Mid Term Submission

In the first scene, when the hacker starts hacking into Manny's reality, there are long takes of high angle shots. The long takes show the hacker's significance and his code in the film. With the long takes, it consists of many high angle shots, showing that someone is watching him in the film, despite his attempts to remain anonymous. The first shot of the film shows the hacker's back in the left third as he is accessing Manny's reality, this will induce feelings of curiosity about the identity of the hacker and him seeking anonymity. There are other shots that only reveal a small portion of his face, but there is no clear image of his own face for the audience to see. The insert shot of the screen with the text "ACCESS GRANTED" after panning from the code on the screen foreshadows the upcoming events in the film. After this, the film cuts to an over the shoulder shot of the hacker picking up a geometric object before fading to black. This gives the audience a view of the creation of the geometric object through his eyes. The green color of the text on the screen serves as a visual theme of hacking or coding which is conventional for many Sci-Fi movies such as "The Matrix". There is no dialogue revealing what the hacker intends to do with the geometric object in the opening, which will be uncovered later in the story. It serves to also arouse curiosity and tension about what he plans to do with it in the audience. As the next scene fades in after the hacker scene, the camera moves up from the side of the bed and then tilts downward to serve as a high angle shot of Manny sleeping on the bed. This reveals that somebody of greater power is watching over him. The film stutters and shows very brief cuts of a tree. This will confuse the audience at first, but by the end of the opening, it becomes an eyeline match after Manny falls down onto the sidewalk later in the opening and it also serves as a nightmare he experienced before waking up, thus making it a foreshadow. After the film stutters, it cuts to him again on the bed waking up from the nightmare, the colors in this shot are duller than that of the previous shot. This color change shows the dull life Manny, goes through and shows slight changes that the hacker made of his world. The next important shots are several insert shots of various items around the house that show his academic performance. This comes with him interacting with or organizing it as if it was his own and showing indifference to his achievements as if he has higher standards for himself. This shows the personality and background of Manny's character as a compulsive perfectionist with a stoic personality. This stoic personality can be seen with the choice of clothing as it is darker and monochromatic. Afterwards, the film cuts to a wide shot of him opening the front door to leave the house. The setting around him has more color in comparison to his clothing in this shot, this shows how he contrasts with the world around him. As Manny sees the same things he saw in his nightmares become reality, the pacing goes faster and there are shorter takes of the tree and multiple cuts to him waking up frantically. Afterwards, he blacks out and the loop restarts. He becomes more disturbed as he wakes up before he gets up from the bed, commencing the whole loop again. I chose the title of the film, "Limbo", because the plot of the story is that Manny has to do specific actions to break the loop and free himself from the hacker's grasp while the meaning of the word limbo is an unfinished state. The title font is an allusion to the game, "Limbo".

Film Project - Shot list

High Angle Shot

 

The high angle shot shows the back of the hacker in the left third. This allows the audience to think about who he is. 

 Insert Shot

The insert shot shows the screen with a popup text saying "ACCESS GRANTED". This shows the importance of the hacker accessing Manny's reality.

Over the Shoulder Shot

 The over the shoulder shot the hacker's point of view when he holds the geometric object that he made from his code, providing importance to it.

High angle shot

The high angle shot shows that the hacker is hacking something on the left third and a part of the hacker's face on the right third. This gives some clues to what the hacker looks like but still makes them wonder who he is and what he is trying to do.

High Angle Shot

 The high angle shot shows Manny sleeping on the bed. This shows the audience that somebody, the hacker, is watching over him.

High Angle Shot

 This high angle shot also shows that the hacker is watching over Manny, however, the duller color change shows the life Manny is in.

Insert Shot

The insert shot shows Manny's exams with exceptional grades on them. This shows the audience the academic background and perfectionist character of Manny.

 Closeup Shot

 This closeup shot of Manny's unchanged face shows his stoic emotions as if he is unsatisfied with his performance.

High Angle Shot

 The high angle shot shows Manny rearranging the trophies he has earned from school. This also shows his perfectionist personality and academic background and possibly his compulsive nature to organize.

Wide Shot

 The wide shot shows Manny opening the front door of the house with colored walls and furniture around him. This shows his contrast to the world around him which is seen by his dull and monochrome clothing.

Eyeline Match

 The eyeline match shows what Manny sees after he falls onto the sidewalk. This shows the audience the connection from the trees that appeared before he woke up.

Mid-shot

This mid shot shows Manny turning his head to see the hacker, but the hacker's face is not in frame. in the intense part of the film. This makes the audience uneasy about who the hacker really is and what he plans to do with the geometric object.

Film Project - Storyboard

Film Project - Scouting Locations

House Front Door

 

This location will involve Manny leaving through the front door to the streets outside. The appearance of everything around the door will show Manny's perfectionist life in the film. I chose this location because it is the most accessible location we can find to have Manny leave the house through since planning mostly took place in this house.

House Bedroom

 This is one of the most crucial locations of the film because it is the beginning of each loop of the plot in the film. There are multiple bedrooms around the place, but this one worked the best as it connects with the events after Manny wakes up and gets out of bed. The messiness in the room is representative of a bedroom of a typical teenager.

House Kitchen

 This is also another important location of the film because it involves props in the household that shows Manny's perfectionist nature. The colors in the kitchen show the false appearance colorful life of Manny despite his stoic and dull personality. I chose this location because many parts of the film will involve this general setting.

 Neighborhood Street

This location serves as the location where Manny falls onto the sidewalk. One of the shots in the scene takes place here and it is used as a foreshadow for the opening scene of the film. I chose this location because it has a more peaceful atmosphere in comparison to other neighborhoods around the place.

Film Project - Script

The film involves a hacker taking control of Manny's life by creating code for time loops in his reality. Everything seems normal at first as he wakes up and does his daily tasks, but something goes wrong in each iteration of the loop which causes him to wake up again from the start of the time loop. He has to do specific tasks and actions in order to break the time loop and free himself from the hacker's control.

Film Project - Limbo Casting

Manny

Manny is a compulsive perfectionist but also a clumsy character, the insert shots of perfect scores on exams and trophies showing shows his exceptional academic achievements. This goes to the extent where he starts to risk his own mental health to the point where he becomes an emotionless and stoic character. This is seen where he wears dull clothing to represent this character. He is currently in a looping state where he constantly wakes up on the same day and time, however, there are changes with each iteration, each involving a bad event before he goes into the next loop. He must do the right actions or tasks to be able to break the loop. The actor for the character is Enmanuel Gutierrez. He fits for this character because of his personality and ability to keep his facial emotions consistent while recording.

Hacker

The hacker is the main antagonist of the story, he is a quiet and observant character. He has been involved with ruining the lives of many people he comes across. His fearsome knowledge of coding allows him to be able to access their realities and minds for his villainous plan to control the whole world. As of now, he recognizes Manny's true potential and decides to hack and abuse it for his own benefit. I am the actor for this character. This is because I fit the personalities of the character myself and I often keep a lot of my personal life to myself.

Film Project - Schedule Filming

The film shoots are scheduled for the two weeks before the end of the semester. Originally the film shoots were planned for the weekends, however, due to school-related issues, it became more optimal to do them during the weekdays after school. On Tuesday, December 10th, my goals were to shoot the first half of the film opening. This part of the opening mainly involved the exposition of the main character, Manny. This involves the hacker, filming the props, his interactions with the props, and Manny waking up on the bed. By next week on Wednesday, December 18th, my goals were to finish up all the shots of the intense sections needed for the film. This involves him leaving the house, walking outside on the sidewalk, Manny falling onto the ground, and shots of the scenery.

 

 

Overall, the process went as planned, I was able to get the shots in by the scheduled time and finish editing it before the due date.

Camera Shot Activity

High Angle Shot

Mid Shot

Low Angle Shot

Extreme Closeup

Wide Shot

Canted Shot

Mr. Elsbree did a class activity with camera shots to practice our film-making skills.

Film Genre Research

The Matrix (1999)

In the opening scene of The Matrix, it fades into random computer characters falling down the computer screen with incidental music and sound effects. Everything on the screen has a green color to it. The camera zooms into the screen and then the characters fall into place as the movie title. The title fades out and a white box starts blinking on the upper right corner of the screen, waiting for input. The sound of a phone call plays in this scene with a beeping noise. Six seconds later, an input is received, "Call trans opt: received. 2-19-98 13:24:18 REC:Log>", and then the computer responds, "Trace program: running". Dialogue over the phone call happens, two people talk about Morpheus. One wants to kill him whereas the other likes him, the dialogue ends when the person who likes morpheus suspects that they are being traced. While this happens, the movie immediately cuts to a matrix of rapidly changing numbers on the screen. The numbers slowly start to become specific values and the camera slowly zooms into the numbers with incidental music and computer-like sound effects. A white circle fills the screen and it fades into a close up of a police officer with the white circle being the light of a flashlight. The camera pans away from the officer and follows another officer moving into an area. There are only ambient noise and sound effects playing with a dark environment. It cuts to a wide shot of multiple officers approaching a room and a cut to a door with officers in front of it. The camera rotates behind the officers and stops as an officer approaches the door on the right third and then cuts to a midshot of an officer breaking into the door. The camera briefly shows the officer breaking into the door from one side and then immediately cuts to the other side of the door with the officers entering. It cuts to a wide shot of a woman at a desk with flashlights aiming at her. There is no other light illuminating other parts of the area but the woman. It then cuts to the camera with a somewhat close-up shot of the woman's face with her hands up. Multiple flashlights illuminate behind her.

The use of a computer screen and sound effects indicate that the film will surround the use of computers throughout. The dialogue indicates the importance surrounding a significant character, Morpheus, in the film. The use of officers searching for the woman in the film indicate a sense of suspense in the film with the quick pacing and dark lighting of the scene. The wide shot of the woman at the desk with flashlights onto her allows the audience to focus on her and indicates her significance in the film.

There are no job titles in the opening credits of the film. It had $63 million budget with a profit of $460 million worldwide. The film has won the Oscars, Bafta Film Award, Saturn Award, Eddie, ACCA, Blockbuster Entertainment Award, and more.

Inception (2010)

In the opening scene of Inception, it shows a closeup of the main character opening a safe with clicking sounds of the safe and then the insert shot of the safe. The main character takes a letter from the safe and pulls another letter from his suit while he is in darkness. Before he was able to replace the letter, the lights turn on and it cuts to a wide shot of the camera panning with the character turning around to see two people behind him who are the owners of the safe in the right third. The main character pulls his gun out and points his gun towards them while the woman, one of the owners, puts a gun at him. During this standoff, two more people behind them bring another character who appears to be working with him as a hostage. One of the owners asks for the envelope and his employer, revealing the name of the main character, Cobb. The dialogue shows that they are in a dream and you can only escape it if you die. Cobb's colleague gets shot in the leg. As they go for the other leg, Cobb reaches in for his gun and shoots at his colleague and he wakes up in the real world. The dream world starts to break down and Cobb rushes to an exit. It cuts to the real world where they kick him into a tub of water and it quickly exchanges back to the dream world. As they kick him into the tub, the incidental music stops and slow-motion sound effects are played. The scene ends as he sees the dream world collapse and fill with water. There were no opening credits in this scene.

The closeup of Cobb opening the safe in the scene shows his importance in the film. With this and the insert shot of him opening the safe, the dark lighting, and incidental music, it suggests that he is doing a secret mission. When the lights turn on with the quick panning of the camera and gun props, it intensifies the mood of the film. This is further intensified when they introduce another character as a hostage in the scene and the collapse of the dream world as Cobb tries to escape with the confidential information with the increase in pacing. The discontinuous editing from the real world and the dream world allows more intensity in the film and confusion.

Inception's budget was $160 million and it made more than $800 million worldwide. The awards the film has won are the Oscars, BAFTA film award, Saturn, AFI, EDA, AAFCA, and more.

Interstellar (2014)

In the opening scene of Interstellar, the camera pans across a bookshelf covered in dust. A space shuttle prop sits on the shelf and the title comes on screen and it fades to black. An old woman speaks in the film who would turn out to be a crucial character by the end of the film speaking to the camera about her father. It fades into a massive cornfield across the screen, establishing the setting of the film. The speaker then says about her father's life before being a farmer. It cuts to a flashback of Cooper in a space shuttle, a voice from mission control tells him to shut the mission down, but he refuses. He then screams as the shuttle makes a sudden movement and he is thrown back. Cooper abruptly wakes up in the room with his daughter, Murph, standing at the doorway thinking the noise was "the ghost" but Cooper denies saying there are no ghosts. Murph then asks if he was dreaming about the plane crash again but is told to go back to sleep. Incidental music plays as he moves to a window to look at the field of corn. The old woman talks about their farming life when the wheat died out and the corn they had were covered in dust with a view of dust coming through the field.

The voiceover of the old woman talking about Cooper as the camera cuts to him in the shuttle shows his significance in the story. The old woman provides a narrative and subtly foreshadows what is about to happen by the end of the film. Her storytelling is most likely told to her children and grandchildren which would be seen by the end of the film. The insert shot of a space shuttle gives the audience an idea of what the story is about. The voiceover talks about Cooper's life before a farmer with a cut to him in a space shuttle to provide character background of Cooper. When Murph talks about "the ghost", it shows a connection to the events of the ending scenes of the film since Cooper was "the ghost" all along. The shot of the dust flowing through the cornfield provides context to what is happening in the film.

Interstellar's budget is $165 million dollars with a profit of $678 million worldwide. The film has won the Oscars, BAFTA Film Award, Saturn Award, AFI Award, ASCAP Award, ACCA Award, and more. The film was nominated for the Saturn Award.

The Martian (2015)

In the opening scene of The Martian, it fades to a shot of space with the camera slowly panning to the planet Mars with the title appearing in the middle of the shot. Ambient sound effects bridge to an establishing shot of the martian landscape. It then cuts to an aerial shot of the landscape, panning around the landscape. Incidental music starts to play and text appears in the lower-left third. Another text appears to establish the location of the film. A voiceover plays with three astronauts talking about the mission in the film. It cuts to a rover moving in the landscape and then another cut to three astronauts working on a mission. One astronaut is on the left third and it cuts to an insert shot of him taking a sample of the soil. The shots cut from inside and outside of the main center from one character to another while they have friendly conversations with one another. A storm starts to come and ominous incidental music starts to play. The camera pans to the oncoming storm in the left third. It then cuts to a closeup of a lady's face talking about the severity of the storm with another cut of a master shot of the characters. They discuss how to approach the situation and then the captain decides to abort the mission. They exit the main center and reach for the space shuttle in the storm. The pacing speeds up while they try to reach the shuttle and a satellite breaks down and hits one of the members. They all reach the ship and exit the planet. There are no opening credits in this scene.

The opening shot of space and Mars with space-like ambient sound to set the setting and scene of the film. This is further added on with the establishing and aerial shot of the landscape and the text in the lower-left third. The voiceover which turns into a dialogue between each member helps us understand each character trait of each member. The insert shot of the container and the soil may help establish the importance of it in later scenes of the film. The pacing starts with incidental music to establish intensity to the film. When they enter the storm to enter the spaceship, the only lighting we see is the lights on the spacesuits, which do not lighten up the area well. This makes the audience wonder what is happening to the crew in the film. Once they reach the shuttle, the pacing slows down to calm down the mood of the film. The camera cuts to the commander looking at the empty seat of the astronaut who was hit by the satellite which may show the connection she had with that person. There are no opening credits in this scene to focus the audience's attention on the events in the scene than the actors.

The Martian's budget is $108 million and profited $630 million. The film was awarded the Golden Globe for Best Actor and Motion Picture, Hugo Award, Empire Award, People's Choice, Satellite, and more.

Project Selection - Film

The project I have chosen is the film project. I chose this project because I want to do something that I have not done before. Because of it, I feel like it would be fun to try the film project. The skills I possess that make this project the best choice for me are camerawork and lighting. The one main determining factor is the motivation to try something new with the film project. My project would be in the Sci-Fi and Horror genre. It will consist of content about space exploration, technology, and medicine and it could be mixed with horror elements. I will definitely work in the group for this project because I need others to help compensate for my weaknesses. The group members will be film editors and actors. These are the skills that I have not very skilled at and I would need to work on this project with other people. This would make it very quick and efficient to do the film project.

Project Selection - Film

One of the aspects of film production that might interest me is the use of mise en scene. For example, in Ferris Bueller's day off, they use older technology, props, or settings in the film to portray a character or a setting and I find it quite interesting. Another aspect of film production that might interest me is the use of camera shots. Camera shots can also serve as characterization of somebody or a message to the audience. The skills I possess that would make the film project that would be a good fit for me are that I can do camera shots and a bit of acting. After learning about different camera shots, angles, and movements I believe I am able to do these kinds of shots. On the other hand, I am quite mediocre at acting. The project might be challenging for me because I have no experience with video editing and lighting.

Project Selection - Magazine

One of my aspects of print journalism that might interest me is the use of technology in print journalism to help grow and keep news businesses intact. In the past, people have been using rotary dials and typewriters as their technology for print journalism. In contrast, news businesses now use computers, cell-phones, websites, and social media as methods to disseminate their own news. This growth of technology has led to quicker and easier communication to the public in comparison to the past. For example, The New York Times started using Twitter as a method to spread the news in short messages. They started using this because newspapers were becoming obsolete and many businesses were closing because of this, however, younger generations started to find a use for social media for journalism. Another aspect of print journalism that might interest me is the increased risk of finding information for the sake of journalism. For example, while Nixon was president, he did not want journalists to search for crucial information about him and he illegally searched businesses like the Wall Street Journal if he finds out they did. Another risk of print journalism would be traveling to dangerous locations also for the sake of journalism. This is seen in the Newsroom where a MacKenzie from the Nightly News traveled to Afganistan and Iraq as a reporter. The skill I have that would make the magazine project a good fit for me are that I am a decent writer. However, the challenges are that I struggle with group work because I lack social skill when it comes to new people.