My final video project is going to be a dream sequence. I start off the video with myself mourning for a friend who died before the dream. As I go to sleep, the next morning I wake up to open the door. The door ends up leading to somewhere else outside of my house. When the door leads to somewhere else, that is where the dream is exposed. I am exploring the area wondering what is going on. I eventually encounter the same friend I mourned for. As we see each other, we become happy and run to each other to hug. We just hang around and play sports and laugh. After hanging out and laughing, the dream ends with him giving me a paper. As I wake up, I see that the paper he gave me was in my pocket. I end up opening it and it is a letter about the times he had with me on earth. It even said that he could not write this to me before he died because he died too soon. 

My plan for the rough cut should start with me in my room at home mourning for my friend who passed away. I could also get a black and white photo of him on my computer which demonstrates the fact that his time has passed. A video of myself falling asleep is needed to start the story of where the dream begins. As the dream starts, it could be me waking up from bed and then opening my bedroom door leading to somewhere else. I will use the campus to demonstrate that my bedroom door led to somewhere else. As I get a video of myself opening the bedroom door, I will also get a continuity shot of myself entering the campus or opening the door leading to outside of the campus building.

When doing the interview I found that some of the issues that I was running into was planning B roll and also scheduling. When assigned my interviewee was sick and by the time she was available I was also getting sick, so we had to find a time to do a shoot when both of us were able to feel well enough to do the interview.

My experience of shooting the job profile was not really a pleasant one, or even all that successful of one. I felt really apprehensive and awkward, approaching my sibling with the interview section itself, and even then, it was somewhat difficult. But then it came to the matter of capturing B-footage, and the anxiety I felt got utterly overwhelming. It sucked and I was embarrassed out of my mind just thinking about it. I ultimately got cold feet and opted for royalty-free footage instead.

My current plan for the final project is to follow the story of a letter discovered by the main character (me) that talks about a hidden time capsule or buried wealth of some kind at a place a few hours away from where the main character lives/presently is. The story will follow along as the main character makes the journey many hours (not actually hours away) drive away to an old barn or similar abandoned location that the letter says the item is located at. Then the character will search for the item, only to give up after a few hours of searching. As the character walks back into his car, the camera will focus onto the item described in the letter. There are other elements to this story, however this is a simplification of it that will also likely change as it is continued to be refined. In theory, from how I plan to record, there will only need to be 3 main locations. One at some kind of library or coffee shop, one on the side of a quiet road somewhere (traveling B-Roll), and one at an abandoned building or yard somewhere. Between these three filming locations, I believe I will be able to simulate the illusion of the 4-5 locations the character visits in the story. This should hopefully be able to be split across 2-3 days, each only really taking an hour or 2 max for each recording session.

Our one-minute video is a pretty simple premise: a bit of a comedy short that involves two students in a study room, trying to do their work, but getting into an escalating back and forth stealing contest, fighting over each other’s supplies and items. We’ll need a study room in the VMMC building or elsewhere as the shooting location, as well as my camcorder as a camera, a tripod to hold the camera steady, and some basic items that serve as the props for the short.

Hey everyone, here is my re-uploaded interview.

In my final cut I fixed some audio issues, added music and text effects and adjusted my cuts in the audio.

My group’s story will be an action comedy revolving around a heist that seems serious but ends up being mediocre and not on a heist-worthy establishment at all. To film our short effectively, we will need a room, preferably a basement with dim lighting, and a table suitable for four people, one on each side. We will also need a car suitable as a getaway vehicle and a location to “rob.” Our props and wardrobe needed will be minimal and simple to acquire, mostly black clothing and masks. As for permissions, all of our filming will be done privately or in public, not inside any establishment, so no permits are required.

Write your own 1-2 page script of your group story that you are to share with your group (and with me via Slack) before next class. You can do this all on Slack. In class next week your group will come up with one script that you will also send to me to read and give feedback. 

Please describe your group’s one-minute video story/script. What will you need in the coming weeks to shoot/capture video?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zLmhhbCutVbJ-183XsiS4DlLtdq0x9-Gi5BLxAsMkn0/edit?usp=sharing

For my groups short film we are doing a comedy action short based around a heist. We will have 4 characters; Chase: the driver, Anna: the informant, Lottie: the hacker, and Tony: the mastermind. I want this to be set up very intensely with comedic timing dialogue that keeps the audience laughing but doesn’t provoke disinterest through cheesiness. For our short we will need 2 different shooting areas, a industrial park back alley and a dingy planning basement where majority of the film would take place. The short is about 4 people robbing a silly place like Chuck e cheese or subway. Very climactic and tense buildup to a silly outcome.

I think if we can pull off this idea in a cinematic way it would be very entertaining.

Hello, here’s the final cut of my interview. Sorry it took longer than I wanted, but I managed to clean it up and add some soft music. Enjoy!

-Jeremy Sauter

We were supposed to do something related to a found footage with friends hanging out having fun. So this whole time, we basically have a perspective of someone recording with a camera filming us having fun. We need three people to portray three brothers who hang out and someone else to portray the dead body. We also need props for the video which friends use for having fun. We might need to record each other buying snacks and drinks. We should also get a video of like tents or something else friends use for having fun. We could also get a video of a picnic carpet. What we can do is record each other showing what we have for the trip to the camera at the same time smiling and laughing. We could also get a video of ourselves having a conversation and joking around in the car. We also need to ask permissions to each other and wherever we record at for accommodations. We need to ask each other if its ok borrowing equipment and someone else who owns the place we record at because they might be strict with it.

We could go to like a beach or a park where the dead body is found. Someone I think from my perspective of the script should portray a bad guy who caused the death. I thought of portaying the brother who planned the trip just to set them up and revealed to be the killer this whole time. We could also use someone to portray somebody else in the first person view looking at the found footage.

In the documentary Devil’s Playground, Lucy Walker explores deep questions of faith, belief, and individuality.

In terms of visual evidence, we have a great deal to draw on — Walker includes authentic footage of Amish life and so-called “English” life in spades, with some exceptions whose authenticity is shaky.

The majority of the documentary centers around Faron, a young man whose extended rumspringa has gone very, very wrong; involving him in the sale and consumption of controlled substances and, as such, putting him on the wrong side of law.

Given the sensational nature of Faron’s story, it’s understandable why Walker chooses to give him and the visual evidence surrounding his journey the most screen time — after all, a documentary can only reach those who choose to watch it, and Walker does a good job of drawing viewers by juxtaposing the wild, chaotic nature of rumspringa with the quiet, laconic rhythms of ultra-conservative Amish life.

To me, the story of Velda, a young woman who chooses to leave the Amish faith at the cost of being shunned by her family and community, contains the most promise. Though Faron’s story shows one dimension of the issue examined here, I think equal screen time could have been devoted to Velda, whose surrounding visual evidence, though likely less sensational than Faron’s, would have stood out as a measured and mature path away from the Amish faith.