After a huge learning experience and many solid days of work, I present to you my final in Design for Media

It’s Working

Over the past week I have made an insane amount of progress.  The set has been finished and I have spent an entire day shooting and editing.  As of right now, I have about half of the visuals put together.  I will still need to shoot the climax and falling action, and then put together a final edit with sound by next thursday.  

The hard part about this process is building the entire set.  After that is finished, I have all of the available resources and complete control over composition and lighting, so the shooting goes by pretty fast.  I will definitely have something finalized by next week.

For this week I am still a little behind the schedule I have outlined for myself.  Since last week, I have put down the grass matting on the final half of the board, and cut out about half of the houses for the unfinished side.  I will still need to garnish with foliage on all of the panels, including the opposite side of the panels.

While cutting away with a dull blade last night I realized that I could easily turn two hours of cutting houses into a half hour job on the band saw in the wood shop, so out of rationality i decided to give myself a break and finish the rest in a timely manner tomorrow.

Another note, one of my peers who I am helping with a video project had a light kit shipped to my house, so this benefits me in not having to rely on renting from the school.

I have included photos of my progress thus far and a little snapshot of how everything looks under the light kit.

Before posting this I was a little discouraged that I hadn’t had everything as far as I planned for this week, but after seeing my progress from last week to now I feel I have put  a significant amount of work into the piece.  

First, I cut the panels from the other half of the set and attached them in.  I added the grass sheeting to each panel on the new half and on the stationary part of the set.

I then began the incredibly tedious process of making the houses.  The first batch of them took a long time, but after I discovered the specific measurements I needed I was able to design a template and fly through them.  I have 18 done now, and the plan before shooting is to have 36.  

Things I Still Need to Do:

• Finish assembling the other half of the board
• Garnish the set with foliage
• Construct the factory
• Hang the backdrop 
• Shoot the video

I hope to finish the other half of the panels by next week’s blog post, and then have the final two weeks to hang the backdrop and shoot the video. 

I have completed the skeleton for the first part of my set.  My next step is going to be to replicate this frame one more time, and then start garnishing the actual final piece.  
I am planning to have most of the set in place for next Thursday, have one last week to add any finishing touches and prep my studio for production in the final two weeks of the project.

Final Project Proposal

For my final project I plan to create a short video piece that will attempt to narrate and criticize the small town/suburban establishments that result when a large and powerful factory is the center point of income.  I plan to show the factory being dropped into place, and then the surrounding area being turned from greenery to developed land.

To accomplish this I will construct another set.  This being a video piece, i will have interactive elements to the set.  I plan to make a large grid, where one side will have greenery and trees, and the other side will have the developed houses.  After the factory falls into place, the greenery sections of the grid will begin to flip over, revealing the developed houses.

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After a solid 2 days of shooting, we have compiled over 2 hours of footage and audio recordings.  Today, we used a crew of 8 people, consisting of 2 sound techs, cinematographer, 3 actors, lighting tech, and a director.  Everyone carried out their roles accordingly and we only have a few more scenes before we can cap off and finally start editing.  

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Team: Shit Gnarly Bats and the Polyester Poop Patrol (SGBATPPP)

Our proposal for the Ron Saks Project consists of the following:

A preassembled team of 4 members:

Luke Sirimongkhon: Cinematographer/Editor

Cooper Sevell: Screen Writer/Producer

Sarah Murray: Concept Selection/Costume Design

Tyler Dunlavy: Lighting/Set Design

We will embark on a journey to create a 5-10 minute short film.  The genre will be a dramatic comedy (dramedy.)  Synopsis: Older brother invites his apprehensive younger brother along for a weekend of drunken debauchery.  Younger brother overcomes adversity to become one of the group. 

We plan to get as close to a full scale production as possible, involving actors and pushing forward with full steam.  In the event that we are chosen, we encourage anyone interested in experiencing the production of a short film to sign on with us.  We could always use help scripting and coming up with locations to actually shoot the film.  The more connections we have, the better.  We have room for up to two more team members. (JOIN!)

Our schedule will go as follows:
Week 1 (2/23/12-3/1/12)- Brainstorming, Screenwriting, Prop Selection (Gathering Equipment)
Week 2 (3/1/12-3-8-12)- Shooting
Week 3 (3/8/12-3/15/12)- Editing and Score Production 

Thank you for considering our proposal, we hope to be hearing from you soon.