Author: jsauter24

Blog Post — My Final Project Idea

jsauter24

Hello class!

It took me a bit to properly get around to posting my idea for the final project, but that was primarily because I had run out of ideas to implement… However, I was struck with a bit of inspiration from the last class example the professor showed us last class!

Here is how I would want the story to go: A student sits down to work on their final project for DTC 208. As they think through a concept, they manage to come up with one! And as they start filming themselves working on said idea, they only get about a day’s worth of footage due to procrastination and forgetting to keep filming. What’s worse, they used that concept idea and proved it efficient to turn in for a DIFFERENT final, and is forced to start over on the final for 208.

They repeat this process 2 more times: Get an idea, film working on it for a day, procrastinate, time passes, they use the concept for a DIFFERENT final, start over. By thanksgiving break, they’ve run out of both time and ideas, and decide to use the footage they DID get as a way to create a “video essay” surveying the life of a procrastinator during finals season.

This would serve not only as an interesting concept for a video, but it would also let me NOT procrastinate, as I’d have to film in real time and on a weekly basis in order to get the footage that I need in order to capture this idea properly!

-Jeremy Sauter

Blog Post — The One-Minute Short Ideas

jsauter24

Hello class!

I’m a little late on this post, considering the footage for the rough cuts is due this Friday, but I do think the one-minute short that my group and I have constructed is gonna be enjoyable!

My group consisted of myself, Miryssa Casas, and Hailey Betts. Together we constructed a comedy sketch about a student losing a water bottle or purchased drink of some variety, but the bottle eventually finds its way back to said student through extreme luck.

The story goes that the main student purchases a drink and then sets it down to go get something else. It then gets knocked away by another student, then begins travelling far enough away that the initial student can’t find it, giving up and heading home. The bottle makes a really long journey all the way down to the parking lot where the first student is parked, meaning they find the bottle, confused as to how it got there.

The beauty of a sketch like this is that we’re able to film on site at campus, where it’s most likely the most convenient for everyone. And it has a cafeteria where we can catch footage of the actual purchasing of the drink.

The campus is also a good location thanks to a key factor for the filming: gravity! We can use the bottle on the various hills around campus to simulate it rolling away and throughout it’s various stunts and tactics. We can also easily ask favors from any students who may be nearby while we work on filming in order to get some extra people if necessary.

-Jeremy Sauter

Blog Post — Interview Creation Process

jsauter24

Hello, class!

For my interview process, one of my first thoughts was to interview one of my pastors at church. After I considered the thought, I started looking at church events to see what was coming up. With a great stroke of luck, I discovered that the week rough cuts were due, the church was hosting a rather large pastor/teacher conference! So I consider myself really lucky that I was able to capitalize on the opportunity!

I would say probably the biggest challenge is figuring out travel. The biggest challenge is that, while the church and conference IS local, it is also across the river in Portland, Oregon. I was able to get a ride down since my mom was going to help out with the conference, getting back up across the river was the difficult part. Thankfully bus transit exists, and with careful planning I was able to make it work.

I also had to check and double check that it would be ok for me to stop by the conference. It’s a limited event and it’s usually reserved for staff and registered pastors. But knowing this would be the best possible option to grab visual evidence of the pastor learning and supporting his fellow conference goers, and thankfully I got the opportunity to visit for a couple hours the first day. It allowed me to get some really good footage, even if the time was brief.

Overall, the experience was smooth and I had a really good time gathering everything I needed to make the interview work!

-Jeremy Sauter

Blog Post — Visual Evidence via Devil’s Playground

jsauter24

Hello class,

Devil’s Playground by Lucy Walker is a very gripping and very interesting documentary, intending to be a commentary on the dynamic and differences between the Amish and normal English life, showing how difficult it is to transition between the two, especially for the Amish.

I think out of all of the individual stories that were told through the main character’s journey (who I assume is Faron, considering how much of the documentary was spent following him), the side story with Velda struck me the most. Velda chose to leave the Amish faith, causing her entire family (and her village) to publicly shun her and cast her out, leaving her to the whims of English society.

This is probably the story that had the visual evidence stand out to me the most. You can somewhat compare it to the main story of Faron, which gave a very active, struggling story with a LOT of visual evidence to support his rebellious, English life and it’s many twists and turns. Velda’s story, on the other hand, while there was less time spent on it overall, it told a more matured and grounded history point of view, showing the lifestyle of someone who committed to leaving the Amish faith after having committed to it in the past. It creates a great dynamic between someone who had to live with their choice of leaving, versus a growing teenager who is still learning and has an opportunity to turn back from his decisions and stick with the Amish faith.

-Jeremy Sauter

Effects Project — Jeremy Sauter

jsauter24

Hello class, apologies for the low quality, I tried exporting several times at 1080p and it wouldn’t change the pixel quality. My suspicion might be because I used some stock footage to assist, as it helped me with my effects practice. I used a combination of green screen, crossfades, and zoom techniques to help create smooth transitions. Enjoy!

-Jeremy Sauter

Visual Evidence Blog Post — Jeremy Sauter

jsauter24

Hello class!

So for this blog post, I have to propose my story and visual evidence for making a short documentary about the COVID experience for local nurses. My one caveat is that I’m not allowed into their hospitals with a camera. So what am I to do to gather extra footage so that the documentary isn’t just looking at the interviewed nurses from different angles for 10-20 minutes?

This is quite the challenge, as this means I cannot follow the nurses through a daily routine at work to help accentuate their words. But that wouldn’t provide much anyways, as according to the articles, that would probably be considered more as “B-Roll” instead of “Visual Evidence”.

As the article says, “B-roll is cover footage, pictures that run while someone is talking” (“B-Roll”, pg. 106). While visual evidence is more an example of telling a story with exclusively footage. Silent films are a great example of visual evidence, because, well, they didn’t have a choice. They were forced to use visual evidence because they weren’t able to use audio.

So with this knowledge, I can use my footage to help tell the story that the nurses give me. For example, I can film the nurses preparing for a day at work instead them actually working. A shot of the nurse rubbing down her scrubs can help paint the image of working a lot and staying dedicated throughout the cause. In addition, I would probably see if some local patients who were saved by the nurses could arrange a party with the nurses that they helped, as a chance to thank them for all of their hard work. There is a lot of potential with this type of footage, as it allows us to not only show examples of the grueling work they went through, but also the impact they had on their community and how much they did to save so many lives.

 

-Jeremy Sauter

Effects and AI Blog Post — Jeremy Sauter

jsauter24

Hello everyone, for this blog post I decided to take a look at the starwarswars.com site. This had to have been one of the most bizarre and interesting watching experiences I have ever witnessed. The website name is extremely deceiving, but if you didn’t check it out, the website has a video containing the first 6 Star Wars films — played at the exact same time. It is a very dangerous sensory overload, but I must admit, it is very technically impressive, especially with the effects.

All of the audio overlaps and is balanced surprisingly well. But the most technically impressive part of it is how at any given point, you can make out at least 3 movies, and most of the time more, in the video. What I suspect is going on is at any given point, the editor used a mixture of a color picker and a chroma key to accomplish the end result. Assuming each movie has it’s own layer, I believe that the editor went through each movie, and for each one that was on top of the base layer, created a chroma key with the most prominent color on screen at any given point, which allowed the movie in the lower layer to show through. This was probably repeated for every scene change for one movie. And then from there, they repeated the entire process for 5 more movies.

Traditional cinema was definitely altered by this process. After all, it’s 6 2-hour movies played at the exact same time, all at least audibly present, if not visually present in some way, and all combating for your attention. It creates such a unique experience that becomes really hard to sit through, but it’s worth exploring at least a little bit.

-Jeremy Sauter

Framing Blog Post — Jeremy Sauter

jsauter24

Hello, class:

This opening scene from Shameless is both appropriately chaotic yet extremely well-structured and framed to create a sense of continuity. The framing of the scene creates a real sense of both urgency and normalcy, as if this is just a normal happenstance for this family during rent seasons. Visually it’s a family getting ready for the day, shown from many different perspectives and creating a sense of what the house layout is. The different edits around the table, in particular, help create the sense of family dynamics. Especially when they’re passing around the rent box and they’re pitching in their shares, it shows how much each kid makes and/or contributes, which could then directly correlate to how much effort they put into helping keep their family afloat.

I think throughout the opening scene, there are two visual anchors: the mother as she moves around, and the planted table in the dining room. The mother is almost constantly in frame, which makes sense, as she appears to be the main character we’re supposed to be following in the shot, and we help obtain her sense of urgency for the bill, yet care for her kids. The other anchor, the table, gives us a grounded piece halfway through the scene that helps the scene become structured. Chaos still ensues, simply because that’s the nature of a large family dynamic, but by using a large object like a table to center all the chaos around, it helps everything feel controlled and grounded while still giving off it’s own sense of excitement.

-Jeremy Sauter