A-Lvl CCR :')

Here it is, my CCR!

No, it does not feel real that this project and high school are over.

I say it in my CCR, but I wanna say it here: whoever you are, wether a classmate reading, a curious student, my teacher (hi Tstock!) or a Cambridge grader...thank you, this class has changed my life.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=19UbDoujiq99Rr2SdprmqGafiqJuvadnm

Curtain calls, part 2: on my project

Website:
 https://grinmovie2020.weebly.com/

Film card:

front


back


Film:
https://youtu.be/asVK7SLdEVc

OR

Fun fact: While exporting the final cut onto Youtube and my Google Drive, it would have taken like about 2-3 hours to do the full upload, and I closed my tabs/laptop the progress wouldn't finish in time, so to fix that, I finally did what I needed to do....went on Netflix, put on "The Irishman" (dir. by Martin Scorcese), left it playing and went to sleep. Call that a modern solution.

It looks good, I should actually watch it someday lol

 

me, being galaxy brained

Curtain calls, part 1: on high school

Today it was announced that school is out for the rest of the year.

It feels unreal that my time at CBHS is over. Like, there was so much I've done and so much I've yet to do. I just wanna shoutout the fact that these last 4 years, particularly the last 2, have been amazing beyond description. I shoutout the last two because of my marvelous Media Studies teacher, Tina Stoklosa.

When I was in the 8th grade, and I had to take 1 more elective as I was quitting band, I chose film 1 cause why not. I liked movies and I wanted to have a fun elective that wasn't Spanish. For a long time during that school year, I would watch movies in film or shoot projects we had to make and dream of being a director, or someone who worked in the film industry. My high point was helping costume design, direct, and edit a group project in which we recreated the opening Bohemian Rhapsody scene from Wayne's World, Frame-for-Frame too. Our teacher loved it so much I remember him showing it ecstatically to the class, with an added side-by-side comparison to see how faithful our recreation was (very faithful, not to brag too hard).

As I entered high school, particularly debate, I decided to toss aside silly aspirations as a director or someone in that field in favor of something else: being the politics kid. Gross, I know. Being only about politics is a bad way to form a personality, speaking from personal experience. However, twi good things happened over the last two ears that took me away from the track of a wannabe career politician:

1. I read some Marx and Engels. Fully recommend, it'll change your life. Now I see the error of my neoliberal, pro-capital apologist ways. No, I am not a Communist don't freak out and call whatever the British equivalent to the CIA is on me. I'm personally more of a demsoc, as it's a view I feel really gives me a clear path towards bettering the word and the lives of those outside of just myself.

2. Media Studies. Tstok really sparked that flame in me again. I want to be creative. I want to edit, I want to be behind a camera and shoot projects and films and tell stories about people, by people, for people. Maybe I can marry politics and film and do some documentaries as I plan on doing right now with my life, and I will work to make that vision a reality. In short, Tstok you're amazing. The world needs people and educators like you everywhere, everyday. Thank you, for being a life-changer, an educator, and one amazing quasi-friend.

So this is goodbye Cypress Bay. Thank you for four stellar years. This has been Gus Lanz, and for one last time...

Go Lightning.

Refleción

I have mixed feelings about everything in the portfolio project. Out of the good, the bad, and the ok, I'll start with the good. I started off thinking I was gonna have no one to work with, striking up a partnership with Jules out of a good weekend of work. Early prep with Jules went phenomenal, we were already getting costumes, shooting dates, locations, you name it we had it. Up until about the last week I will ever be at school, we had our fingers to the pulse. That, admittedly, is about doing it for the good. Now, onto the dreaded bad. I am a self-diagnosed "bad-at-crisis-management" type of person, so when school got cancelled and we started to lose actors/collaborators to quarantine, I hit a huge wall. My creativity sort of sputtered and I did not give myself the time and resources I would've liked. Some of the equipment I ordered Pre-quarantine is STILL DELIVERING!!! I cycled through too many actors and spent too much useful time being indecisive about my choices, which in turn kind of led into the positives of sticking to what I know and I felt very comfortable in that. Still, that huge, days (or weeks) long break in my schedule hurt just as much as the constant cast turnovers. On the ok: I am very happy with what I did. I realized the last week to make sure I could have what I needed and I feel very satisfied. I learned super cool skills, discovered I have a knack for audio, and me and Jules communicated well, albeit much later than a regularly scheduled, non coronavirus year would have allowed. All in all, my mixed feelings can't change the past, but my biggest takeaway is that I was able to seize a slice of the present to make this a nice reality, one I am sad I could not live out in a normal school setting, but am glad could lend itself to me making this real.

The final day: Please help me

Hello!

genius on da track ;)

If you are reading this, I've been awake since 7:30 AM yesterday. No, I am not joking and no I am nowhere near ok with what I am doing to myself. I didn't even drink coffee I have 0 clue how I am still awake/alive right now! Anyways, What have I been doing you ask? Well, if you must know, I am making sure everything has just been laid down on the Premiere pro track before I color grade, something that I fully finished at like 4:14 AM.
(No, I did not take a picture of myself slipping into madness because Bernie was asleep and I didn't wanna bother the little man.)

Bernie sleeping on my headphones as I post this god
I wish I was him rn

Color waves go "brrrr"

After I laid everything down. I started color Correcting/grading. And while yes, most people would certainly make there two aspects of production multiple posts with multiple takes and multiple outcomes, I am not. That is for two reasons: one, its too late to do that now; two, my film is very simple in execution really I font need a ton of outtakes. Right now I have exported two cuts. The cut that has nothing but sound (the Gus cut), and the cut that's nothing but the images (the Sil cut). These two cuts will soon be combined into one mega project that...still has no name. I told Jules we should call it like a synonym of smile, some one words title like "Grin". Personally, I love one word titles and I think it fits with the Art house nature of our film.

   Anyways, I am actually dying and I will cry because of how tired I am. I have also been helping with out with the postcard and our new canva poster. Nothing has changes since the last post, I am just making sure I have covered all my bases because I've been up 26 hours. On the note of what I am helping Jules out with, I added the title "Grin" to the teaser Jules made with my footage plus I did minor grading of like once scene. See how cool it looks now?      I know I really like it it's gonna be dope on the website. I really wanna find music like that for the background of my soundscape for a scene or two but I know I could never use that song or one fully like that because it's copyrighted AF. Can I do much about that? NO, but I did find a cool super long old public access radio broadcast I am going to trim down to just fill the emptiness with. The audio design is very cool and I love that process, I have all my audios done and downloaded I just have to finish here and get to that. 

This is fittingly called the last day cause it's the last day of really intensive work cause once I am done here I am sleeping until tomorrow and then just posting the project. Yes sir, I am dying please send coffee.

Hmm, maybe that can be how I sign off.

Day 2, aka "the first 48"

Hi there again...

This has been my life for a day and 3/4's for now

So day 2 with Sil just  wrapped up. We got a lot more done day 1 than I thought we did which helped today go by faster, but by no stretch of the imagination did we do enough. I mean, we got the footage I showed you from day 1, but today we switched gears from Tarantino to Saw as we got "the money shot" of this $0.00 production: The Chelsea grin.

Having fun w unfinished grin

Doesn't Sil look great? we took that while messing around.  Before that, I was busy taking shots of the scene. It was the very first scene we shot that day because honestly the rest was just getting what we didn't yesterday and that footage is semi-repetitive for a blog. Anyways, here's a taste of what that Chelsea grin scene will look like (fully unedited btw)



Pretty sick, Amirite? if you're wondering what the blood is, it's blue+red food dye. Red for the big spills, blue for the thick concentration of blood at the very bottom of the sink. If you need a visual, I am more than happy to provide you with one. Enjoy:

Anyways, the main big section of shots after this was the "blue smile" scene. I discovered today that Sil's skin stains easily so I didn't wanna expose her to a marker. That's why I settled for the next best thing: blue makeup. 

Messing around pt. 2, crab rave tine

We shot the the Blue smile scenes pretty easily tbh. I had no major hiccups. the one annoying thing is that I had to shoot some of it on Sil's phone while mine was dead..which lead to a LOT of emails of just footage. Also Jules is there cause I am sending her footage too for inspiration.  She even made a teaser for it.

Here's the rough teaser. Yes, there is a few things to fix but it's honestly nothing I can't fix. The rest of the filming for today was just finishing up any shots I may not have gotten yesterday from cut 1. Here's to cut 2, I think I'll get to sleep soon or i'll stay off. Who knows? Will I finally have a catch phase to sign off? Who's really to say...

Day 1: The time is nigh

S'up y'all'steve,

With Sil's help, I have valiantly begun production on my short, yet-to-be titled film! WHOOOOO!

Anyways, I biked over with my blue school backpack with laptop, camera and storyboard and you KNOW we got to work...after messing around for a little admittedly. 

OK back to the serious stuff...

After a few attempts to shoot w my camera (Nikon p500) I remembered that:

A. it's almost 10 years old.

B. Quality is super hard to maximize.

C. Exporting is a dystopian nightmare and evidenced by the clips I am featuring I just wasn't liking the end result.

D. An iPhone shoots better quality and I just borrowed a sick tripod...

Sooooooo....

I realized I had the solution in my pocket, literally. I just switched over to my handy-dandy Iphone and Tripod set up and got shooting like a maniac.

So anyways, I got to shooting a LOT of stuff. But mainly it was that opening morning sequence like a billion times. It got honestly so repetitive I am going to force you to look at these videos that were made as a result:

Yes, those were all unedited originally and were just 10 straight minutes of socks. I was living Tarantino's fantasies. Unfortunately, I don't wanna upload the youtube video of just feet and I need these cuts so these clips will do for now in blog land.

Anyways, at the end of the day, I made a rough first cut: here it is 

Looking sick! and ~unfinished~!!!! WHOOOOOOOO!

Anyways, that was day 1. Tune in tomorrow for day 2 :).