as opposed to kids/teens and their blockbuster action films.

One example of a neo-noir would be Watchmen, a grim R-rated 2009 comic book film directed by Zack Snyder. This production tells a story revolving around a paranoid detective and vigilante that investigates a murder mystery, as his former superhero allies are seemingly targeted by a criminal. As you can tell from that sentence alone, this film employs practically all the aforementioned elements of a neo-noir film. Without giving too much away, the film follows a dark twist and goes on to explore a great moral dilemma that would likely leave the viewer psychologically thrilled. Most of the movie takes place in the dark, too.

Another example of a neo-noir film is The Dark Knight, another comic book movie from 2008. Directed by Christopher Nolan, this movie follows Batman, paranoid detective-vigilante supreme, investigating a series of crimes committed by the murderous psycho known as the Joker. For the moral vagueness, this film has Harvey Dent, who is at first a staunch ally to Batman, but he finds himself questioning his principles and morality as he is influenced by the Joker and his anarchist ideology, to say the least. Also, as the title of the movie states, it is indeed dark, with most scenes taking place at night or in shady areas. Anyway, the overall story deals heavily with themes of morality, with the Joker's magnum opus revolving around his belief that the citizens of Gotham would be morally dark enought to be willing to committ murder.

Directed by Dennis Villeneuve, Blade Runner 2049 is a more recent example of a neo-noir film, and an excellent one, too.

Frank Miller's Sin City is an almost iconic film of the neo-noir sub-genre.

Seven, stylized as Se7en, is an intense, mind-blowing psychological thriller and absolute neo-noir.

Straight out of South Korea, Oldboy is indeed kinda old but still fresh enough to be considered neo-noir.

Finally, Looper by Rian Johnson is widely considered to be one of the best neo-noirs out there.