Blog #6 -- Project Progress

So our project has changed a bit.  Nick and I are also in Jason's Advanced Production class this semester, and as a class we had to select a script to turn into a film to produce.  Jason provided the class with a few different scripts from his past students as possible options to choose from.  One of the scripts that Jason provided as an option was a script that I wrote.  The class ended up choosing my script and that is now what we are producing.  Jason told Nick and I that we could in turn use this project as our capstone project as well.  So I am the director, screenwriter, and in charge of casting for the film.

Production Agenda:

1) Casting Call - I am currently preparing a flyer to post to get people to come and audition

2)Location

3)Props

4)Production Schedule

Pre Production:

2/19-3/5

Production:

3/10-4/9

Post Production:

4/9-4/23

In terms of capstone:

Because the entire film would not be done by the time we have to screen it for capstone, Jason told us that we need to have at least a 2-3 minute scene edited and ready to show as well as the other deliverables.  (script, DVD, press kit, electronic press kit, stills, promo poster, etc.)

Blog 5 - Resource #2 - Practical DV Filmmaking

For Russell Evans' "Practical DV Film making", we're just going to be using the introduction because it is something that we used as a resource in our Single Camera Production class with Jason.  Evans does an overview of a few different things in this introduction that are imperative to successfully creating a film production.  First off, Evans talks about the film making process and states that there are essentially 3 overall stages in the process.  Each stage is a bit broad, and almost acts as an umbrella category.  The stages are:

Stage 1:  Planning

Stage 2: Shooting

Stage 3: Editing

Stage 1: Planning:  

Evans discusses how important planning is in the production process.  One huge reason planning is so important is because of how expensive changes that have to be made because of mistakes or inefficient planning can be.  There are a few different aspects to the planning process.  One aspect that Evans talks about is "visual blueprints".  Visual blueprints are essentially outlines of how you want your film to look and feel.  This involves writing an outline or a short story of what your project is and all of the scenes that take place.  Another aspect of the planning process is storyboarding. When you storyboard, you are basically sketching out each scene and the action that takes place in detail. The script is another aspect of planning.  Creating a script for your project is a rather important part of the planning process and includes all of your characters' dialogue, director's notes, action sequence details, etc.  

Stage 2: Shooting:

Evans says a few things about the second stage in the production process.  He talks about the usual "practical terms" of shooting which are "planning out a series of shots, go and shoot them just as you planned on paper, tick off the scenes one by one, and go home", but Evans makes a point in saying things don't always go as planned when shooting.  He tells the audience that they should expect obstacles and should therefore know their ideas "inside out".  As well he tells the reader that some shots that are ideal may not always be practical so one should "plan to improvise".

Stage 3: Editing:

 Evans says that editing your film is about "order, priorities, structure, pace, timing, and accuracy".  However, he makes a point to say that it isn't just about those technical aspects but "play, spontaneity, and creativity" as well.  He tells the reader that often it is instinct that tells you how to put scenes in the right order when editing.  However, he also explains that it is difficult to know when to stop editing, so you should know exactly what you want and stop when you get it.  

Evans, R. (2005). Practical DV Filmmaking. Waltham, MA: Focal Press.

BLOG #2: Information Found in "Constructing Panic" by Lisa Capps

For our capstone project, Nick Morgan and I have decided to create a short film.  For this film, we had two different ideas that we were trying to decide on to be the narrative for the film.  In the end, we decided to go with Nick's idea of the story of a man who suffers from agoraphobia and refuses to leave his home.  This character has two friends, one male friend who continuously tries to get the main character to stop behaving this way and leave his house so that he can have a "normal" life.  The other friend is female and she thinks that the main character should do as he likes as long as it makes him feel safe, and she enables him in this way.  Eventually, the character decides one day that he is going to go outside, but he ends of dropping dead once he's out there.

We're using a few different academic sources for research for this film.  Most of our resources are articles about filmmaking, such as lighting, composition, camera technology.  However, I thought it would be a good idea for at least one of our sources to be about agoraphobia.  So I found a book on Google Scholar called Constructing Panic: the discourse of agoraphobia by Lisa Capps.  This book defines what agoraphobia is, goes into who suffers from agoraphobia and how they suffer, but it also describes Capps interaction with a woman named Meg, a person with agoraphobia, who she interviews as a participant in her study of agoraphobia.

According to Capps (1997), "the term 'agoraphobia' means 'fear of open spaces', but is more appropriately described as a fear of being any place where one might feel vulnerable to fear and panic".  I thought this was very interesting because I always thought of agoraphobia as just being a fear of open spaces but knowing that it can be any place is an aspect that would be good to incorporate into the film.  Capps (1997) also notes that sufferers of agoraphobia "express fear of being in a place or situation where it may be difficult to escape or obtain help should they experience a panic attack or develop other potentially incapacitating or extremely embarrassing symptoms" (p. 3).  This means that agoraphobia can incorporate not only a fear of something bad happening to the person physically but as well as socially.

Another reason I wanted to do some research on agoraphobia on the film was to get an accurate idea of how a person who suffers from agoraphobia feels and behaves.  When reading, I came across this quote from Capps (1997): "Agoraphobic persons often describe feeling trapped by an over present threat of panic and their belief that they cannot risk leaving safe havens such as home" (p. 3).  This said to me that it is not as much the fear of the space but the fear of the actual experience of "panic" or a panic attack, so this creates a behavior of wanting to avoid any place that the person feels might induce a panic attack.

Capps also describes her meeting with Meg, a sufferer of agoraphobia and a participant in Capps' study of agoraphobia.  Capps describes pulling up to Meg's home and says that it had paint that was old and peeling but that front door looked beautifully detailed.  "The architectural contrast stood as a metaphor for a hallmark feature of agoraphobia: the attempt to exert control over a highly circumscribed space, to create a safe haven within a chaotic, often unwelcoming universe" (p. 3).  I thought this would be an interesting element to incorporate into the film; our main character's home could represent physical what it was a symbol of emotionally.

However, Capps makes a point in telling the audience that even though Meg has made her home a safe haven physically, the fear and panic from her past experiences haunt her as well as the possibility of future situations that induce the same fear and panic.  So even though the homes of these people are seen by them as their "safe havens", Capps says that still, "home is a paradise lost in that it cannot provide refuge from the mind and the scenarios it (re)creates" (p.4).  This element would be good to incorporate into the main character as to make the portrayal of him suffering with agoraphobia more accurate.



Capps, L. (1997). Constructing Panic: The discourse of agoraphobia . Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 

COMM 352 - Blog #7 - A Computer That Teaches Itself

iO9.com put out an article on March 25th about the Pentagon's desire for a computer that can actually TEACH itself.  According to the article they are launching an initiative to "design automated tools that will make it easier to not just program computers, but to help computers teach themselves" (Dvorsky, 2013).  Now, if you have read this blog post that I wrote about the "Future of the Computer" than you know how I feel about where technology is going and you should also understand why having read this article has only scared the shit out of me even more.  Now I understand that advances in technology have done great things for the human race, and for the most part, will continue to do so.  However, the idea of a computer than can change, learn and teach itself is seemingly something right out of Terminator 2 (1991).  And comparing this to a film may seem farfetched, but I am just saying that the coincidence in the chain of events is eerie.


Maybe I am crazy and paranoid but I leave you with this quote from the iO9.com article so that you can REALLY think about what this means:

"And looking further ahead into the future , this could represent an important step in advanced computer bootstrapping - the ability for an artificially intelligent system to not just teach itself, but to re-write and improve upon itself. It could be seen as an important stage in the development of a recursively improving AI — a system that can continually become better at optimizing itself, potentially leading to an exponential increase in intelligence" (Dvorsky, 2013).

COMM 352 - Blog #4 - Wifi For All!

After reading this article about the concept of having "Free Wifi for All"(meaning having free wifi available to everyone in the country EVERYWHERE), I decided to make a pros and cons table to weigh whether or not "Free Wifi For All" is a good idea.

After creating the pros and cons table above from what I read in the above Washington Post article, I have decided that "Free Wifi for All" is a good idea that should definitely be pursued.  I fully believe that the pros outweigh the cons.  I also believe that the majority of the cons that are presented are coming from companies that do not want "Free Wifi for All" because right now they benefit financially from the lack of "Free Wifi for All", and the last thing they want is for there to be a disruption in that financial flow.

COMM 352-Blog #2-Patents & Steve Jobs

This story from TheVerge.com is an example of how Steve Jobs and Apple have used their patents as a means of seeking litigation and controlling the mobile market.  Now, the popular debate in regard to this is whether Apple is right in their actions or whether it is wrong that they have the ability to do this.  My personal opinion on this matter is that it is not right that Apple has the ability to sue someone for the shape of a phone, or as in the story above, sue a company for hiring former Apple employee.  The way I see it is that with these outrageous abilities to sue a company over the shape of a phone or the fact that they hired former employees of Apple is bordering on having a monopoly over the entire mobile market. I absolutely believe that the mobile market is big enough and diverse enough for more than one company to exist.  As for the story from TheVerge.com, I believe that former employees of Apple should be able to work wherever they want and if they want to work at a competing company, than the company should be able to hire that person without threat of litigation from Apple.  And lastly, for the idea of Apple being able to sue a company for have the same shaped technological device is ludicrous. Bottom line:  Apple does not and should not be able to own shapes.

COMM 352 - Blog #1 - Aaron Swartz

Aaron Swartz was a co-developer of RSS and a co-founder of Reddit; he helped "lead a campaign to defeat a law [SOPA] that would have made it easier to shut down websites accused of violating copyright protections"; and was also an advocate of free information.  It was because of his advocacy that, according to an article from the Associated Press, "he illegally gained access to millions of academic articles through the academic database JSTOR. He allegedly hid a computer in a computer utility closet at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and downloaded the articles before being caught by campus and local police in 2011" (Wagner & Dobnik, 2013). While I understand how Aaron Swartz's actions could be considered illegal by some, I do not agree that he should have been pursued as heavily and with as much intimidation.  Because he was doing this for the people and he had no malicious intent when doing this, I do not agree with the treatment of Aaron Swartz before his suicide and I don't agree that the same laws used "to go after digital bank robbers" should be the same laws used to prosecute people like Aaron Swartz.  In fact, I do agree that advocates like him should " be protected from the full force of laws used to prosecute thieves and gangsters" (Wagner & Dobnik, 2013).  The lack of accounting for the variety of different technological "crimes" within our legal system is clearly a problem, the case of Aaron Swartz is just one example, and this needs to change.