Project 3_Matthew Gaines

Narrative Short Film

I want to capture the feeling of time, moving on from places in our lives whether they be good or bad, and nostalgia. To do this, I want to choose a song that tells a narrative about this concept, and shoot more "b-roll" style footage than anything. The motion graphics aspect will come from the lyrics on the screen that I create, but the style, size, and speed in which the words appear will make it stylistically more appealing then just regular captions.

I decided to run with the idea of nostalgic memories not lasting forever. I'm very excited for the ways and methods I will be shooting this narrative and I feel like I have a lot of good ideas in mind. I have a really interesting pyrotechnical aspect in mind that has to do with burning and rotating symbolic objects as well as some ideas involving a projector on a wall. 

I will be renting out a professional camera from the film department, hopefully one that shoots in 4K.

For the main piece of my film, I am burning various objects that represent big impactful moments through someone's life. I selected a wedding topper, a baby shower ribbon, and a graduation cap. I constructed a rotating platform using two buckets, a spinning cake icier, and a piece of old tempered glass I took from a home remodel, and a table cloth to hide the imperfections. for the backdrop, I used my roommate's outdoor cinema backdrop as well as her "sunset" orange circle light.

I used an extra tripod and a my work lamp to add just a bit of foreground light to light up what the subject exactly is rotating around each time. I didn't want it to be too bright so that the fire parts would be more shocking and stand out more. I rented a Blackmagic 4K camera, tripod, SSD and converter and a lens kit. Throughout my filming I switched between 35mm and 75mm so I could be sure to get crisp visuals while keeping the expensive equipment at a distance from the flames

The fire shots could not have turned out better in my opinion

For the projector scene, I want a projector playing "home video" feeling videos as a compilation. As far as what videos, I have two ideas. I can either find personal family home videos, which will be hard since my family never really video taped their lives, or the more likely alternative of finding some good quality home videos royalty free on YouTube or an equal alternative

I ended up sifting through an hour and a half of family home footage and I got some good stuff. But I also had to find wedding footage and graduation footage that wasn't my own. I cut up the clips to make them dynamic and I added an old film overlay and shaking effects to make it feel more realistic. I also had to blur out the wedding couple's faces since I couldn't find any credentials about them. After creating about 6 minutes of footage, I played it on a projector at night and recorded it with the 4k camera fully at different angles. This way I could cut them up, change the order, and things like that.