Before we started working on this film, I was really excited. I wanted a scary, weird and freaky movie and I even had our soundtrack picked out. But as expected, my group members wanted to do the complete opposite! Although, after hearing their ideas, I was pretty okay with changing my Silent Hill-esque vision into a psychedelic 70’s themed film instead.
Surprisingly, the editing was not as horrible as my last experience with iMovie. It was just time consuming and frustrating when I found myself, at 3 a.m., trying to match color differences in scenes where we used two different cameras to shoot, and trying to edit together a video montage for the ending, which eventually didn’t work out as nicely as I hoped. The most difficult part about this film was probably memorizing our lines! I didn’t think it’d be so hard, but fortunately, we were able to think of creative ways where we could still look at our scripts while filming – and even then, we would keep messing up. Equally frustrating was trying to act! Since I played the role of Galvez, who isn’t actually a real person, but Blu’s conscience, we knew that we had to pull it off well or no one was going to get it. It wasn’t until we started filming Spider’s parts that we realized how challenging it was going to be. There were certain lines we had to interpret as Spider talking to Blu when in reality Spider addresses Galvez. I thought that by my dressing as a popular TV character from the 70’s, it would help get the idea across. I even bought a Scooby Doo Comic and placed it in the opening scene for people to (hopefully) get a hint as to who I was supposed to be playing and what our concept was.
Aside from the stressful parts of this film, some of my favorite moments were getting all the 70’s props I ordered in the mail, trying on my wigs, bashing the ebay seller who sent me a Jimi Hendrix “poster” AKA a Jimi Hendrix stamp, and researching the historical background information when it came to choosing outfits, props, and music. My most favored moment, though, was the last hour before I finished editing the video. Even though when trying to create a video montage of important events from the 70’s to 2014 I managed to a get a computer virus, somehow kill it (????), drop my computer charger into my fish bowl and then ended up deleting the montage all in the process , it was my favorite moment because in that last hour I finally learned to step back and acknowledge that there was nothing else I could do to our movie. As much as I wished I could change the color differences, the way we acted, audio quality in some scenes, and even to go back in time to shush the set and tell ourselves that we forgot/misread lines, I knew that I did all I could. Once I realized this, I actually smiled, for the first time in days when facing this project, at the end product. This film meant A LOT of compromise, motivation (or getting the lack of motivation to change) and teamwork.
Sweat. Frustration. Anger. Hunger. Tears. This is what my role, as Actor/Editor/Costume Designer/Co-Set Designer, essentially comprised of. There were a lot of bumps along the road but I’m proud of all the work I, as well as my group members put into this film. Although, after this experience, I never ever ever want to be an actor or even act in a school project…ever!
Work Cited (for our film)
Music:
None of these songs are mine and their links can be found here,
Fields of Nephilim: “At the Gates of Silent Memory Paradise Regained”
https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD1BL5Gab1M
The Beatles: “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”
https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKXfqpg-Q-k
The Beatles: “Strawberry Fields Forever”
https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeZcI4u0ZQg
Joe Cocker: “Something’s Coming On”
https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGbK5y94LOE
Video
I take no ownership of this video.
“Lower East Side in the late 70’s-80’s”
https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j-3DxNdj2M
Images
This picture isn’t mine.
Lower East Side in 2014:
https://www.google.com/search?q=lower+east+side+2014&espv=2&biw=1308&bih=729&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=Jv6WVJC9PILGsQSouICgBQ&ved
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