My Rough Theatre

Most of what I work on I would consider rough theatre-- whenever I make a video, I may not have all of the  equipment that I would like, but I don't let that stop me from making something.  I feel that improvisation during a creative process can enhance what was already planned, and will add character to the final product.

When I was in high school, I was heavily involved in theatre classes/drama club.  I had a role in nearly every play, with my teacher coming to me and asking me to fill multiple small roles if I didn't audition for a role.  This wasn't because I was amazing at acting, (far from it, the best role I can play is "man in suit") but because there weren't many people at my school who were willing to be in the plays.  Our theatre was built in 1960, and had since been subjected to all forms of torture at the hands of students.  (and administrators who refused to give the theatre department any sort of budget.)  The year before I started going to the school a girl tried to burn down the theatre from inside one of the dressing rooms.  She failed to do so, but did cause a lot of smoke damage to the curtains-- which I had to help dispose of.  The point is, the theatre was kind of old and gross and all that.  But those of us who wanted to put on shows did what we could to make the most out of what we had.  Creative yet cheap set design allowed us to explore stories meant for huge stages, and with most shows it was obvious that the leads genuinely cared about putting on the best shows possible.

I try to apply this same process to videos I make, since I rarely have any money for a budget.  In lieu of a steadicam shot, I'll just run with the camera at a high frame rate and shutter speed and use after effects to smooth it out and slow it down in post.  Stories will change to fit the locations I have access to, sometimes at the last second.  I think that's a valuable experience-- something will always go wrong at the last second, and how you respond to it will affect how the rest of the project turns out.  A lot of the time I'll be with friends and we'll decide to make something, so we'll go out and improvise the whole process.

Here's a silly example of one of these videos:

Reflections on Crowd-sourcing

I think that the hardest part of a crowdsourcing project is that no individual contributor knows how the full project will look in the end.  I had an idea of what all the frames for "America 6.1" would look like together, but the end result was better than I had imagined.  There was a blurring between frames that allowed each frame to bleed into the next, making the video more coherent.  I thought cutting between frames would look choppy, as one person's artistic style probably wouldn't merge with the next person's.  The audio also helped the video act as one piece-- as did seeing the Johnny Cash crowdsourced project and seeing how a similar project looked.

I thought it would be choppy because of some of the crowdsourced projects I've seen in the past.  Star Wars Uncut can be jarring when it cuts from clip to clip, and the audio can be hard to follow sometimes.  If someone watching it isn't familiar enough with Star Wars, they might not be able to keep track of the plot.  (But who hasn't memorized Star Wars by this point?)  Long-form crowdsourced projects like SWUncut are best done around movies with a huge fanbase-- that way the editor can ensure they'll have enough clips to use, and the majority of viewers can follow along without trying to get caught up in the logistics of the plot.

Saturday Shoot - Long Take

When going into Kenan to shoot on the 23rd, Wills and Scott and I unfortunately didn't have a perfectly planned out take to shoot.  What we did have were various props, and decided to make use of a frisbee  (in the style of Captain America's shield) that Wills brought.  We thought that the use of a frisbee would allow two characters to interact without much dialogue, and could be the focus of attention for the film.  Plus Wills and I were both wearing Captain America shirts, so it was obviously meant to be that we would use the frisbee.

We attempted to follow the time-allotting sheet the best we could, but some of each group's shooting time was cut into due to how long it took to load the cameras in the blackbox.  We ended up shooting our film later than we anticipated, but finished before the next group needed our camera.  After our film had been loaded we fully planned out the story and blocking, and began rehearsing.

Our story was as follows:  Wills and I walk up to a mysterious round object laying on the ground: a frisbee.  We pick it up and discover that we can toss the object to one another, and it will seemingly hover in the air as it drifts between us!  This is the most important discovery in the history of the world, we say as we toss it back and forth.  Then, from out of nowhere, a man runs between us and continues down the sidewalk-- obviously he had just committed a heinous crime, such as robbing a bank or eating a toaster strudel without the icing.  Wills and I look at each other and our mental link forms the perfect plan with which to catch the criminal.  Wills pulls the frisbee back and throws it with all his might toward the criminal.  The frisbee soars through the air with the majesty of an eagle, and lands at the criminal's feet.  The criminal picks it up, waves at Wills and I as if to say "Thanks, easiest theft ever!" and he runs away.  Wills and I, having lost our frisbee, are forlorn.  END.

After rehearsing six or seven times, with Matt acting as the criminal, we were ready to shoot.  Not everything went perfectly-- the frisbee didn't land very close to Matt, and it was kind of hard to follow the frisbee through the air, but that's to be expected.  I can't recall filming any video that went exactly to plan, and given the amount of time that we had, I think it turned out well!  I'm looking forward to screening it and seeing if the visuals allow one to follow the plot.