The other night I went to a mediated conversation with Director/ Writer Sophia Coppola and Actor Stephen Dorf, in which they spoke about their new movie called, Somewhere. At first, I didn’t realize how significant my attendance was in regard to summing up this project for me. As their conversation deepened though, it reminded me that what they had created and what they were speaking about, is what we were doing with our multimedia projects but on a larger scale. This realization enabled me to specifically connect to Sophia as a director, and helped me put the role of director into a real professional setting, as oppose to a project for class.

When we first began working on our projects after we split up into groups, I somehow became director. I am not exactly sure how, I would not have minded being any other position, but this one just fell into my lap. At first I thought, “Great, now I get to be involved in all aspects and contribute to the entire creative process,” as though it was a piece of cake.

That role though, was definitely not easy. It is really hard to balance my own creative vision as director with the rest of the groups thoughts and ideas; all of which I believe are equally as important. I really tried my hardest to make sure everyone agreed on all aspects of the project. It was the group’s film just as much as it was mine.

As a director you come up with some abstract and conceptual vision. But no matter how well thought out your idea is, nothing can be possible with out the help of the rest of the team. Some people are good at acting, some editing, some script writing; one person can’t do it all. It’s just not possible. Olivia, Ashley, Jackie, Jeff and Jeremy, all really did their part and were enthusiastic to do as much as they could to bring the entire piece together.

I never really thought of myself as the director type before this. I was more the girl who focused really intensely with all her passion into one category. So it was definitely hard for me to not focus all my energy in one aspect, and instead really try to influence every aspect. This project really made me stretch my confidence in what I am capable of.

While listening to Sophia speak the other night, it made me realize all the things I had thought about in terms of our movie. Someone asked her a question about her music choices, and she responded that she uses music that she listened to while writing the script, and how it helped set the mood for the film.  She also mentioned that she would pick specific t-shirts for Stephen Dorf to wear that reminded her of the t -shirts her brother used to wear. Everything in her films had been carefully thought through to create a mood and a story for the audience to follow.

Even thought I did not end up picking every single detail of the film, throughout the process I tried to imprint the idea of “seasons” into the groups’ head. Staying true to this idea was really important for me. I think it was the thing I thought about most throughout the entire thing. I want this to be something that is extremely visual. I wanted the audience to feel cold in the winter, and warm in the summer. I wanted to try to get every seemingly minute aspect of a film to come and join together to create a larger picture, of a season cycle. I was really always intrigued by the cyclical nature of the world. To me it was just such a poetic way to think about the world around you. Throughout the filming process I realized that this idea of seasons symbolic of man had been something that recurs throughout history. There are modern versions such as the new movie Another Year, and a movie coming out next year called The Tree of Life. There is also the line from Homer’s Iliad, which is said in the epilogue of our film, that I came upon while studying for my Philosophy final.

Really though, this project has made me realize the power of an idea, and how a tiny seed can grow into an entire short film. It began with a play, which got interpreted and formed into a newer concept, which got translated into a script, which got filmed, scene by scene, which were then edited, and put neatly all together.

This movie is one of the hardest finals I have had to take. Why? It was long, annoying, frustrating, irritating, tiresome, and much more. It was difficult to find times when we were all free because we had other obligations such as Tae Kwon Do, going back home to visit family, fencing competitions, and a macaulay meeting. Then doing the prologue by myself was difficult because of so many technical difficulties and drawbacks. I had to deal with a scanner that took 15 minutes to scan an image. 15 minutes is a ridiculous amount of time. Then the black background would have a different hue every other scan so I had to scan each image twice. It was during an arts in nyc class when I realized that the photos wouldn’t open because they were too large or rather there were too many pixels. When I resized the image, it would disappear even when I resized it by inches. Nothing would appear. Even Dobie tried to help me but to no avail. I had to rescan everything again after making my drawings smaller. Another thing my scanner couldn’t do is zoom in. I’m not adept with GIMP and I tried it before on a Dell but it frustrated me. I prefer photoshop for editing. So I transferred all my project pieces from the Mac to my Dell. Besides, the Mac was ridiculously slow whenever I tried to open up a program for editing. Macs are not all that.

After transferring all the pieces, I had my friend, Purum, come over to show me how she made her video. She, too, was annoyed that my scanner did not have a zoom-in and zoom-out feature. Anyway, her technique helped me to finish my work faster than if I had to do it on a Mac. She had a Mac before a Dell, but found a Dell to be easier to use. The same goes with me. Once I put all the images together and played it, I just needed to put music and save it as a movie compatible with the Mac. It was not too difficult finding a program to do that on a Dell. The only drawback with making the prologue on a Dell is the lack of transitions I could put into the film. There was no ripple effect I could place into the prologue and it was irksome to play with. Alas, there will always be pros and cons with everything.

Filming the project was fun and frustrating. It was frustrating trying to set dates because we all were busy. Plus, finals were coming up so we all were busy studying or trying to study (for me). Our story changed from what we had on our storyboard, but mainly in dialogue. We based our dialogue on the original script and kept some of it, but the rest were changed to fit with the film.

Hrrmmmmmm… this film… well, it gave me a chance to laugh a lot at… nothing. I really liked that. Even though the film gave a lot of stress it was also a stress reliever. Laughing with everyone made me forget about finals and made me relaxed. I’m glad for that because taking a test when I am stressed makes my mind too cloudy. Also, this film is the accumulation of all our hard work, especially Paramjoat’s. She had to deal with a lot of problems with the Mac. We thought we lost our movie a few days before it was due, but we didn’t. WHEW~ It also contains many of our bloopers and fun times we had while making the film. I think we had more film of us laughing than of the actual script. Even the voiceovers we recorded might have been more laughing and mistakes than the real, serious recordings. Also, this film had Purum help me and she was fast at making the earth, but my piece when played was a bit shaky in the beginning D: But it was great to hang out with my friend again. I guess this film also marks the ending of our first semester in college. Ugh, I really don’t want to think about it and yet I do.

The “best” moment I had was running out in the freezing cold in sweats and a thing sweater looking for Paramjoat. She left her Vado after we filmed in Marianna’s dorm. It was refreshing to run outside in the cold, but the searching part was not fun. Paramjoat just disappeared. I guess if it is cold outside you really rush to get to the bus stop. But running in the cold woke me up really well and it helped me concentrate on my studies. Hahahaha. That was really good. I don’t know if I should do it again because I am feeling sick. The film also made me realize the sacrifices we all had to make in order to make everything work. All of us had to sacrifice something. It wasn’t something we all wanted to do, but we needed to do it. Life is full of people sacrificing themselves for something.

Mmmmm… I guess this really is the last blog for this site. But it may not be the end.  Meh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JzGOiBXeD4

After more than a month working on this film project, it’s finally over!

Now, it was definitely fun making this project and I will miss working together with my awesome group, but it was a lot of work! I’ve never really made a movie based off a script so this was new for me. We actually had to have a director and different roles, like a real movie. I honestly have no idea how people can make a real movie. IT’S SO HARD!!!!!! I think writing a paper would have been ten times easier.

My role in the movie was the production designer, and I also acted as Psyche. This project has taught me that I can never be an actress. Ever. It gave me more respect for actresses because I used to think they had such an easy job for the amount of money they receive. And now I know how wrong I was. I am not the type that is able to control my emotions. Particularly, when someone tells me how to feel I end up acting the opposite way. I laugh too much. Marianna’s boyfriend played Eros and it was just so funny staring lovingly into the eyes of someone that I did not know at all. We had to shoot certain scenes so many times because I could not stop laughing. How can I pretend I’m in love with a stranger?? How can I even hug this stranger while his girlfriend is watching us? It was so weird. You can even tell from our hug at the end of the movie that we were so awkward. Filming the part where Aphrodite fires me was my favorite. Olivia was such a great actor that it made me want to be a better actor, and I actually didn’t laugh when filming with her. Behind the scenes there was so much fun and laughing. At the same time, if this were not a final project (and iMovie did not give us problems) this project would been me laughing the whole time. I would not have been able to keep a straight face through any of the scenes.

Costume designing for the movie was also a lot harder than I thought it would be. At first, the group was not sure how to interpret the movie, yet I started to plan out costumes anyway. Then we began to develop a modern interpretation of the script, so I tried to make the clothing modern (like wearing Uggs) but also retain classical Greek fashion (like Aphrodite’s red dress and Psyche’s purple dress). It was also hard to make sure everyone’s clothing styles made sense and fit together. Initially I was going to make wings for Eros, but since we wanted a more modern interpretation I thought it would be better to paint wings onto a shirt, since there are modern shirts with wings on them. Overall I think the costumes make sense, although it took a lot time and thought to make them the way I wanted. I am also very happy with the Q and A clothing because they are very bright and girly and contrast sharply with the show, Gossip Gods.

Picking music for the movie was very hard to do. Everyone had different music tastes, and wanted a different song for the last scene of the movie. Eventually, we let only one person choose music so that the music would not be too different. Still, our music varies a lot, like the juxtaposition of sounds with the descent and ascension from the subway.

When editing and working on the movie I also noticed that we looked at scenes separately. Because of this, it sometimes got confusing as to where to add a voice over or what order the scenes fit. I feel lucky to be part of such a good group because we worked together so well and everyone was talented in specific things. I focused on the scenery and clothing, and Will tried to piece together a script. Janine made the most adorable prologue ever. I was glad to have Par in my group because throughout the year I have admired her photojournal and I knew she would make a great cinematographer. Editing the movie is easily the hardest part of all the work we had to do, and even through some frustrations she was able to piece together my mess of laughter and our scattered scenes to make a movie we are all proud of.

It was extremely hard to focus when filming, and between scenes we had so many breaks. This became so frustrating, but Marianna was a good Director and she was able to keep us focused when we became too distracted and stopped working. I really hope everyone enjoys the movie as much as we enjoyed making it. It took way more time than any of us expected, and we hope that you’ll get at least some enjoyment out of it, especially the bloopers =]

Anne Hathaway (excited and enthusiastic): And the Oscar goes to….(drumroll)…Ashley Barlev for her performance in Seasonal Love.

Ashley Barlev: AAAHHHHH!

Ok, so maybe I’ve just dreamed the impossible since I was only an extra in the film; however, I could be nominated for my role as the costume designer. Since our movie will premiere on December 20, 2010, it is perfectly feasible for us to win an oscar in the academy awards ceremony held on February 27, 2011. Maybe the award will go to Olivia and Jeff for their performance, maybe to me for my work as the production designer, or maybe our movie will earn the title of best short film. More important, however, I think all of our classmates in Honors 125 will find the movie to be entertaining and enjoyable.

When I first read the assignment description posted on the eportfolios website, I immediately realized that this project would be different from any other assignment or exam I’ve ever had to complete. I would be encouraged to use a different part of my brain, in order to expose my creative side. In my opinion, I was successful in completing the task at hand, despite the challenges originally present.

From the very first day of the project, when we were choosing our groups in class, the six people of group A became inseparable. After reading the script, we immediately settled on the idea of Seasonal Love, with each season in the movie emphasizing a different, but imperative part of a love story. We planned out the story, and assigned each person in the group to a different season to create the pieces of the storyboard, as well as one person to the prologue and one to the epilogue. Although it is difficult to capture movement in still paintings and collages, our storyboard nevertheless conveyed beautifully the main ideas of each scene. Two thumbs up!

Next, it was time to begin filming. The first season we filmed was spring. Our aim was to show the youthful, naïve love experienced by teenagers. The costumes that seemed most appropriate were jeans and a t-shirt for the boy, and a schoolgirl uniform for the girl. Unfortunately, we filmed this scene in November, on a particularly cold day, and Jeff and Olivia were freezing. Still, there was no way around it – why would people wear winter jackets in the spring? We wanted to overemphasize the season in each scene, and it would not have been appropriate for the actors to wear heavier clothes. Choosing costumes for each season was the most difficult aspect in my opinion, since we didn’t have an unlimited budget to work with, and, as a result, we relied mostly on the clothes that people had in their wardrobes.

Due to slight technicalities in our script, leading to the need for small revisions of summer and fall, the next season we filmed was winter. Lucky for me, Professor Healey is involved with the costumes of the drama department, so I was able to acquire a gray hair wig from the costume room. In this scene we had to show Jeff dying on a couch and Olivia washing dishes (performing lonely tasks), so we filmed the scene in a dorm room in the Summit. Jeff and Olivia were thrilled to find that The Summit is well heated!

Over the course of the next week or two, we filmed the summer and fall scenes as well. I had my debut in the summer scene and experienced my three minutes of fame, which was definitely my favorite part of the project. Overall, I found the filmmaking to be an exciting adventure. I have acted in seven shows; however, never in a movie, and I certainly have never been in charge of costume and set design. I typically find myself to be more of a science person, but in the end, it was worthwhile to have a project completely different from my chemistry and other finals, even if it was difficult to plan meeting times with all members of our group. Although I still don’t see myself having a career in filmmaking, or any aspect of it, this project was a different kind of experience that I am sure I will remember in years to come.

(Applause)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpoHF6J2Rds