"Time" Project Development *in progress*

- [ ] I. GENRE: Comedy/Short
note: How is time related?

Movie documents how two individuals utilize their time to get
a specific task done, and the way their approaches are
contrasted.


- [ ] II. LOGLINE: Two guys live together with highly contrasting
personalities. These personalities contrast most around breakfast
time, as they both try to make pancakes.


- [ ] III. SYNOPSIS: (Divided into three parts)

- [ ] A. The movie begins with two guys who spend their morning playing video games at home. Guy One is calm, collected, and patient. Guy Two is high strung and likes to do things as quickly as possible. Guy two is also more competitive than guy one and exclaims in excitement when he wins in the game they are playing. Suddenly, his stomach growls loudly. Guy One looks at the clock. He realizes they have not eaten all day, and it is already noon. Guy Two looks in the fridge for something quick to make for breakfast. He reaches for the eggs, and only finds one left. He sees next to him that Guy One has pulled out the ingredients to make pancakes from scratch, as indicated by his pancake syrup off to the side for later. Guy Two is not happy about him taking the two eggs he wanted to scramble and opts to make quick pancakes from "instant mix"instead.

- [ ] B. From here, the story moves back and forth between Guy One and Guy Two's techniques in cooking. Where guy one makes his batter with the utmost care, Guy Two reads the instructions of the "instant mix" very quickly, and proceeds to make his batter too thick. He starts over, and makes it too runny. Meanwhile, Guy One is already pouring his first pancake into the skillet. Guy Two finally makes decent batter, but cuts corners again by cranking the heat to HIGH and not using cooking spray. Refusing to preheat his skillet results in his food almost catching fire, and him having to scrape the burnt pancake from the skillet. He looks over to GUY ONE, who flipped his pancake over to brown the other side("sizzle").

- [ ] C. At the end of the film, Guy One is done making his pancakes, and sits at the table, ready to eat. He made extra for Guy Two, and offers him some. Guy Two refuses, trying to keep
his pride in check, and continues to work in his now messy part of the kitchen, trying to make Instant Pancakes without reading the instructions. Guy One finishes eating and goes to play video games again. While Guy One is not looking, Guy Two eats the remaining pancakes that Guy One left for him.
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- [ ] IV. VISUAL MATERIALS: (will have images and mock ups when finished)

- [ ] A. characters
- [ ] 1. Contrasting styles and color schemes.  Want to use reds yellows and oranges in environment to contrast their designs and separate them from the background.

Guy One:  More relaxed, cargo pants, green sweater.

Guy Two:  Slick and aerodynamic, sports wear. (will cover up logos)

- [ ] B. Props (support character's personalities)

- [ ] 1. Cooking Utensils:

• a) Silverware: Guy One
• b) Plastic forks and spoons to mix by choice: Guy Two (emphasize, quick, disposable lifestyle)

- [ ] 2. Skillet choice:

• a) Guy One : cast iron (traditionalist)
• b) Guy Two: contemporary metal skillet.

- [ ] 3. Food: Pancakes

• a) easy to make, easy to mess up (burn, too runny, too chunky, etc.)
• b) One makes from scratch. (Guy One)
• c) One uses "instant pancake mix". (Guy Two) (explains why fast guy can easily try to make pancakes again within the allotted hour)

• d) NOTE: although pancakes are used, the movie is not meant to become a "how to cook demonstration." It focuses more on the actions and the contrasting personalities of the characters.

- [ ] 4. Label: read by Guy Two who does not really

know how to make pancakes. (The viewer sees this as "blah blah blah" with only select words and measurements visible.)

- [ ] 5. Seating and tables and whatnot, some bridge between their
two personalities. Somewhat worn, to help convey their lifestyle.

- [ ] C. reference materials/ original conceptual studies / kitchen layout

- [ ] 1. Lighting: High Key; diffused fill for softer shadows, and less contrast from light to dark.

- [ ] 2. Kitchen Layout

-[] 3.  Texture swatches:  colors of kitchen.  

  NOTE:  Accents of red and yellow lowers the amount of light that would reflect (original design of kitchen walls is white).

Two more ideas...

I had a couple more ideas for my Time project. I came up with these while I was at school yesterday before class, but they were not developed enough to convey without dragging on.

The first one deals with the way two individuals make use of their time. Think of it as a cooking version of the old "Tortoise and the Hare" story. It starts with the two people living together and wanting to ease their hunger by making something to eat. The video would focus on the meals they make within that hour (probably something that takes about that long to make, like a burger or cake for example) and their contrasting cooking philosophies.

I wanted to reflect their personalities in the way they cook, and the clothes they wear. The patient guy that cooks his food with care would probably wear something muted, like greens and browns. The other that rushes through his cooking and ends up burning the food he makes would wear lighter, more streamlined clothes.
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The other idea I had was dealt what people do when they are forced to spend more time than they desire on a given task. You know how cross walk signals can take forever sometimes to change, and when they finally do, they change back way before you get to the other end of the street? I wanted to make a film that greatly exaggerates the way the cross walk changes, almost as if it was alive and really does not want the person to cross the street.

With some camera work, I could give the illusion traffic starting and stopping as soon as the cross walk changes from red to white. This could make for some interesting interaction between the person and the crosswalk itself, especially if the person in question has somewhere to be. For example, the person gets ready to give up, starts to walk away from it, to cross down at the one down the street, sees the crosswalk change to white, tries to run across the street. The signal all of a sudden turns white, but stops short as he or she is about to get hit by a car. At the end of the video, about an hour later one of his or her friends shows up and offers a ride.

I'm still working on developing these ideas, and the déjà vu idea from yesterday a bit more so I know for sure which one I want to do. Any thoughts on these two? I asked around to get multiple opinions and was told that both ideas would work fine, although the first one might be easier to do.

Quick Response: Meshes of the Afternoon

The number of ideas she is able to clearly convey through sound, action, and framing is impressive.  It is possible that my interpretation could be wrong, but from watching the film, I got the impression that the main character was at her wits end with the guy that she was close to, and was wrestling within herself on a way of dealing with her situation.  To me, it seemed like she felt killing herself was the best way to rid herself of the other guy.

From a technical standpoint, one of the most visually striking moments in the film was her trek across multiple environments to her destination.  The shots had a quick, yet distinct rhythm that gave the viewer the impression of a far distance traveled in a short amount of time. From reflective surfaces to transparent drapery, each element seemed to have its own meaning and was seen multiple times, in different ways.  One of the most interesting elements was the face of the stranger she followed.  Its face was highly reflective, like the knife she carried.

Elevator pitch: Idea one, idea two, and idea 3.

My first idea is about a guy or girl (have not decided yet) who has dreams of future events.  The only catch to these premonitions is that the person does not remember the dream once he or she wakes up, until it is about to happen.  To an extent, my movie asks "what happens when a person sees a tragic event about to occur, yet only has one hour or less, due to his or her memory, to prevent it from happening?"

My second idea is focuses more on the desire of an individual to make amends for a bad deed that he or she once did in the past.  I want to emphasize the idea of a person taking control of their own time to fix a horrible mistake or accident, instead of brooding over it.  It is somewhat like every movie where a guy or girl makes a mistake and thinks about fixing it, without the first hour and a half he or she spends feeling sorry for one's self.  To put it simply, "how quickly can one fix a major problem if they actually dedicate a solid hour of time to fix it?"

For my final idea, consider all the people in the world that take time out of their day to help someone else.  By helping someone else, you are lowering the amount of time you have in your day for your needs to, in a way, increase the amount of time for another person's duties.  I wanted to film a person spending an entire hour helping people non stop without rest and see, in the video, once it's cut, if the viewer can see a visual change in the person's body and mannerisms. Does one shorten one's lifespan when helping someone?

Time Documentation, Manipulation, and Expression: Three Ideas

Below are my 3 ideas for my film:

My first idea deals with the concept of deja vu. In doing my research on time, I started wondering about how people handle the displacement of time in relation to one's life. Time, for many of us is an ever changing variable, one that we ourselves determine. This first idea would reflect, some of my own personal ideas about deja vu; specifically if our time spent is pre-planned, or lived once before.

It would be an extension of my own experiences with deja vu. As crazy as it may seem, there have been times where I feel as though I experience dreams i have had before, almost as if my dreams acted as a glimpse into the future. Strangely enough, I forget them as soon as i wake up, only remembering them again right before they happen. Being the stubborn individual that I am, I would try to alter the course of things that happened in my dream. I would test and see if things went the way they "should" go, or if I can change what happens entirely.

Again... I do not know if this happens for real, mainly because altering the course of events does not prove the legitimacy of any of these events happening. They are all feelings.

Still, I would like to maybe use this idea, documenting an individual attempting to change the fate of those around him, playing with his own perception of time to affect others.

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My second idea involves the concept of trying to replace time once lost. Every now and then, we all make mistakes. Sometimes we make mistakes that we want to desperately fix. My second film would document someone spending an hour trying to fix that which he or she "believes" to be unfixable. The concept, much like my older one involves the manipulation of one's personal time, but extends out to the time of other individuals as well, depending on the situation I use. A definite situation has not been decided yet, but I do like entertaining the idea of heart felt apologies.

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My last project idea relates to something I call the "ever-shifting balance of time..." and what happens when one spends time out of his or her day to help others. When this happens, an individual is subtracting time out of one's own duties to extend the amount of time another individual has to do other things.

In the film, the individual would indeed spend his or her entire time helping others, dedicating no time to oneself. Is this more taxing on the body? Does the individual tire quicker? Become restless? When the video is cut, one will be able to get the sense of time passing through the actions and mannerisms of the individual recorded.

This idea is more of an experiment that the others, yet I find the idea of "giving one's time" to someone else having a direct effect on one's physical and mental state an interesting idea to try.

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critique exercise

Material Choices:

• web-camera, quicktime pro for minor edits.  
  
• Bag, bread, etc for film's subject matter.
  
• Clear plastic cover to protect camera lens. (shot with jelly)

Conceptual Process:

• Shooting from the perspective of inanimate objects.
  
• Considering the viewing angle of the object in question (its eyes)
  
• Would they always look in the same direction (from slice of bread to sandwich)
  
• How to simulate that which has never been seen my my own eyes, i.e. breadvision?  (Think like bread?)
  

What do I want to communicate?

• Making and eating of a sandwich from loaf to table, then table to mouth  (Life and death of a sandwich?) specifically from the sandwich's perspective.
  

Result of first try, or other attempts made?

• Project was first try at concept, but shot same actions multiple times before it looked the way i wanted to convey my idea.
  

Are those attempts present in final work, or erased?

• (Yes) Final work appears seamless, with actions flowing into each other via the cuts to black.  On personal note, fits my original storyboard made for project as well.

Quiz # 1

#1  Short description of mise-en-scene:  All the elements that are put in a scene, including but not limited to, characters, props, clothing, the lighting the setting, the space between each element, and even the performance of the characters.  The elements of mise-en-scene are manipulated to add significance to a scene.

#2 Difference between scene and shot?  A scene includes a sequences of images taking place in a single time and place.  A shot is referred to a single, unedited sequence of images taken by the camera.  One scene, can have multiple shots if all shots are taken within the same time and place within the movie.

#3 EDITING: Refers to the joining of clips of film into a single filmstrip or timeline, either to create transitions, alter the pacing of a movie, or add effects to a movie beyond what was originally shot to place emphasis on a given action or scene.  Editing transitions include Jump Cuts, Cut In Cut Away, and Wipe.