Thomas M. Watt's Blog, page 21

Pointless Post – 4-10-20

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I have nothing interesting or captivating to offer anyone today, just some mindless ramblings of what I’ve been up to, I suppose.

I was desperately hoping to film episode 3 of my webseries this week, but the rain has come down hard here in southern California so I’ve had to postpone all shooting.

I did, however, complete and upload episode 2. I am very proud of it, and feel it is my best work yet. My only hang-up is the coloring – the skin tones should pop out more, but I couldn’t figure out how to do that without turning the walls to orange. It is a lazy man’s mistake, but I always feel like I am in a race with my own persistence to complete a project and post it. When it is nearing completing, there is a part of me that fears any procrastination will lead to the video not ever being posted. It is a legitimate fear, however, as any person who blogs here knows it takes a certain bit of courage and determination to write anything for public consumption and critique.

Back to episode 3 – I filmed the beginning segment last week. I’ve been working with the footage and I just don’t think it’s salvageable. I’m a strong believer in avoiding reshoots at all costs, because that means time wasted. However, with the clips I have viewed, I fear I have no choice. Much of the acting is lousy, I look fat and out of shape, the mic was never close enough to hear my voice adequately, and the transitions are brutal. There’s a take where I am staring up the hill, turn to view the landscape, return to the trail, then spot the pile of clothes I am after. In the take I viewed, Josh is clearly visible in all the camera turns. It looks like a goddamn middle school project. One final note on the footage – the acting is terrible. Part of my job as director is to get the best out of the actors I have. We’re planning to film again next week and that will be an enormously important development I will have to take.

Anyways, thank you for taking the time to listen to my bullshit. I’ve posted episode 2 below in case you’d like to check it out.

Mountain Cult – Episode 2

Mess of a day – 4-4-20

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This is my Josh. He is supposed to be my scene partner today, but his car was towed last night.

The plan today is to film part 2 of episode 3 for the webseries. My scene partner Josh has committed to the rule and is excited to participate again. A major, MAJOR hang-up however is that his car was towed last night. He tells me that he can pick it up in the morning and still get here in time for some filming. I will survive if he cancels – after all, I work night shift and am hesitant enter work with serious fatigue. Episode 2 is already filmed so I can always work on that. The most significant drawback is that it is supposed to rain here until Wednesday.

It’s a mess of a day, however, because day one was filmed in bright, sunny lighting. We worked our asses off for 4 hours and only got through 1 page of the 5 page script. I’m very concerned about the lighting. But there’s another issue – I’ve edited some of what we shot, and found a handful of reasons to reshoot it.

I’m not visible in my favorite camera angle shot
I made Josh yell too loud in his close takes. It affects audio quality. On top of this, it appears he’s staring straight at the camera, instead of to camera left, where I am supposedly standing.
I want a shot from over Josh’s shoulder.
The angle that shows a full view of the clothes is not stabilized because it was handheld.
I have a take that’s mean’t to be my perspective. I’m hiking uphill and checking out the hills in the distance. I spot the pile of clothes I’ve been searching for, charge toward them, and then spot Josh, who gets in my way.

Number 5 is the one I’m most concerned about. As it stands, in the take I have you can see Josh perched up above when I turn to see the hills. When I do spot the pile of clothing, my character momentarily freezes before charging forward. Switching back to the camera at my perspective, my character advances uphill before rapidly panning to Josh, demonstrated my character realizes he is there. I did not record any audio for this, so the rapid realization doesn’t make much sense.

This entire segment looks so corny it’s embarrassing. I’m sure there are some ways around it in the audio room but it’s such a nightmare working with low quality clips. Each of the 5 takes I want to reshoot feel necessary. But like I said before – it took us 4 hours to get all those clips, as much as I dislike them. I don’t like wasting time, and I sure as hell am not ok with laying an entire day of filming to waste. I feel the most amount of time I can allot to reshoots is one hour. But this presents a new challenge – for shooting outdoors, I need consistent lighting. I have no idea how I’ll be able to get through this entire script today, even if we’re at it until it’s time for me to head back to work.

Anyway, these are the issues I’m dealing with in my head right now. I am happy that work was slow enough for me to get a power nap in, so I’ll survive if we hit it hard today. In other news I’ve been able to promote episode 1 enough to accumulate over 80 views. This was no small feat, especially after it previously amassed 60 views before I cleaned up the audio and reuploaded it. I realize those are rookie numbers, but I am still a rookie. Every person who has taken the time to give it a watch – thank you, a ton. And to those of you who have given it a like and/or comment, I can’t tell you how incredible you are. If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out below.

How to write movies and books – 4/3/20

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A subtle metaphor for the prison cell you are being held captive in if you don’t read this post.

Why do we watch movies and read fiction? What are we looking for?

There are endless resources for writing fiction. Many of them include the same essential elements – inciting incident, plot, character arc, theme, conflict, tension, etc. But the truth about what makes a great story runs much deeper than that.

We turn to stories for truths about the world we live in – spiritual, psychological, and societal truths. We are always looking to learn something, and that’s what a good story does for us.

The fundamental nature of “plot” is to give your hero a quest and throw obstacles in his path to prevent them from reaching their goal. I believe the next step is the most overlooked aspect of a powerful story.

The main character must learn something to complete their quest. That’s it. That’s the secret of a moving story. If you can do that, you are already taking care of character arc, theme, internal conflict, and character growth. The way to formulate that in a compelling way is what determines the strength of your story.

If you are a writer, start observing the obstacles in your own life. What character trait gets in the way of accomplishing your own goals? Even something as simple as procrastination provides a life lesson for us. Why do we procrastinate? When I find myself too overwhelmed to complete the task that will bring me closer to my goal, I ask myself why. Many times it’s a fear of something – the fear of failure, the fear of the unknown, the fear of wasting time and effort on an eventually failed pursuit.

Just like that, you have everything you need for a story. For example:

Joe is at the post office one day when he meets a beautiful girl who inexplicably decides to give him her number (inciting incident). He forgets to call her when his ex returns to his life (obstacle). When he does call her, she is much more reluctant to go out after learning that he’s been talking to his ex (obstacle). Joe decides to tell his ex that their relationship is over for good. He calls the girl again, tells her that he wants to see her and only her, and she accepts his idea for a date.

The story can go on from here with new obstacles and lessons to be learned. But every major event needed for a story is included above. What did Joe learn? That if he truly wants to create a new and loving relationship, he’s going to have to move on from past relationships (theme).

I’m not a great writer by any means, but I have spent years studying the story telling essentials. All that I’m trying to do with my new youtube channel is tell good stories. I guess that’s why I made this post – there’s so many formulaic stories out there, short films that are weighed down by editing techniques, and movies that are weighted and shackled by their own genre. I’m trying to approach “Mountain Cult” with a more liberal view. I want to craft stories that provide actual life lessons. At the end of the day, when we think of the movies that mean’t the most to us, I believe it’s because they taught us something about ourselves that continue to help us navigate through our own lives. I hope that in some way this post can help you create your own stories. There’s way too many pencil petes out there telling you what you can and cannot do with a story, and I don’t think we need any more of them.

Below is episode 1 of my webseries if you’d like to check it out and tell me how disappointed you are to discover you just took advice from a guy whose writing is amateur at best.

Continuity Issues – 04/02/20

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Josh arrived in gym clothes when informed he will be playing a veteran hiker in episode 3

My younger brother came through on Tuesday and spent the entire day acting in episode 2 with me. It was my first day getting through an entire 5 page script in a day, but not without its share of issues. Unfortunately for me, I’m finding those issues in the editing room.

Continuity – we all know what it means, but much more importantly – we all know it goes unnoticed when something is done right. For our episode, we had a dog cage in the background with a bunch of stuff tossed on top of it. The first 3 takes all have that junk in the scene. After that, we decided it would be a great place to film a few takes from. Then we never put the junk back on(!)

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I have 2 takes that have a dog bed on the floor. The other 5, such as this one, do not.

Building on the theme of continuity, there is one great take where my necklace is exposed on the outside of my shirt the entire time. That take is now garbage. Another moronic decision I made was to mumble during a shot of me carrying 2 cups of coffee from an artistic angle. That take is also garbage – there’s no audio that matches up with how my lips are moving. The icing on the cake for the day would be the bacon. I cooked some up for us to eat before filming began. I have video of it cooking and audio of it sizzling. What I don’t have are any shots of it being on the table or of us eating. Why? Because bacon is to delicious to wait for filming to begin. The result is a couple of unusable takes of random bacon shots. I’m still considering using them, however I’m worried someone watching the episode will start wondering whether the plot is about a house burning down from a kitchen fire.

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Here is the only take I have from this beautiful angle. A microphone is hidden in the tree.

Now episode 3, which I began filming Sunday, has the potential to have harder issues to overcome. My two favorite shots from the day are practically unusable. I only have one take from a gorgeous vantage point. That would be fine, except I’m hidden behind a tree branch the entire time. The other take features me walking up the hill. In the bottom of the shot are the pile of clothes my character has been searching for. This was the last take of the day when we were out of time and out of steam. Out of sheer laziness, I opted to have my scene partner record the shot handheld so I would not have to run and grab the tripod. The end result is shaky. This is not his fault – I’m discovering quickly that I cannot stand any footage that is not 100% stable. I hate it with a passion – same goes for zooming in. I like pans, but I’m not good enough to use them yet.

Something else happened on Sunday. My camera began overheating, despite the fact that it was a perfectly nice 70 degree day. I’m now convinced it is because the take required filming in direct sunlight. Because of this, I’m ordering a lens hood and lens filters for our next outdoor shoot. I’m just hoping I can get them by Sunday.

As you can see, I have a lot to learn about photography & directing. Even those these problems keep cropping up, I’m terribly excited about how much editing work I’ll have in the next few weeks. My friend is eager and available to film again. That means that I won’t be limited to a 3 hour window and can afford to take multiple shots.

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The tripod is literally inside of a dog kennel for this shot.

The funny thing about filming is that it feels like it takes so much effort and time for even a 5 minute story. Yet everytime I enter the editing room, I always find myself wishing I had taken this shot, or done a take from a certain angle a few more times. I heard someone say that editing takes 6 times longer than filming the same thing. I didn’t believe that at first, but now I know this is, at best, an understatement.

If you haven’t seen episode 1 and you’d like to give it a glance, or even a like, check it out below.

Whirlwind Weekend – 3-30-2020

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What a ride. Since my last post, so much has changed.

I was devastated on Thursday after my friend flaked on me. I had just posted episode 1 and intended to enter a 1 minute film contest. I spent all of Friday promoting my video and finding avenues to reach other actors.

Then two things happened –

#1 – another filmmaker pointed out that the audio on my video was only playing through the left headphone

#2 – My flaky friend texted me that he would be able to film on Saturday.

For the rest of the weekend, I went to work. I convinced my friend to come down on Sunday, as I had no film or props prepared. During breaks between developing a script and working I combed through my video over and over again sprucing up the audio. A major drawback of youtube is that once the video has been published, you are not able to tamper with the audio. You can trim the length of the video or add one of their music tracks, but that’s the full extent of your power.

After amassing a whopping 60 views, 4 likes, and 5 comments, I knew I had to take the video down. I finally got the audio right yesterday, changed the name of the series to “Mountain Cult”, and republished it yesterday. I’ve included a link below in case you’d like to check it out.

For the shooting on Sunday – oh man was I overwhelmed. I wrote the shift during my work shift Saturday night. I got zero sleep and barely had it completed by the time my scene partner arrived. It was my first time shooting outdoors and presented an entirely new set of challenges. I’ll have to do a separate post about all that.

But as it turns out, my friend really enjoyed the process. He’s going to make the trip again next week so we can finish up the scene. I got some incredible footage that I can’t wait to share with you.

On top of that, my younger brother is going to come and shoot with me on Tuesday. We should have the majority of the day to work. I want to film all of episode 2 that day. So far, the most I’ve been able to complete in a single day of shooting is 3 pages, which amounts to 3 minutes. I want each episode to be 5 minutes, so that’s the length of an episode’s script.

I have a strong idea for what the episode will be about, so I’m excited to write the script. But still, I currently feel very overwhelmed. My two favorite camera angles from yesterday feature shakiness from a handheld camera in one shot and a tree blocking me from the scene in the other. I also think I need to purchase a lens filter for future outdoor work – we were hampered by my sony a6300 overheating, which I believe was a result of filming in direct sunlight.

Anyway, I’m grateful for anyone who’s been keeping up with my journey. I know it’s laughable on the surface but I take great pride in every youtube view I get. I haven’t felt so passionate about a hobby in a very long time. I’m loving the fact that I’m in charge of how much success I can have – I write the script, direct the action, perform the acting, do the editing, promote the video, and recruit the actors. I’ve always felt that the pursuit of an objective is more fun than the actual attainment of it. I hope that you can feel some joy in following my journey as well, because nothing about this is easy – but that doesn’t mean I’m not loving every minute of it.

Crash & Burn – 03-27-20

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So I completed my first true short, currently called “White Heads”. It took a ton of work for 4 mins 30 seconds, much more than I anticipated. I screwed up a few things during filming that I wasn’t able to make up for in the editing room –

#1 Using a BB gun

#2 Shooting a continuous scene in 1 location on 2 separate days (lighting)

#3 Using an action sequence that had subpar emotion from the actors (myself included)

There were other things that could’ve been done better, but these are the things that stand out to me. My number one takeaway from this experience was that the importance of getting good shots in person cannot be fully made up for with solid editing. I spent hours upon hours on an ‘action sequence’ only to make it look less corny than it was on film.

I’m not going to lie, I felt some major depression around the time I was completing the video. I had a new scene partner who was going to film with me on Wednesday before completely flaking. On top of that, the video has well under a hundred views. I anticipated this and am okay with it, but I’m figuring out that viewers don’t respond well to self promotion (cue the dislikes).

I really felt deflated because I was hoping to edit this weekend. My original plan was to create a few of these episodes with friends, build up a foundation of viewers, than recruit people who actually want to act. I’m realizing quickly that I don’t have the patience to deal with anymore flakes.

So I have to go and find real actors. And by real, I mean community college kids taking an acting class. That means I have to get out of my comfort zone and reach out to others. Unfortunately for them, they will find out that my production team consists of me and my camera. On top of that, I don’t feel it would be wise to pay anybody as of yet. I can afford maybe $40 for one days work of an actor. But I’m also not a fan of dumping money when it doesn’t need to be dumped.

In the meantime, Film Riot has posted a quarantine challenge for a 60 second short film due by April 2nd. I plan to submit to that. My new goals for the coming week are going to be A) learn about search engine optimization in order to organically build and audience and B) reach out to aspiring actors who would be interested/comfortable developing this web series with me. I’ll keep on updating you as I’m a big believer in persistence, even when you’re feeling hopeless. If you’d like to give my short film a view, a like, or even a subscription, I would be overjoyed. Here it is, please feel free to tell me your thoughts and any advice is always much appreciated.

 

White Heads Ep. 1

Here’s the first episode I’ve been working on.

Update and Possible Exposure – 3-22-20

Hi everyone. So a quick update on episode 1 – I’ve filmed a short opening that features me getting ready for the day, added audio from a conversation with the “wife” of the story, and recorded a guitar tune. I wasn’t sure whether I would use any of this but it was in my original script so I decided to go through with it. On top of that, I know from my years studying writing that making the audience care about your protagonist’s goal can make or break your story. Prior to this the episode only showed me interrogating my scene partner for the whereabout of my wife. Now that I’m visually distressed with her voice playing in the background, it gives the audience a sense of my loss – my character was formerly happy and in love. Now that love is gone.

Judging by the rough edit I made yesterday, I will definitely be keeping this new set-up. I used jumpcuts for the sequence, which I hate, but it works really well. Otherwise a video of me shaving, combing my hair, and tying a tie takes up a fat 3 minutes. I should have the episode up by Wednesday this week.

The “actor” I was hoping to use on Wednesday hasn’t been getting back to. My younger brother, however, said he will be available on Monday for filming. I worked on a rough treatment for the episode I could do with him and feel it might be a better idea. This episode would feature us at a kitchen table discussing documents that reveal some information about the cult I suspect abducted my wife, all while he increasingly doubts his trust in me.

So now for the Covid-19 exposure. I work in EMS and this shift we transported a patient with a suspected ailment that had nothing to do with the virus. According to the hospital, however, he is undergoing quarantine and is being tested for the virus. They believe due to further investigating and revelations it is probable he does have Covid-19. On top of this, he is under intensive care.

Due to this close proximity with a probably afflicted individual, I am taking self isolation seriously. I’m going to keep in touch with the hospital and follow up for his results. Obviously, if I feel I have any chance at being infected, I will not be able to film anything. I will however attempt to build my own dolly. If I become seriously ill from the virus I will be sure to consume vast quantities of alcohol and enjoy my last days. Mostly kidding.

Location Scouting – 3-20-20

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The first episode of the web series is all but wrapped up. I’m really happy with how its turned out but I still have some colorgrading and music to add before I post it. In the meantime, I’m preparing for the next day of shooting.

I have a different friend who’s willing to participate this upcoming Wednesday. That’s not a for sure thing, however, as he lives quite far from me and there’s also a statewide stay-at-home order here in California.

Regardless, I’m formulating plans for the second episode. I want to get ahead of the curve so that I can post regularly to youtube. It’s no secret that consistent & regular post help you build an audience on social media.

I don’t want to give the plot to the first episode away entirely, but I’ll share some of it with you in case you’re interested in my process. In episode 1, My character’s wife has gone missing, so he kidnaps a hiker with a high index of suspicion that the hiker was involved in her disappearance. My character believes this hiker has links to a mysterious cult that performs human sacrifices deep in the wilderness. The first episode takes place in my characters barn yard-turned-prison cell. The second episode will take place at one of the locations below. I went on a hike today and took some pictures around the area I’m considering. Feel free to share any ideas for which area I should select for the episode. As of now I’m limited to myself and one other actor.

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I like the rustic look of this little outpost

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The multiple directions really appeals to me artistically, but I’m afraid this area would get interrupted by drivers during each take

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This is a pet cemetery. Is that creepy or cute?

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More cemetery 

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This will probably be my spot. Trees and hills go on for days, it easily accesible, and far enough from the main road audio don’t pick up the vehicles trudging along below. 

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A miniature dog walking park that nobody uses. Kind of unsettling. Small chance for some interruption during filming. 

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Another solid spot. That horizon line looks amazing. I like how the trail disappears right behind the bushes, too. 

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Some kind of hawk flying overhead. Not a film location but the bird is pretty bitchin’. 

So, there you have it – a regular trail with scenic background, a pet cemetery, and an unused dog walking park. Also that rustic looking barn. Not sure which spot I’ll use, but I need to figure that out first before I can develop an episode for it. I’ll also need a reason for me and the other actor to be at that spot, searching for clues about my character’s wife’s disappearance. I better get it sorted out quick, because my golden day to film is only a handful of days away.